Thoughts on “Zulu Love Letter”

By Courtlyn Roser-Jones

Ramadan Suleman’s, Zulu Love Letter, tells the story of the pain and anger that still

exists amongst the people of South African from apartheid. In the movie, Thandi, an author

struggling from writers block is consumed by the rage she feels from being beaten and

imprisoned while she was an activist during the struggle. Her daughter, Mangi, is deaf because of

the beatings she withstood while pregnant with her.

While at work, Thandi is contacted by the mother of a murdered activist. The woman is

trying to recover her daughter’s remains so that she can give her a proper burial. She asks Thandi

to help by testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Truth and

Reconciliation Commission was a court-like body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of

apartheid. In front of the commission, witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights

violations were invited to give statements about their experiences. Perpetrators of violence also had to

give testimony and request forgiveness and amnesty from prosecution. Thandi agrees to help the slain

girl’s mother by doing so, although it puts her family in great danger. In the end of the movie,

she helps put the murdered girl’s soul to rest and becomes closer to her daughter as she is able to

lay to rest some of her anger as well.

Zulu Love Letter touched on an important but difficult aspect of forgiveness that South

Africa has been dealing with for years now. I am too young to remember what South Africa was

like before democracy but as a reader of history books, I can think of very few instances where a

nation that had struggled for so long, was able to formulate a peaceful revolution. South Africa
was able to do this with their Truth and Reconciliation committees. However, Thandi represents

a focal criticism of the Truth and Reconciliation process. This criticism is that that if amnesty for

the offenders was to be granted, then the proceedings only helped to remind the people of South

Africa of the horrors that had taken place in the past, when they were working hard to forget such things.

In Zulu Love Letter I couldn’t help but sympathize for Thandi and other victims of the

cruelty of apartheid. However, if the movie taught me anything it is that we as humans have the

capacity to forgive even the most horrendous of acts. Thandi did not find peace until she had

talked about what had happened to her. Her road to forgiveness was a long one but at the end of

it she got back what she desperately needed, her daughter.