Jasmina Brankovic “People’s Power” in the Age of Human Rights : Victims’ Contributions to Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa Since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, the country’s transitional justice process has been criticized for inadequately addressing the race-based historical and structural injustices entrenched under colonialism and apartheid, which have left the country with one of the highest levels of inequality in the world today. 1 This chapter looks at the links between the transition and ongoing socioeconomic exclusion from the perspective of education, arguing that post- apartheid education reforms illustrate how the institutional reforms that have accompanied the global rise and dominant practice of human rights and tran- sitional justice in the post-Cold War period do not fulfil their potential for enabling social transformation. Concentrating on the transitional preoccupation with mainstreaming human rights culture, the chapter contrasts human rights education as expressed in South Africa’s post-1994 formal curriculum and as reflected in the informal educational activities of the national apartheid victims’ organization, Khulumani Support Group. Khulumani is a membership-based organization established in 1995 to in- form victims and provide assistance when engaging with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). With a national membership of more than 100,000 victims and branches in every province of South Africa, the or- ganization continues to this day to advocate for accountability, truth recovery, and reparations for past abuses, while also fostering self-empowerment, solid- arity, and healing among victims and their families and communities. While education is not stated as a primary aim of the organization, Khulumani engages 1 See, e.g., Colin Bundy, “The Beast of the Past: History and the TRC,” in After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, edited by Wilmot James and Linda van de Vijver (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001). The election of Nelson Mandela to the pre- sidency in 1994 ended more than four decades of apartheid, a system of segregation that institutionalized the racial hierarchies initiated under colonialism. Using the ideology of white supremacism, the apartheid government classified the population according to race – native/ Bantu/black, coloured, Indian/Asian, or European/white – and ensured the political, econo- mic, and social subjugation of the majority, with lasting effects.