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We might be forgiven for thinking that the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission had done its work, given that it's now over 20 years since the end of apartheid. Then the other day came news of one of the most avid defenders of the former regime. He – Eugene de Kock – had been responsible for countless brutalities, and in 2006 was sentenced to 212 years imprisonment. Now he is to be granted parole; not because of good behaviour, and not because there was a miscarriage of justice. It's a decision which some have criticised, so what might explain this unprecedented amnesty? Years ago in South Africa I met the theologian Alan Boesak who said that he believed his country had not degenerated into a bloodbath post apartheid because the black community, many of whom were Christian, saw the end of the oppressive regime as a testing time – as to whether they took Jesus seriously when he commanded his followers to forgive, or whether they would go all out for retribution. Boesak believed that forgiveness was somehow in the DNA of black Africans. I met other people there – the black mother of a young boy killed by a white policeman, and the white husband of a woman shot by four black youths. Through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission these victims had moved from bitterness and hate of their assailants to a position if not of forgiveness, then certainly of understanding. And what had changed them was listening to the truth of the other person's story. As previously with loyalists and republicans in Northern Ireland, South African blacks and whites lived out of different versions of history and as long as they had no intention of hearing the other side's story, peaceful co-existence was an impossibility. I sometimes wonder when, as this weekend, we hear of the appalling atrocities of Boko Haram or The Taliban or Islamic State - are all these people terminally committed to perpetuating bloodshed and evil? For though right now we can't imagine listening to their opinions, should the violence cease, might it be that in some distant future we discover that some of them have stories and perspectives to share which we might wish we'd listened to earlier? Desmond Tutu, who headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission consistently, affirmed that there can be no peace between warring parties without the truth of all sides being told. For the telling of truth can be as transformative to the offended as to the offender.