The last apartheid president: FW de Klerk maintained the system, and then he helped destroy it
The death of FW de Klerk, the last apartheid head of state, is an inflection moment for South Africa, a country where history is never past.
His death severs another link with our transition from an authoritarian, racist state to a constitutional democracy where human rights are paramount.
It has left very few people cold, with his critics on all sides of the political spectrum quick to condemn De Klerk as an apartheid stooge with blood on his hands. Others will point to his role as a conservative Afrikaner who unshackled himself from his people and history to chart a new way forward.
Analyses of De Klerk’s role in our history will be contested. That is to be expected of someone who was the very last head of state elected by white South Africa while the country still enforced statutes like the Group Areas Act.
His death has also triggered anger about apartheid crimes that remain unaccounted for and for which he understandably became the focal point. In his later life, De Klerk sought to contextualise apartheid, twice attempting to explain the intellectual rationale behind institutionalised discrimination and the deprivation of human rights. It tainted his legacy.
I believe that De Klerk will be remembered for breaking with National Party dogma and putting the country irrevocably on the path to political reform. It is true that he was a pragmatist and was not driven by a sudden burst of morality, and that was my experience when I interviewed him for the first time in 2006. It was disappointing to sit down and hear De Klerk talk about political calculations and how he could extract as much advantage in the inevitable negotiation process as he could amid a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. I wanted De Klerk to say he did it because it was right. (He later did do so.)
But De Klerk, atop a ruthlessly efficient security apparatus and in no real risk of losing his majority to the Conservative Party, when all was said and done, decided to launch the country on the road to reform.
Yes, he believed he could control the process better than he eventually did, and yes, he looked to secure a measure of control for him and white South Africa. De Klerk, however, never sought to sabotage the negotiations or to cling on to power. And when the process culminated in the 1994 elections, he held his last Cabinet meeting and handed over power to Nelson Mandela, the country’s democratically elected leader.
Humans are complicated. And history is nuanced.
De Klerk will not be lionised by South Africa, neither by the governing political class, nor by Afrikaners. He knew this, and despite his faults and shortcomings, it was something that he made peace with.
In his last message, released on the day of his death, he reiterated his support for the Constitution and the democratic dispensation.
His predecessors would have turned in their graves.
By Pieter du Toit: Assistant Editor: In-depth News
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