De Klerk, lies, apartheid, memory, and the destruction of social capital

Virtually worthless stamps from the old Transkei

FW De Klerk has absolutely no understanding of apartheid and that it was what the United Nations categorised as a crime against humanity.  His recent reported comments on CNN, which his Foundation states have been ‘twisted’ and taken ‘out of context’, deserve little attention in themselves – De Klerk is no longer particularly politically significant – and can be dismissed as a feeble attempt at revisionism and bolstering his fading reputation.  The unfortunate consequence of his naïve, misplaced and incorrect remarks is that they will serve to confirm the perception that white leaders and ex-leaders in South Africa still display racist attitudes, and indeed have no real understanding of what racism actually is.  As such, his comments weaken attempts to build trust and social capital amongst and between communities in South Africa.

Racism as a form of oppression and exploitation cannot be reduced to simple incidents of ‘behaviour’ that target different race groups unfavourably or treat people different on arbitrary racial grounds – with no distinction between behavior of whites targeted at blacks and vice versa.  Racism as it has been practiced throughout history takes the form of institutionalised and state-sponsored oppression and exploitation, generally introduced, perpetrated and sustained by governments and peoples that work from a sense of racial superiority over the ‘other’ groups or peoples.  In this sense, racism and racist policies have supported colonialism and economic exploitation throughout the history of imperial conquest and domination. 

It is this, perhaps, that De Klerk does not really understand, and which shows how out of touch he is with people in South Africa – who know well how the racist system of apartheid was used to exploit and disenfranchise people systematically and supported by hundreds of laws.  It is untrue when De Klerk asserts that the ‘homeland’ system did not disenfranchise people (because they supposedly ‘voted’).  People were, by being forcibly removed to these artificial homelands (he refers to them as ‘self-governing territories’ and ‘independent states’) systematically deprived of any remaining possibility of citizenship in their own country – South Africa.  Indeed, the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970 legally deprived people of their South African citizenship.  De Klerk was just 34 then and still a young man, and had only just become an MP.  He might however remember voting for this Act and that it disenfranchised people…

Of course, the Venda, Boputhutswana, Transkei and Ciskei bantustans were never recognised as independent states by the international community, and although they produced their own stamps (or did they?) they were not in any sense ‘independent’ from Pretoria.

De Klerk also repeats the lie that the ‘homelands’ established under apartheid were historical lands (a lie promoted by his party leader HF Verwoerd) and that people were not put there.   Of course, even before the rise of the Nationalist government in 1948, previous colonial administrations had established ‘reserves’ for black people and regulated land ownership (Native Land Act of 1913).  The policies of forced removals under apartheid have been systematically documented and it is absolutely astonishing that De Klerk can assert anything about the ‘homelands’ without acknowledging what happened.  Indeed, De Klerk was Minister for Internal Affairs between 1982 and 1985 when many removals happened, so either he was actually responsible for forced removals, or he was negligent in that things happened without his knowledge.  He was not such a young man then of course (mid-late 40s).

For anyone who has doubts about the policies of forced removals, I would highly recommend ‘South Africa – The Cordoned Heart’, edited Omar Badsha, Gallery Press , 1986 – prepared for the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa – and David Goldblatt’s ‘The Transported of Kwandebele’, 1989, Aperture & the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

In South Africa it is a truism that apartheid was a unique and evil form of institutionalised racism – perpetrated by a white minority government seeking to exploit other race groups and particularly black people.  Forced removals and the creation of the ‘homelands’ was an integral part of the apartheid system, and not just a failed attempt at creating distinct nations via partition.  A consequence is that black people in South Africa have a unique experience of racism that can perhaps never easily be understood by white people in this country.  If white people are to aspire to real and effective leadership positions in this country in the future it is perhaps important to acknowledge this difference of experience as a first step in trying to understand where we have come from as a country.

Incidentally, De Klerk appears, via his Foundation, to endorse policies of partition in trying to retrospectively justify the ‘homelands’ policies, and cites examples of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia (where the break-up of the country along 'ethnic' lines led to various wars), and points to support for a ‘two state’ solution to the problems of Israel and Palestine (which has not been implemented) and makes no mention of other support for a ‘one-state’ solution.  He doesn’t mention the partition of Ireland in the 1920s, and the years of conflict that followed.

The FW De Klerk Foundation appears to justify De Klerk’s naiveté as a young politician by affirming that he grew up in an Afrikaner society that was deeply aggrieved by defeat in the Boer War, and that the central theme of Afrikaner politics was a desire for self-rule.  Fortunately there were a few brave Afrikaners who came out of the same tradition, such as Bram Fischer, who took a different route.  Bram Fischer died in 1975 after being cruelly treated in the apartheid goal - when De Klerk was of course still a young man (39) and only an MP.  Perhaps he never heard of Bram Fischer and how he was treated, or, if he did, did he care?

A separate question that arises now again is whether De Klerk deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.  Terry Bell has reported De Klerk's admission that he ordered a massacre of supposed Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army fighters shortly before going to Oslo in 1993.  In fact, teenage children were killed on De Klerk's orders.  Little known, and deeply shocking.  I won't go into the lingering question about whether De Klerk was completely honest with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission except to refer people to Antjie Krog's 'Country of My Skull'.

Perhaps the best contribution that FW De Klerk could now make to South Africa would be to retire completely from public life.