Frederick Willem de Klerk.
One of the most polarising figures in SA history.
A hero to some and a villain to many.
His death yesterday reignited global discourse about the contentious legacy of apartheid SA’s last president.
No doubt those sympathetic to De Klerk have bestowed upon him the questionable honour of having ended apartheid some three decades ago, setting our country on a new path of integration and reconciliation.
They credit him for what they say was his role in dismantling racial conflict, thus building a foundation for our present day constitutional democracy.
Bolstering their view is the Nobel peace prize awarded to him and our late statesman Nelson Mandela for what the world termed a bloodless transition to a democratic state.
This, of course, is the sanitised half of our history.
The truth is that for the majority of South Africans, De Klerk, much like his predecessors, was the very embodiment of evil, a benefactor and enforcer of the oppression and killing of black people until the system he presided over was no longer sustainable.
Apartheid had become economically unaffordable, practically unviable and increasingly isolated SA from the world.
His decision to end it was therefore an act of preservation rather than of moral conviction and ethical leadership.
Throughout democracy, De Klerk remained defiant.
He recently argued against evidence and a global declaration by the UN, that apartheid was not a crime against humanity.
Only after public pressure from organisations for which he held a semblance of respect – the Thabo Mbeki and Desmond Tutu foundations – did he withdraw his abhorrent public statements and conceded that apartheid was, as he termed it, “unacceptable”.
Still, the truth was known.
His heart held no remorse for his role in the brutality of that system, its subjugation of a generation of black people in the land of their birth, and importantly, its murderous ways, which ripped through families across the land.
In the days to come, De Klerk will be honoured by the state in line with constitutionally mandated protocols befitting of a former statesman.
Still, we are mindful that beyond the dignity of officialdom, lies a man whose life symbolised the very essence of racism and hate.
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