MAKHUDU SEFARA | FW’s apology is a choreographed insult to our intelligence

Apartheid’s last president, FW de Klerk, recorded himself apologising to “black, brown and Indians in South Africa” before succumbing to cancer. It was, for him, one last opportunity to come clean, to protect his legacy through manipulation. Even in the wake of his death, this must be rejected. 

In the video, De Klerk talks about how he’s often accused of justifying apartheid or separate development. He concedes that “it is true that in my younger years I defended separate development. Afterwards, on many occasions, I apologised to the South African public for the pain and indignity that apartheid has brought to people of colour in SA. Many believed me, but others didn’t.”

He then gives us the words he wants us to remember him by: “I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to black, brown and Indians in South Africa.” The video is not quite like TikTok — the once-mighty leader of apartheid looks lean, haggard and at death’s door. For many believers of the Word, there would be no question about whether to forgive him and let the God of vengeance and justice do the rest.

Yet, to entertain De Klerk’s quasi-posthumous apology is to assume he is genuine and regrets the “pain and indignity” visited upon victims of a system he actively enforced, until, it must be said, it was no longer sustainable. 

The reason De Klerk’s apology must be rejected is because it is a centrepiece of the choreographed end of his life. It is a vignette meant to help sustain a preconceived narrative on the meaning of his life. De Klerk and those around him knew his death would divide our country in the same way his policies did. And so they devised a ruse, a hackneyed and banal apology to make his erstwhile victim not be as enraged as EFF members were when they saw him in parliamentary chambers a few years ago — leading to the disruption of state of the nation proceedings. 

And so the strategy is not to deny obvious things such as De Klerk in his “younger years” defending separate development. The idea is to offer an apology that we, naively, would accept simply because it comes as the nation grapples with his demise. As the nation’s tears flow, why would we not forgive seems the logic.

Yet to entertain De Klerk’s quasi-posthumous apology is to assume that he is genuine and regrets the 'pain and indignity' visited upon victims of a system he actively enforced – until, it must be said, it was no longer sustainable. 

This is attempted manipulation of the worst order. De Klerk was one of the most divisive leaders this country ever produced. Perhaps even worse than PW Botha and other verkrampte National Party leaders who were honest about their hatred of black people. At least with them you knew where you stood. In their eyes, you were not human enough, you were “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. In their eyes, your skin militates against any pursuit of excellence in anything that needs you to use your brain cells. 

De Klerk, however, acted as though he believed in your humanity and was your partner in pursuit of “reconciliation” and economic integration when, like a snake, he slumbered waiting to strike. This is how he won, with Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Price because his party of apartheid lords, the National Party, created a veneer of peaceful pursuits such as a negotiated settlement. He created confusion among global observers who thought he started the talks willingly when, in fact, the apartheid edifice was collapsing around him. Apartheid was unsustainable. For his halfhearted measures, he scored a Nobel prize for peace. This is deceitful De Klerk in his element.

If his apology was genuine, why was it timed for release upon his death? It’s not part of his will — why did it have to wait? This speaks volumes about the intention of De Klerk and those who advised him. It was a pathetic attempt to control what gets to be said after his death.

The timing was meant to make us forget the many who died when De Klerk was in charge and only remember him as the apologetic man who shared the peace prize with Mandela. 

Meanwhile, the truth is that the period between his 1990 speech announcing the release of Mandela and the actual casting of votes in 1994 was littered with the blood of many killed in a war sponsored by a state he presided over. Put differently, the hands of this Nobel Peace Prize-winner were full of the blood of many innocent South Africans.

When he appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) he again was a man of half measures: he apologised but said he knew nothing. He told the TRC he was never party to any decision “taken by cabinet, the state security council or any committee” that authorised “assassinations, murder, torture, rape, assault or the like”. Yet these things happened and he had power to stop them. This was De Klerk at his deceptive best. People were killed by his government and he knew nothing, did nothing. 

If De Klerk’s apology was genuine, why was it timed for release upon his death? It’s not part of his will – why did it have to wait? This speaks volumes about the intention of De Klerk and those advising him.

He knew nothing of the massacres in the period leading to the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Remember how current president Cyril Ramaphosa, Chris Hani, Steve Tshwete, Ronnie Kasrils and others ran for cover, rolling on the ground, as the massacre in Bhisho got under way on September 7 1992? De Klerk wants us to think he saw no evil, heard no evil as his puppet Oupa Gqozo killed 28, injured 200 out of 425 and fired live rounds in a crowd estimated at 80,000 people. Earlier in June, 45 people were killed in Boipatong by the IFP and De Klerk and his administration knew absolutely nothing. Similarly, he and the administration knew nothing about the steady killing of hundreds of people in Khumalo Street in Thokoza, on the East Rand. 

Yeah, right ...

In short, De Klerk, since losing power in 1994, tried to pull wool over the eyes of South Africans. His latest apology is consistent with his almost three-decades pursuit. Were he genuine in his apology, he would have helped rather than impeded the TRC. He would have taken accountability for the pain his administration inflicted on families too many to count. Not merely by saying sorry, but genuinely helping them find closure through hitherto unspoken truths. Cradock Four activist Fort Calata’s son, Lukhanyo, was most apt: “De Klerk died peacefully ... they tell us. Unlike those whose murders he ordered ...” 

De Klerk’s pain remains palpable for us to fall for his choreographed exit. The apology is an insult on our collective intelligence and should be rejected outright. The point is not to celebrate De Klerk’s demise, but guard jealously our right and determination not to be pawns in a sick game of half-baked apologies meant to control the narrative once he was gone. 

A message must be sent back to those who released De Klerk’s video — we still know what you did and the PR trickery is not working!