• Tweet

Former presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk receiving the Nobel peace prize. Photo: Reuters

RELATED ARTICLES

• Ghosts of a sad and wicked past
• Social media poses challenge
• 'We are a shocked nation' - Allan Boesak
• FULL SPEECH: Allan Boesak

Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, [click here for the video link], De Klerk apologised for the racial policies of the white-minority government that oppressed the black majority, but defended separate states for blacks and whites.  

“I have made the most profound apology... about the injustices which were wrought by apartheid,” he told Amanpour.

“What I haven’t apologised for is the original concept of nation states.”  

He was referring to the homeland system that once divided South Africa into states for different ethnic groups. Apartheid laws also required blacks to hold permits to live and work in white areas.  

De Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Nelson Mandela in 1993 but was later criticised by Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president in 1994, for not renouncing apartheid.  

“To justify apartheid in 2012? Wow!” Gugulethethu Mthembu wrote on Twitter.  

Others challenged De Klerk, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for releasing Mandela in 1990 and allowing multi-racial elections four years later, to make such remarks in Soweto, the largest of South Africa’s black townships.  

“Can FW de Klerk come home and repeat those words he said on Amanpour in front of a live audience in Soweto?,” Florence Masebe tweeted.

Others called on him to return his Nobel prize.  

In the interview, De Klerk said apartheid was “morally repugnant” and added that, with hindsight, his party should have instituted reforms earlier.  

Even though it has been 18 years since apartheid ended, it remains the source of deep division in the “Rainbow Nation”.  

MORE FROM THE INTERVIEW:

It was noted that Mandela had once called De Klerk "a man of integrity" but had taken it back, regretting that De Klerk had never renounced the principle of apartheid.

De Klerk responded:  "Well, let me first say I'm not aware that Mr Mandela says I've never renounced apartheid". He then said, "I have made the most profound apology in front of the Truth Commission and on other occasions about the injustices which were wrought by apartheid".

Then he added: "What I haven't apologized for is the original concept of seeking to bring justice to all South Africans through the concept of nation states (homelands). But in South Africa it failed," he said. "And by the end of the '70s, we had to realize, and accept and admit to ourselves that it had failed.  And that is when fundamental reform started".

He was then asked if apartheid failed because it was unworkable, or because it was simply morally repugnant.

"There are three reasons it (apartheid) failed," he said. "It failed because the whites wanted to keep too much land for themselves. It failed because we (whites and blacks) became economically integrated, and it failed because the majority of blacks said that is not how we want our rights."

Still, De Klerk would not back off his belief in the validity of the original concept of "separate but equal" nation states.

"There is this picture that apartheid was.. used to be compared to Nazism. It's wrong, and on that, I don't apologize for saying that what drove me as a young man, before I decided we need to embrace a new vision, was a quest to bring justice for black South Africans in a way which would not - that's what I believed then - destroyed the justice to which my people were entitled.

"That's how I was brought up," said De Klerk. "And it was in an era when also in America and elsewhere, and across the continent of Africa, there was still not this realization that we are trampling upon the human rights of people. 

"So I'm a convert."

Again, he was asked if he wanted to take the opportunity to say that apartheid was, in retrospect, morally repugnant.

"I can only say, in a qualified way," said De Klerk. "Inasmuch as it trampled human rights, it was - and remains - and that I've said also publicly, morally reprehensible.

"But the concept of giving as the Czechs have it and the Slovaks have it, of saying that ethnic unities with one culture, with one language, can be happy and can fulfill their democratic aspirations in an own state, that is not repugnant.

"With the advantage of hindsight," said De Klerk, "we should have started the reform much earlier.. But the intention was to end at a point which would ensure justice for all. 

"The tipping point in my mind was when I realized.. we need to abandon the concept of separateness.  And we need to build a new nation with its eleven official languages, accommodating its diversity, but taking hands and moving forward together."

Interview: CNN

Comments

• Sign in or sign up to comment

Sat May 18 17:14:26 SAST 2013 ::

May 11, 2012

1tsotsi

I just like the headline that says; THE LAST WHITE SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT.
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

cornelius

As usual, words and their intent are being twisted. The man clearly apologised for apartheid and called it morally repugnant. HOW IS THAT TO BE SEEN AS " DEFENDING APARTHEID", MS MTHEMBU ????

What he was probably saying was something a lot of people are beginning to think, nl that b.lack and w.hite can never live peacefully together, and that the original idea of separate nation states maybe was not a bad idea - if it was implemented fairly, i.e. a b.lack state with the majority of the land, and a wh.te ( and coloured) state with the ( smaller) portions of the land that was not originally traditionally in b.lack hands ( nl the Western Cape) .
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

RobinH

If it was indeed a "mistake" it was a very dof one. Meneer de Klerk. DINK OUTOPPIE. MOENIE VIR JOU ONNOSEL HOU NIE! Dis ons land wat jy met jou onnosele woorde bedonner. Jou tyd is verby. Bly nou stil.
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

Tasto

Thank you Sowetan, at last.White racism is not an accident from their leaders Zille,De Klerk down to Stevehofmeyer,JDosSantos,RDeSa,Robinh of this world resort in EC, Hoerskool in NW list is endless !!

Wow , this is the first time to read\hear tha Mandela regretted calling De kler "man of integrity" !!

DeKlerk call NMandela his friend WOW !! All white ppl can't stand black ppl unless we can be like NMandela !!
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

Tasto

Ediotor jou moer !! Why ??
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

TKay

Thanks to that model Dos Santos we are having all these debates, she must be proud of herself
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

MGEEZ

I actually watched this interview yesterday evening on CNN and i must say that i was shcoked to say the least Whilst his interview should give us insight into our realities, it was nevertheless still a revelation for me!!!
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

MommaC

"There are three reasons it (apartheid) failed," he said. "It failed because the whiites wanted to keep too much land for themselves. It failed because we (whiites and bIacks) became economically integrated, and it failed because the majority of bIacks said that is not how we want our rights."

Here's a question. If white people had kept to an area of (for example) Swaziland and left the rest of the country alone, would we have the problems we have today?
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

DA-DBN-GUY

TASTO

And all black people dont like white people unless they the coach of kaiser Chiefs
Report Abuse

May 11, 2012

RobinH

MommaC: Not discussion I even want to entertain. I live in Cape Town and no-one will ever force me to move. Not what the struggle was fought for, so no go. Not even hypothetically.
Report Abuse

Read all 117 comments