HEARING about the death of Eugène Terre'Blanche and the uproar that followed , I ask: what loss has our fragile nation suffered over the death of a rightwing leader who scorned blacks and black life in general.

Of course our nation has lost. We have lost an opportunity to undo the psychological damage caused by years of apartheid doctrine and teachings fused in the now motionless head of the late Terre'Blanche.

As we recount the ugly and evil deeds he committed, mostly against defenceless black farmworkers, we should remember that he too was a victim of a philosophy inherited from successive generations of right-wing Afrikaner extremists.

He was passionate about the superiority of Afrikaners and became a victim of his own political views. He was afraid that black majority rule would signal the extinction of the white minority, hence his futile attempts to stall negotiations .

Regrettably he was not alone in his extremist tendencies and fears. There are still some who proudly wave the apartheid flag and display the Nazi-like insignia, unconscious of the damage they do to nation healing and building.

Since the advent of democracy, the government has done everything to breathe life into the call of the Freedom Charter to make South Africa a home to all who live in it. The challenge is out, particularly to the Afrikaner youth, to refuse cooption into the politics of self-marginalisation and to participate actively in the sociopolitical life of this country as equal citizens.

Apartheid failed Terre'Blanche. The new South Africa cannot afford to fail its Afrikaner youth.

Ramashia Richardt, Polokwane