Last Thursday was hard for me. Seldom in my life have I experienced such strong but contradictory feelings and emotions at the same time.
I have spent the past few days trying to understand what triggered me so much about FW de Klerk's apology for apartheid from the grave.
Breaking news days are intense and frantic in a newsroom. You seldom get the opportunity to reflect and be quiet in the moment as you manage deadlines, headlines and ensure as many voices as possible are heard.
Editors are not supposed to be emotional on deadline. Yet, I was deeply perturbed watching De Klerk's recorded message, which was distributed by his foundation shortly after his death, on my phone in the office kitchen during a quick coffee break.
"Therefore, let me today, in the last message repeat: I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt, and the indignity, and the damage, to black, brown and Indians in South Africa," said the frail-looking man, once the epitome of white power, in his last message.
It unleashed a flood of emotions, thoughts and flashbacks. I experienced extreme anger, frustration and gratitude in one moment.
Before I delve into the details, let me state upfront and without hesitation that I can never pretend to even imagine what apartheid was like for black South Africans. What I am about to say does not attempt in the slightest way to equate the pain, humiliation and trauma suffered by black people with that of whites.
What the NP did to Afrikaners
After hearing De Klerk's apology, I was overcome with rage about what he and the National Party (NP) of which he was the last, powerful face did to my people, the Afrikaners. For almost 50 years, the NP, through its apartheid policy, lied to Afrikaners that they were racially superior to black people.
De Klerk and his brothers lied to Afrikaners that apartheid was justified by the Bible and that they were God's chosen people. And they made Afrikaners believe that they were "good people" while committing a crime against humanity.
Why did it take him so long to issue an unqualified apology for apartheid, after his death? Was he scared it could be used against him in a court of law for some of the atrocities committed under his watch in the dying years of apartheid (chronicled brilliantly by my colleague Mondli Makhanya on Sunday)?
Why didn't he apologise much earlier to all his supporters for misleading them, including my late grandmother who campaigned for the Nats election after election; each and every man who went to Namibia or Angola to fight "terrorists" and came back with severe depression and mental health illness; each and every young white police officer or soldier who killed black students and children in the name of law and order?
And why didn't De Klerk actively participate after 1994 in leading his people into the "new South Africa" by actively endorsing non-racialism, leading efforts to heal the pain and even wash the feet of his victims with his former Cabinet colleague Adriaan Vlok? Why was the FW de Klerk Foundation not involved in assisting the post-1994 government to overcome apartheid spatial planning and design?
Was he too busy touring the world, giving lectures about constitutionalism and democracy while smoking cigars and drinking the best whiskeys the planet has to offer?
Making no effort
De Klerk made no effort whatsoever to lead white Afrikaners into the new South Africa with him. Instead, he continued to criticise the ANC's policies like employment equity and affirmative action without the slightest sense of irony - that it was because of his apartheid policies that younger generations of white South Africans, who never voted for apartheid, now have to suffer to achieve economic redress.
I wondered if he also thought of them when he recorded his last apology for apartheid?
I will always be grateful for De Klerk's decision in 1990 to unban the ANC, free Mandela and effectively end apartheid. Even if he was forced by economic and global pressure to do so, he could still have refused and chosen a path of civil war. For that, I felt much gratitude looking at his final message.
But let De Klerk's late apology for apartheid be a lesson for all of us to not leave the things that should be said and done too late. There is really no point in being the best people we can be after we have left this planet.
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