BOOKS: VAN ZYL SLABBERT REMEMBERED
EIGHTY-ONE years ago, on March 2, 1940, a child was born in Pretoria who would become the most charismatic, attractive and gifted politician of his lifetime – Frederik van Zyl Slabbert.
He and his twin sister Marcia were born to a penniless single mother, and although his rootless childhood would scar him, it also gave him a lifelong flexibility and a strong skills set for survival.
Dr Slabbert was the mesmerising, articulate leader of the opposition in Parliament going into the brutal Eighties. After
12 years there, when he judged that he was no longer serving a meaningful role inside Parliament, he abruptly resigned and took up a less visible but important role in civil society. I was, not coincidentally, in Parliament on that fateful Friday afternoon in 1986 when he stood up to deliver his final speech. There was a stunned silence; and many tears.
To this day, tempers flare about the manner of his leaving. He had no staying power, said the aggrieved, including the remarkable Helen Suzman whose 37 years inside Parliament entitled her to accuse him. This is just one of the aspects unpacked in this important biography, Slabbert: Man on a Mission, by Stellenbosch historian Professor Albert Grundlingh.
Slabbert’s gifts showed early. He was headboy, head of the rugby eleven, a fine scholar and a gifted teacher. He had abandoned theology for sociology, though the author suggests that his missionary zeal in forging a better world never left him. I was also present at his first packed political meeting as a candidate in Rondebosch in 1974; it was self-evident from the reception of the delirious crowd that a star was born.
His looks and magnetic personality were both assets and drawbacks. A man of the mind, his celebrity status was something of a burden, and I heard many insider comments about Slabbert’s struggle in not being able to suffer fools lightly.
PW Botha complained that he was "too clever" – something with which the prime minister was not afflicted.
Slabbert’s nature was one of action: specifically, to break the logjam in formal politics which had petrified into immovable positions. His Dakar pilgrimage to meet the ANC was later criticised as naive, but how could it not be? Neither side had been allowed to know the other, and the very fact it had taken place demonstrated that negotiation politics was at least a possibility, something that was not generally believed at the time.
This careful assembly of his life gives a balanced and nuanced account of a man who seemed to have it all, yet walked away into an uncertain future. It is possible to see that as impressive, these days, when bipartisan politicians cling on to power, prestige and pork barrel politics.
This is not a tell-all biography. Grundlingh was perhaps over-careful about his private life: biographies should be robust. His two marriages and other relationships are very briefly touched on, and there are only scattered references to his alcohol use which resulted in cirrhosis of the liver, and almost certainly shortened his life: he died in 2010, aged 70.
The book describes his many male friendships; Grundlingh admits that he was not gender-sensitive. Yet it was the gossipy journalist Jani Allan’s comment that struck me as most perceptive: she wrote that though Slabbert was swooned over by groupies, grown women and gays, he had a look in his eyes, like a patted pub dog that is longing for closing time.
When he spoke in a room, all faces turned to him like flowers to the sun. We wanted to give him love, and he left, and we minded. There is a view, which I share, that we were lucky to have him at all.
A thoughtful biography; I warmly recommend it.