FW De Klerk: Can one revolutionary decision redeem a most ugly past?
We typically expect good, and perhaps even great, things to be done by good and great leaders. Yet, sometimes good and great things are done by people who cannot honestly be considered great or even good.
The world has just bid farewell to a key example. FW de Klerk, the last leader of apartheid-era South Africa, died on Thursday. He leaves a complex and often ugly legacy, but the historical boldness of his most significant act – dismantling apartheid – is habitually underestimated.
There are many reasons for this, but failing to recognise the importance of what De Klerk did by giving up power, not only for himself but his community, is a mistake.
It’s difficult to get past his role for decades as an enthusiastic proponent of apartheid. And he should not be exonerated for the brutality he helped to perpetuate, particularly as the primary ally of his predecessor, PW Botha.
It’s not much of a mitigation to say he was born into that system, even though it’s true. He was the scion of one of the leading Afrikaner families that constructed the apartheid regime and son of a leading pro-apartheid politician and cabinet member. Obviously, he had far better moral choices than to follow in their footsteps for so long.
But to his eternal discredit, De Klerk embraced the agenda of white supremacy. It is exceptionally hard to get past that. But it’s necessary.
De Klerk obviously also suffers from his inevitable comparison with Nelson Mandela, who was his nemesis and, eventually, unlikely and uncomfortable partner in national reconciliation.
Mandela, after all, was that rarest of combinations: a moral leader, a political visionary and an effective politician. The closest comparison is probably Gandhi, even though they differed on the question of violence, which Gandhi deplored but Mandela sometimes used.
Virtually no one is going to come off well in comparison to such a titanic figure, and, indeed, De Klerk does not. Yet, realistic and mature consideration requires the recognition that, despite everything and at the end of his career, De Klerk had the vision, guts and determination to do what was necessary but also exceptionally difficult.
Towards the end of his life, several times he expressed contrition for apartheid and said he had completely changed his racial attitudes. But it’s clear that when he decided the system had to go in favour of black majority rule, he had not yet recognised it as evil so much as unworkable.
That, too, doesn’t detract from the fact that what he did required strength and pragmatism. He did not dismantle apartheid out of altruism. He did so because it was in the interests of his community – which kept its privileges up to the end of the system.
Yet, honesty requires us to acknowledge that very few politicians would have had the gumption to face grim facts as De Klerk did, and swallow the bitter pill. By releasing Mandela from prison, he made the end of apartheid inevitable, and he knew it.
One way of breaking through the undoubted ugliness of the rest of his career is to pose a simple thought experiment: how many lives, black and white, did De Klerk save by making a reasonable deal with Mandela? What might a full-blown racial war a have looked like?
To dismiss De Klerk’s breakthrough as simply doing what he had to is facile and unrealistic. Most politicians focus only on tomorrow, next week or next year, at most. De Klerk had other viable options, including doing nothing. But he was clearly seeing 25 or even 50 years into the future, and what he could glimpse was terrifying. So, he took a bold and, within his own constituency, not terribly popular move. And before anyone could stop him, it was too late.
It’s imperative, therefore, to look back at De Klerk and not see another story of a supposedly, probably genuinely, remorseful racist. What must be recognised is the historical significance of someone who, while not driven by noble motives, is honest with themselves and others and chooses what, for his
De Klerk was clearly seeing 25 or even 50 years into the future, and what he could glimpse was terrifying
own community at least, is perceived as bad over worse, to great benefit.
There are other examples in recent history of leaders, either consciously or effectively, dismantling the odious systems they came to lead. Mikhail Gorbachev’s probably inadvertent oversight of the collapse of the Soviet Union is an obvious example, for which he is reasonably lauded.
However, Mr Gorbachev’s liberalisations that spelled the doom of the USSR seem like child’s play compared to De Klerk’s remarkable decision to dismantle apartheid and transfer power to the South African black majority in exchange for no retribution. De Klerk knew exactly what he was doing and there are ample grounds to believe Mr Gorbachev didn’t. And he and his community were probably taking a far bigger risk than Mr Gorbachev and his comrades.
The former South African president’s legacy conclusively demonstrates that great and good things can indeed be done by people who are not necessarily great or good, but whose achievements demand to be recognised for the triumphs that they are.