longing for a resolution of their own past, not least the as-yet-unacknowledged trauma of slavery that continues to haunt both white and black Americans.
Not all Afrikaners, or white South Africans for that matter, are willing or able to engage privately or publicly in the way this woman did. Seeds of hatred continue to fester among many whites, who feel that the new democracy in South Africa and the freedoms enjoyed by blacks have robbed them of their heritage. Some whites feel marginalised by the end of the legalised oppression of blacks with the fall of the apartheid government. They resent the power that the democratic changes have bestowed on a black-led government and their own perceived loss of power. A far-right group of Afrikaners has even lashed out in vengeance in the past through bombing sprees.
Discontent among whites has sometimes been seen as evidence of continuing racism, and this might be the case. But we also must consider the bitter memories that have been unleashed by the transfer of power to the democratic government. Some Afrikaners carry with them the awareness of how the volk (the Afrikaner people) had to fight to maintain the spirit of survival; they had to protect themselves from the ‘other’ that threatened their wellbeing. Notably, they suffered serious loss and humiliation in their war with the British.
Many Afrikaners were brought up to believe that fighting for their survival was the very essence of their identity. Former president FW de Klerk, speaking about reconciliation in 1997, referred to the loss of power the Afrikaners experienced as a result of their war with the British. ‘It deprived us of our hard-won right to rule ourselves,’ he said. ‘But somehow or other, we have succeeded in putting most of this bitterness behind us.’
Democracy has been with us for ten years now. Yet the ghosts of the past have not been laid to rest, at least not completely. It will take something other than simple conciliatory words from leaders to break the cycle of hatred. In addition to creating economic equality, the dialogue that was begun by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission must continue, so that we are able to forge and strengthen a spirit of compromise and tolerance in our society.
Listening to one another and acknowledging the experience of loss on both sides would be a start. The task of picking up the pieces of a society shattered by violence is not easy. It needs patience. Our humanity is strongest when we are focused on that which unites us as human beings: compassion, and an ethos of care for one another, rather than giving in to fear and suspicion.
My mother experienced some of the injustices of apartheid as she grew up in rural KwaZulu-Natal: her family lost their land; they witnessed the humiliation of her father, who had to seek work in faraway Gauteng; and she and my father were married in Cape Town in 1951, the year in which more than 70 oppressive laws were passed by the apartheid government. They endured every single one of those laws. My mother, and many black people I know, have every reason to remember those experiences with bitterness, and could harbour a desire for revenge. But they prefer to live without that burden.
Reconciliation cannot be condensed into a quick-fix project, one that has to take place within a prescribed space of time. It needs work, on a personal and public level. Perhaps the most enduring effects of totalitarian rule and the systematic oppression under apartheid cannot be measured in terms of numbers of the dead, but in immeasurable losses of the human spirit. That is what has to be restored.
How does this society restore its humane fabric in the aftermath of a horrific past? By understanding why some white people feel a sense of loss in the new South Africa; by understanding why the liberation movement was necessary, and why human rights abuses were committed in the process. By having a dialogue about why so many white people supported apartheid at a time when the international community was issuing calls for its dismantling.
Was the refusal to take a stand against apartheid a reflection of an inherently evil characteristic among white voters? Did the majority of whites fail to apply their best judgment because the effects of apartheid on the oppressed were not sufficiently understood, because of the effectiveness of the propaganda, or because of the psychological denial that so often occurs in totalitarian regimes?
How should present society judge white compatriots who, by virtue of supporting apartheid, were therefore its public face? Do we judge them with the same revulsion as we judge the system which they supported? Or do we reserve such judgment for the ‘evil’ ones who executed apartheid’s opponents? How do white people who supported apartheid reflect on the past? Do they acknowledge any wrongdoing? Are they remorseful? And when they acknowledge wrongdoing and show remorse, what should our response be? Should we reject their apology and continue to punish them with our hatred? Or should we extend our compassion, and invite them to journey with us on the road of moral humanity?
Ordinary people, under certain circumstances, are capable of far greater evil than we could have imagined. But so are we capable of far greater virtue than we might have thought. To restore the human spirit in our society, to open the door to the possibility of transformation, we must be led by the compassion that unites us as human beings. That road to regaining our humanity, the true freedom from the ‘bondage of fear’, that Alan Paton spoke about so prophetically in his book Cry the Beloved Country, we will reach only through consistent dialogue, with one another, about our pasts.
The woman in Los Angeles spoke the truth of her heart. It was a simple communication of what she felt. We reached out to each other and shared a common idiom of humanity as South Africans, regretting our past, wishing to mend it.
When I shared this story at an event hosted by Njabulo Ndebele, vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, he used a metaphor that best captures how this dialogue can be understood: making public spaces intimate. It is in these small steps, in the small spaces where we are, that we will be able to make a difference in our relationships and in our society. The challenge is to have the courage to start. To acknowledge. If memory is used to rekindle old hatreds, it will lead us back to continuing hatred and conflict. But if memory is used to rebuild, or to begin new relationships, that is where hope lies.
6. What we can learn from Nieuwoudt and De Kock
ThisDay, 4 August 2004
When, in July 2004, Eugene de Kock, incarcerated former commander of the notorious apartheid-era police counter-insurgency unit stationed at Vlakplaas, testified at Gideon Nieuwoudt’s second amnesty hearing, he apologised for his own involvement in the Motherwell car bombing to the families of the four victims. By contrast, Nieuwoudt presented evidence that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which may have affected his previous evidence. It occurred to me that the difference between the two perpetrators’ responses to the past holds the key to our nation’s healing.5
EUGENE DE KOCK and Gideon Nieuwoudt, at once different and similar, have again entered the public discourse. These two crusaders for the apartheid state both snuffed out the lives of those who fought, in ways violent and non-violent, to bring us the democracy that we so proudly embrace today. But there is something that we miss in portraying these two men as ‘exceptional’, as ‘rogues’.
They, like many who kept the apartheid government in power, believed in the political order of the day. Moreover, De Kock and Nieuwoudt were characteristic of the majority of white voters during the apartheid years. They may individually represent the ruthlessness of that deadly era, when state enemies were ‘removed from society’, but many white families during the apartheid years collectively participated in the conscription of their sons into the army to fight openly in the black townships the war that De Kock and Nieuwoudt were fighting in the shadows.
The apartheid laws might have been conceived and debated in political and religious corridors of power, but their implementation was not hidden from view; black people were openly pushed away from any semblance of a shot at equal opportunity. White people, with a few exceptions, were happy to maintain the status quo and to continue
