According to an article in New Age on 9 April, Mr Keith Khoza, the ANC’s ‘Head of Communications’, is reported to have said that F W de Klerk was “poisoning the South Africans with his utterances” about former President Mandela. Khoza was apparently referring to remarks that F W de Klerk made about great world leaders – including Mr Mandela – in his recent speech to the River Club.
Khoza made the remarkable claim that because Mr Mandela is black, “F W de Klerk couldn’t acknowledge him.”
In fact, F W de Klerk – in his speech to the River Club – singled Mr Mandela out as one of the great leaders of the age. Mr Mandela was one of six leaders cited by Mr De Klerk “who in their own ways have changed the histories of their countries or even of the world”. Mr De Klerk described Mr Mandela as “a principled man and a great communicator. Through his natural charm and consideration he played an indispensible role in promoting reconciliation and in laying the foundations of our new non-racial nation.”
At the same time, Mr De Klerk said that “he did not subscribe to the general hagiography surrounding Mr Mandela. He was by no means the avuncular and saint-like figure so widely depicted today. As a political opponent he could be brutal and quite unfair. During the negotiations and while I served as Deputy President in the Government of National Unity we often had bruising clashes. But such is the nature of politics.”
“However, whenever the situation required it, he was able to rise above the political passions of the moment and join me in hammering out reasonable compromises that enabled the process to continue. He also had the stature and the strength to hold his fractious alliance together – even at the most difficult junctures.”
Anyone who has studied our recent history will understand the reasons for Mr De Klerk’s views in this regard.
Mr Khoza added that “it was not a surprise that such statement comes from De Klerk because he is one of the people who made lives of South Africans difficult during struggle times.” In fact, as Mr Khoza should know and acknowledge, it was F W de Klerk who initiated the transformation process that led to the release of Nelson Mandela, constitutional negotiations, the establishment of our non-racial constitutional democracy – and to a substantial improvement in “the lives of South Africans”.
If the ANC is sincere in its often repeated calls for a national dialogue, it will simply have to do better than this. Mr Khoza’s statement bears little or no relation to what F W de Klerk actually said. The disturbing possibility is that it is a new brand of communication – recently witnessed in the brouhaha over Premier Zille’s ‘refugee’ remark – in which personal attack and mindless sloganeering are substituted for rational analysis and debate.
FW De Klerk Foundation
Editor’s Notes: Young (?) Keith Khoza must have not read the verbatim report of De Klerk’s speech at the River Club – FYI Keith, the entire speech is available here: Politicians and Statesmen I have Known.
