The late former president FW De Klerk has been pilloried by his detractors in recent weeks – but little has been said of the conduct of the successor governments, who have failed productively to use the power and institutions they took over.
This is the view of prominent left-wing commentator Ebrahim Harvey in a contribution published on News24. Harvey wrote that De Klerk had shown courage in moving South Africa towards a political transition, especially given the absence of any substantive threat to the National Party’s hold on state power.
He argues that where matters of legacy are concerned, demands that De Klerk be held accountable for the death and misery that took place under his incumbency (and that of his party) need to be seen alongside the conduct of the ANC after the transition.
On this point, he is extremely critical of the stance taken by many commentators:
‘But they had nothing to say about the record of the ANC in office, the party which replaced the NP in 1994. For example, the violent repression meted out to black protesters in townships, the killing of Andries Tatane during service delivery protests and the killing of many black striking miners in 2012 in Marikana is incomparably worse than the violence meted out to black protesters by the NP regime, precisely because it was inflicted by the same party which was the beacon of the liberation movement and hence supposedly embodied the hopes, wishes and aspirations of the black majority for the very dignity De Klerk said apartheid systematically denied. But not a single column or article I read critically explored these issues when dealing with the legacy of De Klerk.
‘I argue that it is a fundamental contradiction to insist that De Klerk must take responsibility for the many killings in 1991-1992, but not at the same time argue that that the ANC must equally be held accountable for the many horrors perpetrated in its name and under its rule since 1994.’
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