RIP F. W. De Klerk, the Last White President of South Africa. And the Logic of Apartheid.
F. W. DeKlerk, the last White President of South Africa.
The Logic of Apartheid, and how De Klerk’s perspective evolved
F. W. De Klerk died in November of 2021. He came out of the very heart of the Afrikaaner establishment, and was firmly entrenched in the secret society known as the Broederbund (brotherhood). Whites were about 15% of the South African population and the Afrikaaners (of Dutch heritage) were about 60% of the white population. They controlled all the major positions of power in the Republic. And yet by the 1980s many Afrikaaners could see that the reality was changing, and they would have to change with it, or be swept away. F. W. De Klerk became the instrument of that change.
This may well be the only place where you will ever hear a sympathetic discussion of the logic of apartheid, which was widely condemned in America, especially among those of us who had studied the South African political system.
Remember that there are other podcasts on Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
And one called Thoughts of a Former Terrorist, discussing my activism on this issue.
Names: Botha, Mulder,
Terms used: apartheid, Stellenbosch, verligte, verkrampte, Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Ndebele, Swazi. Transkei, Zululand, Professor Jeppe,