FW de Klerk Foundation
In a speech in Stellenbosch on Monday, FW de Klerk said the Woordfees provided “evidence of the vitality of Afrikaans as the language in which 7 million South Africans of all races think, speak, create and dream”.
Afrikaans was also the language “in which we discuss, debate and negotiate” and it was this aspect he wanted to deal with.
De Klerk said that 30 years ago nearly all the experts had predicted that the growing confrontation between the National Party government and the disenfranchised majority would inevitably culminate in a devastating race war.
In 1985, from his Pollsmoor Prison cell, Nelson Mandela had concluded “if we did not start a dialogue soon, both sides would soon be plunged into a dark night of oppression, violence and war”.
The South African government had already reached a similar conclusion. The SADF had advised it in the early 1980s that there could be no long-term military solution to the conflict in the country.
By the time De Klerk became president in September 1989 the National Party was committed to fundamental transformation. “We had reached the conclusion that the best – indeed the only – prospect for a positive future for us and for all the people of South Africa lay in the negotiation of a strong constitution that would protect the rights of all South Africans.”
On February 2, 1990, he made the announcements that removed all the remaining barriers to negotiations.
The ensuing process was one of the most successful demonstrations of the power of discussion, dialogue and negotiations in recent history.
It showed that conflict and irrationality could be overcome.
Twenty-three political parties with widely divergent philosophies and histories got together to negotiate a new constitution. “It was never easy. Throughout, there were elements on all sides that chose violence rather than negotiations,” De Klerk said.
In June 1992 the ANC abandoned negotiations and opted instead for the “Leipzig Option”. The ANC reasoned that if it could mobilise millions of people in a rolling mass action, the South African government would collapse – just as the East German government had collapsed only three years earlier in the wake of similar mass demonstrations.
Fortunately, Mandela led the ANC back to the negotiating table. By December 1993, agreement had been reached on an interim Constitution in terms of which the national elections were held on April 27,1994.
Two years later the final Constitution had been adopted. De Klerk said it rested on the values of “human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms; non-racialism and non-sexism; and the supremacy of the Constitution and the Rule of Law”.
According to De Klerk, these constitutional values were the guarantor of our freedom – “they are the blueprint for our future success; they are the best hope for millions of South Africans for justice, security and prosperity”.
De Klerk said some people, filled with passion and bitterness, had declared that the time for reconciliation between black and white South Africans had passed and the time for social and economic struggle had arrived. Such people had turned their backs on discussion, debate and negotiations and had instead opted for confrontation and conflict.
How could equality best be achieved? Should the advantaged be deprived of the wealth they had attained for redistribution among the disadvantaged, or was the best solution to ensure rapid and sustained economic growth?
What was the way to empower disadvantaged black South Africans? Was it to disempower whites and other minorities by the imposition of demographic representivity, or did it lie in empowering people through decent education, job creation and effective services?
How could democracy be sustained in the face of mounting corruption and the manipulation of the institutions that had been established to ensure constitutional governance?
Would South Africa remain with the global trend to solve differences peacefully through negotiations and compromise, or would it revert to the age-old process of destructive confrontation and conflict?
De Klerk said he had thought that such a constructive dialogue would be conducted in Parliament. “However, it has now become clear that Parliament is no longer a neutral area dedicated to rational and constructive debate”. Sadly, representatives were not accountable to the voters who elected them but to their political bosses. The Speaker could also not be neutral while she served as the chairperson of the ruling ANC.
De Klerk ended by saying that “we, the people, should again seize the initiative and conduct our own dynamic national debate on these and the many other important questions to decide the future of our country. In so doing, we should say a decisive No to those who wish to lead us back to confrontation”.