F. W. de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk OMG DMS (/də ˈklɜːrk, də ˈklɛərk/ də-KLURK, də-KLAIRK, Afrikaans: [ˈfriədərək ˈvələm də ˈklɛrk]; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996. As South Africa's last head of state from the era of white-minority rule, he and his government dismantled the apartheid system and introduced universal suffrage. Ideologically a social conservative and an economic liberal, he led the National Party (NP) from 1989 to 1997.
In this article, the surname is de Klerk, not Klerk.
F. W. de Klerk
Nelson Mandela (as President)
Nelson Mandela
Thabo Mbeki (solely)
Nelson Mandela
Pieter Willem Botha
Pieter Willem Botha
Pieter Willem Botha
Pieter Willem Botha (1984–1985)
Pieter Willem Botha (1982–1984)
Pieter Willem Botha
Stephanus Petrus Botha
Pietie du Plessis
Pieter Willem Botha
Gerrit Viljoen (National Education)
- Johannes Vorster
- Pieter Willem Botha
Hendrik Smit
Johannes Petrus van der Spuy
Johannes Vorster
Johannes Petrus van der Spuy
Schalk van der Merwe
11 November 2021 (aged 85)
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
National Party (1972–1997)
NNP (1997–2005)
3
- Jan de Klerk (father)
Born in Johannesburg to an influential Afrikaner family, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University before pursuing a career in law. Joining the NP, to which he had family ties, he was elected to parliament and sat in the white-minority government of P. W. Botha, holding a succession of ministerial posts. As a minister, he supported and enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged white South Africans. After Botha resigned in 1989, de Klerk replaced him, first as leader of the NP and then as State President. Although observers expected him to continue Botha's defence of apartheid, de Klerk decided to end the policy. He was aware that growing ethnic animosity and violence was leading South Africa into a racial civil war. Amid this violence, the state security forces committed widespread human rights abuses and encouraged violence between the Xhosa and Zulu people, although de Klerk later denied sanctioning such actions. He permitted anti-apartheid marches to take place, legalised a range of previously banned anti-apartheid political parties, and freed imprisoned anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela. He also dismantled South Africa's nuclear weapons program.
De Klerk negotiated with Mandela to fully dismantle apartheid and establish a transition to universal suffrage. In 1993, he publicly apologised for apartheid's harmful effects. He oversaw the 1994 non-racial election in which Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory; de Klerk's NP took second place. De Klerk then became Deputy President in Mandela's ANC-led coalition, the Government of National Unity. In this position, he supported the government's continued liberal economic policies but opposed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate past human rights abuses because he wanted total amnesty for political crimes. His working relationship with Mandela was strained, although he later spoke fondly of him. In May 1996, after the NP objected to the new constitution, de Klerk withdrew it from the coalition government; the party disbanded the following year and reformed as the New National Party. In 1997, he retired from active politics and thereafter lectured internationally.
De Klerk was a controversial figure among many sections of South African society. He received many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize (shared with Mandela) for his role in dismantling apartheid and bringing universal suffrage to South Africa. Conversely, he received criticism from anti-apartheid activists for offering only a qualified apology for apartheid, and for ignoring the human rights abuses by state security forces. He was also condemned by pro-apartheid Afrikaners, who contended that by abandoning apartheid, he betrayed the interests of the country's Afrikaner minority.
Early life and education[edit]
Childhood: 1936–1954[edit]
F. W. de Klerk was born on 18 March 1936 in Mayfair, a suburb of Johannesburg.[1] His parents were Johannes "Jan" de Klerk and Hendrina Cornelia Coetzer—"her forefather was a Kutzer who stems from Austria."[2] He was his parents' second son, having a brother, Willem de Klerk, who was eight years his senior.[1] De Klerk's first language was Afrikaans and the earliest of his distant ancestors to arrive in what is now South Africa did so in the late 1680s.[3]
De Klerk had a secure and comfortable upbringing, and his family had played a leading role in Afrikaner society;[4] they had longstanding affiliations with South Africa's National Party.[5] His paternal great-grandfather, Jan van Rooy, had been a Senator, while his paternal grandfather, Willem, had been a clergyman who fought in the Second Boer War[3] and stood twice, unsuccessfully, as a National Party candidate.[6] His paternal aunt's husband was J. G. Strijdom, a former Prime Minister.[7] His own father, Jan de Klerk, was also a senator, served as the secretary of the National Party in Transvaal, president of the senate for seven years, acting state president, and as a member of the country's cabinet for fifteen years under three prime ministers.[8] In this environment, de Klerk was exposed to politics from childhood.[9] He and family members would be encouraged to hold family debates; his more conservative opinions would be challenged by his brother Willem, who was sympathetic to the more liberal, "enlightened" faction of the National Party.[1] Willem became a political analyst and later split from the National Party to found the liberal Democratic Party.[10]
The name "de Klerk" is derived from Le Clerc, Le Clercq and De Clercq, and is of French Huguenot origin[11] (meaning "clergyman" or "literate" in old French). De Klerk noted that he was also of Dutch descent,[12][13] with an Indian ancestor from the late-1690s or early 1700s.[14] He was also said to have been descended from the Khoi interpreter known as Krotoa or Eva.[15]
When de Klerk was twelve years old, the apartheid system was officially institutionalised by the South African government;[16] his father had been one of its originators.[17] He therefore was, according to his brother, "one of a generation that grew up with the concept of apartheid".[16] He was inculturated in the norms and values of Afrikaner society, including festivals like Kruger Day, loyalty to the Afrikaner nation, and stories of the "age of injustice" that the Afrikaner faced under the British.[4] He was brought up in the Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest and most socially conservative of South Africa's three Dutch Reformed Churches.[18]
The de Klerk family moved around South Africa during his childhood, and he changed schools seven times over seven years.[1] He eventually became a boarder at the Hoërskool Monument (Monument High School) in Krugersdorp, where he graduated with a first-class pass in 1953.[1] He was nevertheless disappointed not to get the four distinctions he was hoping for.[1]
University and legal career[edit]
Between 1954 and 1958, de Klerk studied at Potchefstroom University, graduating with both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law.[19][10] He later noted that during this legal training, he "became accustomed to thinking in terms of legal principles".[20] While studying there, he became editor of the student newspaper, vice-chair of the student council, and a member of the Afrikaanse Studentebond's (a large South African youth movement) national executive council.[19] At university, he was initiated into the Broederbond, a secret society for the Afrikaner social elite.[21] As a student, he played both tennis and hockey and was known as "something of a ladies' man".[19] At the university, he began a relationship with Marike Willemse, the daughter of a professor at the University of Pretoria.[22] The couple married in 1959, when de Klerk was 23 and his wife was 22.[23]
After university, de Klerk pursued a legal career, becoming an articled clerk with the firm Pelser in Klerksdorp.[19] Relocating to Pretoria, he became an articled clerk for another law firm, Mac-Robert.[24]
In 1962, he set up his own law partnership in Vereeniging, Transvaal, which he built into a successful business over ten years.[24]
During this period, he involved himself in a range of other activities. He was the national chair of the Junior Rapportryers for two years, and chair of the Law Society of Vaal Triangle.[24] He was also on the council of the local technikon, on the council of his church, and on a local school board.[24]
Early political career[edit]
In 1972, his alma mater offered him a chair in its law faculty, which he accepted.[25] Within a matter of days he was also approached by members of the National Party, who requested that he stand for the party at Vereeniging. De Klerk's candidature was successful and in November he was elected to the House of Assembly.[24] There, he established a reputation as a formidable debater.[24] He took on a number of roles in the party and government. He became the information officer of the Transvaal National Party, responsible for its propaganda output,[26] and helped to establish a new National Party youth movement.[26] He joined various party parliamentary study groups, including those on the Bantustans, labour, justice, and home affairs.[26] As a member of various parliamentary groups, de Klerk went on several foreign visits, to Israel, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[26] It was in the latter in 1976 that he observed what he later described as the pervasive racism of US society, later noting that he "saw more racial incidents in one month there than in South Africa in a year".[27] In South Africa, de Klerk also played a senior role in two select committees, one formulating a policy on opening hotels to non-Whites and the other formulating a new censorship law that was less strict than the one that had preceded it.[26]
In 1975, Prime Minister John Vorster predicted that de Klerk would one day become leader of South Africa.[28] Vorster planned to promote de Klerk to the position of a deputy minister in January 1976, but instead the job went to Andries Treurnicht.[28] In April 1978, de Klerk was promoted to the position of Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions.[28] In this role, he restored full autonomy to sporting control bodies which had for a time been under the jurisdiction of the government.[28] As minister of Post and Telecommunications, he finalised contracts that oversaw the electrification of that sector.[28] As Minister of Mining, he formalised a policy on coal exports and the structuring of Eskom and the Atomic Energy Corporation.[28] He then became Minister of the Interior, he oversaw the repeal of the Mixed Marriages Act.[28]
In 1981, de Klerk was awarded the Decoration for Meritorious Service for his work in the government.[29] As education minister between 1984 and 1989, he upheld the apartheid system in South Africa's schools,[21] and extended the department to cover all racial groups.[28]
For most of his career, de Klerk had a very conservative reputation,[30] and was seen as someone who would obstruct change in South Africa.[31] He had been a forceful proponent of apartheid's system of racial segregation and was perceived as an advocate of the white minority's interests.[32] While serving under P. W. Botha's government, de Klerk was never part of Botha's inner circle.[29]
Personality and personal life[edit]
Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk's "political choices were undergirded by self-confidence and commitment to the common good."[132] His brother Willem stated that de Klerk's demeanour was marked by "soberness, humility and calm",[133] that he was an honest, intelligent, and open-minded individual,[134] and that he had a "natural cordiality" and a "solid sense of courtesy and good manners".[135] He felt that de Klerk's "charisma" came not from an "exceptionally strong individualism" but from "his rationality, logic and balance".[136] He was, according to de Klerk, "a man of compromise rather than a political innovator or entrepreneur".[137]
Willem stated that "he keeps an ear to the ground and is sensitive to the slightest tremors", and that it was this which made him "a superb politician".[138] Willem also stated that his brother was "a team-man who consults others, takes them into his confidence, honestly shares information with his colleagues, and has a knack of making people feel importance and at peace".[135]
His former wife Marike described de Klerk as being "extremely sensitive to beautiful things", exhibiting something akin to an artistic temperament.[10]
Willem also noted that "in the most profound sense", de Klerk was driven by his concern for Afrikanerdom and "the survival of his own people in their fatherland".[4] De Klerk was deeply upset that many Afrikaners did not realise that his reforms to dismantle apartheid were carried out with the intention of preserving a future for the Afrikaner people in South Africa.[139]
With Marike, de Klerk had three children: Susan, who became a teacher, Jan, who became a farmer in Western Transvaal, and Willem, who went into public relations.[140] Willem stated that de Klerk had a close relationship with his children,[23] and that he was "a loving man who hugs and cuddles".[141]
De Klerk was a heavy smoker but gave up smoking towards the end of 2005.[142] He also enjoyed a glass of whisky or wine while relaxing.[143] He enjoyed playing golf and hunting, as well as going for brisk walks.[143]
De Klerk's Nobel Prize medal was stolen from his home in November 2022.[144]
Reception and legacy[edit]
Glad and Blanton stated that de Klerk, along with Mandela, "accomplished the rare feat of bringing about systemic revolution through peaceful means."[145] His brother noted that de Klerk's role in South African history was "to dismantle more than three centuries of white supremacy", and that in doing so his was "not a role of white surrender, but a role of white conversion to a new role" in society.[146]
In September 1990, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education awarded de Klerk an honorary doctorate.[29]
South Africa's Conservative Party came to regard him as its most hated adversary.[34]
De Klerk was Africa's last White President until Guy Scott become caretaker President of Zambia from 2014 to 2015.[147]