With the passing of FW de Klerk, the last white president of the abominable apartheid state, we South Africans have once again been forced to reflect on our hideous past. Feelings are divided between those who consider him the hero who dismantled apartheid and released Mandela, and those who think he was a puppet stuck in a corner with no option but to do what he did. At the end of the day, he was the one who uttered these long overdue words in Parliament on 2 February 1990: “The season of violence is over. The time for reconstruction and reconciliation has arrived.”
The last apartheid president: FW de Klerk
The last apartheid president: FW de Klerk
The last apartheid president: FW de Klerk
With the passing of FW de Klerk, the last white president of the abominable apartheid state, we South Africans have once again been forced to reflect on our hideous past. Feelings are divided between those who consider him the hero who dismantled apartheid and released Mandela, and those who think he was a puppet stuck in a corner with no option but to do what he did. At the end of the day, he was the one who uttered these long overdue words in Parliament on 2 February 1990: “The season of violence is over. The time for reconstruction and reconciliation has arrived.”