ANALYSIS| FW de Klerk: The Last Apartheid President Was Driven By Pragmatism, Not Idealism

CHRISTI VAN DER WESTHUIZEN

FEW recent historical figures in South Africa provoke more divergent views than Frederik Willem (FW) de Klerk. He was president of the country from 1989 to 1994. Some will remember him as the last white South African president who played a primary role in ending the brutal system of apartheid and preventing further bloodshed.

But, many will remember him simply as the last white minority leader to preside over apartheid and the violence that upheld it.

In recognition of his role in the demise of the formal apartheid, De Klerk was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He received it alongside Nelson Mandela, who became South Africa’s first democratic era president a year later. Historians have pointed to the white minority’s unusual capitulation of power, especially when gauged against other settler societies. De Klerk arguably had an important hand in that.

But Mandela’s disparagement of