WILHELM VERWOERD
Verwoerd:
My Journey
through Family Betrayals
Tafelberg
For my family
“Family is a bond of blood that cannot be broken.” – Tannie Annatjie Boshoff
“It is important that people should know. If the pain from the past is not let out, then it comes out in destructive ways.” – Naledi Mabeba
First letter
Blaas ’n Bietjie, Bettiesbaai
25 January 2014
Dear Oupa Hendrik
Nearly 50 years ago, I was drinking milk in your lap. It’s been almost 50 years since your bloody death. Still, it feels strangely right to write this letter to you now. Where do I begin? Perhaps with why I am sitting here today, in the spacious living-dining room of your holiday home, Blaas ’n Bietjie (Take a Breather).
I recently came back to South Africa after twelve years of overseas peace work. During my time in Ireland and Northern Ireland, I helped to facilitate dialogue between former enemies. We encouraged former combatants to listen deeply to one other’s life stories – despite the bloody past between them, and in the midst of serious ongoing political divisions – and, by doing that, to accept one another as fellow human beings.
Increasingly I wondered whether I would be able to do the same with you. Could I humanise you? Could I try to understand you better without rubbing salt in the wounds of those who suffered and continue to suffer under Dr Verwoerd’s policies? Would it be possible to include you in the humanisation task, considering the raw connection between my family name and most South Africans’ historical dehumanisation?
I am surrounded by you here at your oval dining table. On the wall behind me, in one corner, is a large painting of you fishing in the Vaal River. Next to it, on my right, a small, side-view bust in white marble. On the chest of drawers against the opposite wall, a framed picture of you and Ouma, smiling on the lawn outside on the mountain side of this house. In another corner, you next to a huge seven-foot tuna, the proud fisherman. Above the photo hang the dried tuna tail and the sturdy line and hook you used to catch this fish all by yourself. And there’s this framed photo from the Huisgenoot:
“Oupa and Ouma Verwoerd with their grandchildren, Libertas1, Pretoria, 8 September 1964”.
I’ve looked at this picture often. I can’t remember a thing about that day, nor do I have any later, personal memories of you. I was only two and a half when you were murdered. But I grew up with only positive images of the kind of man you were, Oupa. It was only about 30 years ago that I truly came face-to-face with the unrecognisable image of “Verwoerd – the architect of apartheid”.
This confrontation resulted, Oupa, in a time of intense, inner grappling, a protracted crisis of faith and, eventually, a political distancing from that Verwoerd, though I tried my best to stay loyal to you. But by the early 1990s, I really couldn’t reconcile your policy of separate development with the apartheid experiences of so many fellow South Africans – most of whom who were also fellow Christians.
It became very difficult to be your grandson. Some members of our family, Pa especially, were convinced that I had shamed the Verwoerd family. They experienced my public criticism of your political policies and actions as a betrayal.
I spoke to Ouma at the time. She wanted to know whether I was motivated by my values and my faith. I was able to answer “yes”, sincerely. As far as I could tell, this was enough for her. At least she subsequently never questioned my membership of this family.
Oupa, so many times I have longed to really get to know you. There is an unbridgeable gulf between us. It is difficult to get a reliable sense of who you truly were. If only you’d also kept a diary like Ouma, or written more personal letters, to help me understand your inner life: the questions, the fears, the feelings you grappled with; the joys and dreams you cherished; your faith journey…
I’m cautious to be this honest with you. I am not even sure how to address you. In Afrikaans, out of respect, we address our elders in the third person. “Oupa” comes naturally, and I am reluctant to use the informal “you”. I am your kleinkind 2, but I am also old enough to write to you as one adult to another, with an open-hearted directness that you would hopefully not immediately reject as disrespect towards an elder, an ancestor.
I am not sure how to sign off. “Kind regards” sounds too cold. “Love” feels inappropriate, especially since I am often uncertain of my real feelings towards you. So, let me conclude for now with:
Your kleinkind
Wilhelm
Chapter 1
Blood bath
[The] journey of getting to know someone who was your enemy as a full human being … has been more difficult and more painful because it allows me to see darkness in myself that’s not comfortable to sit with. Everything about me wants to run away from [this] deeper journey. – Alistair Little, Northern Ireland, May 2014
OUMA BETSIE SPENT the last years of her long life in her birth region, the Great Karoo. Her house on a far-off, southern bank of the Orange River was simple: a small living room and kitchen, a dining room, bathroom and a few bedrooms. This building, in the white Afrikaner settlement of Orania, is now the home of the Dr HF Verwoerd Memorial Collection. One room is filled with gifts from traditional “Bantu” leaders to Oupa Hendrik during his term as minister of so-called native affairs (1950-1958). Display cupboards in the corridors and other rooms are filled with other types of gifts and memorabilia.
I was walking through these rooms, past walls hung with photos and paintings, with Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, professor in psychology, who specialises in historical political trauma. Some of the things there brought up childhood memories I shared with her, but mostly we were silent.
Then we find ourselves in front of a display cupboard with the clothes my grandfather had been wearing on the day of his murder.
Besides the old-fashioned, formal work outfit there are familiar pictures of him as prime minister. There are a few walking sticks in the left corner and, at the bottom, his watch, his wallet, a few writing utensils and a copy of the official programme of his state funeral. His shoes are placed next to his neatly folded trousers. The jacket is marked with four red flags where the knife struck. The white shirt doesn’t need any pointers. The blood stains are diluted, but clearly visible.
In the right corner is a line from a speech he gave on the Day of the Covenant in 1958, the year he took up the highest political office: “We are not fighting for money or possessions, we are fighting for the life of a nation.” There’s a newspaper clipping between the jacket and the shirt, including an extract from the official postmortem.
“On 6th September 1966 at 14:14 the dagger of the assassin, Demitrio Tsafendas, stabbed Dr Verwoerd in his parliamentary bench. The blade was 9 cm long. The first stab was in the chest, just left of centre and a bit beneath the throat. The stab was aimed at the heart and reached its target.”3
I was caught off guard by the naked facts. Pictures of the knife and the face of Tsafendas illustrate the article. I was unable to look into the murderer’s eyes, so I looked at the bloodstained shirt again, and shuddered.
I have been aware of a famous grandfather’s premature, violent death from a young age. Even now, Afrikaners from older generations tend to respond to my surname with stories of where they were and how horrified and overwhelmed by grief they were when they heard the news over the radio in the early afternoon on 6 September