Article: Outrage after FW de Klerk CNN interview

Social networking site Twitter was abuzz on Friday morning following comments made by former president FW de Klerk during a CNN interview.

"Can't sleep after FW De Klerk interview on CNN. Counting to 10 isn't helping. Justifying apartheid in 2012? and apparently homelands were great!" Talk Radio 702 host Redi Tlhabi wrote on Thursday night.
 
Redi Thlabi is an idiot, irrespective of what De Klerk said, or didn't say.

Can't take anything that she says seriously.
 
Jola said:
Redi Thlabi is an idiot, irrespective of what De Klerk said, or didn't say.

Can't take anything that she says seriously.
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But this is about De Klerk's utterances on CNN and a general reaction to it (from more than just Redi). Why do you want to divert the spotlight to Redi?
 
JungleBoy said:
But this is about De Klerk's utterances on CNN and a general reaction to it (from more than just Redi). Why do you want to divert the spotlight to Redi?
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It would be helpful if we could read the full interview to understand what was said.
 
Where is the full text of the Interview?

Just from what I read in the article it appears he has been grossly quoted out of context.
 
JungleBoy said:
But this is about De Klerk's utterances on CNN and a general reaction to it (from more than just Redi). Why do you want to divert the spotlight to Redi?
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I didn't bring her into this discussion, just trying to get her out, ie to go back to the topic.

BTW De Klerk is correct in his statement that many civil wars have been fought by population groups trying to attain "homeland" (and independence) status, the example that he mentions is just one of many.
 
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"FW De Klerk says he 'was good friends with Madiba'. I don't want to be friends with him if he's gonna stick his friends on Robben Island," @f__kyeahbryan tweeted.
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The Education Department has failed :wtf:
 
Garyvdh said:
Where is the full text of the Interview?

Just from what I read in the article it appears he has been grossly quoted out of context.
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http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/10/de-klerk-no-animosity-with-mandela/

F.W. de Klerk, the last leader of white South Africa, who joined with Nelson Mandela to bring an end to apartheid and shared a Nobel Peace Prize for their achievement, was recently interviewed at a summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago and appeared on Thursday’s Amanpour.

So I’m a Convert

It was noted that Mandela had once called de Klerk “a man of integrity” but had taken it back, regretting that de Klerk had never renounced the principle of apartheid.

De Klerk responded: “Well, let me first say I’m not aware that Mr. Mandela says I’ve never renounced apartheid.” He then said, “I have made the most profound apology in front of the Truth Commission and on other occasions about the injustices which were wrought by apartheid.”

But then he added: “What I haven’t apologized for is the original concept of seeking to bring justice to all South Africans through the concept of nation states (essentially creating two separate states, one black and one white).”

“But in South Africa it failed,” he said. “And by the end of the ‘70’s, we had to realize, and accept and admit to ourselves that it had failed. And that is when fundamental reform started.”

He was then asked if apartheid failed because it was unworkable, or because it was simply morally repugnant.

“There are three reasons it (apartheid) failed,” he said. “It failed because the whites wanted to keep too much land for themselves. It failed because we (whites and blacks) became economically integrated, and it failed because the majority of blacks said that is not how we want our rights.”


Still, De Klerk would not back off his belief in the validity of the original concept of “separate but equal” nation states.

“There is this picture that apartheid was…used to be compared to Nazism,” said de Klerk. “It’s wrong, and on that, I don’t apologize for saying that what drove me as a young man, before I decided we need to embrace a new vision, was a quest to bring justice for black South Africans in a way which would not – that’s what I believed then – destroyed the justice to which my people were entitled.”

“That’s how I was brought up,” said de Klerk. “And it was in an era when also in America and elsewhere, and across the continent of Africa, there was still not this realization that we are trampling upon the human rights of people. So I’m a convert.”

Eleven official languages

Again, he was asked if he wanted to take the opportunity to say that apartheid was, in retrospect, morally repugnant.

“I can only say in a qualified way,” said de Klerk. “Inasmuch as it trampled human right, it was – and remains – and that I’ve said also publicly, morally reprehensible.” He added, “But the concept of giving as the Czechs have it and the Slovaks have it, of saying that ethnic unities with one culture, with one language, can be happy and can fulfill their democratic aspirations in an own state, that is not repugnant.”

“With the advantage of hindsight,” said de Klerk, “we should have started the reform much earlier…But the intention was to end at a point which would ensure justice for all. And the tipping point in my mind was when I realized… we need to abandon the concept of separateness. And we need to build a new nation with its eleven official languages, accommodating its diversity, but taking hands and moving forward together.”

We call each other on birthdays

Mandela, will turn ninety in July and de Klerk was asked if they were friends.

“Actually, we’re close friends,” said de Klerk. “Not the closest in the sense that we see each other once a week. Also, we live apart. But he’s been in my home as a guest; I’ve been in his home as a guest. When I go to Johannesburg, my wife and I have had tea with him and Graca, his wife.”

“We call each other on birthdays,” he said. “There is no animosity left between us.” But then he added: “Historically, there was.”
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There's a video of what I assume is the interview if you follow the link. I'm blocked at work though.
 
I honestly don't see what the big deal is but I do see Redi's tweet about developing acute insomnia as a result of De Klerks opinion quite laughable.

Does she honestly give a stuff about what FW De Klerk has to say, 20 years after democracy.
 
Still, De Klerk would not back off his belief in the validity of the original concept of “separate but equal” nation states.
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Theres another a$$ that bleets out the same trash.
Sorry FW, you have lost my respect.
 
Haldex said:
Theres another a$$ that bleets out the same trash.
Sorry FW, you have lost my respect.
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What he does not seem to understand is that people do not want to be forced to be seperate. People have a right to live together in a country and be integrated as a nation. If you infringe on that right, it becomes a problem.
 
blunomore said:
What he does not seem to understand is that people do not want to be forced to be seperate. People have a right to live together in a country and be integrated as a nation. If you infringe on that right, it becomes a problem.
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But many populations also insist on the right not to be integrated and to be separate, as in the examples that he quoted.

And you may get different views in the same population.

This issue is not as simple as you try to make it out, many civil wars have been fought, and millions killed, over the right to be separate.

Just look at Scotland, there is still a strong faction that wants Scotland to be independent and separate.
 
blunomore said:
What he does not seem to understand is that people do not want to be forced to be seperate. People have a right to live together in a country and be integrated as a nation. If you infringe on that right, it becomes a problem.
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Exactly, the word Seperate and Apartheid are one in the same...
Hope to see if he was baited into saying that or he still believes it.
 
Haldex said:
Theres another a$$ that bleets out the same trash.
Sorry FW, you have lost my respect.
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Why? Sudan divided into two countries and the rest of the world is not crying about it.

The concept of division is not wrong, it's about how you go about to achieve it where the problem lies.
 
VJB 449 said:
Why? Sudan divided into two countries and the rest of the world is not crying about it.

The concept of division is not wrong, it's about how you go about to achieve it where the problem lies.
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Exactly, under different circumstances, eg the non-arrival of whites in Africa, the indigenous populations might have preferred to live in independent entities not dissimilar to the homelands.
 
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