Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 1 | F.W. DeKlerk An Interview, (low-bandwidth)

F.W. DeKlerk was the president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994. His lifting of the ban on the African National Congress in February 1990 and releasing Nelson Mandela from jail paved the way for the negotiations which led to the end of apartheid and white minority rule. DeKlerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their work towards the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundation for democracy in South Africa. He is interviewed here by Susan King, Carnegie Corporation of New York vice president, public affairs.

Susan King: We’ve reach the ten-year anniversary of—as it’s been described so often—a miracle in South Africa. How do you judge it?

F.W. DeKlerk: If I look back, I think we have achieved most of the goals that were achievable within a short span of ten years, such as the creation of a constitution and the acceptance of that constitution as truly embodying the value system of the nation. As Albie Sachs, one of our constitutional court judges says, our constitution is the autobiography of the nation—of the new South Africa. Our democracy is developing quite satisfactorily. This spring, we had our third general election. The first two went peacefully, and I think the third one was even better.

In one sense, though, ours is not a very healthy democracy. I believe there’s too much power in one party’s hands, and that sometime or another we will have a realignment that will bring us away from ethnically based and racially based politics and towards value-based political parties and value-driven political debates. I hope that will take place. I think only then will we be able to say we have achieved our goal of becoming a truly non-racial democracy, which is embedded in our bill of rights and constitution.

Economically things are going well. We need a much higher growth rate, but in American and European terms, our growth rate of around about three percent in real terms is already quite impressive. I think through the implementation of well-balanced economic policies we have overcome the skepticism that originally existed in the foreign investor community.

SK: But in terms of housing, education, jobs—those have been difficult areas because so much ground needs to be made up?

FWDK: That is the challenge of the next ten years. We’ve done a lot already in housing and in bringing fresh water and electricity to more people. In terms of education, lots of preparatory work has been done. But at the school level, things haven’t changed all that much. There are still good schools that are now fully integrated and multiracial. That’s a great achievement, which happened without much pain, but real improvement in the education provided by the majority of our schools is still to come.

As for unemployment, it’s extremely high. So, poverty is clearly at the root of many of our socioeconomic problems. There are so many children, for example, living in homes where parents can’t even help with the schoolwork because of illiteracy among the older generation.

The F.W. DeKlerk Foundation, which I created in 1999, is focusing its activities in South Africa on trying to make a contribution to assure that we bring everybody onto the playing field with regard to the challenge of socioeconomic transformation—of black empowerment, of affirmative action—in a positive way that draws all the energy in the country into this process rather than becoming a new divisive factor.

SK: Some people would think government is the driver that really moves some of these socioeconomic issues forward. How does a foundation contribute?

FWDK: My foundation does that in two ways. First, by trying to motivate all facets of civil society to be involved. Second, by promoting a constructive dialogue between civil society and the government on transformation issues.

What that means, specifically, is that we bring together a multidisciplinary group—positively oriented people from education, from charitable organizations, from the church, from the private sector—and sit down with government to discuss the burning issues involved in the process of black economic empowerment, affirmative action, strengthening the constitution, etc.

We’ve already had two brainstorming sessions with President Mbeke and I think we have built up trust. Now, we’re preparing for a third meeting where we will propose a joint action plan that draws everybody in with regard to socioeconomic reform.

Next page: The government of South Africa is currently led by the African National Congress (ANC) which, for many years, saw you as the enemy, although perhaps they wouldn’t be where they are if it wasn’t for your leadership in ending apartheid.

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