Memes

I'm South African, I know who F.W de Klerk is. Don't lie about what he did, there's a reason he was unanimously booed while receiving his joint noble peace prize. He didn't help end apartheid, he was forced into a position where it was the only viable option. Pure pragmatism. He was a member of the NP for many years, he willingly joined that organisation at the height of apartheid in 1972. If he was actually interested in ending fighting apartheid, he would have joined a liberation movement, not the apartheid party.

de Klerk was an apartheid president that was so corrupt he ordered the incineration of evidence of his, and his parties, corruption and crimes against humanity to be carried out by industrial steel smelters. Not to mention what he did with all the "third force" shenanigans towards the end of apartheid that almost caused civil war. It's been revealed that he knew all about it. Or all the racist things he said later in life that revealed his true character, such as refusing to call apartheid a crime against humanity. Yes, I also used to be a liberal that thought de Klerk was a good guy that helped end apartheid, that was until I actually decided to do some research into the matter. Nelson Mandela said it best when it comes to de Klerk:

"Despite his seemingly progressive actions, Mr de Klerk was by no means the great emancipator...He did not make any of his reforms with the intention of putting himself out of power. He made them for precisely the opposite reason: to ensure power for the Afrikaner in a new dispensation."

Yes the ANC is now extremely corrupt, it was effectively couped by corporate interests in the late 90s and early 2000s. Remember the move from RPD to GEAR? Thabo Mbeki and Trevor Manuel? Ramaphosa running away to make money in McDonalds and mining instead of succeeding Mandela? Leaving the door open for Mbeki to become president, a self described Thacherite who instituted austerity measures, underfund Eskom and give South Africa it's first bout of load shedding, and denied that HIV causes AIDS, killing hundreds of thousands in the process? This all paved the way for Zuma's corruption and ineptitude, and for Ramaphosa to come back, even after his shameful involvement in Marikana. Yes the ANC is shamefully corrupt, incompetent and useless, and it's interesting to look at exactly how it got to that position.