Deep Reconciliation

Wilhelm Verwoerd and his calling to ‘transform apartheid’

- Sue Segar

HIS BIGGEST CALLING THESE DAYS is to work towards bringing about “deep reconciliation” and “transforming apartheid” in South Africa, but there was a time when Wilhelm Verwoerd’s ambition was to become an elite solider in the South African Defence Force and to then go on to become a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church.

“My older brother Dirk was a parabat. It was such an elite thing to do. I wanted to be there too. There was no questioning of the system, no question about going to the army.”

Now 55, the grandson of apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd, has taken it upon himself, following an epiphany as a student, to atone for his grandfather’s legacy and to dedicate his life to doing what he calls “white work” with a view to achieving “deep reconciliation” among South Africans.

Wilhelm’s recently released memoir Verwoerd – My Journey through Family Betrayals tells the story.

The mission of this third-generation Verwoerd has led to a virtual estrangement from his father – also Wilhelm, a retired geologist and the eldest of Hendrik Verwoerd’s seven children – who has accused him of being a traitor to the Afrikaner people and to his grandfather.

Other renowned family members include his cousin, Dr Wynand Boshoff, son of Orania founder Professor Carel Boshoff, who has just become an MP for the Freedom Front Plus.

Interviewed in the Green Café at Stellenbosch University’s Sustainability Institute, Wilhelm Verwoerd opened up to Noseweek about how he tried to make sense of his grandfather’s legacy; how he re-educated himself about South Africa’s history and how he is now determined to do what he can to reconcile black and white South Africans.

White work, he said, means doing the sort of work that his role models, fellow Afrikaners Beyers Naudé and Bram Fischer did.