Knowing Mandela by John Carlin

Author:John Carlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062323958
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

In May 1994, Mandela was inaugurated as president, and a new parliament was opened that reflected the entire rainbow spectrum of races and religions in South Africa; two-thirds of the parliamentarians belonging to the ANC. Viljoen managed to win a seat, too, his party having picked up, he said, a third of the Afrikaner vote.

I was there at the opening of parliament, and I remember Mandela walking into the packed multicolored chamber where only gray-faced white men in suits had sat before. I noticed that Viljoen, standing at ground level, was staring at Mandela, transfixed.

Sitting with him in the hamburger bar in Camps Bay twelve years later, I suggested that the expression I saw on his face that morning evinced deep respect and affection. Uncomfortable, he answered with a curt, “Yes, that would be correct,” but then he warmed to the theme. “Mandela came in and he saw me and he came across the floor to me, which he was not really supposed to do according to parliamentary protocol. He shook my hand and he had a big smile on his face and said how happy he was to see me there.”

Then, and only then, for the first and last time in our meeting, Viljoen smiled. He had remembered something. “Suddenly, as we were shaking hands, a black voice from high up in the gallery shouted, ‘Give him a hug, general!’ ” I was almost afraid to ask what he did.

“I am a military man and he was my president,” the general answered, “I shook his hand and I stood to attention.”

On the short drive back to his beach residence, I reflected on how different my perception of the general was from the time I first came across him at that night of the Afrikaner rally in Potchefstroom. He was, I had discovered, what de Klerk had been for Mandela on the day after his release: a man of integrity. He had been fixed in his ideas most of his life, but had had the moral courage to adapt and allow himself to change his mind. I asked him what he was doing now. He said he had quit politics five years earlier and gone back to his farm, the one he had left when he answered the call to lead his people to war in May 1993. Had he seen Mandela recently? “I saw him many times when he was president. His door was always open to me to discuss matters regarding the welfare of the Afrikaner. And I did see him again after I left politics. But I have not seen him recently because of reports that he is not in good health.”

Would he like to see him again? We were about to shake hands and say good-bye. He permitted himself a small glimmer of emotion. “Yes, I would,” he replied. “I would love to see him, though I do not wish to impose. But, yes, yes. I would love to see him again. He is the greatest of men.

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