Critics have recently written much about the honouring of FW De Klerk with reference to the street renaming process. Many have refuted the notion as he was the last President of an Apartheid state.
The irony is that FW De Klerk along with Nelson Mandela almost certainly prevented South Africa from the precipice of utter and wholesale chaos. For the role that FW De Klerk played he must be given tribute. Many may argue that De Klerk had no option but to capitulate to Nelson Mandela.
Those critics must be reminded that white Afrikaner South Africans had the most powerful army on the African continent under their control. Afrikaners could have reacted much more violently as other minorities have reacted across Africa, the Middle East and Europe when they lost political authority.
Once more, for the part that FW De Klerk played in providing an evolutionary political progress to a new South Africa, his share in history must be chronicled.
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress