cover image The Last Trek-A New Beginning: The Autobiography

The Last Trek-A New Beginning: The Autobiography

F. W. De Klerk. St. Martin's Press, $35 (432pp) ISBN 978-0-312-22310-6

Although this memoir contains far more political blow-by-blow than personal revelation, it will reward close reading. De Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993, puts himself forward as a sincere but initially unimaginative fellow, a man who imbibed Afrikaner nationalism and couldn't even conceive of a South Africa without apartheid, which he presents as a product of his times. But most readers will quickly gather that de Klerk is spinning an alternate history: he claims that the apartheid government spent big sums to do justice to all South Africans, argues that sanctions delayed change more than hastened it and downplays police responsibility for the watershed Soweto riots. As a cabinet minister during the 1980s, de Klerk was not encouraged to question the security forces and even now distances himself from the murder and torture committed on his watch. As for the far-reaching reforms he proposed in 1990, including the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the African National Congress, de Klerk writes that they grew not from a conversion experience but from sober analysis. He wrings little drama from this magnificent, calculated gamble. In the book's second half, devoted to the ensuing negotiations about the shape of post-apartheid South Africa, de Klerk presents a highly negative portrait of Nelson Mandela, who criticized de Klerk regularly for the government contribution to the violence, even at the Nobel ceremony. De Klerk does convey that the saintly Mandela has his petty side, and that the ANC's revolutionary rhetoric has not served it well. But he will convince few with his contention that neither side during South Africa's epic conflict held moral superiority. He serves his legacy best when articulating his goals of better government and economic growth, and his hope that party politics will be based on values, not race. Photos. (June)