Oftentimes I had the honour to sit over a cup of Rooibos tea with former Apartheid Minister Adriaan Vlok.
Our rendezvous has always been at the summit — so to speak — of the majestic Voortrekker Monument.
My first encounter with the now born-again Christian was when we sat down to talk about his memories of certain historical moments.
One of those striking moments was when in Adriaan’s boyhood, his dad took him along to a meeting of the Sir de Villiers Graaff-founded United Party, in the Karoo farmlands of Sutherland.
The meeting went fairly well until a mob of National Party militants invaded the place armed with cowhide whips.
The somewhat liberal United Party members — Adriaan and his father among them — were forced to show the radical Nationalists a clean pair of heels to escape the potential of a “broekskeur” treatment.
But then, like good wine, in years to come my good ol’ buddy Adriaan matured with the times, and joined the ranks of the Nationalists under the auspices of John Vorster and other stalwarts such as “Die Groot Krokodil”, PW Botha.
At the demise of Apartheid, Adriaan made a complete about-turn by, among others, washing the feet of ANC stalwart, the Reverend Frank Chikane, as a gesture of apology for the oppression of one race over the other.
My close encounters with this sort of untold South African stories did not end there.
A few years ago, the Mail & Guardian newspaper commissioned me to Ventersdorp to capture the irony of the reburial of the remains of SACP stalwart, JB Marks, from Moscow to just a short distance from the farm where Eugene Terreblanche was laid to rest.
Then there was the moment when my editor at the Pretoria News dispatched me — the nervous black journalist — to attend the funeral of the leader of the Conservative Party Dr Andries Treurnicht.
The purpose here was to speak to the handful of blacks among the mourners, who included the grey-suited office messenger, the gardener and a tearful family domestic servant.
Against this background, there has been much discourse in the townships about the stunning electoral performance of the Freedom Front Plus.
My circle of friends dissected this development, and came to the conclusion that the people who voted “Slaan Terug” (Fight Back) were not longing for the good ol’ days of a “volkstaat”.
The Freedom Front Plus voters — my friends all agreed — were the kind of people who were worried about the racial polarisation of the national discourse, who were driven to find space within a community of shared values.
And not necessarily retreated into the “laager”, please!
