It was difficult not to feel a tinge of sorrow for Johan Marais after hearing that the judge had sentenced him to 15 years in prison for his role in the cold-blooded murder of Daveyton student activist Caiphus Nyoka.
Not because Marais was undeserving of punishment, but because his conviction once more reveals the incomplete process of dealing with apartheid’s crimes. As judge Mokhine Mosopa rightly observed, Marais’ political masters were not in the dock. That is the bitter irony of post-apartheid justice, where only the foot soldiers of apartheid terror are made to answer for their brutality while the architects, those who issued the orders from the comfort of their air-conditioned political offices, remain shielded from accountability.
True justice demands more than symbolic prosecutions — it calls for the full unmasking and accountability of the system's enablers, beneficiaries and ideological engineers.
Leaders such as FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, remained defiant to the end, refusing to fully acknowledge or take responsibility for their role in the oppression of African people.
In 2020, de Klerk shockingly told the SABC that apartheid was not a crime against humanity. As if this statement wasn’t inflammatory enough, his foundation, which states on its website that it “works for reconciliation, mutual understanding and national unity”, doubled down by issuing a statement claiming that “deplorable as it is, we cannot, from a legal point of view, accept that apartheid can in this manner be made a crime against humanity”.
Such remarks are not only an affront to history and justice, and undermine the gravity of apartheid’s legacy, but fundamentally go against the very principles the foundation says it stands for.
A simple Google search would have revealed that the UN General Assembly in 1966 first declared apartheid a crime against humanity in recognition of apartheid’s systematic racial discrimination. Alas, the latter-day champions of reconciliation and national unity opted for a rather bizarre legalistic approach to an issue as grave as apartheid.
In this context, all we have witnessed in recent years in dealing with the painful legacy of apartheid are charges primarily being brought against former apartheid-era police officers rather than senior politicians. Marais is a case in point.
So how should we understand the almost callous disdain with which apartheid leaders treated the victims of their racist oppressive regime? This is a question that South Africans must confront if the lofty ideals of defending the constitution, advancing reconciliation, fostering mutual understanding and building genuine national unity are to be more than hollow rhetoric.
It is now clear that until such time that the system that anchors and perpetuates racism is fundamentally challenged and dismantled, such attitudes towards black people will persist
We must be honest in addressing our past and refuse to allow impunity to masquerade as peace. In an environment where there was never a genuine acknowledgment from top apartheid leaders that apartheid was morally indefensible, how do we even sit around the same table in the name of a national dialogue?
Many white South Africans, whose elevated standards of living were built on the backs of black labour, now claim they never supported apartheid. Yet, when policies such as black economic empowerment are introduced to redress historical injustices, some of them are the first to voice opposition.
While apartheid was declared a crime against humanity by the UN, no one has been held accountable for the human rights abuses and violence inflicted on its victims. Although Nelson Mandela defended some former apartheid leaders — for example, telling journalist John Pilger in 1998 that figures such as Roelf Meyer and institutions such as the Dutch Reformed Church had publicly apologised — the reality remains that no one has truly taken responsibility for apartheid’s atrocities.
The Dutch Reformed Church, which had long supported apartheid, participated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process and eventually admitted that apartheid was a “sin”. However, despite this admission, such institutions have remained conspicuously silent on critical issues such as reparations for the victims of apartheid.
A common refrain from some of our white compatriots is to tell black people to “move on”, dismissing apartheid as a relic of decades past. Such remarks trivialise the lasting effects of systemic oppression on Africans, who continue to face global racism and are often treated as second-class citizens.
This perspective is in stark contrast to how other historical injustices are treated. For example, it would be inconceivable for Germans to tell Jewish people to “move on” from the Holocaust.
Unlike apartheid’s victims, Holocaust survivors have seen meaningful reparations. Germany is reported to have made reparations totalling approximately €82bn (R1.7-trillion) as of 2022. Each year, around €1.44bn is allocated from the federal budget to cover pensions and care costs for victims of Nazi persecution, many of whom now live in Israel.
The attitude towards the victims of apartheid is disappointing. It is now clear that until such time that the system that anchors and perpetuates racism is fundamentally challenged and dismantled, such attitudes towards black people will persist.
Efforts to secure reparations, while notable, have fallen short. For example, the Khulumani Support Group, established in 1996, sought to represent and support more than 100,000 victims of apartheid crimes and their families. The TRC was tasked with identifying and compensating eligible victims and their families. Initially, the TRC listed around 21,000 victims, later reduced to 17,000, deemed eligible for reparations. However, deep dissatisfaction with the process remains, as many feel that it failed to deal with the broader impact of apartheid.
But how can one begin to measure the cost to families who to this day still search for loved ones who disappeared under apartheid? People sacrificed their lives for our freedom, and no amount of reparations can equate to that.
The lingering wounds demand not only material compensation but also a more profound reckoning with the injustices of the past.
• Radebe is an associate professor in the University of Johannesburg’s department of strategic communication. He is the author of the recently published book Apartheid did not die: South Africa’s unfinished revolution(Inkani Books)
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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