Word: klerk
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...Klerk has one enormous advantage over his predecessors: he is an inheritor, not a creator, of the system. His is the first generation of Afrikaner leaders who did not fight to impose apartheid in 1948. He also has had more intellectual contact with the outside world than his insular elders. "De Klerk," says a Western diplomat, "is younger-minded, more in the pragmatic mold than the ideological generation of Afrikaner politicians." Still, it was only after his surprise selection to succeed P.W. Botha -- De Klerk was the choice of the conservative Old Guard -- that he began to exhibit much willingness...
Unlike Botha, who always brandished a metaphorical swagger stick, De Klerk is not a creature of the powerful South African security establishment. Botha relied on the threat of military power and ironfisted retaliation, but De Klerk stands for law. In an action both symbolic and concrete, President de Klerk quickly dismantled the shadowy National Security Management System, which controlled the black townships, and downgraded the State Security Council. "The most important thing about De Klerk," says a senior Western diplomat, "is that he is a civilian. He believes in civilian control and getting away from the junta way of doing...
...most obvious contrast between F.W. and P.W. is temperament, not ideology. Die Groot Krokodil -- the Great Crocodile -- as Botha was not so affectionately called, was an irascible and imperious man who listened less as he grew older. De Klerk is an amiable fellow who prefers consensus to dogmatic, one-man rule. He has restored the Cabinet to the role of the premier policymaking body, and he has held more Cabinet sessions in five months than Botha did in his final two years. More refined than the boorish Botha, De Klerk has done away with some of the trappings of autocracy...
Some black antiapartheid leaders, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, find De Klerk a man they might be able to do business with. "He does appear to be someone who does hear," said Tutu in an interview with TIME. Tutu offered an example from a meeting between black church leaders and the President last fall: "De Klerk said, 'The purpose of government is the establishment of law- and-order.' And others said, 'No, in our religious tradition, which you and I share, the purpose of government is the establishment of justice.' De Klerk replied, 'You are right.' P.W. Botha would never...
Since taking office, De Klerk has often spoken of a "new South Africa." The shape of that new nation is still -- deliberately -- undefined. But one phrase is firmly inked in: "group rights," De Klerk's code name for the preservation of white privilege. In South Africa, when whites talk about "minority rights" they mean the protection of white power and wealth, and when they refer to "the tyranny of the majority" they mean black rule. De Klerk's so-called multiracial state does not denote racial integration but a system in which each race will have its own rights...