How should South Africa remember the founders of apartheid?

1On the afternoon of September 6th, 966, Forward, the founder of apartheid, took a seat in front of the South African all-white parliament. His white hair was neatly combed to one side and he stood confidently. The 64-year-old Wellward is a proud white South African who established the apartheid system in South Africa on a stone. When the bell rang, he listened to the congressmen's request to go to the conference hall.

This is a day that South Africans have been remembering for decades. At 2: 25, a parliamentary messenger suddenly rushed into the conference room. Put on his official uniform, he must be rarely noticed. But later the Courier described it as "a tall, strong white-haired man in his forties"-he took out a knife and stabbed Wewald four times in the chest and neck. The prime minister collapsed to the ground and blood gushed from him. When Dainville Wald's colleagues pinned the assassin, a half-Greek and half-black psychopath, the carpet was covered with blood. Wilward died before he got to the hospital.

250,000 South Africans attended his funeral, most of them white. The architect is dead, but his policy is not dead; The system Wilward helped build will continue to conquer black South Africans for nearly 30 years.

In the 50 years after the assassination of H.F. Wilwald, his reputation as a white hero in South Africa has been completely eroded, so that he has even become a symbol of racism and atrocities. At the same time, his assassin remains a mystery-some people condemn it, some celebrate it, and some simply ignore it. He was declared mentally unfit to stand trial, in part because he strangely talked about a tapeworm that should guide his actions. Tsafendas will eventually survive apartheid, but he will die in prison as the longest-serving prisoner in South Africa. Tracing the heritage of these two people today is to trace the fault line that still runs through South African society. Among black people in South Africa

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Even the name Wilwood will cause anger. As an anti-apartheid journalist, Normanda Mathien has worked for decades. He said, "I still remember what Wilwood did to us. She remembers that in the high school of 1960, her teacher announced that Wilward had been shot in an attempted assassination earlier. The whole class burst into warm applause.

Mathien tried to explain how powerful Wilwald was. For example, once she sold him to Hitler. "We were glad he died," she recalled.

Verwoard's fame began with a special legislation of Bantu Education Law passed in 1953. Just like the Jim Crow Act of the United States, this bill protects the privileges of white South Africans at the expense of colored people. It forced millions of black South Africans (known as "Bantu" by apartheid) to attend independent and obviously unequal schools. "Bantu people must be guided to serve their communities in all aspects," Wilward said in June 1954. "His position in the European Community cannot exceed the level of some forms of labor. However, in his own community, all the doors were open, and these memories deeply angered Mathien. She said: "After white people occupied this land and white people in South Africa made us poor, the only way to get rid of poverty is through education. "."He put forward the idea that we should receive inferior education. "

Foward became prime minister in 1958. During his term of office, apartheid will only worsen. Action against apartheid was forbidden. By using earlier laws, such as 1950 group area law and 1953 single facility reservation law, Verwoard helped his education policy to expand to the layout of cities and states. The philosophy of "great apartheid" was used to defend the forced migration of millions of non-white South Africans.

What South Africans don't agree with is whether Wilward is worth it, and whether Smith and his assassins deserve our respect. Half a century after the assassination, two recent articles in the Sunday Times show that there is still room for debate. "There is no place for heroes in the story of Forward and Tefendas," read one headline. "Is the murderer of Hendrick Wilwood a freedom fighter? Another student asked:

"I think in some ways, he should be regarded as some kind of hero," said Tobeka Nkabinde, a student at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She added: "Hendrick Wevold is a bad man, a bad man, and his death is only a good thing in my opinion." . Harris Dousemetzis, a researcher at Durham University, even described Tefendas as a political assassin with a strong sense of self. He may not have acted alone.

One reason why this story still carries weight today is that Wilward's psychological traces are caused by his body in a place like Cape Town, which is famous for its apartheid. "In South Africa, when you drive into a town, you will see a region dominated by whites, a region dominated by blacks, and then a region dominated by colored people," Nkabinde said in South African mixed-race terms. "The white area is the richest."

The entrance to the apartheid museum in Johannesburg. The ticket you bought shows your color, so your ticket is an effective entrance. You will probably leave your team, but don't worry, you will rejoin later. Last year, Nkabinde joined the emerging "decolonization" movement sweeping the country. Just as American activists and legislators tried to overthrow or support Confederate monuments, South African activists tried to deprive colonialists of plaques, statues and place names. For her first generation of college students, this history is very personal. Encanbinder and her classmates asked to remove a plaque of Wellward; In response to their efforts, it was demolished, and so was the statue of cecil john rhodes, the mining giant of the University of Cape Town. ***

For a long time, South African whites looked at Verrod from a completely different perspective from blacks. Others are still named after him, including the famous politician Melanie Verwoed, who adopted this surname through marriage (her ex-husband is the grandson of H.F.verwoard). "Generally speaking, if you talk to white South Africans, they will be impressed that you are an educated person." Her own family thought he was a smart and effective leader, and it took her many years to deny this view.

"When you have a surname like Wilward in South Africa, you always get a response," she said. When Melanie Wilwood entered the country from abroad, the border guards frowned. It was helpful when she explained that she opposed the late apartheid and belonged to the same political party as nelson mandela. But her surname is too heavy to be easily ignored. "Sometimes, when I say that I am a good person, I am jokingly told that there is no such thing."

Only a small number of South Africans stubbornly believe that H.F.verwoard is a good man. I called his grandson Winander Boshof, who once lived in "White Home" in Orania, a remote town where South African nationalists lived. Bochow claims that without Wellward, "our blacks today would be much less educated", although South Africans and historians generally agree to the contrary. "As the ruler of South Africa, he did not cause any additional harm to the whole conflict of African civilizations," Bochow added. When asked if he thought Wilwood's apartheid thought was a good idea at that time, he said yes.

White Nationalists Despite this, Wilward's status as a symbol of evil is unlikely to change soon. His name is now synonymous with injustice; In parliament, compared with Wilward, he accused politicians of waving daggers at each other. Well, Melanie Weaver said, it's a good thing to a great extent. "Sometimes a person, a policy or an action can be blamed, which is helpful. It certainly unites people.

At the same time, the oppression system can rarely be summarized by individual illegal acts, and the concept of "evil planner" seems to be more suitable for ic books than history books. Just as nelson mandela became the focus of liberation stories, Wilward also became the focus of injustice stories-the darkness of measuring mistakes. Rarely have his collaborators and successors been so warmly condemned.

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The symbol comes from the apartheid era in South Africa (through the public domain of Wikipedia) 1994. In the year when apartheid finally collapsed, the anti-apartheid political party ANC, or African National Congress, held a meeting in the same hall of the old South African Parliament. Dimitri Chafendas assassinated H.F.Verwoard and recently won a parliament. So are the heroes of the liberation struggle: Nelson and Winnie mandela, Walter and albertina sisulu, Thabo Mbeki.

"Everyone is standing on these stools. On these stools, all these terrible apartheid laws were made here. The ANC was banned and nelson mandela was demonized, "Melanie Wilward recalled. Mandela, who is about to become the South African president, sang nkosi Cirkel's "God of Africa", and many people cried while sitting.

Our history was almost within our reach that day. Melanie recalled: "Mandela was sitting on a bench where Wilward was assassinated many years ago." In fact, there is still a stain on the carpet. They never changed it. Wilwood's blood was spilled there. "

When freedom came to South Africa, the present did not replace the past, it just added a new layer to the past. This is a country that refuses to forget. Reporter Mathien said: "We have shed so much blood in this country in order to finally get Mandela to sit in the chair." . Speaking of Wellward, she said, "You can't sweep such a person under the carpet. People must understand him and write about him. Because if we don't say these words, people will forget and more disasters will happen.

"But I must say, despite this, we survived," Mathien added, as if pushing the memory of Wellward into the shadow, where it should be. "We survived."

Editor's note, 2065438+September 22, 2006: This article originally quoted verwoard's words, but later it was found to be inaccurate. 1in June, 954, Wilward read a statement in front of the parliament and replaced it.