"Getting rid of the blood" A caring conversation with Wilhelm Verwoerd

Описание: "Oupa Hendrik's blood in my veins.
Dr Verwoerd's sanctified, sacrificial lifeblood.
Apartheid blood on the hands of Verwoerd.
A decades worth of peace work in other countries has prepared me to face these facts full-on now".

Words from Wilhelm Verwoerd's deeply moving book "Bloedbande: 'n donker tuiskoms" (Blood ties: A dark homecoming, but titled in English "Verwoerd: My journey through family betrayals").

In preparation for this caring conversation I spent time in Orania the controversial Afrikaner 'Volkstaat' as well as with Wilhelm's neighbours at Lynedoch Eco-Village, near Stellenbosch.

What a contrast!

Both are "intentional communities" committed to ecological sustainability.

Both communities have a Verwoerd in their midst.

One has a granite bust of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, who is affectionately memorialised by the residents as a martyr for the cause of White Afrikaner self-determination.

The other has his grandson Wilhelm Verwoerd, as a valued member of a racially and culturally diverse community.

Ironically Wilhelm managed to straddle the divide between them because of the loving, reconciling encouragement of his Black Christian friends, colleagues and neighbours.

He explains how this happened.

If a Verwoerd can manage to enter into the abyss of death and rebirth of his identity as a historically privileged South African, the rest of us can and must do the same, especially those of us who want to follow the biblical teaching and example of Jesus of Nazareth.