CHAIRPERSON
Good afternoon, good afternoon, would you please stand for the witnesses to come into the hall. I was not here this morning and therefore on behalf of the Commission I wish to bid you all a hearty welcome here this afternoon. I welcome you - all of you very, very warmly to this session, this hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
We welcome all of you to this hearing of the Truth Commission, [indistinct] session this one because we are going to have for the very first time in the life of the Commission a - a submission by a - a denomination by a church even though it is a section of the church it is a particularly significant moment because that church is the white Dutch Reformed Church. I have already said that they have played a large roll in the history of our country and I believe that they will also make big contribution towards Reconciliation and the healing of our whole country.
[indistinct] what has taken place and - or is going to be taking place, sorry. And hope so very much that others will follow in your footsteps - will follow your example but your own church as you’re nationally will be able to follow your example but that other denominations will follow your example and the spirit which we will be hearing very soon [indistinct] your submission. And I - I would like to ask you who will be making this statement, will you please stand so that we bid - can bid you properly welcome. We will give them a warm hand clap.
MS GOBODO
Would - could the next witnesses come on stage please. Dr Hannes Koorenhof, Dr Bethel Muller and Fred Marais, thank you very much.
DR ORR
Good afternoon gentlemen, I’d like to echo the words of welcome from our Chairperson.
I’ve had a opportunity to meet with - with some of you over the last few week as we’ve been preparing for our hearings in Paarl and we are very grateful for your support in the preparation work and for your presents here today. Will all three of you be giving evidence this afternoon?
Can I ask that you all stand and take the oath then please.
HANNES KOORENHOF Duly sworn states
BETHEL MULLER Duly sworn states
FREDERICK MARAIS Duly sworn states
DR ORR
Thank you very much, Pumla will now facilitate your evidence.
MS GOBODO
Thank you Wendy, welcome again. I believe Dr Koorenhof is going to read your statement. I just want to formally state that you are making a confession on behalf of the Stellenbosch Dutch Reformed Church Circuit and I will hand over to you to give your statement - make your confession.
DR KOORENHOF
Thank you very much, it is my pleasure now to read our statement.
This submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is being made on behalf of the Prespatory of Stellenbosch of the Dutch Reformed Church. I would also like to add what I’ve already said is that we do not pretend that we are doing this presentation on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Only the Synod has this right to do this but what we are doing here this afternoon is the deepest conviction of the Prespatory of Stellenbosch.
As a representative of the Dutch Reformed Church of Stellenbosch, we present this submission Mr Chairman because in our opinion the Truth and Reconciliation Commission can for full an important part in creating in South Africa a climate of healing and reconciliation.
Since we as a Prespatory are eager to help in the furtherance of this process of healing - of reconciliation and of the establishment of justice we will in what follows below, try to share with the Commission briefly something of your story at Stellenbosch. As we see this in our perspective.
The Dutch Reformed Church has been active in Stellenbosch for more than 300 years. It’s first Stellenbosch was founded in 1686 and in due cause gave rise to quite a number local congregations. For us as a church of Jesus Christ the Son of God it is imperative to live in obedience to the Bible of God’s word. Since we formed part of the Reformed tradition within Christianity we believe more over that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all Lords and that accordingly the sovereignty of God over every aspect of society needs to be proclaimed.
For these reasons we further believe that in every situation the Church of Christ should be a witness of truth, justice, reconciliation and of love. In looking back we realize however that there have been times in the history of Stellenbosch when we as a Prespatory and also as individual organizations are the failed wholesale or made only the most timid of efforts to for fill this pathetic responsibility.
We think especially of the past 40 years during which the official policy of apartheid radically impaired the human dignity of people all around us and resulted in grouse violations of human rights. Within the borders of our Presbytery there were those who actively developed and campaigned the ideological framework from which these violations and actions were held to derive their justification.
At times indeed the stand taken within this Presbytery itself were once that functioned within this ideological framework.
There were voices among our own ranks and within our church at last that condemned apartheid and sort to call our church to it’s senses and that witness against injustice within the society. Yet it is equally true that the testimony and the process of so many of these people were time and again suppressed or ignored. Other suffered deformation and found themselves being given bad names.
This is why for so many years, there were never a strong unified witness about these matters to be heard on the part of our Presbytery. Various factors were instrumental in bringing out this [indistinct] of our Presbytery. As elsewhere so here at Stellenbosch the ideology of Nationalist in the cause of time, left a substantial imprint on Christian’s ways of thought. It made us insensitive to the injustice and suffering inflicted by the policy of apartheid.
About many of those living in close proximity to us. The situation was aggravated by at least 2 further factors. Most of our church members happened now occupy positions of privilege and increasing people were isolated by apartheid from one a other’s life words and experiences.
As a result of the growing economical isolation - as a result of a lack of worthwhile unity in the Dutch Reformed Church family, we came to be deaf to the process and the cries of many of our brothers and sisters in faith. For many church members and church ministers alike, this deafness facilitated the uncritical assumption that because a large proportion of political leaders were church members themselves. Political leaders could be fully trusted to do what was right.
It is this uncritical assumption further reinforced the wide spread acceptance of apartheid or separate development. This information and a lack of exposure to other people’s suffering were 2 more factors instrumental in our Presbytery’s [indistinct]. That often though they lurked behind such factors a large measure of selfishness and an unwillingness to listen sincerely to God’s word and to follow His believers testimony.
The over all result has been that we in Stellenbosch did not speak out enough against injustice in our society. Did not speak out enough against racist attitudes among our church members. Did not speak out enough against impairment of people’s true human dignity.
During the Soweto riots of 1976 and in line country wide unrest that followed vigorous allusions were passes concerning the state of affairs but very little process was voiced against ongoing grouse violations of human rights. When force removals were carried out at our town, when people were compelled to leave the historic neigbourhoods and re-educate elsewhere, little or no process was voiced at the Presbytery’s part. Not only did these removals constitute a violation of human rights, they also invariable went hand in hand with sever personal trauma. Tragically as a result of the great defied brought about in South Africa by apartheid we of the Presbytery often were not even aware of the suffering of these force removals.
Over many years people as our town was shut out from important decision-making positions simply because of the colour of their skin. More decisions being made about them than with them. Even the church and individual Christians often showed themselves insensitive to how grievously people’s human dignity was violated. It was this insensitivity and even more so the large ideological blind spot - spot which it resulted from that caused so many members of our congregations to show utter incomprehension when a cry from the hearts of our brothers and sisters in the then Dutch Reformed [indistinct] church went up in 1982 in the form of the confession of Belhar.
These were our fellow believers, they lived all around us. We ought to have been fully aware of their distress. Yes - yet we misunderstood their hearts and their pain. Only in 1989 did our Presbytery identify itself with the contents of the Belhar. Only in 1996 did our Presbytery pass a resolution excepting the confession of Belhar. It is true that from the late 60’s on some genuine efforts were made at the local level towards bringing - bridging the chasm between the other members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Even though good progress was made, one of it’s fruits - being the formation of the combined Presbytery of Stellenbosch.
This initiative was not successful in the long run. This is a failure that we were at leased partly to blame for. Despite some very real attempts we must confess that we backed away at crucial moments from letting a clear testimony against injustice be heard in the land.
Testimony for example against detention without trial. Eventually we did begin to see the error of our ways. And this is why the Lord brought us to these insights. That is why, in a formal resolution adopted in 1985, the Presbytery confessed the guilt which brought upon ourselves by our own acts and omissions during the apartheid era.
Now that the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is confronting us once again with the praying and grieve endured by fellow citizens and fellow believers under the previous political dispensation. We feel the need to confess our guilt once again before God and before people. We feel the need to make this confession specifically at this session of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission because it is here that people from our own vicinity are sharing the pain and grieve that they have to live through.
We confess that we kept silent at times when we should have spoke out clearly in testimony. We confess that although we did at times try to protest against the unjust treatment of people we often did so only with great timidity and circumspection. We did at times comment critically but we often in doing so shrank from speaking out against the system itself. What is more, we often gave way to the opposition we encountered. At the very times when we should have continued to speak out clearly for the truth and against injustice we grew tired and gave up protesting.
Today we confess these things unknown before the many people of Stellenbosch and vicinity who suffered injustice before - because of that. We confess these things before the youth and the children of our own church and our own congregations who feel that through our [indistinct] we have failed them. Our story Mr Chairman is also however a story of hope. The fact that the Lord therefore we also want to confess. The fact is that the Lord has not abandoned us in spite of everything and this gives us hope for the future.
In closing therefore we want to testify as we truly believe that the Lord has the power to bring about genuine forgiveness, reconciliation and healing in our country. Because we believe in the Lord’s renewing grace. We live in the hope that in time to come, he will enable us to serve among His instruments of reconciliation as a Presbytery and as a church despite of the multitude of our past mistakes and omissions.
And so we commit ourselves to an honest and sustained search to know God’s will for our entire community and we undertake to search for this knowledge at the local level with fellow believers from other denominations. We do so prompted by an urgent sense that the present times faces us with new challenges. Societies growing, settlerisation challenges us to join in with all sincerity and commitment in a collaborative endeavor to establish Christian values at all levels.
The alarming escalation of crime and violence in our country including our own vicinity is calling upon us to be an active witnesses to the God in who’s eyes every individual’s life and well being are precious.
It is challenging us more over to make a common cause with other Churches and interest groups in our community in a drive for
soscio-economic and society upliftment. At the time when because of conditions in the country many of our church members are turning negative, despondent and even cynical. We as a Presbytery and as a Church are more overcalled upon to be and to remain witnesses of hope. We therefore join the profit Micha when we testify as follows:
The God whom we serve has the power to: ground out of his great mercy, that’s in South Africa too, swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and that South Africans too will begin to live together in peace, in reconciliation and in a spirit of mutual regard for their common humanity. This is what keeps our hope alive. That is what we will continue to pray for.
MS GOBODO
[indistinct] ask you to explain some of the references you’ve made in - in your presentation. In the first part of - of your submission you mentioned that - that the church took part in endorsing some of the upper [indistinct] laws and you’ve given us some attachment. This first document - Appendix 1 - which is dated 1955 and 1956 could you tell us a little bit about what is contained in this document, just very briefly.
DR KOORENHOF
The three Appendixes which have been attached, it’s result is that members of the Presbytery have taken the agendas and their minutes of the Presbytery of Stellenbosch for the past 45 years to investigate to which degree this Presbytery was involved with the community and whether if made certain statements about the political situation.
In Appendix 1 is an attempt to indicate how so far as 1956, 1955 various standpoints were taken and what decisions were made. Like how the church positioned itself within this theological framework.
And Appendix 2 we refer to the Synod meeting of 1972 were certain decisions where made about the unrest situation, but where it was indicated that these decisions were made within the context of the situation at that time. But no where the system as such was criticized. In this regard we could not make a real contribution.
The 3rd Appendix refers to decisions made by the Presbytery in the 80’s and I also attached the decision which was made in 1985 and then a clear decision was made about the unrest situation, the apartheid and also confessed various things and the Presbytery committed itself to the service of God to be open to all these things.
And in Appendix 3 we’ve attached two decisions from Congregations in the Presbytery . 1983 where two congregations in the Presbytery that took strong standpoints against the Act against mixed marriages and in 1987 when one specific congregation took a strong standpoint against apartheid.
MS GOBODO
Thank you very much [indistinct] and the - the attached to your submission. Just one last question for Bethel and Frederick just to tell us how you have experienced the process of writing up this document.
Firstly you as a person who’s been involved in the history of the church and then finally for you as a younger member - as a younger entry - entrant - enterer ( what’s the right English word) person who enters the church, yes could you tell us please, share with us your experience of writing this submission, thank you.
DR MULLER
Thank you for the privilege to be appointed as one of the old people and this is also perhaps why their asked me to join them because I’ve been in - I’ve been a member of this Presbytery of Stellenbosch since the 60’s. During those years many things happened in our country. But then we already were part of a system - a system from which we - where we had many advantages.
My children could go to schools in a privileged education system. I was not aware of that - my heart was closed, not only my eyes also my heart was closed because of the system. It was all the information we received and rather to take easy way out and that is to keep quiet.
And this is why this was an opportunity for me Mr Chairman in which I could say that this thing which weighs heavy on my and other people’s heart is we did not physically murder people. We did not physically assault anybody. We do not physically put anybody into prison but the Bible says that if I allow something to happen to my brother that what is an injustice then I am also part of that action and then I must also account to God.
This was an opportunity - this is the moment of truth where I was freed. I was freed by participating in making this statement. I was - became part of a process where we could tell our story.
Where we got - could confess and where we could say Mr Chairman taking everything into consideration that in the end the Commission will achieve what it’s name refers to - the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation and that this will take place in the name of God.
And then there will be freedom, peace and hope for our society. It was a privilege but it was not easy at all because you have to look deep into your own heart and you see the evil in your heart.
MR MARAIS
[indistinct] member of our church and as a young Christian in South Africa we ask ourselves the question how is it possible that it could have happened in our country these terrible things which did happen. How could it happen if there are many Christians in this country.
As a young man it is very important for me to know that there’s a future in this country and my co-operation in preparing this statement was for the purpose of to see what - to determine why and how the church in Stellenbosch could allow that so many injustices could occur.
And we did this so that the truth could be revealed so that it could never happen again. I have 2 small little daughters at home and I hope that they can grow up in a country and in a community were they will respect the human dignity of all the people of this land. It was not easy to prepare this statement.
For us as young people it is very easy to say we didn’t have a part in all this, we do not want to admit it and like some people do just leave the country because it is to painful to look at our own history.
To be able to have a future I realized that by participating in this process I can only have a future if this is based on revealing the truth from the history. Then I can only find my routs and then I can look into the future with hope. So this was a very difficult rout to take but the word of God tells us that truth frees us and I have experienced this the previous few weeks.
I want to be freed so that I as a young person can live enthusiastically in this country where God had put me and that for the children which God has given me that I can create a future for them.
We cannot deny this history, this history will keep us in prison if the truth is not revealed. That was - it was an indescribable privilege to be part of this process and for us as young people who are interested in our future, it is very important to determine exactly what had happened in the past. To see exactly what went wrong so that if will happen again.
MS GOBODO
[indistinct] shall be now - pass you onto - over to the Chairperson, thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON
Thank you very much, I believe that it would be utterly amazing if there weren’t any questions that my colleagues would wont to put to you so I’m going to give them the opportunity to put some questions to you. Piet Meiring?
PROF MEIRING
Just before I ask you any questions I would just like to say to you this afternoon, my brothers, that I am extremely thankful that I can share this moment. I’m a member of the church which you are talking about and I would like to say to you that I identify myself with every single sentiment which you have expressed in the document which you submitted.
Thank you very much for your document and thank you very much for your submission. For me it is an absolutely serious matter, not just the words which you have said to the Commission that they should be important and reflect the things that should be decided upon but that it should also influence a lot of other churches and communities and religious groups. And give them the necessary courage to do the same and I hope that what you have started here today will be but the first of a series of such submissions in our quest to find the truth and in that quest that we will hear the evidence of the other truth - of the other religious groups.
And on the other side that it will lead to reconciliation. That we should take reconciliation very seriously as Christians, thank you very much.
Just two short questions, perhaps in the address of Dr Bethel Muller. In the center of page 3 in your evidence you said that eventually there was new insight in the Dutch Reformed Church. You saw the era of your ways, I would like to know from you as a professor from you and your fellow lecturers. Stellenbosch is very ridged institution.
How did it happen that the theologians change their minds and there after I would like to ask one of the other brothers - they can decide what they want to answer - who going to answer, but it’s a very practical question. What is your plan to put reconciliation into practice. What is Stellenbosch’s plan as far as working co-operation with the other churches is concerned, thank you very much.
DR MULLER
Honorable Chairperson, Prof Meiring what happened to change our minds is that - look it is so that the University and specifically the Theological Faculty in name and in sermon, in practice was steadfast in the truth and that Theology was there to serve the truth because it is all about God and that God stands for the truth. You know a lot a people believed in the system, a lot of people believed in apartheid and wrote books entitled "My Credo" the meaning this is what I believe in.
And what happened was not always with vicious intent but it was all caught up, it was blindly caught up, it - it was being hard, stone hearted. But you know when one is start gradually scratching away at a dam that is filling up, it starts with a little [indistinct] of water and then eventually that little crevice gets deeper and deeper until the walls of the dam break.
And I think this is what happened through the mercy of God. I do not want to mention any names but there were from the earliest of times people in the - in the - at the University as well as in the Presbytery and in the - in the Theological School who scratched at the - at the wall of this dam.
They were [indistinct] away at the wall and quite often there was this deadly silence. They were utterly rejected but constantly the spirit which so often works through the littlest of things heard and felt the scratching - that [indistinct] away at people’s conscience’s which led to the braking down of these walls.
There were also other things. You know the history of the evidence which came from Stellenbosch - their reforms there. There were groups in the University who stood fast at the moral point and who spoke with the authorities and who - there was a group of priests who made statements and what Dr Koorenhof mentioned the decisions of church boards - church councils and these [indistinct] behind them served as the necessary pillar of strength and that’s what brought us to the decision at the sign of - as one of my colleagues said:
The Dutch Reformed Church is like a large ship, it doesn’t turn
very easily but when it starts turning it turns
And that day we experienced a turning point.
Chairperson it’s not to say that everything is correct. We must all still work together. As you said in your introduction that the Dutch Reformed Church has got a very important roll in this land and in the - in - in this - in society. That we should do it together, not necessarily as a church but as a God of the church. We should continue to pray for the church. That - it should become what it is meant to be so please pray for us as well.
MR MARAIS
Mr Chairman, this submission made us realize right at the beginning that it cannot be the - the end. It was but the beginning, it is the first little step that we are taking out to the isolation of the division between the churches. From a practical point of view I see that we have to go back to our congregations with this document and discuss it.
The way in which church meetings take decisions shows that not necessarily all members of the congregation know what is going to happen but we will deal with that at ministerial levels and I see much more that can happen.
In the process in which we were preparing this submission we asked some of our older members to come and tell us how they experienced the process in Stellenbosch. As a young man I sat and I looked at them and I realized that there are a lot of things which I do not know. A lot of things which happened in our community which I was a younger person don’t know anything about. And I commit myself thereto to digging deeper to try and discover the truth.
And while the older people were talking I realized that not just guilt but hurt as well was in their consciences. I thinks that there was pain in the people who had in the oppresses as in the oppressed and I think that the church is the ideal vehicle to bring communities together at a ministerial level. Where the media is not present, where people can speak from their hearts and rid themselves of - of the burdens and free themselves.
I became aware of the fact that when you have hurt somebody else you in a way remain a prisoner of that persons pain and it is only when you - as we believe - through the wonderful grace of God that we can have the courage to led and to forgive. And that is the only way that healing can take place and I think that it is a wonderfully freeing process which can take place and I think that our church and our churches that is what - our calling from God.
CHAIRPERSON
Dr Koorenhof is there anything you would like to add?
Dr KOORENHOF:
No.
REV XUNDU
Thank you Mr Chairman, I feel indeed very privilege to be part of this hearing. And be able to go through the process in which you are going through. Special privilege that our Afrikaner brothers and sisters have taken this stand and I believe that God is annoying …END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A… [indistinct] about - about what they did because some of them seen by omission and not by action. Therefore I believe that this will tickle and [indistinct] their hearts and bring them closer to a time when they confess.
I want to say also that when God [indistinct] you as like He has done just now he - he places upon you radical demands and radical impurities. One of those such has happened to [indistinct] , it made him want to go to the [indistinct] to say that the grace of God is also - belongs to them. And I believe that in a way in which he will not [indistinct] , he’ll begin to move the road of transformation. And make resolutions of transformation together with other churches of cause but for yourselves in particular and seek the way in which together for those to come who will be on the receiving end, find a way of resolving the - some of the issues.
Most specially for me it is a guess option when he met the Lord, he said the privilege that is - the privileges that I had I want to take over to share as an [indistinct] . So because one of the outward and visible signs that had gone to make it credible for us is when those who are privilege begin to take that privilege of accumulated resources to be able to build together with those who have not had those privileges. It is my hope that he will find the niche for that in your program of transformation, thank you.
CHAIRPERSON
I should be speaking in Xhosa but I - I will speak in Xhosa and I not will be speaking in Afrikaans. I have spoken in Afrikaans sufficiently to show you that I grew up in Ventersdorp. Don’t associate me with other people from Ventersdorp. But I - I think I - I would be sore that I’m expressing the views of very-very many people first by saying how very deeply thankful we are to God for what has happened to today.
Second say it is very deeply humbly to be here, I think the - that is what the grace of God does when God is present and the transcendence of God throws you onto your knees. And you become like Izia - you’re shocked by the glory of God and you’re aware of your sinfulness and then you are aware that this God of glory is also the God who is there with you in the fiery furnaces - who is there with you in the pain and the shame. For this God of glory is the God of the cross, this is the immortal one who dies. This is the God of glory who washes the feet of disciples. This is the one who is King but rains not from a thrown as other Kings but from the cross.
I really just want to give thanks to that God who makes us humble and He’s a God who’s - I think who’s got a sense of humor. I’m sure [indistinct] God is laughing now, I mean you know, looking at us. So what did you think, you know, what did you think this is my world. This is my world and it will be okay, everything will be all right. Everything will be all right and I want to say I give thank to God for you because all of us know it is not easy to say sorry. And certainly not to say sorry publicly.
And I want to give very considerable credit to your church because this is not the first time that your church has done this. Rustenburg there was a bit of it - at the Rustenburg conference but I think more spectacular in a way at your last general cygnet when your moderator said we have persecuted our profits and to have seen the wonderful thing of someone who’s profits being present at that session. The Beyers Naude’s and others, your church was able to do that publicly.
We hope that other churches - now I have to say about the Anglican Church they have enrolled to confess to because you have to ask them why was the first black bishop only in 1960. What were you doing all of these times, and our church - I mean - our church until very recently did not appoint people regardless of race. And our church gave different titles to people according to race but I have to say and Ntebisi will remember that - our church tried but it is not done it in your way and I hope - I mean - that they will come.
In 1992 we had one of the extraordinary moments in the life of our church when first of all white members of our - of the cygnet said their were confessing and asking for forgiveness for their part in apartheid and then virtually everybody got up because everybody knew that - to some extent they - they had something to confess as well. Whether they were black or white, but we have not yet had anything like what you have done and I - I said long ago - now you might think this is a backhanded complement that the Afrikaner is not subtle - now, you might - but in - the fact of the matter is true.
For you it is actually either black or white if you will forgive the expression. That you don’t - see easily grace and I said the day the Afrikaner is converted then will be nothing to stop it and you saw it in the profits that you have rehabilitated.
But once they changed - when they’re Beyers Naude who - who’s father was a founding member of the Broeder Bond and others. Who supported this when they changes, then there was not - there were no half measures. And I have had the privilege of meeting quite a few - Piet here and others are people of that sort and I - I know now that I mean - it’s going to all right because if your church says we are taking this up then your community is going to take it up.
And our country is going to be healed, it is not easy to have done what you’ve done, thank you. Thank you very much and may God bless you, bless your ring, bless your congregations and may God with His Holly Spirit [indistinct] you so that you go forward as wounded healers. And those are the best kind of healers, because they know from inside, thank you.
