TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 6

Subsection 9

PRE-1980 AT TACKS ON INDIVIDUALS

85. In the pre-1990 period, the right wing was associated mainly with isolated incidents of racial violence and politically motivated attacks on individuals.

The tarring and feathering of Floors van Jaarsveld

86. The earliest incident for which an amnesty application was received was the tarring and feathering of Professor Floors van Jaarsveld on 28 March 1979. The attack followed his delivery of a ‘liberal’ speech at the UNISA Senate Hall in Potchefstroom. AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche [AM7994/97], applied for amnesty for the incident.

87. When addressing the gathering, Professor van Jaarsveld, a leading historian attached to the University of Pretoria, had proposed a different approach to the celebration of the Day of the Covenant, a day held sacrosanct by the majority of Afrikaners as it commemorated the battle of Blood River, where a small group of Voortrekkers staved off the attack of a large number of Zulu warriors.

88. Terre’Blanche and his followers, all members of the AWB, decided that Professor van Jaarsveld had abused his influential position in an attempt to further leftist political objectives, and saw this as an attack on the ultimate freedom of the Afrikaner volk. They regarded the new direction given by Van Jaarsveld to Afrikaner history as contrary to the then South African Constitution, which recognised God as the highest authority. It was for this reason that the AW B took a decision to ‘tar and feather’²⁴¹ Professor van Jaarsveld in the lecture hall. They poured tar over him in front of his audience and thereafter strewed feathers all over his clothes and body. In the process, expensive carpets in the university hall were damaged. Mr Terre’Blanche was convicted of crimen injuria and malicious damage to property.

89. In his written application, Mr Terre’Blanche fully disclosed the names of his coperpetrators. He testified at the hearing that it had been the intention of the AWB to send a message to Professor van Jaarsveld that he had broken the vow the Afrikaners had taken at Blood River. The lecture, in his opinion, was part of a clever political move, a typical onslaught on ‘my God and my people who thereafter could not ask God for victory’.

I could think of no other measure to enable us, as a group of young people, to state our case. And in those days the powerful regime of the National Party destroyed us and we had no access to the press and the media, who to agreat extent did not support us. The power and the force of the communism and the liberalists and the way it could be seen in the press as a cancer. We did not want to injure, cause injury to Professor van Jaarsveld; we did not want to cause damage to the property of the University; we never wanted to injure anybody from the audience. (Klerksdorp hearing, 10 May 1999.)

90. Te r re’Blanche testified that, after the tarring and feathering, history books written by the professor were withdrawn from schools and that the AWB had t herefore partially succeeded in its political objective since Professor van Jaarsveld could no longer influence the minds of the youth, the voters of the future .

91. The application was not formally opposed by the members of the family of the late Professor van Jaarsveld, who preferred to leave the matter in the hands of the Amnesty Committee. However, one of Professor van Jaarsveld’s sons, Mr Albert van Jaarsveld, said that some individual members of the family opposed the application on the grounds that the act was not perpetrated to meet a political objective, but rather to gain publicity for the newly-formed AWB.

92. Mr van Jaarsveld read out a statement at the hearing, explaining the effect that the incident had had on the Van Jaarsveld family. Overnight, Professor van Jaarsveld had been ‘transformed into a man who was looked upon with suspicion by his peers’. As a man deeply rooted in the Afrikaner culture, who had lived and worked within the inner circles of Afrikanerdom, he was humiliated and belittled at a public conference in front of an audience of his academic peers. The tarring and feathering incident effectively expelled him ‘from that same community which he so dearly served’.

As regards my father’s viewpoint on the Day of the Covenant, Mr Terre ’ Blanch e is still spreading lies. It is clear that Professor van Jaarsveld took issue with legislation which effectively was forced upon South Africans other than Afrikaners, who felt themselves bound by the Covenant to celebrate the Day of the Covenant as a Sabbath, which legislation was enacted by the National Party in 1952.

At that stage, it was necessary to investigate this legislation seen in the light of the political changes which began to creep into the country. It is clear that he [Mr Te r re’Blanche] does not want to or cannot understand the information in that paper. (Klerksdorp hearing, 10 May 1999.)

93. Mr van Jaarsveld confirmed that one of the consequences of the incident was that Afrikaans publishers like Perskor turned their backs on Professor van Jaarsveld and removed ‘his popular and well-known history textbooks from the market’. He was ignored by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to which he had regularly contributed to radio programmes. He was investigated by the security police and threatened with anonymous telephone calls and hate mail. Shortly after Te r re’blanche and others had been found guilty, an attempt was made on the profess s o r ’s life and he was shot at with a crossbow. Other members of the family were threatened and a stone-throwing incident took place at the family home.

94. In response to Mr van Jaarsveld’s statement, Te r re’Blanche told the Committee: Mr Chairman, all these things did not happen because the professor was tarre d and feathered; these things happened because of the incorrect version of the Covenant and the fact that history was twisted, which can be the worst that can happen to a nation if you abuse your power to rewrite history so that you all of a sudden can become acceptable to other nations. If we sit here at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it is scaring to think that the Van Jaarsveld’s family admit in front of this body seeking reconciliation and truth, that his father treated the truth in this way to the extent that his books were no longer published as textbooks because what he said was not acceptable to students and pupils. (Klerksdorp hearing, 10 May 1999.)

95. After having considered the documentation placed before it and the testimony of the applicant, the Committee was satisfied that the acts committed byTe r re’Blanche and other members of the AWB occurred in the course of the political struggle of the past and in furtherance of the political objectives of that organisation. The Committee was also satisfied that Te r re’Blanche had made full disclosure of all the material facts as required by the Act.

96. It was suggested by the evidence leader, in argument, that the incident was the result of a religious dispute and thus fell outside the ambit of the Act. The Committee considered this argument but took the view that it had to accept the appl i cant ’s argument that his political conviction was driven by his education and belief in God. It was not possible to divorce the religious stance of the AW B f rom its politics. Amnesty was accordingly granted toTe r re’Blanche in respect of the incident [AC/1999/221].