The Verwoerd who Toyi-Toyied. Melanie Verwoerd
take his seat, only to repeat the process a few minutes later. This would be repeated a few times, with a rather confused lecturer never quite understanding what was going on. This silly, but hilarious, stunt went on for weeks, until one day our lecture was moved to a first-floor lecture room. This must have slipped my classmate’s mind, and to our horror we saw him making his hasty escape through the window. A loud yell followed, and we all rushed over to the window, only to see the escape artist stuck in a rather thorny tree below the window. The poor lecturer still had no clue what was going on.
Outside of class, there was also lots of fun. Although my home was in Stellenbosch, I decided to live in one of the residences on campus. This was the norm, and I was allocated to a big residence called Heemstede. The residences were single-sex, and the tiny rooms were shared by two students, with big communal bathrooms on each floor. There was a dual − and to my mind very unjust − system when it came to the female and male residences. No men were allowed in the women’s rooms. If they wanted to visit anyone (this was of course in a time before mobile phones), they had to announce themselves to a person on duty at the front door, who would state over the intercom that so-and-so was there to see you. There were sitting rooms, which were monitored by residence staff, where you had to ‘meet’. But it was the curfew that irritated me most. In your first year, you had to be signed in at 8pm, and in subsequent years at either 10pm or 11pm. None of these rules applied to the male students.
At a welcome meeting for first-years with the rector and vice-chancellor, Professor Mike de Vries, I raised the unfairness of the system. He gave me a patronising smile and said it was for our own safety, since ‘we all know what men are like’.
‘Well, then it seems to me that you should rather lock the men in at eight in the evening and we will all be safer,’ I shot back – to a cheer from some of the women and cat-whistles from the men. I heard afterwards that the rector wanted to know who I was, since I was ‘clearly a troublemaker’.
Years later, the rector must have been relieved after my sisters and I finally graduated, all in the same academic year (Nadine received her Bachelor degree in law, Melissa a postgraduate law degree, and I received my Masters). Apart from my political activities to come, Nadine became the second female president of the student council, and Melissa the editor of the student newspaper, Die Matie. We all challenged the institutions, which were archaic, racist, sexist and intolerant of freedom of speech. Not only did different rules apply to the female and male residences, but the (very) few non-white students stayed in a separate residence slightly off campus. Organisations such as the End Conscription Campaign were banned. When Die Matie, with Melissa as editor, exposed some very harsh initiation rites, all copies of that edition were stolen and publicly burnt. There was no punishment for those who were involved. So, not surprisingly, our activities did not go down well.
Back in 1985, I shared my tiny room with a lovely young woman, Nicolene Burger. Being the child of a church minister in the small, rural Free State town of Zastron, she struggled to adapt to the liberal arts department, where she studied fine arts. When they had to do drawings of nude males the first week, she came back to the room in tears and was physically sick. Even though we were politically very different, we became good friends and spent two years together as roommates. Being locked up during the long evenings, we also made many other friends, like Elsa Jute, a brilliant science student.
Like most of my fellow students, I was extremely religious, and we would often attend Christian camps during weekends. In September 1985, I camped at Betty’s Bay, about an hour away from Stellenbosch. On the Saturday, a few of us piled onto the back of a pickup to buy snacks at the local convenience store. On the way there, we made an unexpected stop at a group of houses. Wilhelm Verwoerd, one of the leaders of the camp, whom I knew from when he had addressed us at school, was sitting in the front and now hopped out. There had been a big storm the previous week and he was checking for damage at what I assumed was their holiday home. Staring out at the three houses on a fenced-in piece of land, I asked my friends: ‘What strange people have a flagpole in their yard?’
There was a moment of silence while they looked at me with amazement.
‘Don’t you know who he is?’ one finally asked.
‘No. Who?’ I responded.
‘He’s the grandson of Hendrik Verwoerd,’ another replied. ‘It was the prime minister’s holiday home and now belongs to the family.’
Like most South Africans, I knew the name Hendrik Verwoerd, even though he had been assassinated the year before I was born. I knew he had been prime minister and was known as the ‘architect of apartheid’. As a child I would hear my parents and grandparents speaking of him in glowing terms, and my grandmother treasured her copy of an HF Verwoerd photo book published after his death.
I looked at Wilhelm with interest, but still mumbled that I thought it was ridiculous to have a flagpole in your yard. That night, around the campfire, Wilhelm struck up a conversation with me. We chatted about religion and philosophy, and various moral questions. Wilhelm, who was four years older than me, was completing his Honours degree in philosophy, having graduated the previous year with the same theology degree I was studying for. He was also a part-time lecturer in philosophy. It was clear that he was highly intelligent, but I gave the conversation no further thought.
Three days later, there was an announcement at the residence that I had a visitor. I went down to the front door to find Wilhelm waiting. He explained that he had enjoyed our chat and that he had to attend a black-tie event a few weeks later.
‘Would you please accompany me?’ he asked. I agreed, and we spoke a while longer before he left. As I walked up the stairs back to the third floor I had a very clear, slightly unsettling thought. I entered the room and found two of my friends waiting. ‘Well? What happened?’ they asked excitedly.
‘It was Wilhelm Verwoerd,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m almost certain this is the guy I’m going to marry one day.’
‘Wow! That was fast!’ laughed Nicolene.
‘No, I’m not even sure if I like him very much,’ I said in a daze. ‘I just can’t shake this feeling.’
This was the first of a series of what some would call ‘premonitions’ (I prefer the term ‘clear thoughts’) that I would get throughout my life, all of which would lead to dramatic changes and take me down roads that would be life-altering.
The event was fun. Wilhelm was charming and entertaining, and by the end of the evening I liked him a lot more. But I was worried about his family connections. When I had phoned my mum to tell her he had invited me to the ball, she responded: ‘You have to be very careful. His family are extremely conservative.’
So when Wilhelm called next, I confronted him: ‘Look, before we talk any further, I need to know where you stand politically.’
I could hear that Wilhelm was slightly taken aback, but he responded that he was to the left of the National Party. I could live with that. After the ball, we saw a lot of each other and grew increasingly close. Yet it was clear to me that Wilhelm did not want to get into a serious relationship. Eventually he confided in me that he had applied for a Rhodes scholarship to study for three years at Oxford, starting the next year. He felt it would be unfair to start a relationship if he was about to leave. We agreed to wait until December, when he was due to hear if he had been awarded the scholarship. We were also a bit worried about the fact that he was one of my tutors in philosophy.
In December 1985, to his delight, Wilhelm was awarded the prestigious Rhodes scholarship. Knowing how much this meant to him, I was happy for him and accompanied him to deliver the good news to his parents. Wilhelm’s parents lived in the Stellenbosch neighbourhood of Uniepark in a rambling family home dominated by large pictures and busts of HF Verwoerd. I had met his parents briefly before and liked his mother, Elise, in particular. She came from the small farming town of Sannieshof in the North West Province. A soft-spoken, very religious woman, she was (and remains) totally dedicated to her husband and family. Wilhelm’s father, Wilhelm senior, is the eldest son of Hendrik and Betsie Verwoerd. Until his retirement a few years ago he was professor in the Geology Department at the University