‘Papa’ de Klerk is the hero of the National Party youth. Marion Edmunds attended their weekend conference and found a vibrant, energetic collection of New Nats
‘You’re simply the best,” screamed Tina Turner as National Party leader, “Papa” de Klerk, stepped off the stage into the arms of excited members of the Jeug Aksie. Bodyguards made a passage for De Klerk, who reached to shake the outstretched hands of black, coloured and Indian youths on his way out.
The disco beat filled Stellenbosch University’s Thom Theatre as new National Party Youth members stamped and clapped De Klerk to the entrance, where he stopped for a cup of tea. Congress delegates jostled with each other to get close to him. Photographers snapped up images of “Papa” and the youth.
” I get tears in my eyes when I hear him talk,” said twenty-five-year-old Lorretta Maguga from Pietersburg, breathless. “De Klerk is a true leader …”
The cult of “Papa” de Klerk has taken root among young New Nationalists. His rousing speech at the end of the three-day Federal Youth Congress, or Jeug Aksie, last weekend was considered by delegates to be the high point of the programme. More than 350 delegates, ranging from 16 to 35 years old, had travelled from all nine provinces to be at the congress. More had arrived than were initially expected. There was a last minute rush to find them accommodation in the University hostels.
Federal Youth Organiser Max van de Watt said that this was proof of how popular the NP was becoming, although he could not estimate how many youth members there were nationwide.
“We no longer have to go out and search for people to come to our congresses,” he said.
Although some delegates spent the congress sleeping in the back rows of the Thom Theatre, a core took the congress very seriously. Delegate after delegate rose to the microphone to argue the point. While the faces, features, language and dress of the delegates ranged considerably, there was almost uananimous agreement on most NP policy.
” The National Party is one big family with different colours,” said thirty-year-old Mark Naidoo, a Telkom technician from
Twenty-one-year-old Asraf Dawids from Mitchells Plain nodded. “Also, we all want to reinstate the death penalty,” said Dawids, a tourism student at Sivuyile College at Guguletu, Cape Town.
The death penalty was one of the “hottest” issues at the congress. A delegate who proposed “een moord, een verkragting, een doodstraf” (one murder, one rape, one death-sentence) got a rousing ovation.
Dawids was introduced to the NP by his father. He believes that the NP’s participation in the Government of National Unity is saving the economy from dangerous ANC socialism.
Thirty-one-year-old Aaron Sibeko from Carletonville, Gauteng, echoed that view. His hero is MP Leon Wessels.
“Next to FW, the leaders in the National Party are Roelf Meyer and Leon Wessels,” he said. “Old Nats like Pik Botha are only paving the way for them.” Sibeko wants a career in politics; he is aiming in the long term for a seat in the national Parliament.
In contrast, thirty-four-year-old Eleanor Jacobs from Port Elizabeth said her life’s passion was soccer, not politics. But she is hoping that the National Party will help her establish a recreational centre in her area, Sanctor, Port Elizabeth. Jacobs said she would never vote for the ANC because she was Christian and the “ANC’s religious views were beginning to point in the wrong direction.”
Joseph Lukheli from the Northern Province took the point further. “The ANC are communists. Communists are Satanists. Stalinists were
Many speakers at the congress had grudges against the ANC. They accused the ANC of dominating NGOs and youth organisations, of blocking the NP’s progress in certain areas and of fuelling violence.
Maguga said that she did not like the ANC because “she didn’t like rough people who toyi- toyied.” She said she preferred to sit at a table and work problems out peacefully.
Pieter Louw from Riverlea in Johannesburg said he was scared of the ANC, because ANC members from Soweto had necklaced his
Throughout the conference, senior NP speakers set the ANC up as the National Party’s only political opponent. Other political parties were hardly mentioned by name.
The over-riding message from the podium was that the NP wanted the vote of young people, not just for the local government elections, but also for the next general election in 1999.
Delegates at the conference appeared insulated from the stresses and strains affecting the “parent” NP. Delegates were unperturbed by media reports of friction between senior NP leaders or by accusations that Deputy President FW de Klerk was involved in a dirty-tricks campaign after 1990.
The leader of the NP Federal Youth, Western Cape, Pierre Jean Gerber said that the organisation had three functions.
“Firstly, youth members must help older party members, secondly the youth must be a sounding board for NP policy, and thirdly, the organisation is a training ground for the next generation of NP politicians”, he said.
Gerber was one of only a handful of white Afrikaners at the congress.
“The National Party is an amazing party when it come to transformation”, he said.