The FW de Klerk Foundation has taken note of today’s decision of the Equality Court in Johannesburg to declare that the “gratuitous display” of the old South African flag, constitutes “hate speech.”
The raising of our new flag over the Union Buildings was one of the proudest moments of South Africa’s long and troubled history. It became a symbol of national unity, reconciliation and the values in our new constitution. Under such circumstances, the FW de Klerk Foundation and the great majority of white South Africans have long accepted - and continue to accept - that it would be insensitive and inappropriate to fly the old flag - particularly because of the painful memories that it symbolises for many South Africans.
The old flag encompassed and reflected the history of white presence in South Africa since 1652, including as it did the flags of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State. Between 1910 and 1994 it was the flag of white South Africans who regarded themselves as one of the nations that had been included within the artificial borders that the British had arbitrarily drawn on the map of southern Africa in 1910. They believed axiomatically that they - like all the other nations of the world - had a self-evident right to national self-determination.
Following the decolonisation of Africa it became increasingly apparent that whites would not be able to continue to exercise their right to national self-determination without depriving black, Coloured and Indian South Africans of their equally legitimate right to self-determination and equality. In February 1990, after decades of escalating conflict, the National Party government under President FW de Klerk accepted that justice could be achieved for all South Africans only by negotiating a new and inclusive non-racial constitution that would protect the rights of all South Africans.
In December 1993 we reached a national accord that we hoped would assure the rights of all South Africans and that would prevent new forms of racial domination.