Verwoerd

The spectre of Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is difficult to escape.

But it had also, historically, been a bastion of white supremacy, having produced infamous apartheid-era prime ministers such as Hendrik Verwoerd and D. F. Malan.

It was only two years ago that a plaque commemorating Verwoerd was removed from a university building following a concerted activist campaign.

TWENTY-ONE years into South Africa’s democracy, a bronze plaque honouring Hendrik Verwoerd, the mastermind of racial apartheid, still hung by the entrance of the Accounting and Statistics building at Stellenbosch University.

How I cursed Dr. Verwoerd and his law for prescribing how I should feel and think.