Even though I was of course aware of the Verwoerds’ political background, I was still shocked when his father reacted with disappointment and disgust at Wilhelm’s proud announcement that he had won a Rhodes scholarship. Wilhelm senior made it clear that he did not want the Verwoerd name associated with the British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes. He also said Wilhelm would be corrupted by the liberal English attitudes at Oxford. I could see how this hurt Wilhelm. It was to be my first glimpse into how ideologically driven Wilhelm’s family was, and I did not like it at all.
Yet I liked Wilhelm – in fact, we were in love – and despite our earlier agreement, we started a serious relationship. A few months later, however, a revelation from Wilhelm nearly ended our relationship. One evening Wilhelm was very late for an appointment we had. When he finally arrived I asked where he had been, but his answers were vague and evasive. Under pressure from me he eventually ‘confessed’ that he had been at a Ruiterwag (junior Broederbond) meeting at Professor Tom Dreyer’s house. I was furious.
‘Are you a member?’ I wanted to know. Wilhelm said that he was. I exploded and bombarded him with angry questions and accusations. I could not understand how he could be part of a secret, Afrikaans, male-only organisation with such dubious political motives. I also made it clear that I could never be with anyone who belonged to the Ruiterwag or Broederbond. Even though he argued passionately with me on the night, I think Wilhelm had started to doubt the wisdom of belonging to the organisation even before our conversation. A few days later he resigned his membership.
In July 1986, Wilhelm left to start his studies abroad. He went first to Utrecht in Holland for three months, and then to Oxford to study politics, philosophy and economics for three years. Before he left, we agreed that we would get married at the end of 1987, when I had finished my first degree, if we were still together then. The period he spent abroad was traumatic for Wilhelm, especially his time in Holland. Not only was it his first trip outside South Africa, but he ended up in a house with ANC members and gay couples – all former South Africans – who were very hard on this ‘naive’ white Afrikaner who carried the Verwoerd surname. He wrote long letters to me daily and spoke on little cassette tapes that he sent me. The certainties of his youth were being undermined and it was clear that he was having a difficult time. He became confused and even depressed.
At the end of 1986, I decided to visit him in Oxford. We spent three weeks Inter-Railing through Europe. It was not my first trip abroad, but we were badly prepared for the extreme cold of the European winter. Things became even more challenging when Wilhelm lost all his money and his passport. Given that this was during the apartheid years, no one was very keen to help us and, as it was close to Christmas, the embassy officials just shrugged their shoulders. Yet we survived.
Back in England, we met a young South African in exile, Tshepiso Mashinini. Tshepiso’s brother Tsietsi had been one of the leaders in the 1976 Soweto uprisings. Tshepiso was a brilliant man and we talked for hours. He challenged our political views and told us about the other side of life in our country, which we had not known existed. He introduced us to other exiles, who did the same. For hours they talked about their living conditions in South Africa, the struggle to get an education, and the police harassment they endured. Some even showed us the scars they carried from being tortured by the security police. They were our age and had grown up in the same country as us, yet our lives were worlds apart.
Meeting Tshepiso had an enormous impact on me. I returned to South Africa a month later with my whole perception of reality changed. I looked at everything and everyone around me with new eyes – and with growing suspicion. I felt as if everyone in authority – the church, teachers, lecturers, and even my parents – had lied to me for years. I watched the TV news with disdain, thinking how none of it was the truth.
Back on campus, I started questioning and challenging many of the ideological and political statements the lecturers made. This resulted in furious exchanges between the lecturers, my classmates and me. I had been warned that there were one or two students in every year who were paid to feed information to the security police, but I could not have cared less. One day, I arrived home to find one of my lecturers having tea with my parents. I could see that my mum was irritated, and she told me the lecturer had come to warn them of my ‘revolutionary’ ideas, which he felt were not only dangerous but also anti-Christian. I eyed the professor furiously.
‘Isn’t that what they said of Jesus as well?’ I asked coldly.
Before he could answer, I left the room, but I heard the professor say: ‘There you have it! Need I say any more?’
Even though my parents must have been concerned, they did not say anything to me afterwards. They had always encouraged debate and free thinking, and the dinner table would often resemble a debating society. I gradually sought out more of the (very few) left-wing students on campus. Wilhelm, meanwhile, kept sending me books and articles that were banned under the draconian censorship laws in South Africa. In order not to be caught, he would include photocopies of, for example, Donald Woods’s book Biko, about the life of Steve Biko, or Mandela’s speech from the dock, between copies of philosophy articles. These books gradually opened my mind and broke down the intellectual walls my apartheid education had put up.
After a few months apart, we agreed that we would get married a year later, in December 1987. We were still very young, but adored one another. We shared a powerful intellectual connection and value system, and above all we wanted to contribute to positive change in South Africa. We did not want to spend another two years on different continents, but believing that sex before marriage was wrong, we felt that we had to get married before I could move to England and we could live together. With the wisdom of hindsight, this was not very smart. We barely knew each other, having spent so much time apart. We were both rapidly becoming disillusioned with religion, so we should have overcome our no-sex-before-marriage belief. To make matters worse, I would be only twenty years old and would need permission from both my parents to get married.
I was concerned about how my dad would respond to our decision. Since the disastrous holiday when I was thirteen, I had not seen him, apart from a brief visit to get him to sign a passport application the year before. Yet he would cause endless problems for me over the years, frequently phoning the residence at university in a drunken rage. One night towards the end of 1986, he called again, this time about money. He wanted me to agree that he could stop paying for a life insurance policy, with me as the beneficiary, that he was legally obliged to maintain. He rarely paid any maintenance, but now that he was in financial difficulty he wanted the life insurance to be paid out to him. On the spur of the moment, I said: ‘I’ll sign that, if you agree to sign your parental rights over to Philip and don’t hassle me any more.’
There was a moment of silence before he said: ‘Okay!’ No questions, no fight, just: ‘Okay!’
A few days later, my father phoned to say he was in Stellenbosch. We met for tea and he told me that we had to go to court the next day, where he would sign me off and I would be formally adopted by my stepfather. My mum offered to come with me, but as always when I have to face something very difficult, I preferred to do it on my own, going deep inside myself for strength. The judge asked a few questions before agreeing to the order. I then asked if he could tell my dad not to bother me any more. The judge looked at my dad and said: ‘Mr Van Niekerk, I have never dealt with something like this before, and I don’t like it at all. I’m not sure what is going on here, but you’d better behave and do what is right.’ He then signed the order. It was all over in ten minutes.
How could it be this easy to get rid of your child? I wondered, as he dismissed us. My dad (who was legally not my dad any more) and I left the courtroom together. We walked down the rose-lined path outside the magistrates’ court in silence. At the end of the path, we paused.
‘Bye,’ I said softly. My dad did not respond. He turned to his right and walked away. I watched him, hoping he would look back and give me a little wave or even just a final look. He didn’t, and as he disappeared around the corner I turned to my left to go to the car park, in tears.
That