... a patriot and towering giant. I've been made to understand that he tackled hard on the rugby field, but harder in the political arena. The demise of Dr Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert leaves us all with a deep sense of loss.
On behalf of Cope, I extend my sincerest condolences to his bereaved family. They must take comfort in the knowledge that we all grieve with them, and that in his death we have a rare opportunity to celebrate his life and achievements. He has departed this life, leaving behind a legacy that will live on.
Growing up in Pietersburg, Van Zyl Slabbert manifested leadership qualities from the beginning. He moved from classical studies at Wits to attaining his MA degree in Sociology and then his doctorate at Stellenbosch University.
Throughout his commendable life, Van Zyl Slabbert was a man of discernment and rare talent. In 1972, he became Head of the Sociology Department at Wits University. Even though his interest in politics started when he was young, Van Zyl Slabbert officially became seriously active in politics when he joined the Progressive Federal Party, PFP. In 1974, Slabbert accepted the nomination to stand for Rondebosch in the general elections. He triumphed over the National Party, NP, representative by 1 600 votes. He continued to hold a seat for the PFP in the 1977-81 elections.
Van Zyl Slabbert stood up against the oppressive regime and chose to relate to the suffering of the people. He did not see colour, because he was looking for justice. He was not driven by fear, but aspired to seek hope. He chose the hard and lonely path of a man of vision.
In 1979, he became the leader of the PFP and of the parliamentary opposition - a position he held until 1986. Slabbert soon felt that his fight within Parliament was leading nowhere, considering the iron hand with which the NP ruled. He, therefore, resigned from his position as a parliamentarian in 1986 to try his hand at negotiations. A year later, he started negotiations with ANC members in exile.
This resulted in the Dakar conference between the liberation movement and a group of mainly Afrikaner politicians, academics and businessmen. The conference was organised by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, Idasa, which he co-formed with Alex Boraine in July 1986.
He served Idasa as Director of Policy and Planning. In his book, The Other Side of History, he articulates the event with clarity with the sole objective to counter an attempt to rewrite history not as a record of what transpired but for political expediency. He later began a career in commerce by lecturing at the Wits Business School and engaged in political consultancy. He had many achievements. In 1964, he received an Abe Bailey Travel Bursary to the United Kingdom. In 1976, he was given an American cultural exchange award. He went to international conferences and delivered papers in the USA and Western Europe.
He was truly an enlightened representative of South Africa during the dark years of apartheid rule. He not only went against his fellow Afrikaners in pursuit of peace and justice in South Africa, but fought for this cause abroad. In 1977, he was a research fellow at the Bergtraesser Institute for Social Research in Freiburg, West Germany.
Slabbert jointly wrote a book with Prof D Welsh called South Africa's Options: Strategies for Sharing Power, which was published in 1979. He published papers and articles which appeared in several publications. He received honorary doctorates from Simon Fraser University in Canada and the Universities of KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State. He was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November 1982. He was also a businessman and a co-founder of Khula, a black investment trust, in 1990.
His contributions did not stop there. In 2002, President Thabo Mbeki appointed him to ... [Time expired.]