F. W. de Klerk Reflects on Working Toward Peace

The greatest peace, I believe, is the peace which we derive from our faith in God Almighty; from certainty about our relationship with our Creator. Crises might beset us, battles might rage about us-but if we have faith and the certainty it brings, we will enjoy peace-the peace that surpasses all understanding.

It was a day of joy. It was a day of liberation-not only for black South Africans but also for us white South Africans. Suddenly, the burden of three hundred and fifty years had been lifted from our shoulders. For the first time we could greet all our countrymen without guilt or fear as equals and as fellow South Africans. When I awoke that morning I was still the president of South Africa. When I went to bed the mantle had passed from me to Nelson Mandela. Few heads of government could ever have laid aside their high office with a greater sense of accomplishment, regardless of the uncertainties of the future.

Five months earlier, when Nelson Mandela and I had received the Nobel Peace Prize at the City Hall in Oslo, I had quoted a verse from the foremost Afrikaans poet, N. P. van Wyk Louw: The new era which is dawning in our country, beneath the great southern stars, will lift us out of the silent grief of our past and into a future in which there will be opportunity and space for joy and beauty-for real and lasting peace.

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