Amongst the flashes of the old flag and cameras, I walk out to the church. Tears hurry down my cheek. There is a picture of Eugene on his beloved horse, smiling at the camera. Outside, the rich-red AWB flags flurry as supporters hold up crosses. Today does not feel real. I can’t anymore, my man is dood.
In front of the lenses and on front-page headlines, he is a man without a soul. Eugene Terre Blanche was the figure for white supremacy, preaching for a land for whites and all other aspects that apartheid taught. No one can excuse what he stood for. He had a will of menace. While democracy grew, he fought against South Africa’s rainbow nation. He believed in white, nothing else. So it becomes hard to believe that the man that mimics Hitler and Nazism is a family man, a father and loving husband, someone who doted on his wife and children with an overpowering amount of responsibility and adoration. There is a side that the media do not show. When journalist Denis Beckett spoke to Terre Blanche in 1983, signs of humanity were clear. At that time he had written a poem for his daughter, read it with a love that any father owns, a promise to protect her against the world. While his right-wing views stink of racism, he holds a matter of decency in his heart – something that is not photographed and filmed. Sparks of human nature were evident in his family life and daily life in Ventersdorp. When chatting to Beckett, he revealed how he gave poor children clothes and a petrol attendant in Ventersdorp revealed how Terre Blanche was a giving and helping man. Terre Blanche’s politics overshadowed his true self some might say. His ogre front blurred his soft heart.
As the coffin creeps further down I close my eyes, not listening to Dominee’s se laaste woorde. Eugene is all over the news, the people are everywhere. Why can’t they leave us alone now? Why can’t they just leave him alone?
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