Wilhelm Verwoerd

Dear Menere (Sirs),

One of our promising traditions is the encouragement om nie ‘n papegaai te wees nie (to not be a parrot).

In early 2022, I revisited this parrot metaphor at a regular house meeting of current Wilgenhoffers. This was the first time I had attended such a gathering since 1986 when I was in my fifth year at Wilgenhof.

I am deeply upset by the graphic images and sketches, including those depictions of sexual violence, accompanied by painful testimonies of fellow Wilgenhoffers, that have publicly been circulating this past week about our “Nagligte” tradition of internal punishment.

I am grappling again with the question: what does it mean for me, as a traditional white, Afrikaans-speaking ouman van die plek (old man of the place), to take seriously our shared striving om nie papegaaie te wees nie?

When I was a papegaai

At the 2022 meeting, I explored the relevance of not being a papegaai for our incomplete journey of making Wilgenhof a home for all.

The lively question-and-answer session and the positive responses to my self-critical interpretation encouraged me to write this open letter.

I started my talk with a few embarrassing papegaai examples from my time at Wilgenhof. One happened in 1982 during a house meeting in my first year.

The details have become vague, but I do remember how angry I felt about the way a fellow first-year student was called to the front and sharply rebuked.

I can still feel that strong urge to stand up and protest what felt like public humiliation. But I remained quiet. I was too afraid om nie ‘n papegaai te wees nie.

In 1985, as an experienced house committee member, I sat at the main table in our large eating hall.

Over the loudspeakers came the radio news: “Congratulations to the South African Defence Force for another ‘successful attack’ on an ‘ANC terrorist camp’, this time in Botswana.”

More than a hundred white, mostly Afrikaans-speaking men – many of whom had recently completed their two-year conscription, all with male friends or family members in the army – stood up, loudly cheering, and clapping hands. I was one of them.

As a 21-year-old, lilywhite papegaai, I uncritically, enthusiastically accepted the ethno-religious belief and belonging system that I was raised and schooled in.

The rest of my input at the 2022 house meeting was devoted to a short, open-hearted overview of my ongoing journey of trying to no longer be that papegaai.

I thanked people like Tshepiso Mashinini, the Mabeba family, Ashnat Adolph, Themba Lonzi, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and many other colleagues and students at the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest, for entering serious relational journeys with me, that exposed me to the lived experiences and activism of people on the receiving end of apartheid.

I shared how I continue to draw inspiration from a fellow Wilgenhoffer, Oom Beyers Naudé, who for me embodies what it means to not be a papegaai: his willingness to engage in deep, painful self-examination; to question group blindness; to prioritise shared humanity and relationships across racialised divisions, despite being rejected by his “own people”.

Listen more, react less

So, what does it mean for me not to be a papegaai in response to the profoundly disturbing exposures of the last week? It means, at least, not remaining quiet again when confronted with young fellow Wilgenhoffers sharing experiences of humiliation and exclusion.

It does not matter what the historical context for the Nagligte was, what recent intentions were, or how many students have been badly affected. All Wilgenhoffers, young and old, are called to do serious self-examination when any of our traditions result in humiliation, violence and exclusion.

Any practice that harms a Wilgenhoffer’s human dignity cannot continue, on or off-site. This kind of self-examination can be unsettling, especially for those of us who, across many generations, have shaped the majority culture in Wilgenhof, who feel quite at home, and almost instinctively tend to rally the troops in defence of “our” traditions.

But others continue to pay a heavy price for our blinkered vision and closing of ranks. Therefore, to not be a papegaai also means that traditional Wilgenhoffers need to learn to react less and listen more, particularly to perspectives from outside this white majority male culture at Wilgenhof.

For example, I am ashamed to admit it is only in the last week, through the eyes of a young colleague, Rabia Abba Omar, that I have seen the obvious connection between our traditional Nagligte executioner-style clothing and the Ku Klux Klan.

I also was not aware of the Nazi symbolism of the number 88 being used, till recently, for the Naglig hool (room).

In my engagement with Wilgenhof’s transformation over the last few years, I have assumed that the Naglig tradition has been changed in line with new welcoming practices. But clearly, I have not dug deep enough.

Is that 21-year-old papegaai from 1985 still a larger part of me than I thought?

The last week feels like another strong wake-up call.

I am now filled with renewed energy to face any white roots that continue to bear exclusive violent fruits.

I want to know, in detail, how our Naglig tradition originated and how it was able to continue till the present.

I want to remain open to the shock and outrage of non-Wilgenhoffers, especially those with experiences of racism and gender-based violence at SU, in Stellenbosch and in post-1994 South Africa.

To be a home-for-all

To deeply change the culture at Wilgenhof, I also want to understand more fully what the transgenerational connections are between our persistent punishment and initiation practices and the violent initiation that white, male military conscripts went through to become soldiers.

How many of the current generation Wilgenhoffers who want to remain loyal to inherited traditions, such as the Nagligte, are listening to the pre-1994 handclapping of their fathers in our dining hall and beyond?

For Wilgenhoffers that look like me, not being a papegaai can therefore not be reduced to an innocent, liberal “making room for individuality” in Wilgenhof; nor to perversely influence Wilgenhof “being different” to the rest of a transforming university.

To not remain a white papegaai requires cultivating a value-based, self-reflective, historically aware way of being.

It is a lifelong, intergenerational commitment to re-education and uprooting. It is a prioritising, like Oom Bey, of mutually liberating relationships with people across all historical divides that continue to haunt us.

During the difficult, unsettling months and years ahead, there will be many more house meetings, inside and outside Wilgenhof, to help our anti-papegaai tradition fulfil its home-for-all promise.

– Wilhelm Verwoerd was at Wilgenhof between 1982 and 1986 and the author of Verwoerd: My Journey through Family Betrayals.