Obituary

Hendrik W. van der Merwe Dies
By Louis Kriesberg, Syracuse University

Hendrik W. van der Merwe died March 5, 2001. Born June 24, 1929, in rural South Africa about 130 miles east of Cape Town, he died on his farm near his birthplace. But he had traveled far in his life and helped bring his country with him. In the forward to his memoir, Peacemaking in South Africa: A Life in Conflict Resolution, Nelson Mandela wrote about van der Merwe’s “long journey from a rural conservative and Calvinist environment as an Afrikaner farm boy to the cosmopolitan, multicultural rainbow nation of the new South Africa.” According to Mandela, “These memoirs tell the story of the gradual development of a Calvinist dissident to an antiapartheid activist and a Quaker peacemaker whose religious commitment and academic insights enabled him to reach out to all sides of the conflict in South Africa.”

Hendrik received a B.A. in 1956 and an M.A. in sociology in 1957 from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and was awarded the Ph.D. in sociology in 1963 by the University of California, Los Angeles. He returned to South Africa to teach sociology at Rhodes University in Grahamstown from 1963 to 1968. In 1968 he became the founding director of the Centre for Intergroup Studies based in Cape Town and remained its executive director until 1992, then served as senior consultant for two more years. He retired in 1994. In 1992 he became emeritus honorary professor of the University of Cape Town. He visited and lectured at many institutions in Europe and the United States, including Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., from 1969 to 1970, and Woodbrooke College in Birmingham, England, from 1986 to 1987.

Van der Merwe was a pioneer in the development of conflict resolution and peace studies in South Africa. In 1981, he organized the first training courses in handling community conflicts and led in organizing conferences and associations related to conflict resolution methods. He helped advance integration and played a leading role in forcing the whites-only South African Sociological Society to become integrated in 1976.

He organized many regional, national, and international workshops where he brought together political opponents who otherwise would not meet. Thus, he arranged the first meetings between government supporters and the African National Congress in exile in 1984. He developed strong links with the Mandela family and visited Nelson Mandela in prison. He mediated in local, regional, and national conflicts, including between Inkatha and the United Democratic Front in Natal in 1985 and 1986, and he arranged the first meetings between the African National Congress and the Afrikaner Freedom Foundation in 1992.

Hendrik’s publications include Peacemaking in South Africa, which was published in 2000 by Tafelberg in Cape Town; “Restitution after Apartheid: From Revenge to Forgiveness,” which was published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 1994 (8:2) and 1995 (9:1); “Principles of Communication between Adversaries in South Africa,” which appeared in Conflict: Readings in Management and Resolution, edited by J.W. Burton and F. Dukes and published in 1990 by St. Martin’s Press; and Pursuing Justice and Peace in South Africa, which was published by Routledge in 1989. He also cowrote Legal Ideology and Politics in South Africa, published in 1986, and White South African Elites, published in 1974. He coedited African Perspectives on South Africa, published in 1978, and Race and Ethnicity: South African and International Perspectives, published in 1980.

He is survived by his wife Elsbeth Siglinde Woody of Bonnievale, South Africa, and Sillaching, Germany. From his marriage to Marietjie, who died in 1992, he is survived by three children: Marieke O’Connor of Oxford, Hendrik of Cape Town, and Hugo of Johannesburg. He is also survived by his brother Laubscher van der Merwe of Bonnievale.

Hendrik’s life was characterized by straightforward honesty and passionate moral convictions. His courageous work as an opponent of apartheid and as a mediator contributed significantly to South Africa’s peaceful transformation to democracy. He was brave and tenacious, too, in his long struggle with cancer. His life is inspiring.