UPDATED: Ben sent over the link for SnagFilm’s page for the full-length documentary The Leader, his Driver, and the Driver’s Wife.
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Terre’Blanche was beaten and hacked to death in his home yesterday. The violence is no less horrific than that meted out by supporters of Terre’Blanche’s A.W.B. Party upon Black South Africans. On one occasion, A.W.B. members confronted Black miners as they surfaced at the pit-head after their shift and attacked them with clubs and machetes.
Terre’Blanche instigated many acts of heinous violence and murder. Terre’Blanche was also a terrorist. The Guardian:
In 1998, Terre’Blanche accepted “political and moral responsibility” before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a bombing campaign to disrupt the 1994 elections in which 21 people were killed and hundreds injured.
Terre’Blanche’s A.W.B. Party was separatist and outside of the political mainstream but that doesn’t mean Terre’Blanche himself was disconnected from the apartheid era government of the 1980s and 90s. The A.W.B. existed for so long (since 1973) because of a constant fringe element willing to embrace white supremacist politics in South Africa
The Leader, his Driver, and the Driver’s Wife
In 1991, my favourite documentary maker Nick Broomfield, made The Leader, his Driver, and the Driver’s Wife. This film is available to UK readers on Channel 4 and for the rest of us on Youtube in seven parts.
Throughout the documentary, Broomfield drops in rumors and reports of sporadic violence by A.W.B. members against Black men, women and children. These matter-of-fact inserts, along with the run around he himself experiences as a working-journalist, is the volatile and irrational world in which Terre’Blanche’s racist rhetoric thrived.
When murdered, Terre’Blanche was 69 years old. The manner in which he antagonised and brutalised other humans about him, it is a wonder he lasted that long.
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Note: I highly recommend Broomfield’s work, particularly Biggie and Tupac.

8 comments
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April 4, 2010 at 3:34 am
Eugene Terre’Blanche is killed « Raincoat Optimism
[…] Pete Brook, who blogs against prisons at Prison Photography, had this to say about the far right leader: […]
April 4, 2010 at 4:38 am
Peet Brits
There must be a way to unite South Africa, and that way is definitely not via the ANC. http://peetbrits.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/eugene-terreblanche-murdered-now-what/
April 4, 2010 at 10:05 am
duckrabbit
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/the_leader_his_driver_and_the_drivers_wife/
April 4, 2010 at 11:38 am
ciara
my god. that man was sickening.
not to mention every journalist’s worst nightmare.
louis theroux also interviewed him a couple of years back. can’t find the whole thing but here’s a clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPbExwBJiwY
April 6, 2010 at 12:04 pm
herbert
Linking an old ANC liberation song to the murder of Eugene Terreblanche seems like a long shot to make political hay for a spent force while the sun shines.
Crime in our country knows no racial bounds and according to recent figures, published by Nationmaster.com, 0.47 out of 1000 South Africans of all races will become victims of murder by the end of the year. (UK 0.014 in comparison)
If anyone else than Terreblanche was to have met the maker at the hands of violence last Saturday night he or she would simply and silently have become another notch on the scale of the sad fact above.
If a culprit needs to be found for this latest act of crime than it would perhaps be more expedient to focus on law enforcement and the judicial system which fails to deal ruthlessly with crime – regardless of race.
A point in case is Eugene Terreblanche’s conviction, some years back, for attempted murder. After serving three of his six year sentence he was released while his victim never fully recovered from this attack and was left with severe brain damage and disabled for life.
I am trying to put myself in the place of the victim’s father and I wonder if I would feel that justice had been done if my son was at the receiving end of Terreblanche’s brutality.
Nation building requires many skills one of which is mature leadership on all levels of society.
Africa is a continent where symbols and rhetoric are like a “symbiosis” which will either act as cement for unity or as a wedge for division.
A young and diverse Nation, like ours in particular, needs to wake up every morning with a new desire and a fresh commitment to search for unifying fundamentals.
Denying the present and propagating the status ante-quo are signs of a divided past. Using symbols and rhetoric of a bygone era can only be poison to unity and fertile ground for division to flourish.
While Malema’s song “Kill a Boer Kill a Farmer” may have been appropriate inspiration during the struggle to end apartheid it has as little relevance in our society today as has the old South African flag sported by right wing extremists.
South Africa has a new flag under which our Nation is united. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen as well as our policemen and -women swear their oath of allegiance under this flag. It is a symbol of pride and unity. To fly the old national flag or the Transvaal vierkleur is an insult to every South African.
“Kill a Boer Kill a Farmer” is equally inappropriate. The struggle to abolish Apartheid has been won and is over.
Today’s struggle is to feed the Nation, to create jobs and dignifying living conditions for all. This struggle cannot be won by a single political party alone but requires an inclusive effort by all people. To this end we need national symbols and unifying speach addressing all the people beyond party political affiliations.
April 9, 2010 at 7:34 pm
petebrook
Herbert. I have waited until after Terreblanche’s funeral to post a reply. If any event was going to set off discord it was to be that. Thankfully it passed without violence, if some of the symbology was troublesome. You call for unity is bold but should not seem so brave in a nation that has demonstrated massive bravery in progressing its ideal so much over the last 20 years. Unity should be the first thing you and fellow South Africans demand and it should be the first thing you expect.
Nations that have had a legacy of racial tension will inevitably struggle to shake them but as you say a daily fresh commitment for seeking underlying fundamentals is the way to go. I agree that strong leadership is paramount and that corruption is the first thing to give people cause for dissent and abandonment.
People like Terre’Blanche wanted only to believe that white men could self rule and that no hope for multiracial society and leadership existed. South Africans of the 21st century (as he was definitely or the 20th century) need to prove him wrong. Not that anyone needs to answer an intolerant man such as Terre’Blanche but wouldn’t that be the best reply to his vile rhetoric and his lingering ideology (AWB flag over the coffin) at his funeral?
April 9, 2010 at 7:35 pm
petebrook
Thanks Ben!
April 11, 2010 at 7:43 am
themadjewess
Do people here realize that 90 innocent people are murdered everyday in SA??