Frederik Wilhelm de Klerk is one of the few world leaders to have "voluntarily set in motion events resulting in the inevitable surrender of his personal power" (Johnson, 1995, 22) and the demise of his government. Just a few short months after de Klerk became leader of the then ruling National Party in South Africa, he embarked on what Andrew Johnson believes was a “bold gamble which ushered in an era of rapid transformation” that saw the nation reinventing itself after more than three decades of apartheid rule. De Klerk broke the mold of race-based politics by releasing Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and by striving for peaceful negotiations. When many observers believed the country of south Africa was headed for a period of strife and interracial conflict (Ottaway, 1993, 53), F.W. de Klerk pioneered South Africa’s peaceful revolution. The apartheid system had obliterated the basic rights of Africans and treated them as “rightless foreigners” (McCuen 1986). De Klerk did not observe the discord in South Africa, he actively sought reform. F.W. de Klerk is Africa's "great black hope" (Great, 1999, 15) and a twentieth century champion of peace.

On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison; it was a momentous day. There was great hope, in South Africa and around the world that, at last, apartheid was to be resolved through peaceful negotiations. After the liberation, F.W. de Klerk, now president, and Nelson Mandela committed themselves to compromise and racial cooperation (Ottaway, 3). Together with the government, de Klerk and Mandela’s aim was, ". . .a totally new and just constitutional dispensation in which every inhabitant [of South Africa] will enjoy equal rights, treatment, and opportunity in every sphere and endeavor - constitutional, social, and economic" (1990, 291) as de Klerk state to Parliament on February 2, 1990. In his oration, de Klerk called for an overhaul of the government’s framework in the areas of foreign relations, human rights, the death penalty, and the economy. Within six months of his inauguration, de Klerk lifted the ban on the African national Congress, a radical group that practiced strikes, civil disobedience, and non-cooperation, of which Mandela was the leader (Pear, 1989, A3). Negotiations toward the 1994 one-man-one-vote election that would restore the ANC to power began (A Great Political Trek, 1999, 87). Their efforts were successful, and their great “enterprise” brought peace and non-racial democracy closer to South Africa (Darnton, 1993, 7). For their efforts, de Klerk and Mandela received a joint Nobel Peace Prize on October 15, 1993 (Darnton, 6).

Opinions of the joint peace prize were divided. President Bill Clinton believed the Nobel Committee made an "inspired choice" (Statement, 1993, 2085). Clinton called on those who had abandoned the road to peace in South Africa to rejoin the two Nobel laureates in their quest for a democratic nation. Various news sources perceived inconsistencies in de Klerk and Mandela's relationship. A journalist from the New York Times referred to them as "peacemakers who have never been friends." This statement was confirmed by de Klerk, "Ours has never been a marriage of love" (A Great Political Trek, 87). Winnie Mandela's opinions of the joint prize and of de Klerk were not stated reluctantly. The joint peace prize was an "insult," and de Klerk was “an angel of death, whose hands are covered with the bloods of innocents Black” (Winnie, 1993, 17). F.W. de Klerk did manage to redeem himself. In an interview with the National Review, de Klerk made his defense clear: "My hands are not dripping with blood, I am using my hands any my energy and I am giving everything I have to work for peace."

A superficial gold medallion was not, in the end, the meaningful and everlasting achievement of de Klerk’s crusade for peace. In his work, Chained Together, David Ottaway illustrates de Klerk and Mandela as "two exhausted heavyweight boxers at the end of a long title bout, both bloodied and badly bruised" (249). The pioneer of South Africa’s peaceful revolution, F.W. de Klerk dealt with much blood and violence, but from the strife, a new peace was achieved, and apartheid was obliterated. South Africa’s struggles are an example for all tumultuous nations: peace and democracy can be obtained. All they require is a prizefighter like Frederik Wilhelm de Klerk, a "great black hope" (Great, 15) and champion of peace.

Leaders with de Klerk's vision and conviction are necessary agents in the odyssey to improve our world. True leaders are unafraid to gamble with what little they control in hope of achieving something greater. De Klerk's achievements cannot be categorized and compared to the victories and accomplishments of others. If the welfare of the world is to be improved, there can be no winners, only proponents of peace. Speaking to over 18,000 South African students in 1966, Robert Kennedy said, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Thirty years later, de Klerk became South Africa's ripple of hope. Perhaps he was even a student at that time, encouraged to act by a ripple of Kennedy’s views on democracy. De Klerk's actions can be a touchstone for others whether they are working to cure and prevent disease, to diminish poverty, to abate crime, to eliminate nuclear proliferation or simply to counter hate and apathy in this world.

We can philosophize, idealize, and document tragedy and strife, but until we mitigate our problems, our proposals are in vain. Writers have exhausted the tribulation of third-world and struggling countries. For years, we have capitalized on the affliction of these countries. As a society, we need to stop exploiting our neighbors. Now is the time to write a new chapter, where countries and their peoples are aided with the hope that they will not rely on us later, with the hope that they will be better than us someday, with the hope that we can continue what F.W. de Klerk set out to achieve.