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I picked up this book from our book editor’s desk and immediately jumped at the opportunity to read it. A non-fiction story about one of South Africa’s most notorious killers with an added touch of government conspiracy and cover-up? Yes please. It was everything I expected and more.
In an effort to explore what it means to be an Afrikaner in a post-Apartheid South Africa, the author Anemari Jansen set out on a quest to find the real story behind the man dubbed “Prime Evil”. He has been the face of Apartheid for many years and has done unspeakable things.
After her very first visit to de Kock in Kgosi Mampuru II prison, she writes:
“Something shifted in my consciousness.”
“Was I asleep during the 1980s and early 1990s? I was born in 1964 and grew up during the height of Apartheid. But when I think back on my youth, I am shocked at how uninformed and naïve I had been. Did I not want to know how the country was burning or was I just blind?”
Much like many Afrikaners, Jansen lived an exclusively apolitical existence for most of her life. And as much as we all want to wish away Apartheid, most of us are (like Jansen herself before writing this book) completely oblivious to the true gruesome nature of the apartheid regime. Most of us are more familiar with the Third Reich’s annexation of Poland during the Second World War than with our own disturbing and violent recent past.
Eugene de Kock, a neat, gentle, well-read man who has spent the last two decades in prison, was released in January of this year. A political mass murderer who was repeatedly rewarded and promoted for his actions by his superiors, yes. A scapegoat for Apartheid’s horrific crimes, while his superiors still go unpunished, also yes.
Since his “capture” in the ‘90s he has shown incredible remorse, revealing details of hundreds of killings and cover-ups to the Truth and Reconciliation committee and has reached out to the relatives of the “terrorist threats” (real and imaginary) he and his Koevoet and Vlakplaas death squads shot, burned and tortured to death.
Jansen talks us through Eugene’s early life, his childhood and complicated relationship with his macho and controlling father. Tracking his life trajectory, we see Eugene hopping from military to police force to death squad. With this, Jansen is able to capture his psychological transformation: from optimistic young soldier to brainwashed militant executioner.
We are exposed to the true nature of the front lines, the mentality of war and the intense after-effects of doing things that human beings should never do: kill others.
Ultimately, it opens up a debate about whether we are born evil, or manipulated and moulded into becoming evil. And how does one ever forgive the evil acts of Apartheid’s most notorious killers like “Prime Evil” or “Doctor Death”?
Paul Boese said: “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” This might just apply here.
Keen on reading this book? Buy your copy now.
