Rev. Nico Smith
The Rev. Nico Smith, a White pastor who challenged South Africa’s apartheid system by moving with his wife into a Black township in the 1980s, died of a heart attack over the weekend. He was 81.
Smith left the White Dutch Reformed Church — the largest denomination among the Afrikaners who then held political power — because of the church’s refusal to actively oppose apartheid. He began preaching in Mamelodi, the main black township outside Pretoria, in 1982, and moved there with his family a few years later. They were the first Whites allowed to live among Blacks in South Africa.
The ANC paid tribute to Rev. Smith on Monday.
“We pay homage to this gallant fighter and will forever treasure the contribution he made in the struggle for liberation and the building of our democracy,” said ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu in a statement.
“He fought with distinction the apartheid regime for all of us to achieve the freedoms we now enjoy.”
“We will also remember him as a stalwart of our congress movement, a fearless fighter who sacrificed his well-being and forsook his privileged white status, in terms of the then apartheid racial design of the South African society, to join hands and lead the struggle for the emancipation of black people,” he said.
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Good riddance! He was one of the traitors who brought about the destruction of Die BoereLand.
I hope maggots crawl in and out of his skull.
For this pastor, let a shaman lead the funeral service, the same one that opens for ANC parliament. It’ll be fitting for him since neither his folk or his religion are honored by those he ‘emancipated’ so why should he.
I also left the Dutch Reformed Church in my younger days – because I got fed up with them being more interested in politics than that which they are supposed to.
I regard this man in the same light as Desmond Tutu. Which means I have more regard for the neighbor's cross-breed mongrel…