Twenty-four years ago, when I was teaching a South African history course at St Andrews, the then Principal invited former President FW de Klerk to speak on campus.
De Klerk had been an uncompromising education minister when I lived in Johannesburg, but by 2000 he was fêted as the man who forged an alliance with Nelson Mandela, led this country to multi-party democracy and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
At the drinks party afterwards, I had the chance to ask him the final seminar question in the course – why did de Klerk relinquish power? “Because it was obviously the right thing to do,” he replied. In his mind, it wasn’t a question of being forced to act by practical considerations such as sanctions or insurrection – he made a moral choice in very difficult circumstances and he saw it through.
There are other moral as well as practical dilemmas now facing UK universities, the key one being: how should we respond to the crisis in the Middle East?
