Louw 'like a well-tuned BMW'
2009-12-02 09:22
Johannesburg - Colleagues and friends praised Chris Louw on Tuesday, in particular as a fearless journalist who fought for the preservation of Afrikaans.
Foeta Krige, executive director of the RSG radio programmes Monitor and Spektrum, discovered his friend's body in the early hours of the morning.
Krige took over from Louw on Monitor and Spektrum in 2003.
"He was a fearless journalist who didn't shy away from sacred cows. Our entire team there learnt a great deal from him."
He said Louw took the reins at these RSG programmes in a time "when the new SABC had only just started finding its feet".
"He regularly bumped heads with the bosses when he felt strongly about something. And whether we agreed with him or not, he always made us think.
"It was as if he could see into society from an outsider's perspective."
A born writer
Pieter Schoombie, Louw's friend and former colleague, said on Tuesday how upset and sad he is at the news.
"I didn't expect something like this at all. Chris had cancer a few years ago and fought so hard, that he beat it."
According to him, Louw was "highly intelligent" and "a born writer". "With him the words simply flowed, just like a tuned BMW. He was a brilliant writer."
According to Schoombie, Louw was also a loyal friend.
"He was also extremely honest, make no mistake about that. That’s also how he lost many friends.
"But the one day he'd be telling you in no uncertain terms exactly what he thinks of you, and the next day he'd fight with four big guys in a bar to save you."
'Some George Orwell in him'
Hermann Giliomee, a historian from Stellenbosch, who published Die Suid-Afrikaan in the 1980s along with Louw, said on Tuesday that his death is "one of the greatest losses to the Afrikaans milieu yet".
"Louw had a bit of George Orwell in him, that rare combination of great honesty and unflinching clarity. And also the uncompromising resistance against public hypocrisy and self deception."
Pieter Mulder, deputy minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and also leader of the FF+, said that he'd had "countless meaningful conversations" with Louw in his capacity as a media person, but also as a friend.
'A true African'
"The outspoken way in which he struggled with South Africa's problems, lead to the fact that no one could remain indifferent toward him.
"In his last articles he expressed, having himself been at Dakar, the disillusionment of countless South Africans, whose high expectations for the new South Africa have not materialised."
Mulder said he had great appreciation for the honest manner in which Louw criticised others and himself.
Al-Ameen Kafaar, a former colleague of Louw, told Beeld in an e-mail on Tuesday: "He really made an impression on me."
Kafaar had at times been involved as journalist in the stories on which Louw had worked as a producer in the early 1990s.
"It's sad because there's so much he could still have contributed to the public discourse. He was a great Afrikaner and a true African."