CONCEPT – APARTHEID REGIME IN SOUTH AFRICA

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CONCEPT – APARTHEID REGIME IN SOUTH AFRICA

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• Apartheid: It was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. It was due to the white man’s rule, and the black man was discriminated against.
• Political culture: The authoritarian political culture was based on baasskap (white supremacy), which encouraged state repression of Black African, Coloured, and Asian South Africans for the benefit of the minority white population. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, as the 2018 land reforms by the President Ramaphosa indicate.

• Types of apartheid: 

1. Petty apartheid: Segregation of public facilities and social events, and
2. Grand apartheid: Dictated housing and employment opportunities by race.
3. Apartheid was adopted as a formal policy by the South African government after the election of the National Party (NP) at the 1948 general election.

• Eighteenth century’s legacy: A codified system of racial stratification began to take form in South Africa under the Dutch Empire in the 18th century, although informal segregation was present earlier due to social differences between the Dutch colonists and a creolised, ethnically diverse slave population.
• Industrialisation and consequent racial segregation: With the rapid growth and industrialisation of the British Cape Colony in the nineteenth century, racial policies and laws became increasingly rigid. Cape legislation that discriminated specifically against Black South Africans began appearing shortly before 1900. The policies of the Boer republics were also racially exclusive; for instance, the Transvaal's constitution barred Black and Coloured participation in church and state.
• The Great Depression and World War II: These brought increasing economic woes to South Africa, and convinced the government to strengthen its policies of racial segregation. In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party won the general election under the slogan “apartheid” (literally “separateness”). Their goal was not only to separate South Africa’s white minority from its non-white majority, but also to separate non-whites from each other, and to divide black South Africans along tribal lines in order to decrease their political power.

• Various laws:

1. The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949
2. Second was The Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which made it illegal for most South African citizens to marry or pursue sexual relationships across racial lines
3. The Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status, and cultural lifestyle: "Black", "White", "Coloured", and “Indian”
4. A series of Land Acts set aside more than 80 percent of the country’s land for the white minority, and “pass laws” required non-whites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. In order to limit contact between the races, the government established separate public facilities for whites and non-whites, limited the activity of nonwhite labor unions and denied non-white participation in national government.

• Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, PM 1958: He refined apartheid policy further into a system he referred to as “separate development.” The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 created 10 Bantu homelands known as Bantustans.
• Properties snatched and land taken away: From 1960-1983, 3.5 million Non-White South Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass evictions in modern history. Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the Black population to ten designated "tribal homelands", the bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship.
• The 1976 massacre: In 1976, when thousands of black children in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for black African students, the police opened fire with tear gas and bullets. The protests and government crackdowns that followed, combined with a national economic recession, drew more international attention to South Africa and shattered all illusions that apartheid had brought peace or prosperity to the nation.
• UN takes it up: The United Nations General Assembly had denounced apartheid in 1973, and in 1976 the UN Security Council voted to impose a mandatory embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa. In 1985, the United Kingdom and US imposed economic sanctions on the country.
• Final change: Under pressure from the international community, the National Party government of Pieter Botha sought to institute some reforms, including abolition of the pass laws and the ban on interracial sex and marriage. The reforms fell short of any substantive change, however, and by 1989 Botha was pressured to step aside in favor of F.W. de Klerk. De Klerk’s government subsequently repealed the Population Registration Act, as well as most of the other legislation that formed the legal basis for apartheid. A new constitution, which enfranchised blacks and other racial groups, took effect in 1994, and elections that year led to a coalition government with a nonwhite majority, marking the official end of the apartheid system.
• Apologies: F. W. de Klerk said – "I apologise in my capacity as leader of the NP to the millions who suffered wrenching disruption of forced removals; who suffered the shame of being arrested for pass law offences; who over the decades suffered the indignities and humiliation of racial discrimination.“
• 1994 Elections: The election was held on 27 April 1994 and went off peacefully throughout the country as 20 million South Africans cast their votes. The anniversary of the elections, 27 April, is celebrated as a public holiday known as Freedom Day.

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