History of South Africa in the Apartheid era

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Apartheid in South Africa
Events and Projects

Sharpeville Massacre · Soweto uprising
Treason Trial
Rivonia Trial · Church Street bombing
CODESA · St James Church massacre

Organizations

ANC · IFP · AWB · Black Sash · CCB
PP · RP ·PRP· PFP · HNP · MK · PAC · SACP · UDF
Broederbond · National Party · COSATU

People

PW Botha · Oupa Gqozo · DF Malan
Nelson Mandela · Mahatma Gandhi · Walter Sisulu
Helen Suzman · Harry Schwarz · Andries Treurnicht
HF Verwoerd · Oliver Tambo · BJ Vorster
Kaiser Matanzima · Jimmy Kruger · Steve Biko

Places

Bantustan · District Six · Robben Island
Sophiatown · South-West Africa
Soweto · Vlakplaas

Other aspects

Apartheid laws · Freedom Charter
Sullivan Principles · Kairos Document
Disinvestment campaign
South African Police

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History of South Africa
General periods

Ancient (before 1652)
(1652 to 1815)
(1815 to 1910)
(1910 - 1948)
Apartheid-era (1948 - 1994)
Modern (1994 to present)

Specific themes

Economics · Military
Social · Religious

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For the legal definition of apartheid, see Crime of apartheid. For other uses of the term, see Allegations of apartheid.

Apartheid (meaning separation in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of ethnic separation in South Africa from 1948, and was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in democratic elections in 1994.

The rules of Apartheid meant that people were legally classified into a racial group — the main ones being Black, White, Coloured and Indian — and were separated from each other on the basis of the legal classification. Blacks legally became citizens of one of ten bantustans (homelands) that were nominally sovereign nations. These black homelands were created out of the territory of Black Reserves founded during the British Empire period -- Reserves akin to United States Indian Reservations, Canadian First Nations reserves, or Australian aboriginal reserves. Many Black South Africans never resided in these "homelands."

This prevented black people from having a vote in "white South Africa" (even if they resided there) -- their voting rights being restricted to the black homelands. Black homelands were economically the least productive areas in the country. Education, medical care, and other public services were segregated, and those available to Black people were inferior. There was a deliberate policy of making services for black people inferior in "White South Africa" in order to try and 'encourage' black people to move to the black homelands. The black education system, within "White South Africa", was designed to prepare blacks to be a working class.

Contents

  • 1 Creation of Apartheid
    • 1.1 Racial segregation and colonialism prior to Apartheid
    • 1.2 The 1948 elections and the group areas act
    • 1.3 The disenfranchisement of coloured voters
    • 1.4 Apartheid legislation
  • 2 The Apartheid System
    • 2.1 Grand Apartheid - The "homeland" system
    • 2.2 Forced removals
    • 2.3 Petty Apartheid
    • 2.4 Colour classification
    • 2.5 Other minorities
  • 3 Internal resistance
    • 3.1 The ANC and the PAC
    • 3.2 Sharpeville Massacre
    • 3.3 Resistance goes underground
    • 3.4 Black Consciousness Movement
    • 3.5 White resistance
  • 4 International relations
    • 4.1 Sanctions
    • 4.2 Western influence
    • 4.3 South African Border War
    • 4.4 Total onslaught
    • 4.5 Cross Border Raids
  • 5 Conservatism
  • 6 State security
    • 6.1 State of emergency
  • 7 HIV/AIDS epidemic
  • 8 Winds of change
    • 8.1 Negotiations
  • 9 Legacies of apartheid
    • 9.1 Economic inequality and Black Economic Empowerment
    • 9.2 Land ownership inequality and land claims
  • 10 Contrition
  • 11 Establishment of the "crime of apartheid" by the International Criminal Court
  • 12 See also
    • 12.1 Movies referencing Apartheid
    • 12.2 Books referencing Apartheid
    • 12.3 Poems referencing Apartheid
    • 12.4 Popular music referencing Apartheid
  • 13 Footnotes
  • 14 References
  • 15 External links

[edit] Creation of Apartheid

[edit] Racial segregation and colonialism prior to Apartheid

For more information on the period of history leading up to apartheid, see History of South Africa.

The first recorded use of the word "apartheid" ([ə.ˈpɑː(ɹ).teɪt]) was in 1917 during a speech by Jan Christiaan Smuts, who later became Prime Minister of South Africa in 1919. Although the creation of apartheid is usually attributed to the Afrikaaner-dominated government of 1948-1994, it is partially a legacy of British colonialism which introduced a system of pass laws in the Cape Colony and Natal during the 19th century. This resulted from regulating the movement of blacks from the tribal regions to the areas occupied by whites and coloureds, and which were ruled by the British. There were similar regulations in Australia and New Caledonia (Code de L'indigenat). Laws were passed to not only restrict the movement of blacks into these areas but also prohibit their movement from one district to another without a signed pass. Blacks were not allowed onto streets of towns in the Cape Colony and Natal after dark and they had to carry a pass at all times. Mahatma Gandhi, a young lawyer at the time, cut his political teeth organising non-violent protests against restrictions hurting middle class Indians. During the Second World War, Smuts' United Party government began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws.

"Petty apartheid": sign on Durban beach in English, Afrikaans and Zulu (1989)

The practice of apartheid retained many of the features of the above segregationist policies of earlier administrations. Examples include the 1913 Land Act and the various workplace "colour bars". However, the intellectual who designed apartheid, Werner Eiselen, specifically argued that segregation and white supremacy were no longer 'sustainable', and Eiselen (1948: 76) specifically proposed in 1948 that apartheid (as a "political partition" policy) was an alternative to segregation. Hence the idea behind apartheid was more one of political separation (later called "grand apartheid") than segregation (later called "petty apartheid"). The politician deemed to have had the most powerful influence on the growth of apartheid was Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd.

[edit] The 1948 elections and the group areas act

In the run-up to the 1948 elections, the National Party (NP) campaigned on its policy of apartheid. The NP narrowly defeated Smuts' United Party, and formed a coalition government with the Afrikaner Party (AP), under Protestant cleric Daniel Francois Malan's leadership. It immediately began implementing apartheid: legislation was passed prohibiting miscegenation (mixed-race marriage), individuals were classified by race, and a classification board was created to rule in questionable cases. The Group Areas Act of 1950 became the heart of the apartheid system designed to geographically separate the racial groups. The Separate Amenities Act of 1953 created, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. The existing pass laws were tightened. All South Africans were compelled to carry identity documents. For blacks, these identity documents became a sort of passport by which black could be prevented from migrating to 'white' South Africa. Blacks were prohibited from living in (or even visiting) 'white' towns without a migration permit. For Blacks, living in the cities was restricted to those who had employment. Families were excluded, thus separating wives from husbands and parents from children.

[edit] The disenfranchisement of coloured voters

J.G. Strijdom, who succeeded Malan as Prime Minister, moved to strip coloureds and blacks of what few voting rights they had. The previous government had first introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill in parliament in 1951. However, its validity was challenged in court by a group of four voters[1] who were supported by the United Party. The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but the Appeal Court upheld the appeal and found the act to be invalid. This was because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament was needed in order to change the entrenched clauses of the Constitution. The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill, which gave parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court. This too was declared invalid by both the Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court. In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to eleven, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places. In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the senate from 49 seats to 89. Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats. Finally, in a joint sitting of parliament, the Separate Representation of Voters act was passed in 1956, which removed coloureds from the common voters' roll in the Cape, and established a separate voters' roll for them.

[edit] Apartheid legislation

Apartheid legislation in South Africa

Precursors
Natives' Land (1913)
Urban Areas (1923)

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages (1949)
Immorality Act (1950)
Population Registration (1950)
Group Areas Act (1950)
Suppression of Communism (1950)
Bantu Building Workers (1951)
Separate Representation of Voters (1951)
Prevention of Illegal Squatting (1951)
Bantu Authorities (1951)
Natives Laws (1952)
Pass Laws (1952)
Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) (1953)
Bantu Education (1953)
Reservation of Separate Amenities (1953)
Natives Resettlement (1954)
Group Areas Development (1955)
Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) (1956)
Bantu Investment Corporation (1959)
Extension of University Education (1959)
Promotion of Bantu Self-Government (1959)
Coloured Persons Communal Reserves (1961)
Preservation of Coloured Areas (1961)
Urban Bantu Councils (1961)
Terrorism Act (1967)
Bantu Homelands Citizens (1970)

No new legislation introduced, rather
the existing legislation named was amended.

This box: view  talk  edit
Main article: Apartheid legislation in South Africa

The principal "apartheid laws" were as follows[2]:

[edit] The Apartheid System

The apartheid system is often classified into "grand apartheid" and "petty apartheid". Grand apartheid involved an attempt to partition South Africa into separate states, while petty apartheid referred to the segregationist dimension. The National Party clung to grand apartheid until the 1990s, while they abandoned petty apartheid during the 1980s.

[edit] Grand Apartheid - The "homeland" system

A rural area in Ciskei, one of the apartheid era "homelands"
Main article: Bantustan

Proponents of apartheid argued that once apartheid had been implemented, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa; rather, they would become citizens of the independent "homelands". In terms of this model, blacks became (foreign) "guest labourers" who merely worked in South Africa as the holders of temporary work permits.

The South African government attempted to divide South Africa into a number of separate states. Some thirteen percent of the land was reserved for black homelands - representing 50 percent of South Africa's arable land (Davenport, 1977: 268). This thirteen percent was divided into ten black 'homelands'. Four of these homelands were given independence, though this was never recognised by any other country. Each homeland was supposed to develop into a separate nation state within which the eight black ethnic groups were to develop their separate national identity, culture and language:

Once a homeland was granted 'independence', those who were designated citizens of this homeland had their South African citizenship revoked, and replaced with homeland citizenship. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the 'autonomous' ('non-independent') homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, and so became less than South African[4]. The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black "citizens" of the "homelands" and the problems other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.

While other countries were dismantling discriminatory legislation and becoming more liberal on issues of race, South Africa continued to construct a labyrinth of racial legislation. Many white South Africans supported apartheid because of demographics --that is separate-ness and partition were seen as a way to avoid a one-person-one vote democracy within a single unified South African state which would render whites a politically-powerless minority. In addition, some of the leaders of the above homelands became important supporters and defenders of apartheid, such as : Kaiser Matanzima, Bantu Holomisa, Oupa Gqozo, Lucas Mangope, and Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

Apartheid placed great emphasis on "self-determination" and "cultural autonomy" for different ethnic groups. For this reason "mother-tongue" education was strongly emphasised. So, in addition to pouring resources into developing Afrikaans educational material, resources were also poured into developing school textbooks in black languages like Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Pedi. As a result, one of the consequences of apartheid was a South African population literate in black-African languages (a rare thing in Africa where schooling is normally carried out in colonial languages like English and French).

[edit] Forced removals

During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of 'resettlement', to force people to move to their designated 'group areas'. Some argue that over three and a half million people were forced to resettle during this period. These removals included:

The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in Johannesburg, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of Soweto (an acronym for South Western Townships).

Until 1955, Sophiatown had been one of the few urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land, and was slowly developing into a multiracial slum. As industry in Johannesburg grew, Sophiatown became the home of a rapidly expanding black workforce, as it was convenient and close to town. It could also boast the only swimming pool for black children in Johannesburg[5]. It was, however, one of the oldest black settlements in Johannesburg and held an almost symbolic importance for the 50,000 blacks it contained, both in terms of its sheer vibrancy and its unique culture. Despite a vigorous ANC protest campaign and worldwide publicity, the removal of Sophiatown began on 9 February 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme. In the early hours, heavily armed police entered Sophiatown to force residents out of their homes and load their belongings onto government trucks. The residents were taken to a large tract of land, thirteen miles from the city centre, known as Meadowlands (that the government had purchased in 1953). Meadowlands became part of a new planned black city called Soweto. The Sophiatown slum was destroyed by bulldozers, and a new white suburb named Triomf (Triumph) was built in its place. This pattern of forced removal and destruction was to repeat itself over the next few years, and was not limited to people of African descent. Forced removals from areas like Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in Durban, and District Six in Cape Town, where 55,000 coloured and Indian people were forced to move to new townships on the Cape Flats, were carried out under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Ultimately, nearly 600,000 coloured, Indian and Chinese people were moved in terms of the Group Areas Act. Some 40,000 white people were also forced to move because an area approximately the size of Maryland was transferred from "white South Africa" into the black homelands.

[edit] Petty Apartheid

[edit] Colour classification

Main article: Coloured

The population was classified into four groups: Black, White, Indian, and Coloured. (These terms are capitalised to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or Black, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or White. Different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloureds. Many of those who formerly belonged to this racial group are opposed to the continuing use of the term "coloured" in the post-apartheid era, though the term no longer signifies any legal meaning. The expressions 'so-called Coloured' (Afrikaans sogenaamde Kleurlinge) and 'brown people' (bruin mense) acquired a wide usage in the 1980s.

Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloureds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships — in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations — and received an inferior education, though better than that provided to Black South Africans. They played an important role in the struggle against apartheid: for example the African Political Organisation established in 1902 had an exclusively coloured membership.

From about 1950 to 1983, voting rights were denied to Coloureds in the same way that they were denied to blacks (see Coloured). In 1983, the Constitution was reformed to allow the Coloured and Asian minorities participation in separate Houses in a Tricameral Parliament. The theory was that the Coloured minority could be granted voting rights, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands. These separate arrangements continued until the abolition of apartheid. The Tricameral reforms led to the formation of the (anti-apartheid) UDF as a vehicle to try and prevent the co-option of coloureds and Indians into an alliance with white South Africans. The subsequent battles between the UDF and the NP government from 1983 to 1989 were to became the most intense period of struggle between left-wing and right-wing South Africans.

[edit] Other minorities

Defining its East Asian population, which is a tiny minority in South Africa but who do not physically appear to belong any of the four designated groups, was a constant dilemma for the apartheid government. Chinese South Africans who were descendants of migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late 19th century, were usually classified as 'Indian' and hence 'non-white', whereas immigrants from Republic of China (Taiwan), South Korea, and Japan, with which South Africa maintained diplomatic relations, were considered 'honorary white' and termed 'Worthy Oriental Gentlemen', and thus granted the same privileges as whites. It should be noted that "Non-Whites" were sometimes granted an 'honorary white' status as well, based on the government's belief that they were "civilised" and possessed Western values. This was frequently the case with African-Americans.

[edit] Internal resistance

[edit] The ANC and the PAC

In 1949 the conservative leadership of the African National Congress(ANC) was overthrown by the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). The ANCYL, led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo advocated a radical black nationalist programme which combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with Marxism. Once the ANCYL took control of the ANC, the organization advocated (for the first time) a policy of open defiance and resistance. This unleashed a 1950s resistance campaign that resulted in occasional violent clashes. In June 1955, at a congress held near Kliptown, near Johannesburg, a number of organizations, including the Indian Congress and the ANC, adopted a Freedom Charter. This Charter articulated a vision for South Africa radically different to apartheid's partition policy -- the Freedom Charter called for one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified state, and for a socialist redistribution of wealth.

[edit] Sharpeville Massacre

Main article: Sharpeville Massacre

In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members broke away from the ANC and formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), saying the ANC was too strongly influenced by white communists. First on the PAC's agenda was a series of nationwide demonstrations against the pass laws. The PAC called for blacks to demonstrate against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of the mass demonstrations organized by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging. Estimates of the size of the crowd vary from 3000 to 20,000.[7][8] The crowd converged on the Sharpeville police station, singing and offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their pass books. A group of about 300 police panicked and opened fire on the demonstrators after the crowd trampled down the fence surrounding the police station. They killed 69 people and injured 186. All the victims were black, and most of them had been shot in the back. Many witnesses stated that the crowd was not violent, but Colonel J. Pienaar, the senior police officer in charge on the day, said, "Hordes of natives surrounded the police station. My car was struck with a stone. If they do these things they must learn their lesson the hard way". The event became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. In its aftermath the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

The Sharpeville Massacre helped shape ANC policy. Before Sharpeville those advocating the use of organized violence, such as Nelson Mandela, had been marginalized as too radical by the ANC's leadership. After Sharpeville Mandela was allowed to launch his guerilla struggle (called the "M" Plan). Hence, from 1961 the ANC adopted terrorist[9] tactics, such as intimidation, bombing, murder and sabotage. Although their units detonated bombs in restaurants, shopping centres, cinemas and in front of government buildings over the following years, the military wings of the ANC and PAC were never a military threat to the state.

[edit] Resistance goes underground

Sharpeville signalled that the South African government was not going to yield to the mood of black nationalism then sweeping across Africa, and that white South Africans did not accept that they were "colonials" to be swept into the sea by "decolonization". Sharpeville thus foreshadowed the coming conflict between black nationalists and Afrikaner nationalists over the next thirty years.

In the wake of the shooting, a massive stay-away from work was organised and demonstrations continued. Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd declared a state of emergency, giving security forces the right to detain people without trial. Over 18,000 were arrested, including much of the ANC and PAC leadership, and both organizations were banned. The ANC and PAC meanwhile ran campaigns of sabotage and terrorism through their armed wings, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, MK) and Poqo ("Pure" or "Alone"). Nelson Mandela, who was the commander of the ANC's military wing (MK), had developed the "M Plan" (Mandela Plan) of launching a guerilla war modelled upon the FLN's guerilla struggle in Algeria. MK ran a far more successful guerrilla campaign than Poqo. In July 1963, members of the ANC underground movement, including Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and Dennis Goldberg, were arrested.

Together with Nelson Mandela, who had by then already been arrested and charged with terrorism, they were all tried for treason at the widely publicised Rivonia Trial. In June 1964, Mandela and seven others were sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism. Oliver Tambo, another member of the ANC leadership, managed to escape South Africa and was to lead the ANC in exile for another thirty years.

The trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council, and was a major force in the introduction of international sanctions against the South African government. After Sharpeville the ANC, PAC and South African Communist Party were banned, and leaders like Mandela were either in jail or in exile. The State of Emergency was de-proclaimed; the economy boomed; and the government began implementing apartheid by building the infrastructures of the ten separate Homelands, and relocating blacks into these homelands. In 1966, Verwoerd was stabbed to death in parliament, but his policies continued under B.J. Vorster and later P.W. Botha.

Famous photograph of the Soweto riots showing a student carrying the body of Hector Pieterson, one of the first casualties.

[edit] Black Consciousness Movement

During the 1970s, resistance again gained force, first channelled through trade unions and strikes, and then spearheaded by the South African Students' Organisation under the charismatic leadership of Steve Biko. Biko, a medical student, was the main force behind the growth of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, which stressed the need for psychological liberation, black pride, and non-violent opposition to apartheid[10].

In 1974 the government issued the Afrikaans Medium Decree which forced all schools for blacks to use the Afrikaans language as the medium for instruction in mathematics, social sciences, geography and history at the secondary school level. Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education, was quoted as saying: "I have not consulted the African people on the language issue and I'm not going to. An African might find that 'the big boss' spoke only Afrikaans or spoke only English. It would be to his advantage to know both languages."[3]

The policy was deeply unpopular, since Afrikaans was regarded by some as the language of the oppressor. On 30 April 1976, students at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion spread to other schools in Soweto. The students organised a mass rally for 16 June, which turned violent — police responded with bullets to stones thrown by the students. The first student to be shot by the police was Hastings Ndlovu, aged 15. The image of Hector Pieterson who was killed at age 12 became an international icon of the uprising. The official death toll on the day was 23 dead, including the two children, but some placed it as high as 200. The incident triggered widespread violence throughout South Africa, which claimed further lives.

On 18 August 1977, Steve Biko was arrested. Unidentified security police beat him until he lapsed into a coma; he went without medical treatment for three days and finally died in Pretoria. At the subsequent inquest, the magistrate ruled that no one was to blame, although the South African Medical Association eventually took action against the doctors who had failed to treat Biko. Young blacks committed themselves to a struggle against apartheid under the catchphrase of "Liberation before education," and the black communities were politicised.

[edit] White resistance

A poster of the End Conscription Campaign.

While the majority of white South African voters supported the apartheid system, a substantial minority opposed it[citation needed]. In parliamentary elections during the 1970s and 1980s between 15% and 20% of white voters voted for the liberal Progressive Party, whose MP Helen Suzman provided for many years the only Parliamentary opposition to apartheid. Suzman's critics argue that she did not achieve any notable political successes, but helped to shore up claims by the Nationalists that internal, public criticism of apartheid was permitted. Suzman's supporters point to her use of her parliamentary privileges to help the poorest and most disempowered South Africans in any way she could. Harry Schwarz was leader of the opposition for the United Party in 1958-61. Schwarz was one of the defence barristers in the Rivonia Trial. He continually petitioned for the release of Nelson Mandela. In 1975 Schwarz left the United Party and formed the Reform Party which later joined the Progressive Party. in 1991 Harry Schwarz was made ambassador to the United States. Non-violent resistance to apartheid came from the Black Sash, an organisation of white women formed in 1955 to oppose the removal of Coloured (mixed-race) voters from the Cape Province voters' roll. Covert resistance was expressed by banned organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party, whose leader Joe Slovo was also Chief of Staff of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Whites also played a significant role in opposing apartheid during the 1980s through the United Democratic Front and End Conscription Campaign. Cultural opposition to apartheid came from internationally known writers like Breyten Breytenbach, André Brink and Alan Paton (who founded the South African Liberal Party) and clerics like Beyers Naudé.

Some of the first violent resistance to the system was organised by the Africa Resistance Movement (ARM) who were responsible for setting off bombs at power stations and notably the Park Station bomb. The membership of this group was virtually all drawn from the marginalized white intellectual scene.

[edit] International relations

Main article: Foreign relations of South Africa

South Africa officially took possession of South-West Africa after it was captured from the Germans during World War I. Following the war, the Treaty of Versailles declared the territory to be a League of Nations Mandate under South African administration. South Africa formally excluded Walvis Bay from the mandate and annexed it as an exclave. The Mandate was supposed to become a United Nations Trust Territory when League of Nations Mandates were transferred to the United Nations (UN) following World War II, but the Union of South Africa refused to agree to allow the territory to begin the transition to independence. Instead it was treated as a de facto 'fifth province' of the Union. The South African government turned this mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid to South-West Africa — later re-named Namibia by the UN.

In 1960, South Africa's policies received international scrutiny when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan criticised them during his Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville Massacre resulting in more international condemnation. Soon thereafter, Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should sever links with the British monarchy and become a republic instead. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to 18 and included whites in South West Africa on the voter's roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked whites "Do you support a republic for the Union?" — 52% voted 'Yes'.

As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. Even though India became an independent state within the Commonwealth in 1947 it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to the apartheid policies being enforced. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.

[edit] Sanctions

International opposition
to Apartheid in South Africa

Campaigns

Disinvestment · Academic boycott

Instruments and legislation

UN Resolution 1761 (1962)
Crime of Apartheid Convention (1973)
Gleneagles Agreement (1977)
Sullivan Principles (1977)
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (1986)

Organisations

Anti-Apartheid Movement
UN Special Committee against Apartheid
Artists United Against Apartheid
Halt All Racist Tours

Conferences

1964 Conference for Economic Sanctions
1978 World Conference against Racism

Other aspects

Elimination of Racism Day
Biko (song) · Activists

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On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On 7 August 1963 the United Nations Security Council established a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. Following the Soweto uprising in 1976 and its brutal suppression by the apartheid regime, the arms embargo was made mandatory by the UN Security Council on 4 November 1977 and South Africa became increasingly isolated internationally. Numerous conferences were held and the United Nations passed resolutions condemning South Africa, including the World Conference Against Racism in 1978 and 1983. A significant divestment movement started, pressuring investors to refuse to invest in South African companies or companies that did business with South Africa. South African sports teams were barred from participation in international events, and South African culture and tourism were boycotted.

After much debate, by the late 1980s the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa.[11] A divestment movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.[12]

In an analysis of the effect of sanctions on South Africa by the FW de Klerk Foundation, it was argued that they were not a leading contributor to the political reforms leading to the end of Apartheid.[13] The analysis concluded that in many instances sanctions undermined effective reform forces, such as the changing economic and social order within South Africa. Furthermore, it was argued that forces encouraging economic growth and development resulted in a more international and liberal outlook amongst South Africans, and were far more powerful agents of reform than sanctions.

[edit] Western influence

Nobel Square at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront.

While international opposition to apartheid grew, the Nordic countries in particular provided both moral and financial support for the ANC. On 21 February 1986 – a week before he was murdered – Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm. In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathizers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared:

"Apartheid cannot be reformed; it has to be eliminated."

Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. Until 1986, both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the US and UK followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, as they both fiercely believed in free trade, and seeing South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation,[14], and in 1987 her spokesman, Bernard Ingham, famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".[15]

By the late 1980s, however, with the tide of the Cold War turning and no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience with the apartheid government began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions (realized as the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act), the release of Nelson Mandela, and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle.[16]

Some might argue that Britain's significant economic involvement in South Africa provided some leverage with the South Africa government, with both the UK and the US applying pressure on the government, and pushing for negotiations. However, neither Britain nor the US were willing to apply economic pressure upon their multinational interests in South Africa, such as the mining company Anglo American. A high-profile case claiming compensation from these companies was thrown out of court in 2004,[17] even though there may have been more than enough moral justification to support the claims.[18]

[edit] South African Border War

Main article: South African Border War

By 1966, SWAPO launched guerilla raids from neighbouring countries against South Africa's occupation of South-West Africa/Namibia. Initially South Africa fought a counter-insurgency war against SWAPO. But this conflict deepened after Angola gained its independence in 1975 under communist leadership, the MPLA, and South Africa promptly challenged them, allying with the Angolan rival party, UNITA. By the end of the 1970s, Cuba had joined the fray, in one of several late Cold War flashpoints throughout Southern Africa [19]. This developed into a conventional war between South Africa & UNITA on one side against the Angolan government, the Cubans, the Soviets & SWAPO on the other side.

[edit] Total onslaught

By 1980, as international opinion turned decisively against the apartheid regime, the government and much of the white population increasingly looked upon the country as a bastion besieged by communism and radical black nationalists. Considerable effort was put into circumventing sanctions, and the government even developed nuclear weapons, allegedly with the help of Israel.[20] South Africa is the only country to date that has developed and then voluntarily relinquished a nuclear arsenal.

Negotiating majority rule with the ANC was not considered an option (at least publicly); this left the government to defend the country against external and internal threats through sheer military might. A siege mentality developed among whites, and although many believed that a civil war against the black majority could not be won, they preferred this to "giving in" to political reform. Brutal police and military actions seemed entirely justifiable. Paradoxically, the international sanctions that cut whites off from the rest of the world enabled black leaders to develop sophisticated political skills, as those in exile forged ties with regional and world leaders.

The term 'front-line states' referred to the countries in Southern Africa geographically close to South Africa. Although the front-line states were all opposed to apartheid, many were economically dependent on South Africa. Thus, in 1980 they formed the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). The aim of SADCC was to promote economic development in the region and to reduce dependence on South Africa. Furthermore, many SADCC members also allowed the exiled ANC and PAC to establish bases in their countries.

Other African countries also contributed to the fall of apartheid. In 1978, Nigeria boycotted the Commonwealth Games because New Zealand's sporting contacts with the South African government were not considered to be in accordance with the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement. Nigeria also led the 32-nation boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games because of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's ambivalent attitude towards sporting links with South Africa, significantly affecting the quality and profitability of the games and putting apartheid into the international spotlight.[21]

A number of African countries contributed materially and morally to the ANC's guerilla-insurgency campaign within South Africa.

[edit] Cross Border Raids

South Africa had a policy to attack terrorist bases in neighbouring countries. These attacks were mainly aimed at ANC, PAC and SWAPO guerrilla-bases and safe houses in retaliation for acts of terror - like bomb explosions and massacres(such as the Cape town church massacre) and guerrilla actions (like sabotage) by ANC, PAC and Swapo guerrillas in South Africa and Namibia. The country also aided organisations in surrounding countries who were actively combatting the spread of communism in Southern Africa. The results of these policies included:

In 1984 Mozambican president Samora Machel signed the Nkomati Accord with South Africa's president P.W. Botha, in an attempt to rebuild Mozambique's economy. South Africa agreed to cease supporting anti-government forces. In 1986 President Machel himself was killed in an air crash in mountainous terrain near the South African border after returning from a meeting in Zambia. South Africa was accused of continuing its aid to RENAMO and of having caused the crash using a new advanced electronic beacon capable of luring aircraft into crashing. This was never proved and is still a subject of controversy. The South African Margo Commission found that the crash was an accident while a Soviet delegation issued a minority report implicating South Africa.[22]

[edit] Conservatism

The National Party government implemented, alongside apartheid, a program of social conservatism. Pornographic movies, gambling and other vices were banned. At the same time, it instituted the International Freedom Foundation. Printed or filmed pornography (of even the mildest variety) was banned and its possession was punishable by incarceration.

Television was not introduced until 1975 because it was viewed as dangerous by right-wingers. Television was also run on apartheid lines -- TV1 broadcast in Afrikaans and English (and was geared to a white audience); TV2 in Zulu and Xhosa (and geared to a black audience); TV3 in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (and geared to a black audience); and TV4 showed mostly African-American programmes (for an urban-black audience). All TV channels were government-owned and acted as propaganda agents for apartheid.

Sunday was considered holy. Cinemas, bottle stores and most other businesses were forbidden from operating on Sundays. Abortion and sex education were also restricted; abortion was legal only in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened.

[edit] State security

During the 1980s the government, led by P.W. Botha, became increasingly preoccupied with security. On the advice of American political scientist, Samuel Huntington, Botha's government set up a powerful state security apparatus to 'protect' the state against an anticipated upsurge in political violence that the reforms were expected to trigger . The 1980s became a period a considerable political unrest, wiith the government becoming increasingly dominated by Botha's circle of generals and police chiefs (called securocrats). These securocrats managed the States of Emergencies.

Botha's years in power were also marked by numerous military interventions in the states bordering South Africa and by an extensive military and political campaign to eliminate SWAPO in Namibia. Within South Africa, vigorous police action and strict enforcement of security legislation resulted in hundreds of arrests and bannings and an effective end to the ANC's sabotage campaign.

[edit] State of emergency

During the last years of apartheid rule in South Africa, the country was more or less in a constant state of emergency.

Increasing civil unrest and township violence led to the government declaring a state of emergency on 20 July 1985. Then president P.W. Botha declared a state of emergency in 36 magisterial districts. Areas affected were the Eastern Cape, and the PWV region ("Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Vereeniging"). Three months later the Western Cape was included as well. During this state of emergency about 2,436 people were detained under the Internal Security Act. This act gave police and the military sweeping powers. The government could implement curfews controlling the movement of people. The president could rule by decree without referring to the constitution or to parliament.

Four days before the 10-year commemoration of the Soweto uprising, another state of emergency was declared on 12 June 1986 to cover the whole country. The government amended the Public Security Act, expanding its powers to include the right to declare certain places "unrest areas". This allowed the state to employ extraordinary measures to crush protests in these areas. Television cameras were banned from entering "unrest areas". The state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) provided propaganda in support of the government. This version of reality was challenged by a range of pro-ANC alternative publications.

The state of emergency continued until 1990, when F.W. de Klerk became the State President, and lifted the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid group the African National Congress, the smaller Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party. He also made his first public commitment to release jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, returned to press freedom and suspend the death penalty.

[edit] HIV/AIDS epidemic

In 1982, the first recorded death from AIDS occurred in the country. Within a decade, the number of recorded AIDS cases (overwhelmingly in the black population) had risen to over 1,000, and by the mid-1990s, it had reached 10,000.

In the late 1980s, the South African Chamber of Mines began an education campaign to try to stem the rise of cases. But without a change in the underlying conditions of mine workers, a major factor contributing to the epidemic, success could hardly be expected. Long periods away from home under bleak conditions and a few days leave a month were the apartheid-induced realities of the life thousands of miners and other labourers worked. Compounding the problem was the fact that as of the mid-1990s, many health officials still focused more on the incidence of tuberculosis than HIV.

[edit] Winds of change

See also: Wind of Change (speech)

Serious political violence was a feature of South Africa from 1985 to 1995. There was virtually a civil war between left-wing and right-wing South Africans. From 1985-1988 the P.W. Botha government tried to crush left-wing organizations. For three years police and soldiers patrolled South African towns. Thousands of people were detained. Deaths mounted on both sides. Many of those detained by the government were interrogated and tortured; while anti-government activists used the "necklace method" (burning people alive) to kill black people suspected of supporting apartheid. The government banned television cameras from filming "unrest zones".

The ANC and the PAC exploded bombs in restaurants, shopping centres and in front of government buildings such as magistrates courts, killing and maiming civilians and government officials in the process. It was the ANC's goal to make black townships ungovernable by forcing residents to stop paying for services. This was done by attacking black town councillors & black policemen and their families with petrol bombs and using "necklaces" (burning alive those black people who were believe to be collaborating with the apartheid-government).

Residents who resisted such tactics were murdered by placing a burning tire around their necks, a process known as necklacing. During ANC-enforced consumer boycotts residents were forced to eat soap powder and drink kerosene if they were alleged to have bought from white-owned shops. During this period an average of more than 100 people died as a result of black-on-black violence in the black townships every month with the figure increasing to as high as 259 per month between 1990 and 1993.

In the early 1980s, PW Botha's National Party government recognized the need to reform apartheid. These reforms were driven by a combination of internal violence, international condemnation, changes within the National Party's constituency, and changing demographics — whites constituted only 16% of the total population and dropping, in comparison to 20% fifty years earlier. P.W. Botha told white South Africans to "adapt or die". In 1984 the so-called Tricameral reforms were introduced which, in fact, triggered the political violence of the 1980s. Between 1986-1988 all petty apartheid laws were repealed. In 1984 a new constitution was introduced, which gave Parliamentary representation to coloureds and Indians (but not to blacks who were expected to remain citizens of the homelands). Botha's government stopped short of reform that included releasing ANC, PAC and SA Communist Party political prisoners, and Botha often reiterating that he would only negotiate with groups who rejected political violence. The 1983 Tricameral reforms led to both a right-wing and a left-wing backlash, such that unrest and political violence dramatically increased, as South Africa became increasingly polarised and fragmented. The right-wing backlash gave rise to a neo-Nazi paramilitary group, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), led by Eugène Terre'Blanche. A left-wing United Democratic Front (UDF) was also formed at this time. The UDF was cleverly crafted as a broad-based coalition of affiliated organizations, and as the 1980s progressed more and more anti-apartheid organizations were formed and affiliated themselves to the UDF. The UDF, which was led by the Reverend Allan Boesak and Albertina Sisulu, called for the government to abandon its reforms, and instead to abolish apartheid and eliminate the homelands.

International pressures also increased as economic sanctions began to impact and the value of the rand collapsed. In 1985, the government declared a state of emergency that was to stay in effect for the next five years. Television cameras were banned from "unrest areas". By 1988, 30,000 people had been detained. Media opposition to the system increased. This included the growth of a pro-ANC alternative press inside South Africa.

International pressure on Botha's government continued to grow, with the US and UK now actively promoting the solution of a negotiated settlement with the black majority. Early in 1989 Botha suffered a stroke, resigned on 13 February 1989 and was succeeded later that year by FW de Klerk. In his opening address to parliament in February 1990, in what has come to be known as the 'unbanning speech', President De Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws and lift the ban on the ANC, the UDF, the PAC, and the Communist Party. Media restrictions were lifted, and De Klerk released political prisoners not guilty of common-law crimes. On 11 February 1990, 27 years after he had first been incarcerated, Nelson Mandela walked out of the grounds of Victor Verster Prison as a free man.

From 1990 to 1994, F. W. de Klerk led the National Party government in negotiating with the ANC in order to end apartheid.

Having been forced by the UN Security Council to end its long-standing military occupation in Namibia, South Africa had to relinquish control of the disputed territory, and it officially became an independent state on 21 March 1990.

[edit] Negotiations

Main article: Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa

From 1990 to 1991, the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished. In a referendum in March 1992, the last whites-only vote held in South Africa, voters gave the government authority to negotiate a new constitution with the ANC and other groups.

In December 1991, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) began negotiations on the formation of a multiracial transitional government and a new constitution extending political rights to all groups. Months of wrangling finally produced a compromise and an election date, although at considerable human cost. Political violence exploded across the country during this time, particularly in the wake of the assassination of Chris Hani. Hani, the popular leader of the South Africa's Communist Party, was assassinated in 1993 in Dawn Park in Johannesburg by Janusz Walus, an anti-Communist Polish refugee who had close links to the white nationalist AWB. It is now known that elements within the police and army contributed to this violence. There have also been claims that high-ranking government officials and politicians ordered or at least condoned massacres.

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela addressing the crowd from a balcony of the City Hall in Cape Town on 9 May 1994, the day before his inauguration.

In 1993, a draft constitution was published, guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion, access to adequate housing and numerous other rights, as well as explicitly prohibiting discrimination on almost any ground. Finally, at midnight on 26–27 April 1994, the old flag was lowered, and the old (now co-official) national anthem Die Stem ("The Call") was sung, followed by the raising of the new rainbow flag and singing of the other co-official anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika ("God Bless Africa"). The election went off peacefully amidst a palpable feeling of goodwill throughout the country.

The ANC won 62.7% of the vote, less than the 66.7% that would have allowed it to rewrite the constitution. As well as deciding the national government, the election decided the provincial governments, and the ANC won in all but two provinces. The NP captured most of the white and Coloured vote and became the official opposition party.

Since then, 27 April is celebrated as a public holiday in South Africa known as Freedom Day.

In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa".[23]

[edit] Legacies of apartheid

[edit] Economic inequality and Black Economic Empowerment

Many of the inequalities created and maintained by apartheid still remain in South Africa. The country has one of the most unequal income distribution patterns in the world: approximately 60% of the population earns less than R42,000 per annum (about US$7,000), whereas 2.2% of the population has an income exceeding R360,000 per annum (about US$50,000). Poverty in South Africa is still largely defined by skin colour, with black people constituting the poorest layer. Despite the ANC government having implemented a policy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), blacks make up over 90% of the country's poor but only 79.5% of the population.[24] [25]

Part of the policy of Black Economic Empowerment is the imposition of 'employment equity' targets. In terms of this, companies are assessed based on their racial composition. To attain the 'correct' racial balance in a company, the Employment Equity Act allows for legal discrimination against White males and to a lesser extent White females when appointing staff. Government contracts and a few in the private sector are also preferentially awarded to companies with good BEE ratings. In September 2006 the Labour Ministry ordered private companies to classify their employees according to race. The classification was to be done based on a form that every employee had to complete, which used the apartheid-era racial categories. On the form the employee had to confirm whether they regarded themselves as White, Indian, Coloured or African.[26] This caused some controversy and some employees refused to classify themselves saying it was a return to the race classification system of the Apartheid era. In such cases employers were forced in terms of the Employment Equity Act to do a classification based on the general appearance of those employees who refused to classify themselves.

[edit] Land ownership inequality and land claims

Eighty percent of farming land still remains in the hands of white farmers;[27] the requirement that claimants for restoration of land seized during the apartheid era make a contribution towards the cost of the land "excludes the poorest layers of the population altogether",[24] while a large number of white farmers have been murdered since 1994 (roughly 313 per 100 000 annually) in what campaign groups claim is a campaign of genocide.[28][29] Human Rights Watch contend that the publicity given to these murders and attacks removes attention from the plight of poor black rural people, and contend that they are purely criminal in nature. [30] Regardless, crime against white farmers receives strong media coverage. Opposition against land reforms fear that by removing commercial farmers from their land and dividing up the land to poor urbanized people with no comprehension of agriculture or agricultural management would lead to a state of famine like the one being experienced in Zimbabwe at the moment.

In Durban a large movement of shackdwellers has mobilized against city authorities claiming that popular attempts to desegregate the city in the 1980s are now being reversed by the mass eviction of shack dwellers.[31]

[edit] Contrition

The following individuals, who had previously supported apartheid, made public apologies:

[edit] Establishment of the "crime of apartheid" by the International Criminal Court

Main article: Crime of apartheid
Allegations of apartheid
  • Brazil
  • Israel
Allegations are not limited to the countries listed here. See the main article for information about other countries.
(centralized discussion)
 v  d  e 

South African apartheid was condemned internationally as unjust and racist. In 1973 the General Assembly of the United Nations agreed on the text of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The immediate intention of the Convention was to provide a formal legal framework within which member states could apply sanctions to press the South African government to change its policies. However, the Convention was phrased in general terms, with the express intention of prohibiting any other state from adopting analogous policies. The Convention came into force in 1976. The main sponsors were the Soviet Union and Guinea, and the convention came into operation after twenty countries, all members of the Soviet bloc, ratified it. Seventy-six other countries subsequently signed on. However, all the major Western countries refused to ratify it, and the US stated: "We cannot accept that apartheid can be made a crime against humanity. Crimes against humanity are so grave in nature that they must be meticulously elaborated and strictly constructed under international law."

The Rome Statute defined Apartheid as one of eleven crimes against humanity. Citizens of the majority of states, including South Africa, which have ratified the statute can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for committing or abetting the crime of apartheid.[32]


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