Apartheid

A sign in a beach in Durban in 1989 that says only white people could use the beach in English, Afrikaans and Zulu.

Apartheid was a racist political and social system in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) during the era of white minority rule (1910-1994). Apartheid enforced racial segregation and it existed from 1948 to 1994. The word apartheid means "apartness" in the Afrikaans language.

Racial segregation had existed in what is now South Africa for centuries. In the elections of 1948, the National Party (NP) under Daniel Francois Malan took power, unified the existing pass laws in the Union of South Africa under their new strict apartheid system, and in the next few years, made new pass laws that enforced segregation more rigorously than the previous pass laws. In theory, the goal was to bring independence to the Black majority in their own little countries to be created from South African territory.

Under this system, the people of South Africa were divided into four races, and the different races were forced to live separately from each other. There were laws to keep them segregated. In South Africa, apartheid was dismantled in the early 1990s.

The last head of state who held office during the apartheid era was Frederik Willem de Klerk; who was responsible for holding negotiations with political prisoner Nelson Mandela to bring an end to apartheid. Following these successful negotiations, Nelson Mandela was elected to the Presidency of South Africa after the first non-racial elections were held in April 1994, and became the first black person to hold the position. He was 75 years old. The pair were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. South Africa's apartheid system is sometimes compared to the Jim Crow laws. Today, the term apartheid is sometimes used for similar geographic segregation systems in other countries.

How apartheid worked in South Africa

Under apartheid, people were divided into four racial groups and segregated by law. The system was used to deny many basic rights to non-White people, mainly Black people, Coloureds and Indians who lived in South Africa. The law allowed White people to be in certain areas. Only Black people had to carry special passes, have permission to travel outside their designated area or work in particular areas reserved for Whites. The government segregated diverse communities and forcibly moved many black people off their land (From 1960 to 1983, the Bantustan policy was enforced to forcibly move South African blacks out of the areas designated for whites). Many other laws were made, for example: interracial marriage was outlawed; Black people, Coloured people or Indians could not own land in White areas or vote.

The United Nations (UN) actively opposed South Africa's apartheid policies in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Some anti-apartheid protests in South Africa have resulted in massacres committed by the police, such as in Sharpeville, Vereeniging in 1960 and in Soweto, Johannesburg in 1976. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the UN tried to remove South Africa 14 years later in 1974. France, the United States, and the United Kingdom prevented that from happening. The Soweto uprising in 1976 happened because Black South Africans were forced to study some subjects at school and college in Afrikaans and English, instead of their first languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Sepedi and Sesotho). Many Black people hated Afrikaans because it was the language of the National Party-led government and the language of their Afrikaner oppressors.

Protests

Protests against apartheid started one year after apartheid started. As early as 1949, the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) suggested fighting against apartheid using many different strategies. Over the next 45 years, hundreds of anti-apartheid actions occurred. They included protests by the Black Consciousness Movement; student protests; labour strikes; and church group activism. In 1991, the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act was passed, repealing laws requiring racial segregation, including the Group Areas Act. In 1990, President Frederik Willem de Klerk started trying to end apartheid. Non-whites were given the right to vote in 1993. South Africa had its first non-racial elections (where non-whites were allowed to be candidates in 1994. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress won. Mandela and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for working together to end apartheid.

Ending apartheid

In 1989, F. W. de Klerk became State President of South Africa. Unlike the previous head of state, P.W. Botha, de Klerk agreed to dismantle apartheid largely because international pressure left him no other choice. In a speech in 1990, de Klerk said the ban on the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), and the South African Communist Party (SACP) was lifted and he then ruled that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison and South West Africa (today Namibia) would be granted independence.

In 1991, the UN created the National Peace Accord. The purpose of the Peace Accord was "to bring an end to political violence" in South Africa. It was agreed on by 27 organisations and governments. After this the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) was formed. CODESA worked to find a solution to the violence.

The first non-racial election in which all races could vote, was held on 27 April 1994. Nelson Mandela was elected president, with de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki as deputies. This date is considered the complete end of apartheid. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to help victims speak out and seek justice. It was chaired by Desmond Tutu from 1995 to 1998.

Although Black South Africans, Cape Coloureds and Indian South Africans were granted equal rights by law after a long fought campaign, there is still huge economic inequality between Whites and non-Whites. In 2012, South Africa held its first census in over ten years. It found that the average Black family earned one-sixth (about 17%) of what the average White family earned. "These figures tell us that at the bottom of the rung is the black majority who continue to be confronted by deep poverty unemployment and inequality,” President Jacob Zuma said when the findings were released. Nelson Mandela spent the majority of his life fighting against apartheid laws, and without his activism; many of the changes would never have happened.

Sign at a beach in 1985: This beach has been reserved for white people only.

Aim of apartheid

The goal of apartheid was to separate the people of South Africa into small independent nations. The black ones were called Bantustans. South Africa said they were independent countries and exchanged ambassadors but other countries did not. D.F. Malan, J.G. Strijdom and Hendrik Verwoerd did not want to spend a lot of money on this project. They also wanted to keep the majority of South Africa's land for white people, especially the richest places, like the gold mines of Johannesburg. They wanted black men to work in these mines for little money but their families had to live far away or face imprisonment. Those imprisonments often served as "a symbol of oppression".

References

  1. ↑ "Apartheid (1948-1994)". Archived from the original on August 5, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4
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  4. ↑ Abegunrin, Olayiwola Africa in Global Politics in the Twenty-First Century: A Pan-African Perspective Palgrave MacMillan New York, New York 2009 page 20
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  6. ↑ Lockard, Craig A. Societies, Networks, and Transitions, Volume C since 1750 Second Edition Wadsworth Cengage Learning page 889
  7. ↑ Schaefer, Richard T. editor Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society Volume 1 Sage Publications Inc. 2008 page 83
  8. ↑ "United Nations - Office of Legal Affairs". legal.un.org.
  9. ↑ Haas, Michael International Human Rights: A Comprehensive Introduction Routledge New York 2008 page 84
  10. ↑ Pieterse, HJC Desmond Tutu's Message: A Qualitative Analysis Uitgeverij Kok, Kampden, the Netherlands 2001 page 17
  11. ↑ Bugliani, Paolo; Riccardi, Silvia (2018). Dante in Inghilterra. Pisa University Press.
  12. ↑ Martin, Phyllis, Patrick O'Meara editors Africa: Third Edition Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 1995 402
  13. 1 2 3 Lengfeld, Carolynne; Pienaar, Sara, eds. (2006). "Resistance to Apartheid". Understanding Apartheid: Teacher's Book. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. pp. 55–74. ISBN 0-19-576616-4.
  14. ↑ Reinhard Zimmermann (1996). "Southern Cross: Civil Law and Common Law in South Africa". Clarendon Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0198260875.
  15. ↑ "De Klerk dismantles apartheid in South Africa". BBC News Online. British Broadcasting Corporation, Inc. February 2, 1990. Archived from the original on February 15, 2009. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  16. ↑ "Nelson Mandela". Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. February 19, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  17. ↑ "The Nobel Peace Prize 1993: Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk". The Official Website of the Nobel Prize. Nobel Media AB. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  18. ↑ "National Peace Accord" (PDF). United Nations. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  19. 1 2 Cohen, Mike (October 30, 2012). "South Africa's Racial Income Inequality Persists, Census Shows". Bloomberg. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
  20. ↑ William Walter Bostock (19 September 2024). "The Role of Language in the Mandela Strategy". European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. ISSN 2736-5522. Retrieved 28 July 2025.