All men should be treated as equal. However, some people think they are superior to the others. For almost fifty years, South Africans were segregated by apartheid, a system that separated South Africans by their skin colors. The purpose behind this system was to separate the colored people from the whites in favor of white minority to have power over the black majority. Many people had to move out of their homes in designated “White” areas even though they already settled in the areas before the system was established. This system officially came to end in mid 1990’s when Nelson Mandela came to power. However, the remnants of apartheid still exist in South Africa. Thus I decided to investigate the causes of segregation in South Africa.
Apartheid started in when the Group Areas Act was introduced in 1950. This law drove the black people from the designated “White” areas in order to attain more perfect segregation. According to Outcast Cape Town by John Western it stated, “up to 1 in 10 Capetonians (nearly all mixed-race “Coloureds”) were ejected from their homes, in order to achieve a more perfect segregation” (Western, 1981,1996). Consequently, so many people lost their homes where they lived for their whole lifetime and had to move out to the outskirts of the cities. The government officials claimed that the law was to prevent any racial conflicts. Western stated, “… segregation is in the interest of all, is enshrined in the “friction theory… the belief is simply that any contact between the races inevitably produces conflict” (Western, 1981, 1996). It’s a pretty good allegation for introducing the law by saying that “we want peace among every people”. However, in truth, the law only benefited the white minority. The g...
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Western, John. "Outcast Cape Town." (1981, 1996). https://blackboard.syr.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-3178075-dt-content-rid-8094165_1/courses/33750.1142/Western_excerpts.pdf (accessed March 5, 2014).
In conclusion, racial segregation provides a gateway for countless other forms of injustice. Blacks are forced to live in a world, in which poverty is an epidemic, infrastructure is inadequate, education is non-existent, families are torn apart, and crime and violence are everywhere. Segregation utilizes all of these factors within a certain area to isolate one group of people from another. This apartheid system refuses to acknowledge the rights of blacks as rightful citizens and forces them to endure the consequences of economic, political, and social oppression. That is unfair and unjust. It is ironic how Americans are the first criticize foreign countries, yet remain blind to their own faults. Until they can identify the problem, the United States of America will continue to struggle as a country.
What was Apartheid? Apartheid was when people were segregated into different groups: White, Black, Indian, and Colored, as a government policy. In the South African language apartheid means separateness. In 1958 Blacks were deprived of their citizenship. There were separate schools, buses, shops and hospitals for blacks and colored people and the services available were well under the standard provided for the white people. Even laws were different. Apartheid touched every part of social life, including a prevention of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of "white-only" jobs. This spiraled out of control under Dr. Daniel Malan when he became Prime Minister because the Afrikaans (white South Africans) were worried black people had started taking over skilled and semi-skilled jobs and black workers were moving into the cities/towns and staying. Many didn’t know what apartheid meant but they did know it kept the white people separate from the black people.
Apartheid was a system of separation of the races both politically and socially in South Africa in the second half of the twentieth century. This system was said to be one of the last examples of institutionalized racism, and has been almost universally criticized. These Apartheid rules and restrictions were put in place by the National Party which had power over South Africa during this time period. The purpose of Apartheid legislation was to bring the Afrikaner ethnic group to a higher power in South Africa, and accomplished just that. The Afrikaner group was made up of descendants from Dutch colonists who settled in South Africa in order to make a refreshment station, a sort of rest stop, for the Dutch East India Company. The longer people stayed in Africa, the more they started to associate with it as their home. With the enslavement of many Africans, it is easy to see how these Afrikaners would associate themselves as above them and would feel entitled to power over them. This entitlement it how Apartheid rules were born.
Long-denied rights and freedoms wouldn’t have been granted to the now multi-racial South Africa, if it hadn’t been been for two icons in black history who battled against Apartheid. The recurring theme in the articles “Steve Biko” and “Obituaries; Nelson Mandela” is that both strongly fought against Apartheid and worked to overturn the oppression of the black race to restore their basic human rights. Steve Biko started his career as an activist at the age of 20 and founded a movement called The Black Consciousness that grew quickly. Because of the growth, the government started to jail hundreds of members of the movement and had the police hack into his phone to watch his every move. Biko was then banned by the government of all methods that supported the struggle, although, despite the ban, Biko continued to support the cause using various illegal strategies. The police soon arrested him without charge and treated him abusively and vulgarly. Biko then died that year due to serious brain damage and 17 years later Nelson Mandela, another leader of the struggle, was elected as president in a free and open election. Hoping to give black South Africans the right to vote along with other rights, and society only getting worse, Mandela opened up the country’s first black law firm in 1952. Then in 1960, 69 peaceful demonstrators were killed, infuriating Mandela, causing him to lead a bombing campaign against official government sites and offices. Because of the campaign, he would then spend the next 27 years of his life in prison doing harsh labor in a limestone quarry. However, the battle wasn’t over yet, as these two demonstrators would continue to fight until the day of the overturn of Apartheid.
The apartheid era in South Africa began shortly after the Boer War as the Afrikaner National Party overtook the government following the country’s independence from Great Britain. The Afrikaners, or Dutch descendants, won the majority in 1948 in the first election for the country’s government. Only a short time after were apartheid laws initiated by the minority white descendants. In the Afrikaans language, apartheid’s literal meaning is “separateness,” which is exactly what the laws were designed for. The Afrikaner National Party initiated the laws to ensure their dominance of economic and social powers, but more importantly to strengthen white people’s preeminence by segregating whites and colored peoples. In order to do this, the Afrikaners limited the freedom of colored people in various ways. First, t...
For nearly forty-six years whites ruled South Africa with licit supremacy under Apartheid laws. With roots in its history, the segregation of races reigned from its colonization by the Dutch to the late 1900's when it was weakened by social unrest and financial burden, and finally abolished by Nelson Mandela. The impact of apartheid stood after apartheid's abolition, as non-whites still had unresolved feelings towards those who supported apartheid, but with Mandela's election and the renouncement of apartheid laws, the country could move forward toward creating a "rainbow nation."
Human history has been marked with long and painful struggles that fought for human rights and freedoms. Discrimination and racial oppression has always been one of the most controversial struggles for mankind. For South Africa, it was a country where black people were oppressed by the white minority. The colonization of South Africa began in the 18th century by the Dutch empire after Dutch trading companies started using its cape as a center for trading between Asia and Europe (sahistory.org.za). Soon after, the British took over the country and declared it part of the British Empire (sahistory.org.za). Decades after, Afrikaners, who descended from the original Dutch settlers that occupied South Africa, started working on creating a state that separates between black people and whites. Their plans were to create a separation between black people and whites that involved excluding blacks from all types of social, economic, and political activities within the country. All South African natives knew the bad conditions that their people were forced to live in but only a few of them took the responsibility of sacrificing their lives and freedom for the rights of their people. One South African citizen, Nelson Mandela, can be considered the main hero for the South African freedom revolution and the hero for millions of people fighting for their freedoms worldwide. Mandela’s long walk for freedom defined South African history and entered world history as one of the most influential fights for freedom and human rights in the world.
The word apartheid comes in two forms, one being the system of racial segregation in South Africa, and the other form is the form that only those who were affected by apartheid can relate to, the deeper, truer, more horrifying, saddening and realistic form. The apartheid era truly began when white South Africans went to the polls to vote. Although the United Party and National Party were extremely close, the National party won. Since they won, they gained more seats and slowly began to eliminate the black’s involvement with the political system. With the National Party in power, they made black South African life miserable which continues to exist in South Africa’s society today. To decrease the political power of black South Africans even more, they were divided along tribal lines. During apartheid in South Africa, The National Party, along with the help of the white social classes damaged the social and political life of black South Africans which continue to leave a devastating effect on South Africa today.
In 1948, South Africa passed a monumental law that would shape the nation for decades to come. This would be known as apartheid. The apartheid was a racially-motivated law that separated the white South Africans from the black, brown or mixed South African in the country. The word is Afrikaans for "the state of being apart". A literal translation meaning "apart-hood". This meant that everything in South Africa
John Dugard, Nicholas Haysom and Gilbert Marcus. (1992).The Last Years of Apartheid: Civil Liberties in South Africa. New York: Ford Foundation
Have you ever wondered how it would feel to be considered inferior because of your race? The people of South Africa had to endure racial inferiority during the era of apartheid. The apartheid laws the government of South Africa made led to an unequal lifestyle for the blacks and produced opposition.
South Africa’s racial problems began when the white people came and discovered South Africa with its black population. The white people wanted power because there were many fewer whites than blacks. The only way to achieve that was to change the government around so that only white people had political power. The three terms that were used to describe racial groups under the system of apartheid were European, Native and Coloured.
Apartheid started in 1948 during the twentieth century. A few years before apartheid began the arrival of blacks began. Their arrival began the “Malan's Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party) which was a political party in the 1940’s and was created by Daniel François Malan and J.B.M. Hertzog” (Herenigde Nasionale Party). This national party allowed the South African government to introduce new laws which gave the minority the power to rule over the majority. Even before apartheid was introduced the few black people that were in South Africa were not treated well. Another reason apartheid was started by the African National Congress (ANC) was because the white South Africans were unable to teach the black population new technology to be able to work in the white world according to the white population. So they enforced the law of apartheid so the whites would not have to associate with the blacks at all. This not only was happening in South Africa, it also happened in America ...
The South African educational system has been through many changes dealing with cultural, political, and social issues. There has always been a concern about equal academic opportunities for all the races within South Africa. Where most of the black South African students are given the disadvantage and the White students have the advantages. It wasn’t until 1994 when things took a slight turn for black students in South Africa. That year marked the end of the apartheid. Theoretically non-white students were now offered the same education as Whites. Although in South Africa there are still some areas that the government should offer more beneficial teaching and learning for all of the non-white students. These challenges the South African education systems have been through and are now in the process will further influence an equal opportunity for black South African students. The question this research paper asks is, about how does education vary for black and white students in South Africa, after apartheid ended? There are still economic, political, and racial difficulties for non-white individuals.
What is apartheid? It strives from the African word, “separateness.” Apartheid is a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race. It goes back very far in the history of South Africa.