Modern History Assignment

heroic responses.”

Apartheid was a vile system beget from the mind of White colonialism, a mind whose faculty’s composed of white supremacy, British expansionism and conquest. This system of bigotry and belligerence began an epoch of suffering, struggle and consternation for the African peoples but amongst this, also brought upon the names of freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela and Albert lutuli, whose heroic responses raised a strong arm to lift South Africa out of the hateful and simple minded sludge of the racist ideologies of Apartheid.

Government opinion, and general consensus amongst the minority white population of South Africa was that the “barbaric” and “dirty” blacks were not to mix in any way shape or form with the “sophisticated” and “cultured” whites. Mindsets such as these led to the inaction of laws concerning the separation of the native South African peoples from the whites. This set of draconian measures included the prohibition of interracial marriage, dislocation of black voting rights, racial allocation of hygienic facilities, education, public transportation, housing and the application of a passport system for the black as well as coloured populous. These measures although seemingly asinine in nature were met with little resistance in the early years, beside small pockets of resistance groups, who had little to no voice in the political arena and often left as fast as they came. The voice of reason wasn’t entirely muted however with workers protesting over human rights issues, tumultuous uproar against the increased cost of bus services and organisations such as the ANC (African National Congress) building increased public attention.

The African National Congress, under the provisional leadership of N...

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...al was which to sabotage important government targets, stating non-violence was no longer an option and white communist Joe Slovo, using his connections with the USSR to gain a threshold of arms and explosives.

“Apartheid was an evil system which brought misery to millions in South Africa but also produced heroic responses.” Is a harsh and realistic summarisation to the period between 1948 and 1994, with millions haunted by the hideous and grotesque spectre of racism, which encroached the peoples with horrors of the likes of Soweto massacre; even amongst this injustice there were heroic responses from people like Nelson Mandela and Albert lutulli. We must not however let ourselves live under the indignation that Africa was freed by a few men and women, lest we forget the thousands of others who made it possible for the emancipation of the South African peoples.