South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is located on the southern tip of the continent of Africa. It is slightly less than twice the size of Texas, about 1,223,201 square kilometers. Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland run from west to east along South Africa’s northern border. The country of Lesotho lies entirely within the borders of South Africa and is completely landlocked. The South Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean surround the southern coast. South Africa is divided into nine provinces: the Northern Province, Kwazulu/Natal, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, the North West Province, the Western Cape, the Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape. South Africa also has three capital cities: Pretoria serves as the administration capital; Cape Town serves as the legislative capital; and Bloemfontein serves as the judicial capital (CIA).
South Africa was affected by colonialism like many other countries in Africa. After gaining independence from the British Commonwealth, the policy of apartheid was set up. Apartheid was a system of government that marginalized blacks by excluding them from full participation in the political and economic system. For example it determined where they could live, where they could work, and whom they could marry. Apartheid also affected the educational system and health care. With the collapse of apartheid during the 1990’s, President Nelson Mandela began setting the foundation for a new multiracial and more equal system of government.
The first population census of the Union of South Africa was taken in 1911. One of the problems with this census was that it did not accurately count the black African population. The Population Registration Act of 1948 required all South Africans to be classified by race. In 1950, apartheid officially restricted black peoples to “homelands” that had no resources and was roughly 13 percent of the land and were excluded from the census. Another problem with the census measurements was that many black South Africans lived in “squatter camps” close to cities where they worked. They were not included in the census and many did not register births, deaths, marriages and divorces (Library of Congress, 48).
In 1980, the census count was 23.8 million plus another 4.6 million was added to compensate for undercounting, making the total population 28.4 million. This also exclu...
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...ate changes to its domestic and foreign policies to form a non-racial, free, democratic society and to open up its markets to the global economy. Today a new South Africa is being created by building the future from an imperfect past.
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The End of Apartheid - HistoryWiz South Africa. (n.d.). HistoryWiz: for students, teachers and lovers of history. Retrieved February 19, 2011, from http://www.historywiz.org/end.htm
Africa is the second largest of the earth's seven continents, covering about twenty-two percent of the world's total land area. From its northern most point, to its southern most tip is the distance of nearly five thousand miles. Africa is both north and south of the equator. The Atlantic Ocean is located west of the continent, and the Indian Ocean is on the east. Width of the continent is also nearly five thousand miles. Although Africa is so large, much of it is inhabitable. Desert soils, which have little organic content, cover large areas. The Sahara Desert, in the northern part, covers more than one fourth of Africa, and the Kalahari Desert is in the southern part of the continent. These two deserts are a natural detriment to the African continent because they make it difficult to reach the inland where most of the people live. Although Africa is relatively close to Europe, travel by land over the Sahara desert is very prohibitive. Another topographical feature that also isolates the central region of Africa is the coastline.
I define decolonization in South Africa as the process of a relative majority acquiring independence from a previously more powerful minority, whether that minority is an outside colonizing power or a small group of people living within the colonial society: in the first phase of decolonization, the Afrikaners gained independence from the minority British ruling elite; in the second phase of decolonization, the black South African majority gained independence from the Afrikaner minority. Due to the complex colonial situation in South Africa, black natives suffered greatly from their encounter with European settlers and Afrikaners. As opposed to many African states that did not have large white populations, the struggles of black South Africans were exacerbated by pseudo-scientific racism stemming from a heavy white presence, which led to apartheid politics, constrained the daily lives of the black population, placed epidemic diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis under racial terms, and made economic prosperity unattainable. The legacies of apartheid politics continued after the second post-colonial phase, and black South Africans today still suffer
South Africa has a long history with europe, the Dutch, Portuguese, and finally the British have controlled this land. The country is home to many different groups, from white to black. South Africa is a new country, liberated by the british in 1934. Its history has been dominated by white power and ignorance. When the british left in 1934, The White South Africans were placed in power puting in Apartheid. They separated blacks from whites and oppressed the african people. Many movements started the most famous being lead by a man named Nelson Mandela. Mandela was inspired by the peaceful protest of Mohandas Gandhi and implemented many of his teachings, to one day become south africa’s first black president.
South Africa was positively affected in the way that before the Dutch and British, South Africa had been split up into many different tribes, who though they were free were not united. Through the centuries of hardship South Africa came out of apartheid very strong and the ANC has maintained a popularity of 60% popularity for all the elections since 1994. Economically South Africa has blossomed and is the 2nd largest economy in all of Africa and has managed to triple its GDP even though it has been less than 30 years since it has left apartheid, established democracy and freed itself from many international sanctions. South Africa’s economy still has many issues though for it is still an underdeveloped country which suffers from lack of education, employment, and crime. Socially South Africa remains strong as it is united under one goal of making its nation once again great, and it has maintained its heritage and culture. In fact, a quick look at a South African site will show many articles and memorials, of days in the past remembering the struggle for freedom. Politically, South Africa has remained strong and united with the ANC still carrying the vast majority of the votes and uses a governmental system quite similar to ours with a separation of powers and a thriving democratic system. Luckily, political diversity has also started to appear with many other groups appearing making the most out of South Africa’s democracy and all of which pledge freedom and are led by native
The South African Apartheid, instituted in 1948 by the country’s Afrikaner National Party, was legalized segregation on the basis of race, and is a system comparable to the segregation of African Americans in the United States. Non-whites - including blacks, Indians, and people of color in general- were prohibited from engaging in any activities specific to whites and prohibited from engaging in interracial marriages, receiving higher education, and obtaining certain jobs. The National Party’s classification of “race” was loosely based on physical appearance and lineage. White individuals were superficially defined as being “obviously white'' on the basis of their “habits, education and speech as well as deportment and demeanor”; an analogous sort of definition existed for all “races." The Apartheid system mimicked the Soviet Union in that all blacks and natives were to carry passbooks containing fingerprints, photos, and other forms of identification. In 1951 the country was broken up into “Bantu homelands” or districts to which certain races of individuals would be herded and allocated certain civil rights. Early on, resistance to the derogatory and racist Apartheid Nationals mounted. The African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, The Congress of South African Trade Unions, women, and select individuals such as Nelson Mandela, act as but a few examples of both active and passive resistance to the Apartheid which ultimately led to its downfall and the ushering in of a new era of cooperation amongst all South African peoples.
Apartheid was a system of segregation implemented in 1948 by the Afrikaner National Party in South Africa. It put into laws the dissociation of races that had been practiced in the area since the Cape Colony's founding in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company. This system served as the basis for white domination in South Africa for forty-six years until its abolition in 1994. Apartheid's abolition was brought on by resistance movements and an unstable economy and prompted the election of South America's first black president.
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.
Petersson, Lennart. Post-Apartheid Southern Africa: Economic Challenges and Policies for the Future: Proceedings of the 16th Arne Ryde Symposium, 23-24 August 1996, Lund, Sweden. New York City: Routledge, 1998.
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
South Africa really began to suffer when apartheid was written into the law. Apartheid was first introduced in the 1948 election that the Afrikaner National Party won. The plan was to take the already existing segregation and expand it (Wright, 60). Apartheid was a system that segregated South Africa’s population racially and considered non-whites inferior (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Apartheid was designed to make it legal for Europeans to dominate economics and politics (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”).
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 was considered a necessary arrangement in South Africa, as the Afrikaner National Party gained a strong majority political control of the country after the 1940’s and the economic dependence on their fertile natural resources, such as diamond and gold mines and other metals such as platinum. This required intense labor and the white dominant control over the repressed black majority allowed for an
...ellent policies, 5) the Constitution had come into existence through the working together of various groups that had composed South Africa, 6) South Africa's political and economic institutions are well established, 7) and that South Africa is by far the most developed country in Africa. However, there are still avenues that can impede further progress, more so economically then politically. Primarily the lack of foreign investment, especially when South Africa's gold and diamond reserves are emptied as other parts of economy are not as developed. Secondly, the economic gap between whites and blacks that was stretched during the time of apartheid needs to be tightened or else it could become dangerous to the stability of the political system. However, due to the leadership of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s current government structure exists to solve these issues.
The apartheid was a very traumatic time for blacks in South Africa. Apartheid is the act of literally separating the races, whites and non-whites, and in 1948 the apartheid was now legal, and government enforced. The South African police began forcing relocations for black South Africans into tribal lines, which decreased their political influence and created white supremacy. After relocating the black South Africans, this gave whites around eighty percent of the land within South Africa. Jonathan Jansen, and Nick Taylor state “The population is roughly 78 percent black, 10 percent white, 9 percent colored, and l...