South Africa During and After Apartheid
South Africa is a land blessed with natural resources including fertile lands, metals and mineral resources such as platinum, gold and diamonds. The climate is mild which is ideal for land activities.
The richness and potential of this country attracted Dutch and English in the seventeenth century. South Africa has one of the unique histories in the world. It is evident how colonial racism emanated from Europe. The whites invested power and politics which is still manifested today.
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In the seventeenth century, South Africa was colonized by English and Dutch. Boers and Afrikaners were the English domination of the Dutch descendants. The discovery of diamond and other mineral resources in 1900 motivated the English invasion as a result of Boer War. Racial discrimination in Africa started with the enactment of Apartheid laws in 1948.
Apartheid was invented when an uneasy power- sharing between the Boers and Afrikaners held sway until 1940’s. Since Afrikaner National Party was able to gain strong majority, they established Apartheid as a means to reinforce their control over the social and economic system. Initially, the objective of the apartheid was to maintain white domination and leadership while extending racial separation (Chokshi, Carter, Gupta, Martin and Robert, 1995).
The term Apartheid is from the African word for “apartness” was actually coined in the 1930’s and later used as a political slogan of the National party. The social and political custom of Apartheid was materialized under law after the primarily Afrikaner Nationalists came to power in 1948 (“Apartheid”).
When Apartheid was institutionalized, racial discrimination started. Apartheid, as racism made law, consisted of numerous laws that denied basic human rights and political rights for black people. They were obviously exploited and their lives were segregated with the white people.
People of mixed race like Asians and Coloureds were also exploited and terrorize. It was a system dictated in the minutest detail as to how and where the large black majority would work, live and dies ("Human Rights, Historical images of Apartheid in South Africa”).
The ultimate goal of Apartheid was to establish “racial separation legally” and to maintain the guarantee of white authority. The restrictions formulated by the Apartheid laws and effects placed the black people in the difficulties regarding land issues, living areas, jobs, personal relationship, political rights, constitutional and human rights.
The Group Acts of 1950 divided the lands in which blacks and whites resided into distinct residential zones. The best urban, agricultural and industrial areas were expectedly given to whites while blacks were given only some distinct areas in South Africa. Blacks were not allowed to live and occupy areas that were named as “white zones”.
Even marriage and relationships were so extensive and encompassing for blacks. It is illegal and against the law to marry a person of different race. Couples and families were strictly required by law to obtain state permission before they could live together and authorities had given any right to refuse such permission.
Every black South African has their own passbook issued by the government that will determine where they could live and work which they have to carry every now and then. In terms of Education, the Bantu Education Act of 1953 was instituted to provide black pupils with different way of learning than white students. Black students were given different orientation, expectations and future goals
Works Cited:
Chokshi, Monal., Carter, Cale., Gupta, Deepak., Martin, Tove and Robert Allen. 1995 "The history of Apartheid in South Africa". Stanford University
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.ethics.html
"Africa-Apartheid"Africana, The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience.
http://www.africanaencyclopedia.com/selections.html
"Human Rigths, Historical images of Apartheid in South Africa". United Nations 2008 http://www.un.org/
Spindle, Tim., Shafer, Rachel., Joliff, Kevin.,Henderson., Sarah.,Bradford, Stephanie and David Weigman."Laws and Effects of Apartheid"
http://home.snu.edu/~dwilliam/f97projects/apartheid/Document5.html
"Apartheid, South Africa".Wander the Planet
http://www.wandertheplanet.net/SouthAfrica/apartheid.htm
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