INTRODUCTION
• Apartheid policy was an official
policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the republic of south Africa
involving political, legal and economic discrimination against
non-whites.(William,2008:85)
• A system of legal discrimination,
effectively revoking the rights of the majority blacks of 25 millions in favour
of the minority whites of 5 million who held the government.(Clark,2004:176)
• Therefore we come up with our
definition that:
• Apartheid is an imperialist racial
segregation policy intended to exploit the blacks by the whites in south
Africa. Here colour of the skin is used as a criteria for segregation in the
society into classes.
THE BACKGROUND
• The history of racist ideas and
racial ideologies in south Africa is long and complex one(kallaway,2002)
• The history of racist ideas is
firstly traced during the coming of the whites in south Africa such as The
Dutch and British
• The Dutch were regarded as God given
ordering of the races (william,2004) thus why then regarded themselves as
superior race
• The coming of the British changed the
image of the cape leading to Great Trek from 1820s
• The discovery of minerals resulted
into
a)first Anglo-
Boer war 1881
b)second Anglo- Boer war 1899-1902
. The British moved
ahead with the plans for union after
several years of negotiators through peace treaty; hence the union of
south Africa in may 1910
. The union was created by unification of four
areas
. The act of union denied them the blacks
voting rights example the native land Act of 1913:reserved 93 % of the land for
whites only
. 2/3 of the Africans
became squatters, over crowded and impoverished life
APARTHEID LAWS
There are several Acts which gave birth to apartheid policy
some of them are:
• The prohibition of mixed marriage Act
of 1949
• Population registration Act of 1950
• The group area Act of 1950
• Suppression of communism Act of 1950
• The prevention of illegal
squatting Act of 1951
• The bantu authorities Act of 1951
• The pass laws Act of 1952
• Bantu education Act of 1953
• The immorality Act of 1950
The reservation of separate amenities Act of 1953
EFFECTS OF APARTHEID SOCIAL EFFECTS
• Prohibition of mixed marriages , the
1950 immorality Act and the 1949 mixed marriage Act made it illegal for
inter-marriages or even inter-racial sexual
It restricted blacks
to get education, in 1957 bantu education Act was passed created Africans to serve
the regime, also in 1954 university education proposed to set up universities
for each major ethnic group.
} Classification of people according to
race, population registration Act of 1949 made provision for such
classification after which all south Africans would have to carry documents
stating their race(Oliver,1967:65)
} Creation of settlement camps, people
lived separately according to their races, example there was a permanent
settlement for African blacks only(Roland et al,1967:259)
} Led to mass killing, for instance
Sharpeville and Soweto massacre, “incident of 1960 when south African police
opened fire on a crowd of black protesters. These people were protesting the
apartheid policy(Butler:1998)
POLITICAL EFFECT
• It banned political activities, blacks
were not represented in the government and the parliament was for whites only
for instance the African national congress (ANC) and pan African
congress(P.A.C)were banned on April 8,1960 (Kamili,2007:202)
• Creation of a pass laws to the
African, this was due to the pass law Act of 1952.
• The
pass laws required all blacks South Africans over 16 years to carry a pass book called
“Dompass”, similar to a passport.(Kallaway,2008:96)
• Formation of pan Africans congress,
this was anti-apartheid movement found by Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe in 1959.
• Formation of umkhonto we sizwe(spear
of the nation), in 1961 response to the government actions the ANC organized
umkhonto we sizwe
ECONOMIC EFFECTS
• Creation of working classes, here the
whites did the white collar jobs while the Africans did the rough, unpleasant
normal work, even when the white and the black happened to do the same type of
work, the salaries paid to white were more than the salaries paid to
Africans(Kamili,2007:202)
• Unemployment, blacks lived in rural
areas away from whites people were there were no employment opportunities (Ronald et:al,1967:259)
• It lead a great gap between the rich
(whites)and poor(blacks),black people did not receive as good education as whites in south Africans, very
few black people were able to study in the country.
• African trade association (union)
were banned, all African traders union activity was banned thus enabling whites
employers to enforce very low wages to blacks
compared to whites
(Shillington,2005:404)
CONCLUSION
} The apartheid system in south africa
ended through a series of negotiations between 1990 and 1993 and through
unilateral step by Fredrick de Clerk government. These negotiations took place
between the governing National party , African National Congress and wide
variety of other political organization. These negotiations resulted in south
Africa’s first multiracial election which was won by the African National
Congress and Nelson Mandela became the first black president of south Africa.
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