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The Inequities of Apartheid

The Inequities of Apartheid. The South African government that had declared freedom from Britain was controlled by a white minority, largely descended from Dutch Boers (the Afrikaners Afrikaners practiced a policy of apartheid, or extreme racial segregation .

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The Inequities of Apartheid

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  1. The Inequities of Apartheid

  2. The South African government that had declared freedom from Britain was controlled by a white minority, largely descended from Dutch Boers (the Afrikaners • Afrikaners practiced a policy of apartheid, or extreme racial segregation

  3. In 1948, South Africa had a new government, the National Party • Elected in a whites-only election, this party feared black domination of the white minority population • Among its first measures were statutes to separate the residential areas

  4. Racially mixed marriages were prohibited • Black South Africans were required to carry passbooks • Bantustans or homelands for black South Africans were created • Black South Africans were not allowed to vote in elections

  5. The chief objective of the apartheid system was to deny non-whites the fruits of supposedly white labors

  6. Yet African labor contributed to the rise of a modern industrial state in South Africa

  7. There was also an assumption of supremacy among South Africa's whites which stemmed back to the first European settlers in 1652 • Many Afrikaners accepted the idea that different cultures should live apart; that this was God's will • Most Afrikaners were Calvinists with a strong streak of determinism

  8. It is important to remember that the first serious effort to establish a European settlement in South Africa came in 1652, with arrival of Jan van Riebeeck and Dutch East India Company • Van Riebeeck purchased slaves to do domestic and agricultural work • Free burghers (bourgeoisie) came to regard manual labor as slaves’ work

  9. So for many of burghers there was no other available employment than land ownership • Response to unemployment was to move away from the coast, into vast open expanses sparsely occupied by Khoikhoi and San tribes

  10. Then the Congress of Vienna gave the southern tip of Africa to the British • The British and the Dutch achieved an uneasy peace • Until the discovery of gold and diamonds in Dutch Orange Free State and Transvaal

  11. After the Boer Wars (the Boers resented Britain’s abolition of slavery), the British gained complete control of the land • And following independence from Great Britain, the British settlers and Afrikaners shared power until the Afrikaner National Party was able to gain a strong majority

  12. Strategists in the National Party invented apartheid

  13. The Apartheid laws established in 1948institutionalized racial discrimination • In 1950, the Population Registration Act required all South Africans to be racially classified: white, black (African), or colored (of mixed decent)

  14. All blacks were required to carry “pass books” containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas • In 1951, Bantu Authorities Act established a basis for ethnic government in African reserves, known as “homelands”

  15. Black South Africans were citizens of a homeland, losing citizenship in South Africa and any right of involvement with the South African Parliament • From 1976 to 1981, four of these homelands were created, denationalizing nine million South Africans • Thus, Africans living in homelands needed passports to enter South Africa

  16. In 1960, a large group of blacks in Sharpeville refused to carry passes; the government declared a state of emergency • The emergency lasted for 156 days, leaving 69 people dead; 187 people wounded

  17. The Soweto riots of 1976 were most brutal • The Apartheid government decided to start enforcing a long-forgotten law requiring secondary education be conducted only in Afrikaans • Students resented being forced to learn language of their oppressors

  18. The Government’s responsewas to shut down the schools and expel striking students • In Soweto township on June 16,1976, students organized marches and protests • Police showed no mercy attacked students of all ages, armed or unarmed

  19. International boycotts against South Africa developed • There was pressure for the withdrawal of U.S. firms from South Africa and for release of Mandela • South Africa was ostracized from world community

  20. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison • In 1993, F.W. De Klerk (the white South African president who dismantled formally dismantled apartheid) and Nelson Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize • In 1994, Mandela was elected the first Black president of South Africa

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