apartheid

History

2022

We explain what apartheid was, its ideology, causes and consequences. Also, how was the resistance that opposed and managed to defeat him.

The apartheid it gave the white minority population political, economic, and social privileges.

what was the apartheid?

The apartheid It was a system of racial segregation that was installed in South Africa during the 20th century. Through this system, the white minority population maintained political, economic, and social privileges, and were denied rights and limited opportunities. freedoms of the rest of the population.

From 1948, the Afrikaner National Party assumed the government South African and established different laws that deepened the gap between whites, blacks and other races that inhabited the country. This party prohibited marriage and sexual relations between people of different races, established their geographic separation of housing and employment, and divided the use of public services, such as transportation or access to hospitals.

After long decades of resistance and in context of a political crisiseconomical, in 1990 discriminatory laws began to be abolished. Nelson Mandela and other opposition leaders were released from prison and the political transition to a democracy multiracial

Historical context of apartheid

Immigrant labor made it possible to lower the production costs of the mining industry.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, in the region In South Africa there were different British and Dutch colonial states. With the "Anglo-Boer Wars" (1880-1881 and 1899-1901), the British Empire and settlers from the Netherlands, also called afrikanersThey disputed the political and economic control of the area.

In 1886, gold mines were discovered in the Witwatersrand mountain ranges. This led businessmen randlords, which were engaged in the diamond industry, to invest in the development of a mining industry in the region. immigrants from all over Africa Y Asia they began to arrive to work as prospectors, miners, fortune hunters or shopkeepers.

The workforce immigrant allowed cheaper production costs of the mining industry, which stimulated settlement in gold production areas. On the other hand, until then, the majority of the local black population was dedicated to the small farming.

The apartheid as ideology

The apartheid started as an ideology racist South African, common among white Afrikaners of Dutch origin, according to which the white race should guide the other racial groups in order to live in a peaceful and civilized way. They believed that the evolution and development of country it depended on the races being kept separate, fulfilling different functions and ordered with differential access to resources, goods and rights.

This South African ideology does not have a body of texts of its own, but we can locate its origin in the racist theories of the mid-nineteenth century, according to which the black and yellow races (referring to people of oriental origin) are varieties inferior to the race white, within the human species.

Some exponents of racism at the time were:

  • Joseph Gobineau. with his Essay on the inequality of human races he classified the races.
  • Karl Vogt. Via man reading , he linked the black race with the apes.
  • Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919).He argued in different works that the primitive races (the non-white races) were in an infant stage of evolution and should be supervised by the superior races (the white race).

First segregation or “mini-apartheid”

The first segregation policies created exclusive neighborhoods for the white population.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the first policies to segregate the population appeared. In Johannesburg, for example, residential areas were built for wealthier white people, such as randlords and other investors in the mining industry, and “slums” in which the rest of the population lived.

The segregation policies were an attempt to stop miscegenation, which was a characteristic of popular neighborhoods. These policies were later institutionalized in the apartheid.

In 1910, the different states of the region (Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State) signed the Union Act and were associated under the “Union of South Africa”. Although it was administered by the British Empire, in the new country the Dutch Afrikaners had great influence and political power. They prevented blacks from gaining the right to vote, access to public administration and seats in Parliament.

At that time, the country's population was made up of 67.7% black, 21% white, 8.8% mixed race, and 2.5% Asian.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the South African government, influenced by Afrikaaner ideology, imposed legal norms that, as a whole, are known today as “mini-apartheid”:

  • Land Law:
    This law forced black residents (representing 67.7% of the population) to live on “reservations,” which made up 8.7% of the country's land. In addition, the law prohibited them from renting agricultural land, which prevented them from working as sharecroppers, farmers or farmers.Thus, the whites legally obtained all of the fertile lands and, in turn, generated a large amount of unemployed labor.
  • Native Law/Urban Areas:
    This legislation laid the foundation for residential and geographic segregation. The city of Johannesburg was reorganized through the forced displacement of entire neighborhoods, and municipal authorities across the country were given the power to establish separate towns for whites, blacks, and mestizos.

With these laws, the Afrikaner party sought to control the movements of the non-white population and their access to resources they considered essential.

Institutionalization of apartheid

With the institutionalization of apartheid, the use of services and public spaces was divided. (Source: AAM Archive)

In 1948, the National Party led by Daniel F. Malan, from the Afrikaner nucleus, assumed power, who expressed during his campaign the need to deepen racial segregation to enhance the economic development from the country. Since then, different laws have been passed that increasingly limit the freedoms and rights of the entire non-white population. We can group these laws into the following groups:

  • Civil Segregation Laws:

Intermarriage Prohibition Law, Immorality Law, Population Registration Law.

Through these regulations, sexual and marriage relations between people of different races were prohibited. The legal classification of people was carried out according to skin color and blood ascendants.

  • Spatial segregation laws:

Area Grouping Act, Natives [Additions and Amendments] Act, Separate Public Services Act, Native Relocation Act.

Residence spaces, transit areas and access to public services were delimited for each ethnic group.In addition, the discrimination established the privilege for the white population, by specifying that it was not necessary to equate the quality of the facilities or spaces reserved for each group.

The urban areas were reserved for the white population. The entire non-white population had to carry a "pass" that specified the authorized transit zones and in which the temporary authorization to enter white zones appeared.

  • Labor segregation laws:

Native Labor Act, Negro Labor Amendment Act.

The participation of black people in labor strikes was prohibited and regulatory guidelines for labor conflicts with the black population were established.

  • Political segregation laws:

Communism Suppression Act, Bantu Self-Government Promotion Act, Bantu Urban Mayoralties Act, Anti-Terrorism Act.

parties and expressions communists were prohibited. In addition, with this law, any action of protest and opposition to the regime was defined as a communist expression and, therefore, repressed. The South African government could also arrest anyone it considered politically dangerous. The participation of black representatives in Parliament was also eliminated.

The Self-Government Law established the creation of ten “bantustans” as new nations within the country, where each assigned person had to settle. This subdivision legitimized the idea that the black population had no citizenship rights for the South African government.

  • Educational and social segregation laws:

Bantu Education Act , University Education Extension Act.

Special educational institutions and programs “for the nature and needs of the black people” were created, with the aim of preparing black people to accept subordination to the segregation system and to work in the labor fields destined for the black population.Blacks were banned from universities reserved for whites.

resistance to apartheid

resistance to apartheid it was continuous and took different forms. (Source: AAM Archive)

resistance to apartheid it was continuous and took different forms, until it succeeded, at the end of the 20th century, in delegitimizing and overthrowing the ideology and power bases that maintained it as a government.

From the first racist political and normative expressions, resistance and protests were generated among the black population. In 1912, the South African National Native Congress, which later became the African National Congress (ANC), was founded and led the fight against segregationist laws. During the first decades, the resistance was peaceful and focused on protest actions and public defiance of racist measures.

With the rise of the Afrikaner National Party to power and the worsening of the living conditions of the non-white population, anti-racist movements became massive.

In 1955, different political parties and civil groups signed the Freedom Charter, a declaration of the basic principles and demands of the population: a non-racist, unified and democratic South Africa. The government accused the signers of being communists and arrested black political leaders.

In 1960, a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville was suppressed and 69 black people were killed by the police. The government banned the ANC and other political organizations.

From then on, the resistance movements organized underground and began to use violence as a method of protest. By 1963, the conflict continued to escalate and the government declared a "State of Emergency", which enabled the arrest of people without a warrant: 18,000 black leaders and protesters were arrested, including Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC.

The international arena began to criticize and sanction South Africa's racist policies. The United Nations General Assembly approved the Declaration against the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination in 1963. However, with the context of the Cold War, the international actions against the apartheid they were limited. The presence of communist nuclei in the south of the continent, backed by the USSR and Cuba, made the United States support the government of the Afrikaner National Party for decades.

During the 1970s, armed conflicts in the country intensified; protests multiplied and the government's repressive response increased. In 1976, the Soweto massacre took the lives of 566 black people, including children, at the hands of the police.

defeat of the apartheid

Nelson Mandela was internationally recognized for dedicating his life to the fight against apartheid.

The dismemberment of the communist bloc at the end of the 1980s changed the international scene. Western powers, such as the United States, stopped supporting the government of apartheid and began to implement measures of political and economic isolation in South Africa. Some Western states have banned their companies from doing business in the country and economic sanctions have been in place since UN.

The various international sports committees banned South African participation until racist policies were lifted; the Olympic Games, the FIA, FIFA, Davis Cup and Rugby World excluded the country from their competitions.

The South African economy entered a crisis that was aggravated by the drop in the international price of gold. In 1985, the country declared a state of emergency and white Afrikaner politicians in the National Party understood that the apartheid it was becoming an unsustainable system.

President Peter W.Botha initiated some measures to curb the discontent of the black population. But it was only in 1989, under President Frederik Le Klerk, that the National Party began the transition to a South Africa without racial segregation.

In 1990, the process of eliminating discriminatory laws began. The activity of the African National Congress was legalized and the different political prisoners were released, including Nelson Mandela. Then, negotiations began with representatives of the different political groups. The following year, all discriminatory laws were repealed and the creation of a new national Constitution was agreed upon.

In 1993, the new Constitution established the fundamental rights of all South Africans without distinction of race and free participation for the entire population of legal age in the next presidential elections. The following year, Nelson Mandela was elected president.

Causes of apartheid

The system of racial segregation was officially installed in South Africa in the middle of the 20th century and the Afrikaners managed to maintain it for four decades. The main causes of the institutionalization of apartheid were:

  • The spread of racist ideas among the Afrikaners, who owned the major means of production from the country.
  • The weakening of British control after the formation of South Africa as a unified country.
  • The denial of political and electoral rights to the black population when the South African parliament was formed in 1910.
  • The growing immigration of workers from other African and Asian countries.
  • The coming to power of the National Party in 1948 and its preservation through the repression of resistance groups.

Consequences of apartheid

The inequalities established during the apartheid even today they have effects on the life of the population.

The four decades of racial segregation generated inequality and poverty in South Africa.The main consequences of apartheid were:

  • South Africans became a structurally unequal society; with differential access to rights, resources and basic services.
  • The poverty and unemployment, even today, remain higher among the black population.
  • As a result of unequal access to education, only a small proportion of professional workers are black.
  • The forced displacement of people broke family and social ties, and impoverished the quality of life of millions of people.
  • Segregation caused the repression, persecution, imprisonment, torture and exile of people from the resistance movements.
  • The general impoverishment of the population and the impossibility of economic and social mobility among the black population became a national economic crisis.
  • International isolation in rejection of apartheid In recent decades, the South African economic crisis has worsened.

Important figures of apartheid

Frederik Le Klerk started the negotiations for the transition to a multiracial democracy.
  • Daniel F. Malan (1874-1959). He took over as minister from 1948 to 1954 for the National Party and implemented the policies that laid the foundations for the apartheid.
  • Johannes G. Strijdom (1893-1958). He was the successor of D. Malan as prime minister between 1958 and 1958 and continued the institutional development of the apartheid.
  • Hendrik Verwoerd (1901-1966). Prime Minister between 1958 and 1966, he was the one who designed several of the racist policies under previous governments, including the segregated educational system.
  • Pieter W. Botha (1916-2006). He led the National Party and was president between 1984 and 1989. Under his presidency, negotiations began to abandon the racist system.
  • Frederik LeKlerk (1936-2021). Under him as president, between 1989 and 1994, negotiations began for the transition to a multiracial and united South African democracy.

Important figures of the resistance

Desmond Tutu was a priest and pacifist who championed the anti-racist cause.
  • Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). He was a resistance activist against apartheid, leader of the African National Congress, political prisoner between 1962 and 1990 and president of the South African Republic from 1994 to 1999. He was recognized, among other things, for betting on a peaceful transition between the apartheid system and pluriracial democracy. Among other recognitions for his fight for human rights, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
  • Steve Bikko (1946-1977). He was a militant of Black Consciousness Movement during the sixties and seventies; and an important reference in the fight against apartheid when the ANC went underground and its political leaders were imprisoned or exiled.
  • Joe Slova (1926-1995). A member of the Communist Party linked to the ANC, he created, together with Mandela, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (the “spear of the nation”, in Spanish) as the armed wing of the ANC since the Sharpeville massacre.
  • Desmond Tutu (1931-2021). He was a priest and pacifist who championed the anti-racist cause throughout his life; and he constantly organized protests and strikes. He was recognized for his fight internationally and in 1994 he received the Nobel Prize peace.
!-- GDPR -->