A Third Way Between Two Extremes

As a result of racial segregation in both the United States and South Africa, the coloured people’s resistance escalated. In truth, this time of division strengthened nationalism – their weapon that “[transformed their] common suffering into hope for the future” (Mandela, Notes to the Future 2012, 84). Moreover, the American Jim Crow Laws and South African apartheid led to discrimination, activism, reform and most importantly reconciliation.

In the 1960s, many of the colonial nations of Africa were gaining independence. The ANC was encouraged and campaigned for democracy in South Africa. They were mild campaigns at first, but as the government became more hostile, so did ANC protests. In November 1961, a military branch of the party was organized with Mandela as its head. It authorized the limited use of arms and sabotage against the government, which got the government’s attention—and its anger! Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. It was a sad day for black South Africa.

Mandela once said, “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.” (Page 32). This quote is an accurate description of all the people who supported the apartheid in South Africa starting when the National Party was elected in 1948. Knowing why this happened and what brought the apartheid to an end is vital to not making the same detrimental mistake again. Apartheid came to an end because of internal unrest, external pressure, and great leaders.

Thesis Statement: Apartheid may have been a horrible era in South African history, but only so because the whites were forced to take action against the outrageous and threatening deeds of the blacks in order to sustain their power.

As a result of racial segregation, resistance from coloured people in both the United States and South Africa escalated. Furthermore, the history of the African civil rights movement validated: “Nationalism has been tested in the people’s struggles . . . and [proved to be] the only antidote against foreign rule and modern imperialism” (Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom 2008, 156) . By comparing and contrasting the American Jim Crow Laws and South African apartheid, we have evidence that both nations’ constitutions led to discrimination, activism, reform and reconciliation.

While the students were protesting the police were ordered to fire and almost half of the students who protested were killed. Because of the incident, the South African government started dismantling Apartheid in 1986. In 1994, the country worked to gradually introduce fairness and equity also they held the first elections in which all South Africans could vote, and Nelson Mandela was elected president. In 1995, Nelson Mandela establishes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help South Africans solved their country’s horrible past and also has managed to move forward.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was one of these people and Doc 7 showed a 1984 speech to the United Nations Security Council where he addressed the possibility of a new society for all people in South Africa. 1984 was the year P.W. Botha became president and began his police state and South Africa was still yet to see the worst atrocities of the Apartheid struggle. Tutu believed that the only reason the whites in South Africa were cruel to the blacks was because they were scared; they were outnumbered and after the ancestors of the white population had fought against the natives for decades their fear was only reinforced through stories of the barbaric Africans. They were also scared that if given the opportunity the blacks would drive them out of South Africa and out of their land of birth. Tutu suggested a new nation in which all people were equal as they were created in the image of god and where the government was truly democratic. Because Desmond Tutu had lived through the entire period of Apartheid and was a leader of the back christian community in South Africa he would have seen and understood the feelings the people of South Africa had toward Apartheid. He would have also strived to implicate Christian beliefs of equality back into the hearts of the white people and end the use of violence. One year before Desmond Tutu's speech a new political party formed called the United Democratic Front. This party was a non-racial and anti-Apartheid organization which specifically opposed the Tricameral parliament which allowed coloured and asian south Africans minimal representation while the black population was still excluded. The Poster for the United Democratic front shown in Doc 9 gave an image to the blacks in South Africa that

The national party achieved power in South Africa in 1948 the government, usually comprised on “white people”, and racially segregated the country by a policy under the Apartheid legislation system. With this new policy in place the black South African people were forced to live segregated from the white people and use separate public facilities. There were many attempts to overthrow the Apartheid regime, it persisted to control for almost 50 years.

Throughout the course of human history, violence has been a reoccurring theme in the conquest for power in countries across the planet. Understanding the ideology behind some of this violence have puzzled historians and psychologists for centuries; furthermore, the presence of reconciliation between the victims and perpetrators after some of these horrific acts of terror is even more astonishing. This form of reconciliation was a significant factor during South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) formed in 1996. After close analysis, I have been able to identify the difference between the similar terms of reconciliation and forgiveness, understand the evaluation process of reconciliation between victims and perpetrators

One large problem that occurred because of apartheid and was the cause of many protests was from 1961-1994, 3.5 million colored people and their families were forced out of their homes while their property was sold for very low prices to white farmers. This was just one example of events that were completely unfair to the colored population. Nelson Mandela was the person who stopped these acts from happening. In 1994, Mandela became the country’s first colored president. Instead of trying to make the people who put him into jail for 27 years suffer in consequences, he embraced them and used peace to unite everyone as equals, and not oppressing the people who had oppressed him for most of his life. Apartheid was a very rough time for anyone who lived in South Africa before Nelson Mandela and his peace helped to stop it.

Nelson Mandela was the man who abolished Apartheid, freeing South Africa from the binds of racial segregation forever. However, it was not an easy road and Mandela needed patience, strength of character, focus, passion, understanding, perseverance, and most importantly, forgiveness, to achieve this. For more than forty years, black South Africans were subject to the harsh racial segregation of the Apartheid system; despite making up over 70% of South Africa’s population, they had little to no rights.

Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. The people of South Africa struggle day by day to reverse “the most cruel, yet well-crafted,” horrific tactic “of social engineering.” The concept behind apartheid emerged in 1948 when the nationalist party took over government, and the all-white government enforced “racial segregation under a system of legislation” . The central issues stem from 50 years of apartheid include poverty, income inequality, land ownership rates and many other long term affects that still plague the brunt of the South African population while the small white minority still enjoy much of the wealth, most of the land and opportunities

Imagine being systematically oppressed from the moment you exited the womb. All your civil rights, based on the amount of melanin in your skin. Drinking from the wrong water fountain, could even get you thrown into jail. Coincidently; this was the life, of black South Africans from the moment of Dutch colonization in 1652, to the first true democratic election in 1994. Apartheid, meaning “separateness” in Afrikaans; was legal segregation enforced by The National Party (NP) from 1948 to 1994. It legally imposed preexisting policies of racial discrimination on the Majority of the South African population. The entire basis of the racist policies, was the darker your complexion the less legal rights you had. Presumably this injustice, could have continued much longer if it weren’t for all involved in the fight against the NP, however the man who arguably contributed the most, was Nelson Mandela. He ended an apartheid, with both his philanthropy and political prowess. He united a nation that used to be segregated; which seemed a daunting task at the time, but through the sweat and bloodshed he achieved the impossible. This alone exhibited his heroic characteristics, but to be more precise: both his actions and inactions lead to his success. Furthermore, Mandela was both a strong leader and forgiving at the same-time. Being in the forefront of the abolishment movement, was an extremely risky move during the apartheid. He risked his life for what he believed in, and this personal

It is about the essence of being human; the part of the gift that Africa will give the world. (Tutu, 2008). (Tutu, 2008)Defines Ubuntu as communicating, caring, and sharing with humans in harmony with all of creation. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being willing to go the extra mile for the sake of another. Ubuntu implies a web of human relationships in which Africans are engaged. These relations are characterized by the spirit of interdependence and mutual trust as people rely on each other in everyday life. (Barbara, 2003) Further argues that Ubuntu is the capacity in African culture to express compassion, reciprocity, dignity, harmony, and humanity in the interests of building and maintaining community. Ubuntu calls on us to believe and feel that: Your pain is my pain, my wealth is your wealth, and your salvation is my salvation In essence, Ubuntu addresses our interconnectedness, our common humanity, and the responsibility to each other that flows from our connection. The presence of Ubuntu have been described in many words. These words are obedience, kindness, caring, compassion, sympathy, interdependence, solidarity, hospitality, generosity, sharing, affirming, harmony, collectivity and consensus. Ubuntu values life, dignity, compassion, humaneness harmony and reconciliation (Hailey , Witchtner , & Tutu,

South Africa was segregated until 1994 and therefore is not the epitome of racial tolerance, but it is the treatment of education of their indigenous tribe the Zulu that shows that education controlled by one culture will lead to further segregation and worse conditions for the races out of the loop. Now, the last four presidents of South Africa were black and the current one is Zulu but even with influence in the highest office the tribe is unable to find work or make a life that is comparable to their white counterparts. The discrimination of education has led to longer consequences than the segregation and disenfranchisement because now there are generations of natives unable to compete