How Did Biko Change The World

In the 1930’s it was rare for a black South African to attend college. But Mandela not only attended, he graduated, got a degree from law school, and set up a practice in Johannesburg which he hoped could support his small family. Yet apartheid was always a humiliation to him. When the Afrikaner, or Dutch South African, Nationalists came to power in the 1948 election, the segregation habits of the past three hundred years became law. Hoping for a brighter future, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became its first Youth Leader.

Racism, discrimination and degradation faced by Blacks and other ethnic minorities under the apartheid system was not unlike the segregation and intimidation faced by African-Americans in the Jim Crow south. Jim Crow system of segregation that kept Blacks from fully participating in public and civic activities and relegated African-Americans to substandard conditions at work, school and even in the home. Blacks in South Africa were under the clutches of an overt, national policy of racism and segregation implemented by the country’s highest level of government. Civil and human rights abuses of Blacks in South Africa at the hand of the country’s white minority occurred long before apartheid officially began, but the system’s official start brought strict, sweeping laws such as the rule that all persons in South Africa to be categorized as white, Black, colored and Indian, without exception. Like in the U.S. during Jim Crow, Blacks and whites were not allowed to marry and sexual relations between members of different races was a criminal offense.

Black South Africans living in South Africa, had to endure fifty years of oppression and racial discrimination. Apartheid was a policy implemented by the South African government across South Africa. It was used to control the Black South African population since they make up the majority of the population. The government created Apartheid, due to their fear that the Black population will overthrow them. Living as a Black South African meant that they had to live a more oppressive and undesirable life.

Segregation can be described as a “legalized apartheid system, which denied blacks virtually any protection under the law [and] came under relentless attack in the postwar era” (Dubois and Dumenil 2016, 557). This system alienated people of color from whites. African Americans were under constant attack both verbally and physically. In spited of

In the article ”Learn about South Africa”, Hannah Lantos educates us on how Black and coloured people who lived in South Africa, had little rights until a man named Nelson Mandela came along and restored equality. The native people in South Africa lived peacefully until diamonds and gold were discovered and many people went there to work in the mines and to own them (Lantos par.3). The conflict still continued and the native people had a very difficult time.”The Natives’ Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership or land by ‘Black’ to the small percentage of 7%” (Lantos par. 4). The National Party was elected and they intensified the racial segregation program (Lantos par. 4). A man named Nelson Mandela was against this unfair apartheid

This was exactly what F.W. de Klerk had to face as he became the president of South Africa. He began his political career with a law degree, which later got him elected to the National Party. The Party itself was a catalyst for racial Segregation in Africa. Under the leadership of P.W. Botha, who was elected as the president of the country, the country was separated into four social classes based on the race- White, Black, Colored, and Asians. Later, the same government was responsible for the imprisonment of African leaders such as Nelson Mandela, and the ban on political parties such as the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania. As fate would have it, Botha fell ill in January of 1989, and de Klerk was elected to replace him as the president of the country. de Klerk used this opportunity to take various important steps to bring an end to apartheid, and that’s what he did. He released the prisoners jailed by his predecessor and lifted the bans on the organizations. Following this, he met with several anti-apartheid leaders such as Mandela to discuss a new constitution. In 1994, Mandela became the first black president of Africa. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “he (de Klerk) called a referendum in which almost 69% of the country’s white voters

In all his works and contributions, “Biko was not only seen as a South African liberation struggle hero, but also became a universal symbol of resistance against oppression” (SouthAfrica.info). The effects of his approach to the liberation struggle resulted in a wave of student protests against the seemingly racist and oppressive education system of that time. Inspired and influenced by the ideas of W.E.B Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and thinkers such as Frantz Fannon, Leopold Senghor, the American Black Panther Party and others, Black consciousness became an increasingly growing phenomenon amongst the black South African community, especially with black students. It grew to become recognised as one of the recognised

Another incident that rose eyebrows was the death of Stephen Biko, the leader of the South African Student Organization. “In the black freedom struggles in the Republic of South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, launching of protests by black students also marked a turning point and the onset of a new phase of the larger anti-apartheid movement” (Franklin, 2003). His death became world news. Accused of placing him to rest were the Port Elizabeth security police. They brutally beat Biko and chained him to a gate as if he was in a crucifixion and did not seek medical care for him until the next day.

During many years, South Africa had its own system of racial segregation called apartheid, where white South Africans were separated from black South Africans because they wanted control over them. Unfortuanely, this type of segregation become law, and it took a while to remove it. The first person to take action about the apartheid was Nelson Mandela, an unique activism.

This essay will attempt to give a response of the Rhodes Must Fall writings. It is clear that the rising of movements like Rhodes Must Fall, has been a result of a wave of philosophies of Fanon and Biko “who share a highly similar pedigree in their interests in the philosophical psychology of consciousness” and desire for a decolonising of the mind” (). Their ideologies have the interest of young South Africans. The essay will be done by looking into how the movement wants the university to be decolonised, the statue of Rhodes, alienation the students are experiencing, curriculum change, the university’s lack of cultural space and representation of blacks, racism in the university and social/systematic exclusion of black students.

Specifically in regards to education, the government targeted the wrong aspect once more. It employed affirmative in university admissions, but with little effect. Recall that the Extension of University Education Act made it illegal for blacks to attend universities without government permission. So when apartheid ended, all universities were open to blacks. But opening a university to blacks doesn’t mean they will attend, and it certainly doesn’t mean they will excel. Just like how apartheid left blacks unskilled and unqualified for jobs, it also left millions of black secondary school students unprepared for higher education. As shown in the figure below, the graduation rate for Africans was 24% lower than that of whites as of 2006. Figure 3: Graduation in regulation time, overall and by population group (%) (http://www.che.ac.za/sites/default/files/publications/Full_Report.pdf

The government of South Africa played a huge role in apartheid. During apartheid the government of South Africa worked to take away the citizenship of the Blacks with the laws (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). “Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were all determined by the group a person belonged to” (History of South Africa in the apartheid era). Black people were denied by the government the option of appealing courts against forced removals (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Since the government had established laws prohibiting social contact between the races separate schools and public places were set up for the different races (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). The government even tried to segregate churches in 1957 but failed (Pascoe, 80)

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

The population of South Africa were segregated into categouries of Coloured, Black, White and Indian. Black South African lives were affected in many different ways and it still is today. Apartheid meant great hardship, it meant that Black people were unable to live a reasonable life. All natural civil rights were taken away from them. Public beaches, drive-in cinema parking spaces, graveyards, parks and public toilets are just a few things that were racially segregated. You can say that the church was on of few places races could mix without breaking the law. (Wikipedia, 2013)