The African National Congress and the Fight Against South African Apartheid

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.

Apartheid was a set of racial laws that segregated the various race groups of South Africa. It came into power along with the National Party came into power in 1948. The government was ruled by all white members and they enforced racial segregation policies that served to benefit whites and put down other races. Some laws included not allowing certain races to live or even enter certain areas, known as pass laws. Another law prohibited whites and blacks from being together romantically. Even when Blacks got to work in some of the same field of jobs as whites, they were forced into black specific groups. Apartheid split the population into four groups. White being the most privileged and getting the most benefits; whites held the most control.

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.

The Apartheid was initiated as a ploy for Europeans to better control the exploited populations for economic gain, as maintaining tension between the different racial classifications diverted attention from the Europeans as it fed hatred between groups. This assisted in minimizing unity between the exploited to rally against European control as it backhandedly induced “submission” for survival. One way of accomplishing this was by instilling laws that’d force segregation, classification, educational “requirements”, and economic purposes. The Population Registration Act of 1950 enacted, requiring segregation of Europeans from Afrikaans . Following shortly, the Group Areas Act of 1950 was enacted as a new form of legislation alongside the Population Registration Act. This detailed act separated tribes based on ethnics; consequently, further detailing segregation amongst the natives .

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.

The South African Apartheid, instituted in 1948 by the country’s Afrikaner National Party, was legalized segregation on the basis of race, and is a system comparable to the segregation of African Americans in the United States. Non-whites - including blacks, Indians, and people of color in general- were prohibited from engaging in any activities specific to whites and prohibited from engaging in interracial marriages, receiving higher education, and obtaining certain jobs. The National Party’s classification of “race” was loosely based on physical appearance and lineage. White individuals were superficially defined as being “obviously white'' on the basis of their “habits, education and speech as well as deportment and demeanor”; an

We commence by examining South-African apartheid and its historical and theoretical context. Apartheid was a system of racial segregation used in the overtly racist regime in South Africa from 1948 to 1991. It was based on laws that banned “marriage and sexual relations between different “population groups” and requir[ed] separate residential areas for people of mixed race (“Coloreds”), as well as for Africans” (Fredrickson 3). These laws were based on the same obsession with “race purity” that characterized other racist regimes, most notably Jim Crow America and Nazi Germany. The system was justified in terms of “cultural essentialism” and “seperate development”. Cultural essentialism means that each culture has inherent features that differentiate the members of this cultural group from others. The concept of separate development

Apartheid, a political system that was recognized by the government to segregate the colored people from the white. Even though African Americans have been free for over one hundred years, there are many things that make African Americas second hand citizens like, residential laws and economic forces that are staked against them in the United States.

The avowal that the apartheid ‘vision for democracy’ necessitated state terror and repression is evident when examining the South African apartheid system between 1960 -1994. The system of apartheid spiked significant internal resistance, hence, the ideology for apartheid stems from the creation of a white state surrounded by economically interdependent and politically dependent black states, which required state terror and repression to ensure mounting resistance and international condemnation did not abolish the apartheid system. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which increased support for armed resistance. Detentions were set without trial, torture, censorship and the outlawing of political oppositional organizations such as The African National Congress, the Black Conscious Movement, the Azanian Peoples Organisation, The Pan Africanist Congress and the United Democratic Front, were all a result of the apartheid government due to political resistance.

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

Apartheid was the slogan for the National Party, representing Afrikaners. The slogan was a platform of racism and segregation. This policy cruelly and forcibly separated people, and had a fearsome state apparatus to punish those who fought against it. What made the policy unique was it made segregation part of the law (History.com Staff). Apartheid was seen as worse than segregation because it was introduced in a period when other countries were moving away from racist policies. All Government action and response was decided according to the policy of apartheid. In South Africa the white people are in the minority, and many were worried that they would lose their jobs, culture and language which explain how people were thinking (History.com Staff). Here we observe how the whites responded in a time where they felt a need to “protect the weaker members from exploitation” and set forth moral rules that would be imposed and enforced upon everyone to act a particular way in society (Melchin, pg 21).

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.

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

From the distinction and separation by skin color in white, black and colored in the cities, comes the literal meaning of the term apartheid, which was initially named after the word meaning nothing more than separation; from the Dutch: separately (apart) and district (heid). The word was originally only the Afrikaans translation of the English word "segregation", which was previously used for the existing practices in South Africa. The Afrikaner nationalists took this translation and circulated it to underline that they regarded their policy as something new. They developed a whole heap of new explanations and justification patterns for the doctrine of apartheid in order to be held legitimate, but in principle was no more different than any other former colonial racism. Although there was always racial segregation in the colonial period, the system of apartheid promoted new space for social tensions and resistance to rise.

I have always thought that Nelson Mandela has been one of the most important people in history. I find it very fascinating that one man could end the Apartheid and that is why I want to find out more about this. South Africa is a country with a past of enforced racism and separation of its multi-racial community. The White Europeans invaded South Africa and started a political system known as 'Apartheid' (meaning 'apartness'). This system severely restricted the rights and lifestyle of the non-White inhabitants of the country forcing them to live separately from the White Europeans. I have chosen to investigate how the Apartheid affected people’s lives, and also how and why the Apartheid system rose and fell in South Africa.