The Effects Of Xenophobia In South Africa

As a result of the government-mandated segregation, resistance in both the United States and South Africa escalated. In other words, the history of the African civil rights movement taught: “Nationalism has been tested in the people’s struggles . . . and found to be the only antidote against foreign rule and modern imperialism” (Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom 2008, 156). By comparing and contrasting the Jim Crow Laws and apartheid, we are able convey that nationalism ultimately lead to activism and reform.

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.

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.

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

The convergence of racial unity and inroads towards the non-classification of race has been compromised by the accumulation of rights, privileges, and perceptions of the “whites”, and the life experiences, inequalities and societal impediments of the ‘non-white”. These experiences represent an overarching inability to forge ahead without cognizant realizations of past injustices and reparation for past aggressions. Noting the attempts at racial reunification in South Africa and the redress of exclusionary policies existing within the

South Africa has a history of legal segregation (Apartheid) which stems from prejudice, discrimination and anxiety with regards to intergroup contact. However, after 1994, when South Africa was declared a democracy, segregation was declared illegal and the society became racially mixed. Nevertheless, segregation still seems to be a contemporary phenomenon, though not legally enforced. In this essay I will explore Contact Theory as a way of reducing prejudice and intergroup anxiety; I will also discuss segregation and desegregation within the context of South Africa and our history and comment on whether inter-racial co-existence can be considered as the successful desegregation of South Africa. Lastly, I will also look at contact as a viable solution to segregation that is still taking place within our society.

Given the history of apartheid in South Africa where asymmetric power was too great, Du Bois (1990: 8-9) points out that such power imbalance denies the true self-awareness allowing them rather the real sensation, this “double-consciousness”, this sense of always looking at one through the eyes of “others”. Matsinhe (2011: 302) advances this argument by stating that, once the desires of the oppressor become the desires of the weak, the oppressed become a cultural replica of the oppressor. From this suggestion, it can be argued that those who were formerly subjugated in South Africa have now taken on the personality of their former subjugator (Matsinhe, 2011:

(BAC, AWP) Apartheid fed off the mistrust that was sown with the divide and conquer strategy and in South Africa, “everyone [thought] everyone else is the police.” (BAC, 25) The genius of apartheid is that it “convinced the overwhelming majority to turn on each other … [and] each [tribe] blamed the other for a problem neither had created.” (BAC, GOA) Apartheid takes the division one step further by incorporating race promotions and demotions. The immorality act was put in place and plays a huge role in Apartheid because “Race-mixing [is] a crime worse than treason.” (BAC, 21) Race mixing is outlawed because “it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent.” (BAC, 21) Apartheid allowed people to be colored, but not mixed, then it took advantage of colored people through the use of categorization. In the Apartheid system “Colored people… were second class citizens, denied the rights of white people but given special privileges that black people didn’t have” (BAC, 118) The terrifying beauty of Apartheid is that colored people didn’t have to stay second class citizens, black people didn’t have to stay third class citizens, and white people didn’t have to stay first class citizens. Promotions based on the whim of a clerk were common and the fear of losing status kept people in line. (BAC, 119) The entire system convinces “every group that it was because of the other race that they didn’t get into the club.” (BAC, 120) Apartheid creates a power vacuum when it falls, causing “black South Africa [to go to] war with itself.” (BAC,

For thousands of years, humans have segregated each other based on their differences. These differences include race, religion, political affiliation, and other various points of view. As of 22 years ago, native South Africans faced segregation. This form of segregation was called apartheid. It all started small European settlements, and then developed into one of South Africa’s biggest dilemmas. Africans fought vigorously to defend their rights. One man in particular made a stand for freedom, and his name was Nelson Mandela. From start to finish, people’s God given rights were ignored, infringed upon, and often taken away.

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

Having spent a year living in the beautiful country South Africa in 2010, I experienced first-hand how colonialism deformed the nation and its

According to Xenophobia and Violence in South Africa (2008) the reasons for the attacks differ and they include:

Contemporary South Africans have to contend with both the outcomes of past racial injustices and inequalities as well as present day racial injustices and inequalities which are a direct consequence of the past (Matthews, 2012). This means that they have to face the continuing effects of socially constructed racism which encompassed economic, political, social and institutional actions that systemized and perpetuated unequal distribution of privileges, resources and power between white people and people of colour with a hierarchical motive in mind (DiAngelo, 2010, p.7). It also refers to the fact that the repeal of racist legislature does not automatically result in changes in the habits and attitudes of people and that the “inertial racism of white predominance” continues at advantage white people at both micro and macro levels (Outlaw, 2004, p. 166 in Matthews, 2012). Obvious responses to these past and present injustices are anti-racism movements which encourage people to challenge beliefs about themselves or the ‘other’ groups (hooks, 1997, p. 167). Anti-racism includes thinking and acting with a specific consciousness, self-awareness, knowledge and skill to challenge, interrupt, and eliminate manifestations of racism within one’s sphere of influence (Derman-Sparks & Brunson Phillips, 1997). White anti-racism involves, amongst other things, white people being against the racial denigration of other groups and unlearning internalized domination (DiAngelo, 2006).