preview

The Great Divide : How And Why The Apartheid Differ From Colonial Rule

Better Essays

THE GREAT DIVIDE:
HOW AND WHY THE APARTHEID DIFFERED FROM TYPICAL COLONIAL RULE

It is a well-known fact that during European colonial rule, Africans were exposed to a multitude of injustices including warfare, slavery, and the occupation of their lands by European invaders. In retrospect, the ashes of traditional African societies are what built thriving European-owned African mining, agricultural and rubber economies. But nothing that Africa had previously suffered was quite like the apartheid, which South Africa was exposed to from 1948-1994. The apartheid was a systematic of racial segregation in South Africa enforced by the all-white National Party with the goal to “separate South Africa’s white minority from its non-white majority, non-whites from each other, and to divide black South Africans to decrease their political power”. In essence, under apartheid, the rights, associations, and movements of the majority black inhabitants and other ethnic groups were curtailed, white minority dominance was maintained. This essay explores how the apartheid mirrored the core values of traditional colonial rule but was still fundamentally influential in its own way through its fight over land, institutionalized racism, and the consequences of when it was finally abolished.

The Fight over Land
A major feature of the apartheid that colonial rule has previously failed to achieve prior to the 1950s was simultaneously mobilize millions of Africans out of

Get Access