HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Apartheid ( , especially
South African English South African English (SAfE, SAfEn, SAE, en-ZA) is the List of dialects of English, set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British Empire, British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, ...
, ; , ) was a system of institutionalised
racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...
that existed in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
and
South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
(now
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on '' baasskap'' ( 'boss-ship' or 'boss-hood'), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indians, Coloureds and black Africans, in that order. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality. Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into ''petty apartheid'', which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and ''grand apartheid'', which strictly separated housing and employment opportunities by race. The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, followed closely by the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which made it illegal for most South African citizens to marry or pursue sexual relationships across racial lines. The Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status, and cultural lifestyle: "Black", "White", "Coloured", and "Indian", the last two of which included several sub-classifications. Places of residence were determined by racial classification. Between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million black Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods as a result of apartheid legislation, in some of the largest mass evictions in modern history. Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the black population to ten designated "tribal homelands", also known as ''
bantustan A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the ...
s'', four of which became nominally independent states. The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans. Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the 20th century. It was the target of frequent condemnation in the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
and brought about extensive
international sanctions International sanctions are political and economic decisions that are part of diplomatic efforts by countries, multilateral or regional organizations against states or organizations either to protect national security interests, or to protect i ...
, including
arms embargo An arms embargo is a restriction or a set of sanctions that applies either solely to weaponry or also to "dual-use technology." An arms embargo may serve one or more purposes: * to signal disapproval of the behavior of a certain actor * to maintain ...
es and
economic sanctions Economic sanctions or embargoes are Commerce, commercial and Finance, financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. Economic sanctions are a form of Coercion (international relations), coercion tha ...
on South Africa. During the 1970s and 1980s,
internal resistance to apartheid Several independent sectors of South African society opposed apartheid through various means, including social movements, passive resistance, and guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (South Africa), National Party (N ...
became increasingly militant, prompting brutal crackdowns by the National Party ruling government and protracted sectarian violence that left thousands dead or in detention. The
Truth and Reconciliation Commission A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state ac ...
found that there were 21,000 deaths from political violence, with 7,000 deaths between 1948 and 1989, and 14,000 deaths and 22,000 injuries in the transition period between 1990 and 1994. Some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and Coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed to appease most activist groups. Between 1987 and 1993, the National Party entered into bilateral negotiations with the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
(ANC), the leading anti-apartheid political movement, for ending segregation and introducing majority rule. In 1990, prominent ANC figures, such as
Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...
, were released from prison. Apartheid legislation was repealed on 17 June 1991, leading to non-racial elections in April 1994. Since the end of apartheid, elections have been open and competitive.


Precursors

''Apartheid'' is an
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
word meaning "separateness", or "the state of being apart", literally " apart- hood" (from the Afrikaans suffix ''-heid''). Its first recorded use was in 1929. Racial discrimination and inequality against Black people in South Africa dates to the beginning of large-scale European colonisation of South Africa with the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
's establishment of a trading post in the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
in 1652, which eventually expanded into the Dutch Cape Colony. The company began the Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars in which it displaced the local Khoikhoi people, replaced them with farms worked by White settlers, and imported Black slaves from across the Dutch Empire. In the days of
slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
, slaves required passes to travel away from their masters. In 1797, the '' Landdrost'' and ''Heemraden'', local officials, of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet extended pass laws beyond slaves and ordained that all Khoikhoi (designated as ''Hottentots'') moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes. This was confirmed by the British Colonial government in 1809 by the Hottentot Proclamation, which decreed that if a Khoikhoi were to move they would need a pass from their master or a local official. Ordinance No. 49 of 1828 decreed that prospective Black immigrants were to be granted passes for the sole purpose of seeking work. These passes were to be issued for Coloureds and Khoikhoi but not for other Africans, who were nonetheless forced to carry passes. During the
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (sometimes called the Great French War or the Wars of the Revolution and the Empire) were a series of conflicts between the French and several European monarchies between 1792 and 1815. They encompas ...
, the
British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
captured and annexed the Dutch Cape Colony. Under the 1806 Cape Articles of Capitulation the new British colonial rulers were required to respect previous legislation enacted under
Roman-Dutch law Roman-Dutch law ( Dutch: ''Rooms-Hollands recht'', Afrikaans: ''Romeins-Hollandse reg'') is an uncodified, scholarship-driven, and judge-made legal system based on Roman law as applied in the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. As such, ...
, and this led to a separation of the law in South Africa from
English Common Law English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures. The judiciary is independent, and legal principles like fairness, equality bef ...
and a high degree of legislative autonomy. The governors and assemblies that governed the legal process in the various colonies of South Africa were launched on a different and independent legislative path from the rest of the British Empire. The United Kingdom's
Slavery Abolition Act 1833 The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ( 3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 73) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which abolished slavery in the British Empire by way of compensated emancipation. The act was legislated by Whig Prime Minister Charl ...
provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. The trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire by 1837, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery. The act overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation. To comply with the act, the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835, which effectively changed the status of slaves to indentured labourers. This was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848, which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa that was little different from slavery. The various South African colonies passed legislation throughout the rest of the 19th century to limit the freedom of unskilled workers, to increase the restrictions on indentured workers and to regulate the relations between the races. The discoveries of diamonds and gold in South Africa also raised racial inequality between White people and Black people. In the
Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
, which previously had a liberal and multi-racial constitution and a system of Cape Qualified Franchise open to men of all races, the Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 raised the property franchise qualification and added an educational element, disenfranchising a disproportionate number of the Cape's non-White voters, and the Glen Grey Act of 1894 instigated by the government of Prime Minister
Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
limited the amount of land Africans could hold. Similarly, in Natal, the Natal Legislative Assembly Bill of 1894 deprived Indians of the right to vote. In 1896 the
South African Republic The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...
brought in two pass laws requiring Africans to carry a badge. Only those employed by a master were permitted to remain on the Rand, and those entering a "labour district" needed a special pass. During the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
, the British Empire cited racial exploitation of Blacks as a cause for its war against the Boer republics. However, the peace negotiations for the
Treaty of Vereeniging The Treaty of Vereeniging was a peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the Second Boer War between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on the one side, and the United Kingdom on the other. This settlement provided ...
demanded "the just predominance of the white race" in South Africa as a precondition for the Boer republics unifying with the British Empire. In 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied Black people the vote and limited them to fixed areas, and in 1906 the Asiatic Registration Act of the
Transvaal Colony The Transvaal Colony () was the name used to refer to the Transvaal region during the period of direct British rule and military occupation between the end of the Second Boer War in 1902 when the South African Republic was dissolved, and the ...
required all Indians to register and carry passes. Beginning in 1906 the South African Native Affairs Commission under Godfrey Lagden began implementing a more openly segregationist policy towards non-Whites. The latter was repealed by the British government but re-enacted in 1908. In 1910, the
Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
was created as a self-governing
dominion A dominion was any of several largely self-governance, self-governing countries of the British Empire, once known collectively as the ''British Commonwealth of Nations''. Progressing from colonies, their degrees of self-governing colony, colon ...
, which continued the legislative program: the South Africa Act (1910) enfranchised White people, giving them complete political control over all other racial groups while removing the right of Black people to sit in parliament;Leach, Graham (1986). ''South Africa: no easy path to peace.'' Routledge. p. 68. the Native Land Act (1913) prevented Black people, except those in the Cape, from buying land outside "reserves"; the Natives in Urban Areas Bill (1918) was designed to force Black people into "locations"; the Urban Areas Act (1923) introduced residential segregation and provided cheap labour for industry led by White people; the Colour Bar Act (1926) prevented Black mine workers from practising skilled trades; the Native Administration Act (1927) made the
British Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...
rather than
paramount chief A paramount chief is the English-language designation for a king or queen or the highest-level political leader in a regional or local polity or country administered politically with a Chiefdom, chief-based system. This term is used occasionally ...
s the supreme head over all African affairs; the Native Land and Trust Act (1936) complemented the 1913 Native Land Act and, in the same year, the Representation of Natives Act removed previous Black voters from the Cape voters' roll and allowed them to elect three Whites to Parliament. The United Party government of Jan Smuts began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II, but faced growing opposition from Afrikaner nationalists who wanted stricter segregation. Post-war, one of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by Smuts' government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill (1946), which banned land sales to Indians and Indian descendent South Africans. The same year, the government established the Fagan Commission. Amid fears integration would eventually lead to racial assimilation, the Opposition Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP) established the Sauer Commission to investigate the effects of the United Party's policies. The commission concluded that integration would bring about a "loss of personality" for all racial groups. The HNP incorporated the commission's findings into its campaign platform for the 1948 South African general election, which it won.


Institution


1948 election

South Africa had allowed social custom and law to govern the consideration of multiracial affairs and of the allocation, in racial terms, of access to economic, social, and political status. Most white South Africans, regardless of their own differences, accepted the prevailing pattern. Nevertheless, by 1948 it remained apparent that there were gaps in the social structure, whether legislated or otherwise, concerning the rights and opportunities of nonwhites. The rapid economic development of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
attracted black migrant workers in large numbers to chief industrial centres, where they compensated for the wartime shortage of white labour. However, this escalated rate of black urbanisation went unrecognised by the South African government, which failed to accommodate the influx with parallel expansion in housing or social services. Overcrowding, increasing crime rates, and disillusionment resulted; urban blacks came to support a new generation of leaders influenced by the principles of
self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...
and popular freedoms enshrined in such statements as the Atlantic Charter. Black political organisations and leaders such as Alfred Xuma, James Mpanza, the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
, and the Council of Non-European Trade Unions began demanding political rights, land reform, and the right to unionise. Whites reacted negatively to the changes, allowing the Herenigde Nasionale Party (or simply the National Party) to convince a large segment of the
voting bloc A voting bloc is a group of voting, voters that are strongly motivated by a specific common concern or group of concerns to the point that such specific concerns tend to dominate their voting patterns, causing them to vote together in elections. ...
that the impotence of the United Party in curtailing the evolving position of nonwhites indicated that the organisation had fallen under the influence of Western liberals. Many
Afrikaners Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch people, Dutch Settler colonialism, settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in Free Burghers in the Dutch Cape Colony, 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. '' ...
resented what they perceived as disempowerment by an underpaid black workforce and the superior economic power and prosperity of white English speakers. Smuts, as a strong advocate of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
, lost domestic support when South Africa was criticised for its colour bar and the continued mandate of
South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
by other UN member states.O'Meara, Dan. ''Forty Lost Years : The National Party and the Politics of the South African State'', 1948–1994. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1996. Afrikaner nationalists proclaimed that they offered the voters a new policy to ensure continued white domination.M. Meredith, ''In the Name of Apartheid'', London: Hamish Hamilton, 1988, This policy was initially expounded from a theory drafted by Hendrik Verwoerd and was presented to the National Party by the Sauer Commission. It called for a systematic effort to organise the relations, rights, and privileges of the races as officially defined through a series of parliamentary acts and administrative decrees. Segregation had thus far been pursued only in major matters, such as separate schools, and local society rather than law had been depended upon to enforce most separation; it should now be extended to everything. The commission's goal was to completely remove blacks from areas designated for whites, including cities, with the exception of temporary migrant labour. Blacks would then be encouraged to create their own political units in land reserved for them. The party gave this policy a name''apartheid''. Apartheid was to be the basic ideological and practical foundation of Afrikaner politics for the next quarter of a century. The National Party's election platform stressed that apartheid would preserve a market for white employment in which non-whites could not compete. On the issues of black urbanisation, the regulation of non-white labour, influx control, social security, farm tariffs and non-white taxation, the United Party's policy remained contradictory and confused. Its traditional bases of support not only took mutually exclusive positions, but found themselves increasingly at odds with each other. Smuts' reluctance to consider South African foreign policy against the mounting tensions of the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
also stirred up discontent, while the nationalists promised to purge the state and public service of communist sympathisers. First to desert the United Party were Afrikaner farmers, who wished to see a change in influx control due to problems with squatters, as well as higher prices for their maize and other produce in the face of the mineowners' demand for cheap food policies. Always identified with the affluent and capitalist, the party also failed to appeal to its working class constituents. Populist rhetoric allowed the National Party to sweep eight constituencies in the mining and industrial centres of the Witwatersrand and five more in
Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...
. Barring the predominantly English-speaking landowner electorate of the Natal, the United Party was defeated in almost every rural district. Its urban losses in the nation's most populous province, the Transvaal, proved equally devastating. As the
voting system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...
was disproportionately weighted in favour of rural constituencies and the Transvaal in particular, the 1948 election catapulted the Herenigde Nasionale Party from a small minority party to a commanding position with an eight-vote parliamentary lead. Daniel François Malan became the first nationalist prime minister, with the aim of implementing the apartheid philosophy and silencing liberal opposition. When the National Party came to power in 1948, there were factional differences in the party about the implementation of systemic racial segregation. The " baasskap" (white domination or supremacist) faction, which was the dominant faction in the NP, and state institutions, favoured systematic segregation, but also favoured the participation of black Africans in the economy with black labour controlled to advance the economic gains of Afrikaners. A second faction were the "purists", who believed in "vertical segregation", in which blacks and whites would be entirely separated, with blacks living in native reserves, with separate political and economic structures, which, they believed, would entail severe short-term pain, but would also lead to independence of white South Africa from black labour in the long term. A third faction, which included Hendrik Verwoerd, sympathised with the purists, but allowed for the use of black labour, while implementing the purist goal of vertical separation. Verwoerd would refer to this policy as a policy of "good neighbourliness" as a means of justifying such segregation.


Legislation

NP leaders argued that South Africa did not comprise a single nation, but was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, Coloured and Indian. Such groups were split into 13 nations or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups. The state passed laws that paved the way for "grand apartheid", which was centred on separating races on a large scale, by compelling people to live in separate places defined by race. This strategy was in part adopted from "left-over" British rule that separated different racial groups after they took control of the Boer republics in the Anglo-Boer war. This created the black-only "
township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...
s" or "locations", where blacks were relocated to their own towns. As the NP government's minister of native affairs from 1950, Hendrik Verwoerd had a significant role in crafting such laws, which led to him being regarded as the 'Architect of Apartheid'. In addition, "petty apartheid" laws were passed. The principal apartheid laws were as follows.Alistair Boddy-Evans
African History: Apartheid Legislation in South Africa
,
About.com Dotdash Meredith (formerly The Mining Company, About.com and Dotdash) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, hom ...
. Retrieved 5 June 2007.
The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of 18, specifying their racial group. Official teams or boards were established to come to a conclusion on those people whose race was unclear. This caused difficulty, especially for Coloured people, separating their families when members were allocated different races. The second pillar of grand apartheid was the Group Areas Act of 1950. Until then, most settlements had people of different races living side by side. This Act put an end to diverse areas and determined where one lived according to race. Each race was allotted its own area, which was used in later years as a basis of forced removal. The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951 allowed the government to demolish black
shanty town A shanty town, squatter area, squatter settlement, or squatter camp is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood, or from cheap building materials such as corrugated iron s ...
slums and forced white employers to pay for the construction of housing for those black workers who were permitted to reside in cities otherwise reserved for whites. The Native Laws Amendment Act, 1952 centralised and tightened pass laws so that blacks could not stay in urban areas longer than 72 hours without a permit. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races, and the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations between whites and other races a
criminal offence In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
. Under the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953, municipal grounds could be reserved for a particular race, creating, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. Signboards such as "whites only" applied to public areas, even including park benches. Black South Africans were provided with services greatly inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indian and Coloured people. Further laws had the aim of suppressing resistance, especially armed resistance, to apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the Communist Party of South Africa and any party subscribing to
Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
. The act defined Communism and its aims so sweepingly that anyone who opposed government policy risked being labelled as a Communist. Since the law specifically stated that Communism aimed to disrupt racial harmony, it was frequently used to gag opposition to apartheid. Disorderly gatherings were banned, as were certain organisations that were deemed threatening to the government. It also empowered the Ministry of Justice to impose banning orders. After the Defiance Campaign, the government used the act for the mass arrests and banning of leaders of dissent groups such as the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
(ANC), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). After the release of the Freedom Charter, 156 leaders of these groups were charged in the 1956 Treason Trial. It established
censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...
of film, literature, and the media under the Customs and Excise Act 1955 and the Official Secrets Act 1956. The same year, the Native Administration Act 1956 allowed the government to banish blacks. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks and whites and was the first piece of legislation to support the government's plan of separate development in the
bantustan A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the ...
s. The Bantu Education Act, 1953 established a separate education system for blacks emphasizing African culture and
vocational training Vocational education is education that prepares people for a Skilled worker, skilled craft. Vocational education can also be seen as that type of education given to an individual to prepare that individual to be gainfully employed or self em ...
under the Ministry of Native Affairs and defunded most mission schools. The Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1959 entrenched the NP policy of nominally independent "homelands" for blacks. So-called "self–governing Bantu units" were proposed, which would have devolved administrative powers, with the promise later of
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...
and self-government. It also abolished the seats of white representatives of black South Africans and removed from the rolls the few blacks still qualified to vote. The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands to create employment there. Legislation of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in "white" cities and redirect such development to the "homelands". The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 marked a new phase in the Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of blacks to citizens of one of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure a demographic majority of white people within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans achieve full independence. Inter-racial contact in sport was frowned upon, but there were no segregatory sports laws. The government tightened pass laws compelling blacks to carry identity documents, to prevent the immigration of blacks from other countries. To reside in a city, blacks had to be in employment there. Until 1956 women were for the most part excluded from these ''pass'' requirements, as attempts to introduce ''pass laws'' for women were met with fierce resistance.


Disenfranchisement of Coloured voters

In 1950, D. F. Malan announced the NP's intention to create a Coloured Affairs Department. J.G. Strijdom, Malan's successor as prime minister, moved to strip voting rights from black and Coloured residents of the Cape Province. The previous government had introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill into Parliament in 1951, turning it to be an Act on 18 June 1951; however, four voters, G Harris, W D Franklin, W D Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party. The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but reversed by the Appeal Court, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of
Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
was needed to change the entrenched clauses of the
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...
. The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill (1952), which gave Parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court. The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too. In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to 11, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places. In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the Senate from 49 seats to 89. Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats. The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the Separate Representation of Voters Act in 1956, which transferred Coloured voters from the common voters' roll in the Cape to a new Coloured voters' roll. Immediately after the vote, the Senate was restored to its original size. The Senate Act was contested in the Supreme Court, but the recently enlarged Appeal Court, packed with government-supporting judges, upheld the act, and also the Act to remove Coloured voters. The 1956 law allowed Coloureds to elect four people to Parliament, but a 1969 law abolished those seats and stripped Coloureds of their right to vote. Since Indians had never been allowed to vote, this resulted in whites being the sole enfranchised group. Separate representatives for coloured voters were first elected in the general election of 1958. Even this limited representation did not last, being ended from 1970 by the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968. Instead, all coloured adults were given the right to vote for the Coloured Persons Representative Council, which had limited legislative powers. The council was in turn dissolved in 1980. In 1984 a new constitution introduced the Tricameral Parliament in which coloured voters elected the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
. A 2016 study in '' The Journal of Politics'' suggests that disenfranchisement in South Africa had a significant negative effect on basic service delivery to the disenfranchised.


Division among whites

Before South Africa became a republic in 1961, politics among white South Africans was typified by the division between the mainly
Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...
pro-republic conservative and the largely English anti-republican liberal sentiments, with the legacy of the Boer War still a factor for some people. Once South Africa became a republic, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd called for improved relations and greater accord between people of British descent and the Afrikaners. He claimed that the only difference was between those in favour of apartheid and those against it. The ethnic division would no longer be between Afrikaans and English speakers, but between blacks and whites. Most Afrikaners supported the notion of unanimity of white people to ensure their safety. White voters of British descent were divided. Many had opposed a republic, leading to a majority "no" vote in Natal. Later, some of them recognised the perceived need for white unity, convinced by the growing trend of decolonisation elsewhere in Africa, which concerned them. British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...
's " Wind of Change" speech left the British faction feeling that the United Kingdom had abandoned them. The more conservative English speakers supported Verwoerd; others were troubled by the severing of ties with the UK and remained loyal to
the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...
. They were displeased by having to choose between British and South African nationalities. Although Verwoerd tried to bond these different blocs, the subsequent voting illustrated only a minor swell of support, indicating that a great many English speakers remained apathetic and that Verwoerd had not succeeded in uniting the white population.


Homeland system

Under the homeland system, the government attempted to divide South Africa and South West Africa into a number of separate states, each of which was supposed to develop into a separate nation-state for a different ethnic group.p. 15 Territorial separation was hardly a new institution. There were, for example, the "reserves" created under the British government in the nineteenth century. Under apartheid, 13 percent of the land was reserved for black homelands, a small amount relative to its total population, and generally in economically unproductive areas of the country. The Tomlinson Commission of 1954 justified apartheid and the homeland system, but stated that additional land ought to be given to the homelands, a recommendation that was not carried out. When Verwoerd became prime minister in 1958, the policy of "separate development" came into being, with the homeland structure as one of its cornerstones. Verwoerd came to believe in the granting of independence to these homelands. The government justified its plans on the ostensible basis that "(the) government's policy is, therefore, not a policy of discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, but a policy of differentiation on the ground of nationhood, of different nations, granting to each self-determination within the borders of their homelandshence this policy of separate development". Under the homelands system, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa, becoming citizens of the independent homelands who worked in South Africa as foreign migrant labourers on temporary work permits. In 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act was passed, and border industries and the Bantu Investment Corporation were established to promote economic development and the provision of employment in or near the homelands. Many black South Africans who had never resided in their identified homeland were forcibly removed from the cities to the homelands. The vision of a South Africa divided into multiple ethnostates appealed to the reform-minded Afrikaner intelligentsia, and it provided a more coherent philosophical and moral framework for the National Party's policies, while also providing a veneer of intellectual respectability to the controversial policy of so-called baasskap. In total, 20 homelands were allocated to ethnic groups, ten in South Africa proper and ten in South West Africa. Of these 20 homelands, 19 were classified as black, while one, Basterland, was set aside for a sub-group of Coloureds known as Basters, who are closely related to Afrikaners. Four of the homelands were declared independent by the South African government:
Transkei Transkei ( , meaning ''the area beyond Great Kei River, he riverKei''), officially the Republic of Transkei (), was an list of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa f ...
in 1976,
Bophuthatswana Bophuthatswana (, ), officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana (; ), and colloquially referred to as the Bop and by outsiders as Jigsawland (In reference to its enclave-ridden borders) was a Bantustan (also known as "Homeland", an area set asid ...
in 1977, Venda in 1979, and Ciskei in 1981 (known as the TBVC states). Once a homeland was granted its nominal independence, its designated citizens had their South African citizenship revoked and replaced with citizenship in their homeland. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the nominally autonomous homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, meaning they were no longer legally considered South African.Those who had the money to travel or emigrate were not given full passports; instead, travel documents were issued. The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black citizens of the homelands and the problems which other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.


International recognition of the Bantustans

Bantustans within the borders of South Africa and South West Africa were classified by degree of nominal self-rule: 6 were "non-self-governing", 10 were "self-governing", and 4 were "independent". In theory, self-governing Bantustans had control over many aspects of their internal functioning but were not yet sovereign nations. Independent Bantustans (Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda and Ciskei; also known as the TBVC states) were intended to be fully sovereign. In reality, they had no significant economic infrastructure and with few exceptions encompassed swaths of disconnected territory. This meant all the Bantustans were little more than puppet states controlled by South Africa. Throughout the existence of the independent Bantustans, South Africa remained the only country to recognise their independence. Nevertheless, internal organisations of many countries, as well as the South African government, lobbied for their recognition. For example, upon the foundation of Transkei, the Swiss-South African Association encouraged the Swiss government to recognise the new state. In 1976, leading up to a United States House of Representatives resolution urging the President to not recognise Transkei, the South African government intensely lobbied lawmakers to oppose the bill. Each TBVC state extended recognition to the other independent Bantustans while South Africa showed its commitment to the notion of TBVC sovereignty by building embassies in the TBVC capitals.


Forced removals

During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of "resettlement", to force people to move to their designated "group areas". Millions of people were forced to relocate. These removals included people relocated due to
slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low-income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...
programmes, labour tenants on white-owned farms, the inhabitants of the so-called "black spots" (black-owned land surrounded by white farms), the families of workers living in townships close to the homelands, and "surplus people" from urban areas, including thousands of people from the Western Cape (which was declared a "Coloured Labour Preference Area") who were moved to the
Transkei Transkei ( , meaning ''the area beyond Great Kei River, he riverKei''), officially the Republic of Transkei (), was an list of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa f ...
and Ciskei homelands. The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of
Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...
(an abbreviation for South Western Townships). Until 1955, Sophiatown had been one of the few urban areas where black people were allowed to own land, and was slowly developing into a multiracial slum. As industry in Johannesburg grew, Sophiatown became the home of a rapidly expanding black workforce, as it was convenient and close to town. It had the only swimming pool for black children in Johannesburg. As one of the oldest black settlements in Johannesburg, it held an almost symbolic importance for the 50,000 black people it contained. Despite a vigorous ANC protest campaign and worldwide publicity, the removal of Sophiatown began on 9 February 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme. In the early hours, heavily armed police forced residents out of their homes and loaded their belongings onto government trucks. The residents were taken to a large tract of land from the city centre, known as Meadowlands, which the government had purchased in 1953. Meadowlands became part of a new planned black city called
Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...
. Sophiatown was destroyed by bulldozers, and a new white suburb named Triomf (Triumph) was built in its place. This pattern of forced removal and destruction was to repeat itself over the next few years, and was not limited to black South Africans alone. Forced removals from areas like Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in
Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...
, and District Six in
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
, where 55,000 Coloured and
Indian people Indian people or Indians are the Indian nationality law, citizens and nationals of the India, Republic of India or people who trace their ancestry to India. While the demonym "Indian" applies to people originating from the present-day India, ...
were forced to move to new townships on the Cape Flats, were carried out under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Nearly 600,000 Coloured, Indian and
Chinese people The Chinese people, or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with Greater China, China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by ...
were moved under the Group Areas Act. Some 40,000 whites were also forced to move when land was transferred from "white South Africa" into the black homelands. In South-West Africa, the apartheid plan that instituted Bantustans was as a result of the so-called Odendaal Plan, a set of proposals from the Odendaal Commission of 1962–1964.


Society during apartheid

The NP passed a string of legislation that became known as ''petty apartheid''. The first of these was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 55 of 1949, prohibiting marriage between whites and people of other races. The Immorality Amendment Act 21 of 1950 (as amended in 1957 by Act 23) forbade "unlawful racial intercourse" and "any immoral or indecent act" between a white and a black, Indian or Coloured person. Black people were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in areas designated as "white South Africa" unless they had a permit – such being granted only exceptionally. Without a permit, they were required to move to the black "homelands" and set up businesses and practices there. Trains, hospitals and ambulances were segregated. Because of the smaller numbers of white patients and the fact that white doctors preferred to work in white hospitals, conditions in white hospitals were much better than those in often overcrowded and understaffed, significantly underfunded black hospitals.Health Sector Strategic Framework 1999–2004 – Background
, Department of Health, 2004. Retrieved 8 November 2006.
Residential areas were segregated and blacks were allowed to live in white areas only if employed as a servant and even then only in servants' quarters. Black people were excluded from working in white areas, unless they had a pass, nicknamed the ''dompas'', also spelt ''dompass'' or ''dom pass''. The most likely origin of this name is from the Afrikaans "verdomde pas" (meaning accursed pass).Dictionary of South African English on historical principles
. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
Only black people with "Section 10" rights (those who had migrated to the cities before World War II) were excluded from this provision. A pass was issued only to a black person with approved work. Spouses and children had to be left behind in black homelands. A pass was issued for one magisterial district (usually one town) confining the holder to that area only. Being without a valid pass made a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This was often followed by deportation to the person's homeland and prosecution of the employer for employing an illegal migrant. Police vans patrolled white areas to round up blacks without passes. Black people were not allowed to employ whites in white South Africa. This legally enforced segregation was reinforced through deliberate town planning measures, such as introducing natural, industrial and infrastructural buffer zones. The legacy of this town planning element still hinders economic integration of urban economies today. Although trade unions for black and Coloured workers had existed since the early 20th century, it was not until the 1980s reforms that a mass black trade union movement developed.
Trade unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
under apartheid were racially segregated, with 54 unions being white only, 38 for Indian and Coloured and 19 for black people. The Industrial Conciliation Act (1956) legislated against the creation of multi-racial trade unions and attempted to split existing multi-racial unions into separate branches or organisations along racial lines. Each black homeland controlled its own education, health and police systems. Blacks were not allowed to buy hard liquor. They were able to buy only state-produced poor quality beer (although this law was relaxed later). Public beaches, swimming pools, some pedestrian bridges, drive-in cinema parking spaces, graveyards, parks, and public toilets were segregated. Cinemas and theatres in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks. There were practically no cinemas in black areas. Most restaurants and hotels in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks except as staff. Blacks were prohibited from attending white churches under the Churches Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957, but this was never rigidly enforced, and churches were one of the few places races could mix without the interference of the law. Blacks earning 360 rand a year or more had to pay taxes while the white threshold was more than twice as high, at 750 rand a year. On the other hand, the taxation rate for whites was considerably higher than that for blacks. Blacks could not acquire land in white areas. In the homelands, much of the land belonged to a "tribe", where the local chieftain would decide how the land had to be used. This resulted in whites owning almost all the industrial and agricultural lands and much of the prized residential land. Most blacks were stripped of their South African citizenship when the "homelands" became "independent", and they were no longer able to apply for South African passports. Eligibility requirements for a passport had been difficult for blacks to meet, the government contending that a passport was a privilege, not a right, and the government did not grant many passports to blacks. Apartheid pervaded culture as well as the law, and was entrenched by most of the
mainstream media In journalism, mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large Mass media, mass news media that influence many people and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought.Noam Chomsky, Choms ...
.


Coloured classification

The population was classified into four groups: African, White, Indian, and Coloured (capitalised to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people regarded as being of mixed descent, including of Bantu,
Khoisan Khoisan ( ) or () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for the various Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the San people, Sān peo ...
, European and Malay ancestry. Many were descended from slaves, or indentured workers, who had been brought to South Africa from
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
,
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
,
Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
, and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
.Patric Tariq Melle
"Intro"
''Cape Slavery Heritage''. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
The Population Registration Act, (Act 30 of 1950), defined South Africans as belonging to one of three races: White, Black or Coloured. People of Indian ancestry were considered Coloured under this act. Appearance, social acceptance and descent were used to determine the qualification of an individual into one of the three categories. A white person was described by the act as one whose parents were both white and possessed the "habits, speech, education, deportment and demeanour" of a white person. Blacks were defined by the act as belonging to an African race or tribe. Lastly, Coloureds were those who could not be classified as black or white. The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or White, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or Black. The tests included the pencil test, in which a pencil was shoved into the subjects' curly hair and the subjects made to shake their head. If the pencil stuck they were deemed to be Black; if dislodged they were pronounced Coloured. Other tests involved examining the shapes of jaw lines and buttocks and pinching people to see what language they would say "Ouch" in. As a result of these tests, different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloureds. Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloureds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships, as defined in the Group Areas Act (1950), in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations, and received an inferior education, though better than that provided to Africans. They played an important role in the anti-apartheid movement: for example the African Political Organization established in 1902 had an exclusively Coloured membership. Voting rights were denied to Coloureds in the same way that they were denied to Blacks from 1950 to 1983. However, in 1977 the NP caucus approved proposals to bring Coloureds and Indians into central government. In 1982, final constitutional proposals produced a referendum among Whites, and the Tricameral Parliament was approved. The Constitution was reformed the following year to allow the Coloured and Indian minorities participation in separate Houses in a Tricameral Parliament, and Botha became the first Executive State President. The idea was that the Coloured minority could be granted
voting rights Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in ...
, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands. These separate arrangements continued until the abolition of apartheid. The Tricameral reforms led to the formation of the (anti-apartheid) United Democratic Front as a vehicle to try to prevent the co-option of Coloureds and Indians into an alliance with Whites. The battles between the UDF and the NP government from 1983 to 1989 were to become the most intense period of struggle between left-wing and right-wing South Africans.


Education

Education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
was segregated by the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which crafted a separate system of education for black South African students and was designed to prepare black people for lives as a labouring class. In 1959 separate universities were created for black, Coloured and Indian people. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
and English on an equal basis in high schools outside the homelands. In the 1970s, the state spent ten times more per child on the education of white children than on black children within the Bantu Education system (the education system in black schools within white South Africa). Higher education was provided in separate universities and colleges after 1959. Eight black universities were created in the homelands. Fort Hare University in the Ciskei (now
Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
) was to register only Xhosa-speaking students. Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Venda speakers were placed at the newly founded University College of the North at Turfloop, while the University College of Zululand was launched to serve Zulu students. Coloureds and Indians were to have their own establishments in the
Cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...
and Natal respectively. Each black homeland controlled its own education, health and police systems. By 1948, before formal Apartheid, 10 universities existed in South Africa: four were Afrikaans, four for English, one for Blacks and a Correspondence University open to all ethnic groups. By 1981, under apartheid government, 11 new universities were built: seven for Blacks, one for Coloureds, one for Indians, one for Afrikaans and one dual-language medium Afrikaans and English.


Women under apartheid

The colonialist ideology established under apartheid had a major effect on Black and Coloured women, with them suffering due to both racial and gender discrimination while being politically pushed to the margins. Scholar Judith Nolde has argued that, in general, the discriminatory system set up a "triple yoke of oppression: gender, race, and class" such that South African women became "deprive of their fundamental "human rights as individuals." Jobs were often hard to find. Many Black and Coloured women worked as agricultural employees or as
domestic worker A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly ...
s, but wages were extremely low, if existent at all. In terms of mothers and their families, multiple South African children developed diseases caused by
malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
and sanitation problems given the oppressive public policies, and
mortality rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular Statistical population, population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically ...
s were therefore high. The controlled movement of black and Coloured workers within the country caused by the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 and restrictive 'pass laws' separated family members from one another. This occurred because the apartheid system perceived that men could prove their employment in urban centres while most women were merely dependents; consequently, they risked being deported to rural areas. Even in rural areas, there were legal hurdles for women to own land, and jobs outside cities were even more scarce.


Sport under apartheid

By the 1930s,
association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
mirrored the balkanised society of South Africa; football was divided into numerous institutions based on race: the (White) South African Football Association, the South African Indian Football Association (SAIFA), the South African African Football Association (SAAFA) and its rival the South African Bantu Football Association, and the South African Coloured Football Association (SACFA). Lack of funds to provide proper equipment would be noticeable in regards to black amateur football matches; this revealed the unequal lives black South Africans were subject to, in contrast to Whites, who were much better off financially. Apartheid's social engineering made it more difficult to compete across racial lines. Thus, in an effort to centralise finances, the federations merged in 1951, creating the South African Soccer Federation (SASF), which brought Black, Indian, and Coloured national associations into one body that opposed apartheid. This was generally opposed more and more by the growing apartheid government, andwith urban segregation being reinforced with ongoing racist policiesit was harder to play football along these racial lines. In 1956, the Pretoria regimethe administrative capital of South Africapassed the first apartheid sports policy; by doing so, it emphasised the White-led government's opposition to inter-racialism. While football was plagued by racism, it also played a role in protesting apartheid and its policies. With the international bans from
FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...
and other major sporting events, South Africa would be in the spotlight internationally. In a 1977 survey, white South Africans ranked the lack of international sport as one of the three most damaging consequences of apartheid. By the mid-1950s, Black South Africans would also use media to challenge the "racialisation" of sports in South Africa; anti-apartheid forces had begun to pinpoint sport as the "weakness" of white national morale. Black journalists for the ''Johannesburg Drum'' magazine were the first to give the issue public exposure, with an intrepid special issue in 1955 that asked, "Why shouldn't our blacks be allowed in the SA team?" As time progressed, international standing with South Africa would continue to be strained. In the 1980s, as the oppressive system was slowly collapsing the ANC and National Party started negotiations on the end of apartheid, football associations also discussed the formation of a single, non-racial controlling body. This unity process accelerated in the late 1980s and led to the creation, in December 1991, of an incorporated South African Football Association. On 3 July 1992, FIFA finally welcomed South Africa back into international football. Sport has long been an important part of life in South Africa, and the boycotting of games by international teams had a profound effect on the white population, perhaps more so than the trade embargoes did. After the re-acceptance of South Africa's sports teams by the international community, sport played a major unifying role between the country's diverse ethnic groups. Mandela's open support of the predominantly white rugby fraternity during the 1995 Rugby World Cup was considered instrumental in bringing together South African sports fans of all races.


Professional boxing

Activities in the sport of professional boxing were also affected, as there were 44 recorded professional boxing fights for national titles as deemed "for Whites only" between 1955 and 1979, and 397 fights as deemed "for non-Whites" between 1901 and 1978. The first fight for a national "White" title was held on 9 April 1955, between Flyweights Jerry Jooste and Tiny Corbett at the City Hall in Johannesburg; it was won by Jooste by a twelve rounds points decision. The last one was between national "White" Light-Heavyweight champion Gerrie Bodenstein and challenger Mervin Smit on 5 February 1979, at the Joekies Ice Rink in Welkom, Free State. it was won by the champion by a fifth-round technical knockout. The first "non Whites" South African national championship bout on record apparently (the date appears as "uncertain" on the records) took place on 1 May 1901, between Andrew Jephtha and Johnny Arendse for the vacant Lightweight belt, Jephtha winning by knockout in round nineteen of a twenty rounds-scheduled match, in Cape Town. The last "non White" title bout took place on 18 December 1978, between Sipho Mange and Chris Kid Dlamini; Mange-Dlamini was the culminating fight of a boxing program that included several other "non White" championship contests. Mange won the vacant non-White Super Bantamweight title by outpointing Dlamini over twelve rounds at the Goodwood Showgrounds in Cape Town.


Asians during apartheid

Defining its Asian population, a minority that did not appear to belong to any of the initial three designated non-white groups, was a constant dilemma for the apartheid government. The classification of " honorary white" (a term which would be ambiguously used throughout apartheid) was granted to immigrants from
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
countries with which South Africa maintained diplomatic and economic relationsand to their descendants. Indian South Africans during apartheid were classified many ranges of categories from "Asian" to "black" to "Coloured" and even the mono-ethnic category of "Indian", but never as white, having been considered "nonwhite" throughout South Africa's history. The group faced severe discrimination during the apartheid regime and were subject to numerous racialist policies. In 2005, a retrospect study was done by Josephine C. Naidoo and Devi Moodley Rajab, where they interviewed a series of Indian South Africans about their experience living through apartheid; their study highlighted education, the workplace, and general day to day living. One participant who was a doctor said that it was considered the norm for Non-White and White doctors to mingle while working at the hospital but when there was any down time or breaks, they were to go back to their segregated quarters. Not only was there severe segregation for doctors, non-white, more specifically Indians, were paid three to four times less than their white counterparts. Many described being treated as a "third class citizen" due to the humiliation of the standard of treatment for non-white employees across many professions. Many Indians described a sense of justified superiority from whites due to the apartheid laws that, in the minds of White South Africans, legitimised those feelings. Another finding of this study was the psychological damage done to Indians living in South Africa during apartheid. One of the biggest long-term effects on Indians was the distrust of white South Africans. There was a strong degree of alienation that left a strong psychological feeling of inferiority.
Chinese South Africans Chinese South Africans () are Overseas Chinese who reside in South Africa, including those whose ancestors came to South Africa in the early 20th century until Chinese immigration was banned under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1904. Chinese indu ...
who were descendants of migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late 19th centurywere initially either classified as "Coloured" or "Other Asian" and were subject to numerous forms of discrimination and restriction. It was not until 1984 that South African Chinese, increased to about 10,000, were given the same official rights as the Japanese, to be treated as whites in terms of the Group Areas Act, although they still faced discrimination and did not receive all the benefits/rights of their newly obtained honorary white status such as voting.
Indonesians Indonesians (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''orang Indonesia'') are citizens or people who are identified with the country of Indonesia, regardless of their ethnic or religious background. There are more than Ethnic groups in Indonesia, 1,300 ...
arrived at the Cape of Good Hope as slaves until the abolishment of slavery during the 19th century. They were predominantly
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
, were allowed religious freedom and formed their own ethnic group/community known as Cape Malays. They were classified as part of the Coloured racial group. This was the same for South Africans of Malaysian descent who were also classified as part of the Coloured race and thus considered "not-white". South Africans of Filipino descent were classified as "black" due to historical outlook on Filipinos by White South Africans, and many of them lived in Bantustans. The Lebanese population were somewhat of an anomaly during the apartheid era. Lebanese immigration to South Africa was chiefly Christian, and the group was originally classified as non-white; however, a court case in 1913 ruled that because Lebanese and Syrians originated from the
Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...
region (the birthplace of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
and
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
), they could not be discriminated against by race laws which targeted non-believers, and thus, were classified as white. The Lebanese community maintained their white status after the Population Registration Act came into effect; however, further immigration from the Middle East was restricted.


Conservatism

Alongside apartheid, the National Party implemented a programme of
social conservatism Social conservatism is a political philosophy and a variety of conservatism which places emphasis on Tradition#In political and religious discourse, traditional social structures over Cultural pluralism, social pluralism. Social conservatives ...
. Pornography,
gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...
and works from
Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
,
Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
and other socialist thinkers were banned. Cinemas, shops selling alcohol and most other businesses were forbidden from opening on Sundays.
Abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...
, homosexuality and sex education were also restricted; abortion was legal only in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened. Television was not introduced until 1976 because the government viewed English programming as a threat to the Afrikaans language. Television was run on apartheid linesTV1 broadcast in Afrikaans and English (geared to a White audience), TV2 in Zulu and Xhosa, TV3 in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (both geared to a Black audience), and TV4 mostly showed programmes for an urban Black audience.


Internal resistance

Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which in turn increased local support for the armed resistance struggle. Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protests, passive resistance and armed insurrection. In 1949, the youth wing of the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
(ANC) took control of the organisation and started advocating a radical African nationalist programme. The new young leaders proposed that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns. In 1950 that philosophy saw the launch of the Programme of Action, a series of strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience actions that led to occasional violent clashes with the authorities. In 1959, a group of disenchanted ANC members formed the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), which organised a demonstration against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of those protests was held in the township of Sharpeville, where 69 people were killed by police in the Sharpeville massacre. In the wake of Sharpeville, the government declared a state of emergency. More than 18,000 people were arrested, including leaders of the ANC and PAC, and both organisations were banned. The resistance went underground, with some leaders in exile abroad and others engaged in campaigns of domestic sabotage and terrorism. In May 1961, before the declaration of South Africa as a Republic, an assembly representing the banned ANC called for negotiations between the members of the different ethnic groupings, threatening demonstrations and strikes during the inauguration of the Republic if their calls were ignored. When the government overlooked them, the strikers (among the main organisers was a 42-year-old, Thembu-origin
Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...
) carried out their threats. The government countered swiftly by giving police the authority to arrest people for up to twelve days and detaining many strike leaders amid numerous cases of police brutality. Defeated, the protesters called off their strike. The ANC then chose to launch an armed struggle through a newly formed military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which would perform acts of sabotage on tactical state structures. Its first sabotage plans were carried out on 16 December 1961, the anniversary of the
Battle of Blood River The Battle of Blood River or Voortrekker-Zulu War (16 December 1838) was fought on the bank of the Blood River, Ncome River, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa between 464 Voortrekkers ("Pioneers"), led by Andries Pretorius, and an es ...
. In the 1970s, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was created by tertiary students influenced by the Black Power movement in the US. BCM endorsed black pride and African customs and did much to alter the feelings of inadequacy instilled among black people by the apartheid system. The leader of the movement, Steve Biko, was taken into custody on 18 August 1977 and was beaten to death in detention. In 1976, secondary students in Soweto took to the streets in the Soweto uprising to protest against the imposition of Afrikaans as the only language of instruction. On 16 June, police opened fire on students protesting peacefully. According to official reports 23 people were killed, but the number of people who died is usually given as 176, with estimates of up to 700. In the following years several student organisations were formed to protest against apartheid, and these organisations were central to urban school boycotts in 1980 and 1983 and rural boycotts in 1985 and 1986. In parallel with student protests, labour unions started protest action in 1973 and 1974. After 1976 unions and workers are considered to have played an important role in the struggle against apartheid, filling the gap left by the banning of political parties. In 1979 black trade unions were legalised and could engage in collective bargaining, although strikes were still illegal. Economist
Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell ( ; born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, economic historian, and social and political commentator. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on T ...
wrote that basic supply and demand led to violations of Apartheid "on a massive scale" throughout the nation, simply because there were not enough white South African business owners to meet the demand for various goods and services. Large portions of the garment industry and construction of new homes, for example, were effectively owned and operated by blacks, who either worked surreptitiously or who circumvented the law with a white person as a nominal, figurehead manager. In 1983, anti-apartheid leaders determined to resist the tricameral parliament assembled to form the United Democratic Front (UDF) in order to coordinate anti-apartheid activism inside South Africa. The first presidents of the UDF were Archie Gumede, Oscar Mpetha and Albertina Sisulu; patrons were Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr Allan Boesak, Helen Joseph, and
Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...
. Basing its platform on abolishing apartheid and creating a nonracial democratic South Africa, the UDF provided a legal way for domestic human rights groups and individuals of all races to organise demonstrations and campaign against apartheid inside the country. Churches and church groups also emerged as pivotal points of resistance. Church leaders were not immune to prosecution, and certain faith-based organisations were banned, but the clergy generally had more freedom to criticise the government than militant groups did. The UDF, coupled with the protection of the church, accordingly permitted a major role for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who served both as a prominent domestic voice and international spokesperson denouncing apartheid and urging the creation of a shared nonracial state. Although the majority of whites supported apartheid, some 20 percent did not. Parliamentary opposition was galvanised by Helen Suzman, Colin Eglin and Harry Schwarz, who formed the Progressive Federal Party. Extra-parliamentary resistance was largely centred in the South African Communist Party and women's organisation the Black Sash. Women were also notable in their involvement in trade union organisations and banned political parties. The public intellectuals too, such as Nadine Gordimer the eminent author and winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...
(1991), vehemently opposed the Apartheid regime and accordingly bolstered the movement against it.


International relations during apartheid


Commonwealth

South Africa's policies were subject to international scrutiny in 1960, when British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...
criticised them during his Wind of Change speech in
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville massacre, resulting in more international condemnation. Soon afterwards,
Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
Hendrik Verwoerd announced a
referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...
on whether the country should become a republic. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for Whites to eighteen years of age and included Whites in
South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
on the roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked Whites; "Are you in favour of a Republic for the Union?", and 52% voted "Yes". As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the
Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...
, with which it had privileged trade links.
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
had become a republic within the Commonwealth in 1950, but it became clear that African and South and Southeast Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence. During the 1980s, the Commonwealth advocated for economic sanctions to accelerate the dismantling of apartheid, and in 1986 during a mini-summit which involved seven different countries, including the United Kingdom, a tough programme of sanctions was agreed. It took thirty-three years for South Africa to rejoin the Commonwealth. As per the new president's wishes, on 1 June 1994, four years after the end of apartheid, the country once again became part of the so-called "Family of Nations".


United Nations

The apartheid system as an issue was first formally brought to the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
attention, in order to advocate for the Indians residing in South Africa. On 22 June 1946, the Indian government requested that the discriminatory treatment of Indians living in South Africa be included on the agenda of the first General Assembly session. In 1952, apartheid was again discussed in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign, and the UN set up a task team to keep watch on the progress of apartheid and the racial state of affairs in South Africa. Although South Africa's racial policies were a cause for concern, most countries in the UN concurred that this was a domestic affair, which fell outside the UN's jurisdiction. In April 1960, the UN's conservative stance on apartheid changed following the Sharpeville massacre, and the Security Council for the first time agreed on concerted action against the apartheid regime. Resolution 134 called upon the nation of South Africa to abandon its policies implementing racial discrimination. The newly founded United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid, scripted and passed Resolution 181 on 7 August 1963, which called upon all states to cease the sale and shipment of all ammunition and military vehicles to South Africa. This clause was finally declared mandatory on 4 November 1977, depriving South Africa of military aid. From 1964 onwards, the US and the UK discontinued their arms trade with South Africa. The Security Council also condemned the Soweto massacre in Resolution 392. In 1977, the voluntary UN arms embargo became mandatory with the passing of Resolution 418. In addition to isolating South Africa militarily, the United Nations General Assembly, encouraged the boycotting of oil sales to South Africa. Other actions taken by the United Nations General Assembly include the request for all nations and organisations, "to suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practise apartheid". Illustrating that over a long period of time, the United Nations was working towards isolating the state of South Africa, by putting pressure on the Apartheid regime. After much debate, by the late-1980s, the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa. A disinvestment from South Africa movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.


Catholic Church

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...
was an outspoken opponent of apartheid. In 1985, while visiting the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, he gave an impassioned speech at the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
condemning apartheid, proclaiming that "no system of apartheid or separate development will ever be acceptable as a model for the relations between peoples or races." In September 1988, he made a pilgrimage to countries bordering South Africa, while demonstratively avoiding South Africa itself. During his visit to
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, he called for economic sanctions against the South African government.


Organisation for African Unity

The
Organisation of African Unity The Organisation of African Unity (OAU; , OUA) was an African intergovernmental organization established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with 33 signatory governments. Some of the key aims of the OAU were to encourage political and ec ...
(OAU) was created in 1963. Its primary objectives were to eradicate colonialism and improve social, political and economic situations in Africa. It censured apartheid and demanded sanctions against South Africa. African states agreed to aid the liberation movements in their fight against apartheid.Geldenhuys, Deon (1990). ''Isolated states: a comparative analysis.'' Cambridge University Press. p. 274. In 1969, fourteen nations from Central and East Africa gathered in
Lusaka Lusaka ( ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was abo ...
,
Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
, and formulated the '' Lusaka Manifesto'', which was signed on 13 April by all of the countries in attendance except
Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...
. This manifesto was later taken on by both the OAU and the United Nations. The Lusaka Manifesto summarised the political situations of self-governing African countries, condemning racism and inequity, and calling for Black majority rule in all African nations. It did not rebuff South Africa entirely, though, adopting an appeasing manner towards the apartheid government, and even recognizing its autonomy. Although African leaders supported the emancipation of Black South Africans, they preferred this to be attained through peaceful means. South Africa's negative response to the Lusaka Manifesto and rejection of a change to its policies brought about another OAU announcement in October 1971. The ''Mogadishu Declaration'' stated that South Africa's rebuffing of negotiations meant that its Black people could only be freed through military means, and that no African state should converse with the apartheid government.


Outward-looking policy

In 1966, B. J. Vorster became prime minister. He was not prepared to dismantle apartheid, but he did try to redress South Africa's isolation and to revitalise the country's global reputation, even those with Black majority rule in Africa. This he called his "Outward-Looking" policy. Vorster's willingness to talk to African leaders stood in contrast to Verwoerd's refusal to engage with leaders such as
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (December 1912 – 15 January 1966) was the first and only Prime Minister of Nigeria, Prime Minister of Nigeria. A dominant figure of Nigerian Independence, he was a conservative Anglophile. His political career spa ...
of
Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
in 1962 and
Kenneth Kaunda Kenneth Kaunda (28 April 1924 – 17 June 2021), also known as KK, was a Zambian politician who served as the first president of Zambia from 1964 to 1991. He was at the forefront of the struggle for independence from Northern Rhodesia, British ...
of
Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
in 1964. In 1966, he met the heads of the neighbouring states of
Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...
, Swaziland and
Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
. In 1967, he offered technological and financial aid to any African state prepared to receive it, asserting that no political strings were attached, aware that many African states needed financial aid despite their opposition to South Africa's racial policies. Many were also tied to South Africa economically because of their migrant labour population working down the South African mines. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland remained outspoken critics of apartheid, but were dependent on South African economic assistance.
Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...
was the first non-neighbouring country to accept South African aid. In 1967, the two states set out their political and economic relations. In 1969, Malawi was the only country at the assembly which did not sign the Lusaka Manifesto condemning South Africa's apartheid policy. In 1970, Malawian president Hastings Banda made his first and most successful official stopover in South Africa. Associations with Mozambique followed suit and were sustained after that country won its sovereignty in 1975. Angola was also granted South African loans. Other countries which formed relationships with South Africa were
Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...
,
Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...
, Madagascar,
Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
, Gabon,
Zaire Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-la ...
(now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and the
Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to Central African Republic–Chad border, the north, Sudan to Central African Republic–Sudan border, the northeast, South Sudan to Central ...
. Although these states condemned apartheid (more than ever after South Africa's denunciation of the Lusaka Manifesto), South Africa's economic and military dominance meant that they remained dependent on South Africa to varying degrees.


Sports and culture


Beginning

South Africa's isolation in sport began in the mid-1950s and increased throughout the 1960s. Apartheid forbade multiracial sport, which meant that overseas teams, by virtue of them having players of different races, could not play in South Africa. In 1956, the
International Table Tennis Federation The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is the Sport governing body, governing body for all national table tennis associations that use ITTF-approved sponge table tennis rackets. The role of the ITTF includes overseeing rules and regula ...
severed its ties with the all-White South African Table Tennis Union, preferring the non-racial South African Table Tennis Board. The apartheid government responded by confiscating the passports of the Board's players so that they were unable to attend international games.


Isolation


Verwoerd years

In 1959, the non-racial South African Sports Association (SASA) was formed to secure the rights of all players on the global field. After meeting with no success in its endeavours to attain credit by collaborating with White establishments, SASA approached the
International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
(IOC) in 1962, calling for South Africa's expulsion from the Olympic Games. The IOC sent South Africa a caution to the effect that, if there were no changes, they would be barred from competing at the 1964 Olympic Games in
Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
. The changes were initiated, and in January 1963, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) was set up. The Anti-Apartheid Movement persisted in its campaign for South Africa's exclusion, and the IOC acceded in barring the country from the 1964 Olympic Games. South Africa selected a multi-racial team for the next Olympic Games, and the IOC opted for incorporation in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. Because of protests from AAMs and African nations, however, the IOC was forced to retract the invitation. Foreign complaints about South Africa's bigoted sports brought more isolation. Racially selected New Zealand sports teams toured South Africa, until the 1970
All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, is the representative men's national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of New Zealand, which is considered the country's national sport. Famed for th ...
rugby tour allowed Maori to enter the country under the status of "honorary Whites". Huge and widespread protests occurred in New Zealand in 1981 against the Springbok tourthe government spent $8,000,000 protecting games using the army and police force. A planned All Black tour to South Africa in 1985 remobilised the New Zealand protesters and it was cancelled. A "rebel tour"not government sanctionedwent ahead in 1986, but after that sporting ties were cut, and New Zealand made a decision not to convey an authorised rugby team to South Africa until the end of apartheid.


Vorster years

On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was fatally stabbed at Parliament House by parliamentary messenger Dimitri Tsafendas. John Vorster took office shortly after, and announced that South Africa would no longer dictate to the international community what their teams should look like. Although this reopened the gate for international sporting meets, it did not signal the end of South Africa's racist sporting policies. In 1968, Vorster went against his policy by refusing to permit Basil D'Oliveira, a Coloured South African-born cricketer, to join the English cricket team on its tour to South Africa. Vorster said that the side had been chosen only to prove a point, and not on merit. D'Oliveira was eventually included in the team as the first substitute, but the tour was cancelled. Protests against certain tours brought about the cancellation of a number of other visits, including that of an England rugby team touring South Africa in 1969–70. The first of the "White Bans" occurred in 1971 when the Chairman of the Australian Cricketing Association Sir Don Bradmanflew to South Africa to meet Vorster. Vorster had expected Bradman to allow the tour of the Australian cricket team to go ahead, but things became heated after Bradman asked why Black sportsmen were not allowed to play cricket. Vorster stated that Blacks were intellectually inferior and had no finesse for the game. Bradman, thinking this ignorant and repugnant, asked Vorster if he had heard of a man named Garry Sobers. On his return to
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, Bradman released a short statement: "We will not play them until they choose a team on a non-racist basis." Bradman's views were in stark contrast to those of Australian tennis great Margaret Court, who had won the grand slam the previous year and commented about apartheid that "South Africans have this thing better organised than any other country, particularly America" and that she would "go back there any time." In South Africa, Vorster vented his anger publicly against Bradman, while the African National Congress rejoiced. This was the first time a predominantly White nation had taken the side of multiracial sport, producing an unsettling resonance that more "White" boycotts were coming. Almost twenty years later, on his release from prison, Nelson Mandela asked a visiting Australian statesman if Donald Bradman, his childhood hero, was still alive (Bradman lived until 2001). In 1971, Vorster altered his policies even further by distinguishing multiracial from multinational sport. Multiracial sport, between teams with players of different races, remained outlawed; multinational sport, however, was now acceptable: international sides would not be subject to South Africa's racial stipulations. In 1978, Nigeria
boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
ed the
Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which consists mostly, but not exclusively, of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 ...
because New Zealand's sporting contacts with the South African government were not considered to be in accordance with the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement. Nigeria also led the 32-nation boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games because of UK Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
's ambivalent attitude towards sporting links with South Africa, significantly affecting the quality and profitability of the Games and thus thrusting apartheid into the international spotlight.


Cultural boycott

In the 1960s, the Anti-Apartheid Movements began to campaign for cultural boycotts of apartheid South Africa. Artists were requested not to present or let their works be hosted in South Africa. In 1963, 45 British writers put their signatures to an affirmation approving of the boycott, and, in 1964, American actor
Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Widely regarded as one of the greatest cinema actors of the 20th century,''Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia''
called for a similar affirmation for films. In 1965, the
Writers' Guild of Great Britain The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG). History The u ...
called for a proscription on the sending of films to South Africa. Over sixty American artists signed a statement against apartheid and against professional links with the state. The presentation of some South African plays in the United Kingdom and the United States was also vetoed. After the arrival of
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
in South Africa in 1975, the British Actors Union, Equity, boycotted the service, and no British programme concerning its associates could be sold to South Africa. Similarly, when
home video Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
grew popular in the 1980s, the Australian arm of CBS/Fox Video (now
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment 20th Century Home Entertainment (previously known as Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. and also known as 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment) was a home video distribution arm that distributes films produced by 20th Century Stud ...
) placed stickers on their VHS and
Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, and stylized as the Greek letter Beta, β in its logo) is a discontinued consumer analog Videotape, video cassette recording format developed by Sony. It was one of the main competitors in the videotape format war ag ...
cassettes which labelled exporting such cassettes to South Africa as "an infringement of copyright". Sporting and cultural boycotts did not have the same effect as economic sanctions, but they did much to lift consciousness amongst normal South Africans of the global condemnation of apartheid.


Western influence

While international opposition to apartheid grew, the
Nordic countries The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; ) are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe, as well as the Arctic Ocean, Arctic and Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic oceans. It includes the sovereign states of Denm ...
and
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
in particularprovided both moral and financial support for the ANC. On 21 February 1986a week before he was assassinated
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
's Prime Minister
Olof Palme Sven Olof Joachim Palme (; ; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until as ...
made the keynote address to the ''Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid'' held in
Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
. In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathisers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared: "Apartheid cannot be reformed; it has to be eliminated." Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. In
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, the Swiss-South African Association lobbied on behalf of the South African government. The Nixon administration implemented a policy known as the Tar Baby Option, pursuant to which the US maintained close relations with the Apartheid South African government. The
Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...
evaded international sanctions and provided diplomatic support in international forums for the South African government. The United States also increased trade with the Apartheid regime, while describing the ANC as "a terrorist organisation." Like the Reagan administration, the government of
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
termed this policy " constructive engagement" with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions. U.S. government justification for supporting the Apartheid regime were publicly given as a belief in "
free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold Economic liberalism, economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist politica ...
" and the perception of the anti-communist South African government as a bastion against
Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
forces in Southern Africa, for example, by the military intervention of South Africa in the
Angolan Civil War The Angolan Civil War () was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. It was a power struggle between two for ...
in support of right-wing insurgents fighting to topple the government. The U.K. government also declared the ANC a terrorist organisation, and in 1987 Thatcher's spokesman, Bernard Ingham, famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land". The
American Legislative Exchange Council The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservatism in the United States, conservative state legislature (United States), state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share Model act, ...
(ALEC), a conservative lobbying organisation, actively campaigned against divesting from South Africa throughout the 1980s. By the late-1980s, with no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/ Democratic initiative in the US favoured
economic sanctions Economic sanctions or embargoes are Commerce, commercial and Finance, financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. Economic sanctions are a form of Coercion (international relations), coercion tha ...
(realised as the '' Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act'' of 1986), the release of Nelson Mandela and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line, but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle. The UK's significant economic involvement in South Africa may have provided some leverage with the South African government, with both the UK and the US applying pressure and pushing for negotiations. However, neither the UK nor the US was willing to apply economic pressure upon their multinational interests in South Africa, such as the mining company Anglo American. Although a high-profile compensation claim against these companies was thrown out of court in 2004, the
US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
in May 2008 upheld an appeal court ruling allowing another lawsuit that seeks damages of more than US$400 billion from major international companies which are accused of aiding South Africa's apartheid system.


Effect of the Cold War


"Total Onslaught"

During the 1950s, South African military strategy was decisively shaped by fears of communist espionage and a conventional
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
threat to the strategic Cape trade route between the
south Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...
and
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
s. The apartheid government supported the US-led
North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental transnational military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermat ...
(NATO), as well as its policy of regional '' containment'' against Soviet-backed regimes and insurgencies worldwide. By the late-1960s, the rise of Soviet
client state A client state in the context of international relations is a State (polity), state that is economically, politically, and militarily subordinated to a more powerful controlling state. Alternative terms for a ''client state'' are satellite state, ...
s on the African continent, as well as Soviet aid for militant anti-apartheid movements, was considered one of the primary external threats to the apartheid system. South African officials frequently accused domestic opposition groups of being communist proxies. For its part, the Soviet Union viewed South Africa as a bastion of
neocolonialism Neocolonialism is the control by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony) through indirect means. The term ''neocolonialism'' was first used after World War II to refer to ...
and a regional Western ally, which helped fuel its support for various anti-apartheid causes. From 1973 onwards, much of South Africa's white population increasingly looked upon their country as a bastion of the free world besieged militarily, politically, and culturally by Communism and radical black nationalism. The apartheid government perceived itself as being locked in a proxy struggle with the
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
and by implication, armed wings of black nationalist forces such as Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the
People's Liberation Army of Namibia The People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) was the military wing of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO). It fought against the South African Defence Force (SADF) and South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF) during the S ...
(PLAN), which often received arms and training in Warsaw Pact member states. This was described as "Total Onslaught".


Israeli arms sales

Soviet support for militant anti-apartheid movements worked in the government's favour, as its claim to be reacting in opposition to aggressive communist expansion gained greater plausibility, and helped it justify its own domestic militarisation methods, known as "Total Strategy". Total Strategy involved building up a formidable conventional military and counter-intelligence capability. It was formulated on counter-revolutionary tactics as espoused by noted French tactician André Beaufre. Considerable effort was devoted towards circumventing international arms sanctions, and the government even went so far as to develop
nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weap ...
, allegedly with covert assistance from
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. In 2010, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' released South African government documents that revealed an Israeli offer to sell the apartheid regime nuclear weapons. Israel denied these allegations and claimed that the documents were minutes from a meeting which did not indicate any concrete offer for a sale of nuclear weapons.
Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...
said that ''The Guardian''s article was based on "selective interpretation ... and not on concrete facts." As a result of "Total Strategy", South African society became increasingly militarised. Many domestic civil organisations were modelled upon military structures, and military virtues such as discipline, patriotism and loyalty were highly regarded. In 1968, national service for White South African men lasted nine months at minimum, and they could be called up for reserve duty into their late-middle age if necessary. The length of national service was gradually extended to 12 months in 1972 and 24 months in 1978. At state schools, white male students were organised into paramilitary formations and drilled as cadets or as participants in a civil defence or "Youth Preparedness" curriculum. Compulsory military education and in some cases, paramilitary training was introduced for all older white male students at state schools in three South African provinces. These programmes presided over the construction of bomb shelters at schools and drills aimed at simulating mock insurgent raids. From the late 1970s to the late 1980s, defence budgets in South Africa were raised exponentially. In 1975, Israeli defence minister
Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...
signed a security pact with South African defence minister P.W. Botha that led to $200 million in arms deals. In 1988, Israeli arm sales to South Africa totalled over $1.4 billion. Covert operations focused on espionage and domestic counter-subversion became common, the number of
special forces Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
units swelled, and the South African Defence Force (SADF) had amassed enough sophisticated conventional weaponry to pose a serious threat to the " front-line states", a regional alliance of neighbouring countries opposed to apartheid.


Foreign military operations

Total Strategy was advanced in the context of MK, PLAN, and Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) guerrilla raids into South Africa or against South African targets in South West Africa; frequent South African reprisal attacks on these movements' external bases in
Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
,
Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
,
Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...
,
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, and
Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
, often involving collateral damage to foreign infrastructure and civilian populations; and periodic complaints brought before the international community about South African violations of its neighbours' sovereignty. The apartheid government made judicious use of extraterritorial operations to eliminate its military and political opponents, arguing that neighbouring states, including their civilian populations, which hosted, tolerated on their soil, or otherwise sheltered anti-apartheid insurgent groups could not evade responsibility for provoking retaliatory strikes. While it did focus on militarising the borders and sealing up its domestic territory against insurgent raids, it also relied heavily on an aggressive preemptive and counter-strike strategy, which fulfilled a preventive and deterrent purpose. The reprisals which occurred beyond South Africa's borders involved not only hostile states, but neutral and sympathetic governments as well, often forcing them to react against their will and interests. External South African military operations were aimed at eliminating the training facilities, safehouses, infrastructure, equipment, and manpower of the insurgents. However, their secondary objective was to dissuade neighbouring states from offering sanctuary to MK, PLAN, APLA, and similar organisations. This was accomplished by deterring the supportive foreign population from cooperating with infiltration and thus undermining the insurgents' external sanctuary areas. It would also send a clear message to the host government that collaborating with insurgent forces involved potentially high costs. The scale and intensity of foreign operations varied, and ranged from small special forces units carrying out raids on locations across the border which served as bases for insurgent infiltration to major conventional offensives involving armour, artillery, and aircraft. Actions such as Operation Protea in 1981 and Operation Askari in 1983 involved both full scale
conventional warfare Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted by using conventional weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more sovereign state, states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that ...
and a counter-insurgency reprisal operation. The insurgent bases were usually situated near military installations of the host government, so that SADF retaliatory strikes hit those facilities as well and attracted international attention and condemnation of what was perceived as aggression against the armed forces of another sovereign state. This would inevitably result in major engagements, in which the SADF's expeditionary units would have to contend with the firepower of the host government's forces. Intensive conventional warfare of this nature carried the risk of severe casualties among white soldiers, which had to be kept to a minimum for political reasons. There were also high economic and diplomatic costs associated with openly deploying large numbers of South African troops into another country. Furthermore, military involvement on that scale had the potential to evolve into wider conflict situations, in which South Africa became entangled. For example, South Africa's activities in Angola, initially limited to containing PLAN, later escalated to direct involvement in the
Angolan Civil War The Angolan Civil War () was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war began immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. It was a power struggle between two for ...
. As it became clearer that full-scale conventional operations could not effectively fulfil the requirements of a regional counter-insurgency effort, South Africa turned to a number of alternative methods. Retributive artillery bombardments were the least sophisticated means of reprisal against insurgent attacks. Between 1978 and 1979 the SADF directed artillery fire against locations in Angola and Zambia from which insurgent rockets were suspected to have been launched. This precipitated several artillery duels with the Zambian Army. Special forces raids were launched to harass PLAN and MK by liquidating prominent members of those movements, destroying their offices and safehouses, and seizing valuable records stored at these sites. One example was the Gaborone Raid, carried out in 1985, during which a South African special forces team crossed the border into Botswana and demolished four suspected MK safe houses, severely damaging another four. Other types of special forces operations included the sabotage of economic infrastructure. The SADF sabotaged infrastructure being used for the insurgents' war effort; for example, port facilities in southern Angola's Moçâmedes District, where Soviet arms were frequently offloaded for PLAN, as well as the railway line which facilitated their transport to PLAN headquarters in Lubango, were common targets. Sabotage was also used as a pressure tactic when South Africa was negotiating with a host government to cease providing sanctuary to insurgent forces, as in the case of Operation Argon. Successful sabotage actions of high-profile economic targets undermined a country's ability to negotiate from a position of strength, and made it likelier to accede to South African demands rather than risk the expense of further destruction and war. Also noteworthy were South African transnational espionage efforts, which included covert assassinations, kidnappings, and attempts to disrupt the overseas influence of anti-apartheid organisations. South African military intelligence agents were known to have abducted and killed anti-apartheid activists and others suspected of having ties to MK in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
.


State security

During the 1980s the government, led by P.W. Botha, became increasingly preoccupied with security. It set up a powerful state security apparatus to "protect" the state against an anticipated upsurge in
political violence Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a State (polity), state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-st ...
that the reforms were expected to trigger. The 1980s became a period of considerable political unrest, with the government becoming increasingly dominated by Botha's circle of generals and police chiefs (known as securocrats), who managed the various States of Emergencies. Botha's years in power were marked also by numerous military interventions in the states bordering South Africa, as well as an extensive military and political campaign to eliminate SWAPO in Namibia. Within South Africa, meanwhile, vigorous police action and strict enforcement of security legislation resulted in hundreds of arrests and bans, and an effective end to the African National Congress' sabotage campaign. The government punished political offenders brutally. 40,000 people annually were subjected to whipping as a form of punishment. The vast majority had committed political offences and were lashed ten times for their crime. If convicted of treason, a person could be hanged, and the government executed numerous political offenders in this way. As the 1980s progressed, more and more anti-apartheid organisations were formed and affiliated with the UDF. Led by the
Reverend The Reverend (abbreviated as The Revd, The Rev'd or The Rev) is an honorific style (form of address), style given to certain (primarily Western Christian, Western) Christian clergy and Christian minister, ministers. There are sometimes differen ...
Allan Boesak and Albertina Sisulu, the UDF called for the government to abandon its reforms and instead abolish the apartheid system and eliminate the homelands completely.


State of emergency

Serious political violence was a prominent feature from 1985 to 1989, as Black townships became the focus of the struggle between anti-apartheid organisations and the Botha government. Throughout the 1980s, township people resisted apartheid by acting against the local issues that faced their particular communities. The focus of much of this resistance was against the local authorities and their leaders, who were seen to be supporting the government. By 1985, it had become the ANC's aim to make Black townships "ungovernable" (a term later replaced by "people's power") by means of rent boycotts and other militant action. Numerous township councils were overthrown or collapsed, to be replaced by unofficial popular organisations, often led by militant youth. People's courts were set up, and residents accused of being government agents were dealt extreme and occasionally lethal punishments. Black town councillors and policemen, and sometimes their families, were attacked with petrol bombs, beaten, and murdered by necklacing, where a burning tyre was placed around the victim's neck, after they were restrained by wrapping their wrists with barbed wire. On 20 July 1985, Botha declared a
State of Emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state before, during, o ...
in 36 magisterial districts. Areas affected were the
Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
, and the PWV region ("
Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...
, Witwatersrand, Vereeniging"). Three months later, the
Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...
was included. An increasing number of organisations were banned or listed (restricted in some way); many individuals had restrictions such as house arrest imposed on them. During this state of emergency, about 2,436 people were detained under the Internal Security Act. This act gave police and the military sweeping powers. The government could implement curfews controlling the movement of people. The president could rule by decree without referring to the constitution or to parliament. It became a criminal offence to threaten someone verbally or possess documents that the government perceived to be threatening, to advise anyone to stay away from work or to oppose the government, and to disclose the name of anyone arrested under the State of Emergency until the government released that name, with up to ten years' imprisonment for these offences. Detention without trial became a common feature of the government's reaction to growing civil unrest and by 1988, 30,000 people had been detained. The media was censored, thousands were arrested and many were interrogated and
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
d. On 12 June 1986, four days before the tenth anniversary of the Soweto uprising, the state of emergency was extended to cover the whole country. The government amended the Public Security Act, including the right to declare "unrest" areas, allowing extraordinary measures to crush protests in these areas. Severe censorship of the press became a dominant tactic in the government's strategy and television cameras were banned from entering such areas. The state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), provided propaganda in support of the government. Media opposition to the system increased, supported by the growth of a pro-ANC underground press within South Africa. In 1987, the State of Emergency was extended for another two years. Meanwhile, about 200,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers commenced the longest strike (three weeks) in South African history. The year 1988 saw the banning of the activities of the UDF and other anti-apartheid organisations. Much of the violence in the late-1980s and early-1990s was directed at the government, but a substantial amount was between the residents themselves. Many died in violence between members of Inkatha and the UDF-ANC faction. It was later proven that the government manipulated the situation by supporting one side or the other whenever it suited them. Government agents assassinated opponents within South Africa and abroad; they undertook cross-border army and air-force attacks on suspected ANC and PAC bases. The ANC and the PAC in return detonated bombs at restaurants, shopping centres and government buildings such as magistrates courts. Between 1960 and 1994, according to statistics from the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state ac ...
, the
Inkatha Freedom Party The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP; ) is a conservative political party in South Africa, which is a part of the current South African Third Cabinet of Cyril Ramaphosa, government of national unity together with the African National Congress (ANC). A ...
was responsible for 4,500 deaths, South African security forces were responsible for 2,700 deaths and the ANC was responsible for 1,300 deaths. The state of emergency continued until 1990 when it was lifted by State President F. W. de Klerk.


Final years of apartheid


Factors


Institutional racism

Apartheid developed from the racism of colonial factions and due to South Africa's "unique industrialisation".Nigel, Worden, The making of modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation and Apartheid, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2000) p. 3. The policies of
industrialisation Industrialisation ( UK) or industrialization ( US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for th ...
led to the segregation and classing of people, which was "specifically developed to nurture early industry such as
mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...
". Cheap labour was the basis of the economy and this was taken from what the state classed as peasant groups and the migrants. Furthermore, Philip Bonner highlights the "contradictory economic effects" as the economy did not have a manufacturing sector, therefore promoting short term profitability but limiting labour productivity and the size of local markets. This also led to its collapse as "Clarkes emphasises the economy could not provide and compete with foreign rivals as they failed to master cheap labour and complex chemistry".


Economic contradictions

The contradictions in the traditionally capitalist economy of the apartheid state led to considerable debate about racial policy, and division and conflicts in the central state.Paul, Maylam, "The Rise and Decline of Urban Apartheid in South Africa", African Affairs, 89.354(1990) pp. 57–84 (p. 54.) To a large extent, the political ideology of apartheid had emerged from the colonisation of Africa by European powers which institutionalised racial discrimination and exercised a paternal philosophy of "civilising inferior natives." Some scholars have argued that this can be reflected in Afrikaner Calvinism, with its parallel traditions of racialism; Dubow, Saul, "Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the conceptualisation of 'Race, The Journal of African History, 33 (1992) pp. 209–237 (pp. 209, 211) for example, as early as 1933; the executive council of the Broederbond formulated a recommendation for mass segregation.


Western influence

External Western influence, arising from European experiences in colonisation, may be seen as a factor which greatly influenced political attitudes and ideology. Late twentieth-century South Africa was cited as an "unreconstructed example of western civilisation twisted by racism". In the 1960s, South Africa experienced
economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...
second only to that of
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. Trade with Western countries grew, and investment from the United States, France and the United Kingdom poured in. In 1974, resistance to apartheid was encouraged by Portuguese withdrawal from
Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...
and
Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
, after the 1974
Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution (), code-named Operation Historic Turn (), also known as the 25 April (), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The coup produced major socia ...
. South African troops withdrew from Angola early in 1976, failing to prevent the
MPLA The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (, abbr. MPLA), from 1977–1990 called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (), is an Angolan social democratic political party. The MPLA fought against the P ...
from gaining power there, and Black students in South Africa celebrated. The
Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith was a statement of core principles laid down by South African political leaders Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz on 4 January 1974. It was signed in Mahlabatini, KwaZulu-Natal, hence its name. Its purpos ...
, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, enshrined the principles of
peaceful transition of power A peaceful transition or transfer of power is a concept important to democracy, democratic governments in which the leadership of a government peacefully hands over control of government to a newly elected leadership. This may be after elections o ...
and equality for all. Its purpose was to provide a blueprint for South Africa by consent and racial peace in a multi-racial society, stressing opportunity for all, consultation, the federal concept, and a Bill of Rights. It caused a split in the United Party that ultimately realigned oppositional politics in South Africa with the formation of the Progressive Federal Party in 1977. The Declaration was the first of several such joint agreements by acknowledged Black and White political leaders in South Africa. In 1978, the National Party Defence Minister, Pieter Willem Botha, became prime minister. His white minority regime worried about Soviet aid to revolutionaries in South Africa at the same time that South African economic growth had slowed. The South African Government noted that it was spending too much money to maintain segregated homelands created for Blacks, and the homelands were proving to be uneconomical. Nor was maintaining Blacks as third-class citizens working well. Black labour remained vital to the economy, and illegal Black labour unions were flourishing. Many Blacks remained too poor to contribute significantly to the economy through their purchasing poweralthough they composed more than 70% of the population. Botha's regime feared that an antidote was needed to prevent the Blacks being attracted to communism. In July 1979, the Nigerian Government alleged that the Shell-BP Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) was selling Nigerian oil to South Africa, though there was little evidence or commercial logic for such sales. The alleged sanctions-breaking was used to justify the seizure of some of BP's assets in Nigeria including their stake in SPDC, although it appears the real reasons were economic nationalism and domestic politics ahead of the Nigerian elections. Many South Africans attended schools in Nigeria, and Nelson Mandela acknowledged the role of Nigeria in the struggle against apartheid on several occasions.


Tricameral parliament

In the early-1980s, Botha's National Party government started to recognise the inevitability of the need to reform the apartheid system. Early reforms were driven by a combination of internal violence, international condemnation, changes within the National Party's constituency, and changing demographicswhites constituted only 16% of the total population, in comparison to 20% fifty years earlier. In 1983, a new constitution was passed implementing what was called the Tricameral Parliament, giving Coloureds and Indians voting rights and parliamentary representation in separate housesthe House of Assembly (178 members) for Whites, the House of Representatives (85 members) for Coloureds and the House of Delegates (45 members) for Indians. Each House handled laws pertaining to its racial group's "own affairs", including health, education and other community issues. All laws relating to "general affairs" (matters such as defence, industry, taxation and Black affairs) were handled by a Cabinet made up of representatives from all three houses. However, the White chamber had a large majority on this Cabinet, ensuring that effective control of the country remained in the hands of the White minority. Blacks, although making up the majority of the population, were excluded from representation; they remained nominal citizens of their homelands. The first Tricameral elections were largely boycotted by Coloured and Indian voters, amid widespread rioting.


Reforms and contact with the ANC under Botha

Concerned over the popularity of Mandela, Botha denounced him as an arch-
Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
committed to violent revolution, but to appease Black opinion and nurture Mandela as a benevolent leader of Blacks, the government transferred him from the maximum security
Robben Island Robben Island () is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch language, Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrika ...
to the lower security Pollsmoor Prison just outside
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
; where prison life was more comfortable for him. The government allowed Mandela more visitors, including visits and interviews by foreigners, to let the world know that he was being treated well. Black homelands were declared
nation-state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly or ideally) con ...
s and pass laws were abolished. Black labour unions were legitimised, the government recognised the right of Blacks to live in urban areas permanently and gave Blacks
property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their Possession (law), possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely ...
there. Interest was expressed in rescinding the law against interracial marriage and also rescinding the law against sexual relations between different races, which was under ridicule abroad. The spending for Black schools increased, to one-seventh of what was spent per white child, up from on one-sixteenth in 1968. At the same time, attention was given to strengthening the effectiveness of the police apparatus. In January 1985, Botha addressed the government's House of Assembly and stated that the government was willing to release Mandela on condition that Mandela pledge opposition to acts of violence to further political objectives. Mandela's reply was read in public by his daughter Zinzihis first words distributed publicly since his sentence to prison 21 years earlier. Mandela described violence as the responsibility of the apartheid regime and said that with democracy there would be no need for violence. The crowd listening to the reading of his speech erupted in cheers and chants. This response helped to further elevate Mandela's status in the eyes of those, both internationally and domestically, who opposed apartheid. Between 1986 and 1988, some petty apartheid laws were repealed, along with the pass laws. Botha told White South Africans to "adapt or die" and twice he wavered on the eve of what were billed as " rubicon" announcements of substantial reforms, although on both occasions he backed away from substantial changes. Ironically, these reforms served only to trigger intensified political violence through the remainder of the 1980s as more communities and political groups across the country joined the resistance movement. Botha's government stopped short of substantial reforms, such as lifting the ban on the ANC, PAC and SACP and other liberation organisations, releasing political prisoners, or repealing the foundation laws of grand apartheid. The government's stance was that they would not contemplate negotiating until those organisations "renounced violence". By 1987, South Africa's economy was growing at one of the lowest rates in the world, and the ban on South African participation in international sporting events was frustrating many whites in South Africa. Examples of African states with Black leaders and White minorities existed in
Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
and
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
. Whispers of South Africa one day having a Black President sent more hardline whites into supporting right-wing political parties. Mandela was moved to a four-bedroom house of his own, with a swimming pool and shaded by fir trees, on a prison farm just outside of Cape Town. He had an unpublicised meeting with Botha. Botha impressed Mandela by walking forward, extending his hand and pouring Mandela's tea. The two had a friendly discussion, with Mandela comparing the African National Congress' rebellion with that of the Afrikaner rebellion and talking about everyone being brothers. A number of clandestine meetings were held between the ANC-in-exile and various sectors of the internal struggle, such as women and educationalists. More overtly, a group of White intellectuals met the ANC in
Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
for talks known as the Dakar Conference.


Presidency of F. W. de Klerk

Early in 1989, Botha had a
stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...
; he was prevailed upon to resign in February 1989. He was succeeded as president later that year by F. W. de Klerk. Despite his initial reputation as a conservative, de Klerk moved decisively towards negotiations to end the political stalemate in the country. Prior to his term in office, F. W. de Klerk had already experienced political success as a result of the power base he had built in the Transvaal. During this time, F. W. de Klerk served as chairman to the provincial National Party, which was in favour of the Apartheid regime. The transition of de Klerk's ideology regarding apartheid is seen clearly in his opening address to parliament on 2 February 1990. F. W. de Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws and lift the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the United Democratic Front. The Land Act was brought to an end. F. W. de Klerk also made his first public commitment to release Nelson Mandela, to return to
press freedom Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...
and to suspend the death penalty. Media restrictions were lifted and political prisoners not guilty of
common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...
crimes were released. On 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison after more than 27 years behind bars. Having been instructed by the
UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
to end its long-standing involvement in South West Africa/
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
, and in the face of military stalemate in Southern Angola, and an escalation in the size and cost of the combat with the Cubans, the Angolans, and SWAPO forces and the growing cost of the border war, South Africa negotiated a change of control;
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
became independent on 21 March 1990.


Negotiations

Apartheid was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1991, culminating in a transitional period which resulted in the country's 1994 general election, the first in South Africa held with
universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...
. In 1990, negotiations were earnestly begun, with two meetings between the government and the ANC. The purpose of the negotiations was to pave the way for talks towards a peaceful transition towards majority rule. These meetings were successful in laying down the preconditions for negotiations, despite the considerable tensions still abounding within the country. Apartheid legislation was abolished in 1991. At the first meeting, the NP and ANC discussed the conditions for negotiations to begin. The meeting was held at Groote Schuur, the President's official residence. They released the Groote Schuur Minute, which said that before negotiations commenced political prisoners would be freed and all exiles allowed to return. There were fears that the change of power would be violent. To avoid this, it was essential that a peaceful resolution between all parties be reached. In December 1991, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) began negotiations on the formation of a multiracial transitional government and a new constitution extending political rights to all groups. CODESA adopted a Declaration of Intent and committed itself to an "undivided South Africa". Reforms and negotiations to end apartheid led to a backlash among the
right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...
White opposition, leading to the Conservative Party winning a number of by-elections against NP candidates. De Klerk responded by calling a Whites-only
referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...
in March 1992 to decide whether negotiations should continue. 69% voted in favour, and the victory instilled in de Klerk and the government a lot more confidence, giving the NP a stronger position in negotiations. When negotiations resumed in May 1992, under the tag of CODESA II, stronger demands were made. The ANC and the government could not reach a compromise on how power should be shared during the transition to democracy. The NP wanted to retain a strong position in a transitional government, and the power to change decisions made by parliament. Persistent violence added to the tension during the negotiations. This was due mostly to the intense rivalry between the
Inkatha Freedom Party The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP; ) is a conservative political party in South Africa, which is a part of the current South African Third Cabinet of Cyril Ramaphosa, government of national unity together with the African National Congress (ANC). A ...
(IFP) and the ANC and the eruption of some traditional tribal and local rivalries between the Zulu and Xhosa historical tribal affinities, especially in the Southern Natal provinces. Although Mandela and Buthelezi met to settle their differences, they could not stem the violence. One of the worst cases of ANC-IFP violence was the Boipatong massacre of 17 June 1992, when 200 IFP militants attacked the
Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...
township of Boipatong, killing 45. Witnesses said that the men had arrived in police vehicles, supporting claims that elements within the police and army contributed to the ongoing violence. Subsequent judicial inquiries found the evidence of the witnesses to be unreliable or discredited, and that there was no evidence of National Party or police involvement in the massacre. When de Klerk visited the scene of the incident he was initially warmly welcomed, but he was suddenly confronted by a crowd of protesters brandishing stones and placards. The motorcade sped from the scene as police tried to hold back the crowd. Shots were fired by the police, and the PAC stated that three of its supporters had been gunned down. Nonetheless, the Boipatong massacre offered the ANC a pretext to engage in brinkmanship. Mandela argued that de Klerk, as head of state, was responsible for bringing an end to the bloodshed. He also accused the South African police of inciting the ANC-IFP violence. This formed the basis for ANC's withdrawal from the negotiations, and the CODESA forum broke down completely at this stage. The
Bisho massacre The Bisho massacre occurred on 7 September 1992 in Bisho, in the then nominally independent Bantustan, homeland of Ciskei which is now part of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Twenty-eight African National Congress supporters and one soldier w ...
on 7 September 1992 brought matters to a head. The Ciskei Defence Force killed 29 people and injured 200 when they opened fire on ANC marchers demanding the reincorporation of the Ciskei homeland into South Africa. In the aftermath, Mandela and de Klerk agreed to meet to find ways to end the spiralling violence. This led to a resumption of negotiations. Right-wing violence also added to the hostilities of this period. The assassination of Chris Hani on 10 April 1993 threatened to plunge the country into chaos. Hani, the popular General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), was assassinated in 1993 in Dawn Park in
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
by Janusz Waluś, an anti-Communist Polish refugee who had close links to the White nationalist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). Hani enjoyed widespread support beyond his constituency in the SACP and ANC and had been recognised as a potential successor to Mandela; his death brought forth protests throughout the country and across the
international community The international community is a term used in geopolitics and international relations to refer to a broad group of people and governments of the world. Usage Aside from its use as a general descriptor, the term is typically used to imply the ...
, but ultimately proved a turning point, after which the main parties pushed for a settlement with increased determination. On 25 June 1993, the AWB used an armoured vehicle to crash through the doors of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre where talks were still going ahead under the Negotiating Council, though this did not derail the process. In addition to the continuing "black-on-black" violence, there were a number of attacks on white civilians by the PAC's military wing, the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). The PAC was hoping to strengthen their standing by attracting the support of the angry, impatient youth. In the St James Church massacre on 25 July 1993, members of the APLA opened fire in a church in Cape Town, killing 11 members of the congregation and wounding 58. In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...
"for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa". Violence persisted right up to the 1994 general election. Lucas Mangope, leader of the Bophuthatswana homeland, declared that it would not take part in the elections. It had been decided that, once the temporary constitution had come into effect, the homelands would be incorporated into South Africa, but Mangope did not want this to happen. There were strong protests against his decision, leading to a coup d'état in Bophuthatswana carried out by the SDF on 10 March that deposed Mangope. AWB militants attempted to intervene in hopes of maintaining Mangope in power. Fighting alongside black paramilitaries loyal to Mangope they were unsuccessful, with 3 AWB militants being killed during this intervention, and harrowing images of the bloodshed shown on national television and in newspapers across the world. Two days before the election, a car bomb exploded in Johannesburg, killing nine people. The day before the elections, another one went off, injuring 13. At midnight on 26–27 April 1994 the previous "orange white blue" flag adopted in 1928 was lowered, and the old (now co-official) national anthem '' Die Stem'' ("The Call") was sung, followed by the raising of the new Y shaped flag and singing of the other co-official anthem, '' Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika'' ("God Bless Africa"). Since 2019, publicly displaying the 1928–1994 flag in South Africa is banned and it is classified as hate speech.


1994 election

The election was held on 27 April 1994 and went off peacefully throughout the country as 20 million South Africans cast their votes. There was some difficulty in organising the voting in rural areas, but people waited patiently for many hours to vote amidst a palpable feeling of goodwill. An extra day was added to give everyone the chance. International observers agreed that the elections were free and fair. The
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
's report on the election compiled at the end of May 1994, published two years after the election, criticised the Independent Electoral Commission's lack of preparedness for the polls, the shortages of voting materials at many voting stations, and the absence of effective safeguards against
fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...
in the counting process. In particular, it expressed disquiet that "no international observers had been allowed to be present at the crucial stage of the count when party representatives negotiated over disputed ballots." This meant that both the electorate and the world were "simply left to guess at the way the final result was achieved."Jeffery, A. ''People's War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa''. Jonathan Ball. The ANC won 62.65% of the vote, less than the 66.7 percent that would have allowed it to rewrite the constitution. 252 of the 400 seats went to members of the African National Congress. The NP captured most of the White and Coloured votes and became the official
opposition party In politics, the opposition comprises one or more political parties or other organized groups that are opposed to the government (or, in American English, the administration), party or group in political control of a city, region, state, coun ...
. As well as deciding the national government, the election decided the provincial governments, and the ANC won in seven of the nine provinces, with the NP winning in the
Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...
and the IFP in
KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
. On 10 May 1994, Mandela was sworn in as the new President of South Africa. The Government of National Unity was established, its cabinet made up of 12 ANC representatives, six from the NP, and three from the IFP.
Thabo Mbeki Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who served as the 2nd democratic president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Cong ...
and de Klerk were made deputy presidents. The anniversary of the elections, 27 April, is celebrated as a
public holiday A public holiday, national holiday, federal holiday, statutory holiday, bank holiday or legal holiday is a holiday generally established by law and is usually a non-working day during the year. Types Civic holiday A ''civic holiday'', also k ...
known as Freedom Day.


Contrition

The following individuals, who had previously supported apartheid, made public apologies: * F. W. de Klerk: "I apologise in my capacity as leader of the NP to the millions who suffered wrenching disruption of forced removals; who suffered the shame of being arrested for pass law offences; who over the decades suffered the indignities and humiliation of racial discrimination." In a video released after his death in 2021, he apologised one last time for apartheid, both on a personal level and in his capacity as former president. * Marthinus van Schalkwyk: "The National Party brought development to a section of South Africa, but also brought suffering through a system grounded on injustice", in a statement shortly after the National Party voted to disband. * Adriaan Vlok washed the feet of apartheid victim Frank Chikane in an act of apology for the wrongs of the Apartheid regime. * Leon Wessels: "I am now more convinced than ever that apartheid was a terrible mistake that blighted our land. South Africans did not listen to the laughing and the crying of each other. I am sorry that I had been so hard of hearing for so long".


International legal, political and social uses of the term

The South African experience has given rise to the term "apartheid" being used in a number of contexts other than the South African system of racial segregation. For example: The " crime of apartheid" is defined in
international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
, including in the 2007
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...
that created the
International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...
(ICC), which names it as a
crime against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...
. Even before the creation of the ICC, the UN International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which came into force in 1976, enshrined into law the "crime of apartheid." The term apartheid has been adopted by Palestinian rights advocates and by leading Israeli and other human rights organizations, referring to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, legal treatment of illegal settlements and the West Bank barrier. Within the pre-1967 Israeli borders, Palestinian rights advocates have raised concern over discriminatory housing planning against Palestinian citizens of Israel, likening it to racial segregation. Others argue that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians does not fit the definition of apartheid as it is motivated by security considerations and has nothing to do with race.
Social apartheid Social apartheid is de facto Residential segregation, segregation on the basis of Social class, class or economic status, in which an underclass is forced to exist separated from the rest of the population. The word "apartheid", an Afrikaans wor ...
is segregation on the basis of class or economic status. For example, social apartheid in Brazil refers to the various aspects of economic inequality in Brazil. Social apartheid may fall into various categories. Economic and social discrimination because of gender is sometimes referred to as
gender apartheid Gender apartheid (also called sexual apartheid or sex apartheid) is the economic and social sexual discrimination, sexual discrimination against individuals because of their gender or sex. It is a system enforced by using either physical or legal ...
. Separation of people according to their religion, whether pursuant to official laws or pursuant to social expectations, is sometimes referred to as religious apartheid. Communities in northern Ireland for example, are often housed based on religion in a situation which has been described as "self-imposed apartheid". The concept in
occupational therapy Occupational therapy (OT), also known as ergotherapy, is a healthcare profession. Ergotherapy is derived from the Greek wiktionary:ergon, ergon which is allied to work, to act and to be active. Occupational therapy is based on the assumption t ...
that individuals, groups and communities can be deprived of meaningful and purposeful activity through segregation due to social, political, economic factors and for social status reasons, such as race, disability, age, gender, sexuality, religious preference, political preference, or creed, or due to war conditions, is sometimes known as occupational apartheid. A 2007 book by Harriet A. Washington on the history of medical experimentation on
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
s is entitled '' Medical Apartheid''. The disproportionate management and control of the world's economy and resources by countries and companies of the
Global North Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and Global politics, politics. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global S ...
has been referred to as global apartheid. A related phenomenon is
technological apartheid Technological apartheid is the denial of useful modern technologies to Third World or developing nations. The term is based upon the South African term ''apartheid'', partly refers to the practice of keeping certain populations in a separate, lower- ...
, a term used to describe the denial of modern technologies to
Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...
or developing nations. The last two examples use the term "apartheid" less literally since they are centred on relations between countries, not on disparate treatment of social populations within a country or political jurisdiction.


See also

* Allegations of apartheid by country * Apartheid in international law * Apartheid legislation in South Africa * Apartheid in art and literature *
Discrimination based on skin color Discrimination based on skin tone, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which individuals of the same race receive benefits or disadvantages based on the color of their skin. More specifcally, coloris ...
* Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid * Index of racism-related articles * Israeli apartheid * Legacies of apartheid * Music in the movement against apartheid * Racial hierarchy *
Racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...
* Racism by country


Notes and references


Annotations


References


Bibliography

*


Further reading

* Bernstein, Hilda. ''For their Triumphs and for their Tears: Women in Apartheid South Africa. International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa''. London, 1985. * * Davenport, T. R. H. ''South Africa. A Modern History''. MacMillan, 1977. * Davies, Rob, Dan O'Meara and Sipho Dlamini. ''The Struggle For South Africa: A reference guide to movements, organisations and institution''. Volume Two. London: Zed Books, 1984 * De Klerk, F. W. ''The last Trek. A New Beginning''. MacMillan, 1998. * * Du Pre, R. H. ''Separate but UnequalThe 'Coloured' People of South AfricaA Political History.''. Jonathan Ball, 1994. * Eiselen, W. W. N. The Meaning of Apartheid, ''Race Relations'', 15 (3), 1948. * Federal Research Division. ''South Africa – a country study''.
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, 1996. * Giliomee, Herman ''The Afrikaners''. Hurst & Co., 2003. * * Hexham, Irving, ''The Irony of Apartheid: The Struggle for National Independence of Afrikaner Calvinism against British Imperialism''. Edwin Mellen, 1981. * Keable, Ken '' London Recruits: The Secret War Against Apartheid''. Pontypool, UK: Merlin Press. 2012. * Lapchick, Richard and Urdang, Stephanie. Oppression and Resistance. The Struggle of Women in Southern Africa. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 1982. * Louw, P. Eric. ''The Rise, Fall and Legacy of Apartheid''. Praeger, 2004. * * Meredith, Martin. ''In the name of apartheid: South Africa in the postwar period''. 1st US ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. * Meredith, Martin. '' The State of Africa''. The Free Press, 2005. * * Morris, Michael. ''Apartheid: An illustrated history''. Jonathan Ball Publishers. Johannesburg and Cape Town, 2012. * Newbury, Darren. ''Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa'', University of South Africa (UNISA) Press, 2009. * Noah, Trevor. ''Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood'', Random House 2016, . * * Terreblanche, S. ''A History of Inequality in South Africa, 1652–2002''. University of Natal Press, 2003. * Visser, Pippa. ''In search of history''.
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
Southern Africa, 2003. * Williams, Michael. ''Crocodile Burning''. 1994 * Memorandum van die Volksraad, 2016


External links


Apartheid: 20th Century Slavery
1971 United Nations Report on Apartheid. * – Includes many photos
Understanding Apartheid Learner's Book
– Series of PDFs published by the Apartheid Museum
The evolution of the white right
– ''Volk'', faith and fatherland: The security threat posed by the white right, by Martin Schönteich and Henri Boshoff, 2003
Freedom Charter 1955
– About the
Freedom Charter The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...
(SA History online)
District 6 Museum
– Cape Town's District Six Museum, which examines forced removals
The International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
provides resources on the legacy of apartheid and transitional justice in South Africa post-apartheid. *
Apartheid archives subject guide
London University The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
{{authority control 1940s in South Africa 1948 establishments in South Africa 1950s in South Africa 1960s in South Africa 1970s in South Africa 1980s in South Africa 1990s in South Africa 1994 disestablishments in South Africa 20th century in South Africa Crimes against humanity Discrimination in South Africa Ethnic nationalism Ethnicity in politics Far-right politics in South Africa Fascism Human rights abuses in South Africa Neo-fascism Political terminology in South Africa Politics and race Racial segregation Racism in South Africa White supremacy in Africa