THEAPARTHEIDERA
was servant. Indeed, Whites were conditioned to regard apartheid society
as normal, its critics as communists or communist-sympathizers.
Public services for Blackswere characteristically inadequate or nonexis-
tent. In the Homelands, women still walked miles every day to fetch water
and firewood; in the towns, people crowded into single-sex compounds,
leaky houses, or improvised shacks. Schools, hospitals, and public trans-
port for Blacks were sharply inferior. Electricity, running water, public
telephones, sewage systems, parks, and playing fields were rare.
Besides their common lot as victims of apartheid, Blacks had varied
experiences. Black residents of the cities, the white farming areas, and the
African Homelands had vastly different lives.The government accentuated
black ethnic differences,favoring Coloureds and Indians over Africans and
encouraging internal ethnic divisions among Africans. The government
also promoted class divisions among Blacks. It supported collaborators
and provided relative security ofurban residence for some Africans, where-
as it kept African laborers tied to white farms and made it illegal for
Africans to leave their Homelands, except as temporary migrant workers.