What was apartheid?
History of South African nationality
The Apartheid ideology was developed by Werner Eiselen as an alternative to the policies of racial segregation which still allowed for a multi-racial society. Apartheid was a system of relocating Africans to what were supposedly ethnically homogenous reservations and then fostering individual nationalities for each of these ten different groups. This process was accompanied by a set of acts designed to coerce black groups into this new system and maximize their separation from white society while maintaining their economic exploitation (see Apartheid Legislation in South Africa). The core of the Apartheid system was the Group Areas Act of 1950 which divided the state into race-specific partitions.
Christianity in South Africa
The Apartheid system, as well as resistance to it, was both a political and theological matter. In the 20th century, several Christian churches supported Apartheid and racial divisions. Some opposed it. One of the largest Christian denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), used Christian theology to argue a theological support for the Apartheid. The Dutch Reformed Church, with 3 million Christian members, remained the "official religion" of the Apartheid-supporting National Party.
Crime of apartheid
The name of the crime comes from a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP), the governing party from 1948 to 1994. Under apartheid, the rights, associations, and movements of the majority black inhabitants and other ethnic groups were curtailed, and white minority rule was maintained.
Grassy Park
The apartheid regime in the mid- to late 1960s moved people classified as coloured or black into the township for low-income families. Originally called Koek se bos, or Cook's bush, the apartheid regime cleared tracts of land for the coloured people that lived in areas that were designated 'white areas' by the regime. All people deemed coloured or black were removed from areas including Bergvliet, Bishopscourt, Claremont, Constantia, Lansdowne Newlands, Rondebosch, District Six, Salt River, Tokai, Woodstock, Plumstead and Wynberg.
Indigenous psychology
With the apartheid system that was established in South Africa major turmoil was caused amongst native and non-native South Africans. The apartheid system was based on laws of segregation, which grew in severity as time passed. Some of the first segregation laws that were established did not allow for whites and "non-whites" to interact with each other. Even if these interactions wanted, whites and blacks were not allowed to marry or engage socially. In addition to this, "white jobs" and "black jobs" were established which also created segregation in the workplace (Lawson, Graham, & Baker, 2007, p. 438). As apartheid progressed into its final stages, black South African citizens were no longer able to live in South Africa; they were sent back to African homelands causing them to lose their citizenship and be exiled (Lawson, Graham, & Baker, 2007, p. 438). Around 1990 the anti-apartheid era began, which helped to reintegrate blacks into the South African society. After receiving pressure from the United States and Great Britain, the apartheid system that once ruled South Africa started to become undone. The constitution in South Africa was rewritten in 1994, which helped usher in Nelson Mandela as the country’s political leader. With the country in his control, he completely outlawed any remainders of the apartheid system (Lawson, Graham, & Baker, 2007, p. 438).
Apartheid
Ten homelands were allocated to different black ethnic groups: Lebowa (North Sotho, also referred to as Pedi), QwaQwa (South Sotho), Bophuthatswana (Tswana), KwaZulu (Zulu), KaNgwane (Swazi), Transkei and Ciskei (Xhosa), Gazankulu (Tsonga), Venda (Venda) and KwaNdebele (Ndebele). Four of these were declared independent by the South African government: Transkei in 1976, Bophuthatswana 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. 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.
F. W. de Klerk
When de Klerk was twelve years old, the apartheid system was officially institutionalised by the South African government; his father had been one of its originators. He therefore was, according to his brother, "one of a generation that grew up with the concept of apartheid". He was inculturated in the norms and values of Afrikaner society, including festivals like Kruger Day, loyalty to the Afrikaner nation, and stories of the "age of injustice" that the Afrikaner faced under the British. He was brought up in the Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest and most socially conservative of South Africa's three Dutch Reformed Churches.
Apartheid
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.
F. W. de Klerk
For much of his career, de Klerk believed in apartheid and its system of racial segregation.
According to his brother, de Klerk underwent a "political conversion" that took him from supporting apartheid to facilitating its demolition. This change was not "a dramatic event" however, but "was built... on pragmatism - it evolved as a process."
He did not believe that South Africa would become a "non-racial society", but rather sought to build a "non-racist society" in which ethnic divisions remained; in his view "I do not believe in the existence of anything like a non-racial society in the literal sense of the word", citing the example of the United States and United Kingdom where there was no legal racial segregation but that distinct racial groups continued to exist.
Apartheid
While football was plagued by racism, it also played a role in protesting apartheid and its policies. With the international bans from FIFA 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.
Apartheid
Having been instructed by the UN Security Council to end its long-standing involvement in South West Africa/Namibia, 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 became independent on 21 March 1990.
Apartheid
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 Black, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or White. 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.
Crime of apartheid
The term "", from Afrikaans for "apartness," was the official name of the South African system of racial segregation which existed after 1948. Complaints about the system were brought to the United Nations as early as 12 July 1948 when Dr. Padmanabha Pillai, the representative of India to the United Nations, circulated a letter to the Secretary-General expressing his concerns over treatment of ethnic Indians within the Union of South Africa. As it became more widely known, South African apartheid was condemned internationally as unjust and racist and many decided that a formal legal framework was needed in order to apply international pressure on the South African government.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid
By 1980, as international opinion turned decisively against the apartheid regime, the government and much of the white population increasingly looked upon the country as a bastion besieged by communism and radical black nationalists. Considerable effort was put into circumventing sanctions, and the government even went so far as to develop nuclear weapons, allegedly with the help of Israel. South Africa is the only country to date to have developed and voluntarily relinquished a nuclear arsenal.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid
While some countries and organisations, like the Swiss-South African Association, supported the Apartheid government, most of the international community isolated South Africa. One of the primary means for the international community to show its aversion to apartheid was to boycott South Africa in a variety of spheres of multinational life. Economic and military sanctions were among these, but cultural and sporting boycotts also found their way in. South Africa, in this way, was cut off from the rest of the globe. It also awakened the South African community to the opinions of other countries. Despite financial shunning causing significant harm to black South Africans, the ANC proclaimed it as an essential means of achieving liberty. Cultural and sporting boycotts, on the other hand, did not have a negative effect on the lives of blacks, as they were already barred from these by their own government.
Apartheid
During the 1950s, South African military strategy was decisively shaped by fears of Communist espionage and a conventional Soviet threat to the strategic Cape trade route between the south Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The apartheid government supported the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (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 states 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 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 and by implication, armed wings of Black nationalist forces such as Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), which often received Soviet arms and training. This was described as "Total Onslaught".
Kenneth Meshoe
Meshoe has voiced support for the State of Israel, arguing against claims that Israel is an apartheid state, calling such accusations slanderous and deceptive. According to Meshoe, these claims trivialise the word apartheid, and belittles the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by non-white South Africans during the apartheid era.
Racial segregation
Uprisings and protests against apartheid appeared immediately when apartheid arose. As early as 1949, the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) advocated the ending of apartheid and suggested fighting against racial segregation by various methods. During the following decades, hundreds of anti-apartheid actions occurred, including those of the Black Consciousness Movement, students' protests, labor strikes, and church group activism etc. In 1991, the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act was passed, repealing laws enforcing racial segregation, including the Group Areas Act. In 1994, Nelson Mandela won in the first multiracial democratic election in South Africa. His success fulfilled the ending of apartheid in South African history.
Michael Ramsey
Regarding Africa, Ramsey opposed curbs on immigration to the UK of Kenyan Asians, which he saw as a betrayal by Britain of a promise. He was against apartheid, and he left an account of a very frosty encounter with John Vorster. In 1970, Ramsey attacked apartheid, saying that it was "being increased by more ruthless actions” and describing it as an "abuse of power at the expense of others".
National Party (South Africa)
Upon taking power after the 1948 general election, the NP began to implement a program of apartheid – the legal system of political, economic and social separation of the races intended to maintain and extend political and economic control of South Africa by the white minority.
Apartheid
When the government overlooked them, the strikers (among the main organisers was a 42-year-old, Thembu-origin Nelson Mandela) 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.
Apartheid
Alongside apartheid, the National Party implemented a programme of social conservatism. Pornography and gambling were banned. Cinemas, shops selling alcohol and most other businesses were forbidden from opening on Sundays. Abortion, homosexuality and sex education were also restricted; abortion was only legal in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened.
Rugby union and apartheid
Rugby union and apartheid had a complex relationship. From 1948 to 1994, international rugby relations with the country, and also the non-integrated nature of rugby within South Africa drew frequent controversy. South Africa remained a member of the International Rugby Board (IRB) throughout the apartheid era.
Apartheid
"Apartheid" is an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness", or "the state of being apart", literally "apart-hood" (from Afrikaans "-heid"). Its first recorded use was in 1929.
Death of Apartheid
Death of Apartheid (US title: Mandela's Fight For Freedom) is the name of a three-part documentary series about the negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa and the first fully democratic election that followed. The series was first broadcast in May 1995, and produced by Brian Lapping Associates (now part of Ten Alps company) for the BBC, and co-produced by the Dutch broadcaster VPRO, the South African broadcaster SABC, and the Japanese broadcaster NHK.
More than Just a Game
Robben Island is a prison ran by South Africa's apartheid regime. All prisoners there are individuals who have distinguished themselves by fighting this regime in some way. Even so, their personalities, ideals and methods differ big time.
Apartheid
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, European and Malay ancestry. Many were descended from people brought to South Africa from other parts of the world, such as India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and China as slaves and indentured workers.
Mark Mathabane
Mathabane and his family lived in a one-square-mile ghetto which was also home to more than 200,000 other individuals. These living conditions lacked the modern commodities of paved roads, electricity, and even sewer systems. Food was scarce in this ghetto, and the homes were nothing more than rough shacks. Mathabane never even had his first pair of shoes until he was fourteen years old. Mathabane's early life in apartheid South Africa was devastating. He has stated that "living in apartheid was like living in Hell." At the young age of six, Mathabane joined his first gang. Mathabane has stated that this lifestyle was horrific but that he did learn to cope in this environment. However, he has stated that it was the elements of this environment which suppressed his spirit with which he was not able to cope. This suppression of his spirit even drove Mathabane to the brink of suicide at the age of ten.
Volkstaat
Under apartheid, the South African government promoted Afrikaner culture, Afrikaans and English were the official languages, and the majority of the politicians running the country were Afrikaners. The underlying principle of apartheid was racial separatism, and the means by which this was implemented, such as the homeland system of bantustans, were extremely biased against the non-European majority as they excluded them from exercising their rights in the broader South Africa. Afrikaners held a privileged position in South African society, alongside the other Europeans.
Apartheid legislation
The system of racial segregation in South Africa known as "apartheid" was implemented and enforced by a large number of acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalise racial discrimination and the dominance by white people over people of other races. While the bulk of this legislation was enacted after the election of the National Party government in 1948, it was preceded by discriminatory legislation enacted under earlier British and Afrikaner governments. Apartheid is distinguished from segregation in other countries by the systematic way in which it was formalised in law.
Port Elizabeth
Under apartheid, the South African government established legal racial segregation and started programs to separate communities physically as well as by classification and custom. The forced relocation under the auspices of the Group Areas Act of the non-white population from mixed areas began in 1962, causing various townships to be built for their use. Classification was sometimes arbitrary, and as in many other localities throughout the country, many citizens appearing to have mixed ancestry were at times subject to re-classification, which often had intrusive sociopolitical results. The non-white tenants of South End, and land owners in Fairview were forcibly relocated from 1965 through to 1975, as these areas were valued as prime real estate. The city-planning was viewed as the prototypical apartheid city.
Apartheid
Colonialism and apartheid had a major impact on Black and Coloured women, since they suffered both racial and gender discrimination. Jobs were often hard to find. Many Black and Coloured women worked as agricultural or domestic workers, but wages were extremely low, if existent. Children suffered from diseases caused by malnutrition and sanitation problems, and mortality rates were therefore high. The controlled movement of black and Coloured workers within the country through the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the pass laws separated family members from one another, because men could prove their employment in urban centres while most women were merely dependents; consequently, they risked being deported to rural areas.
Internal resistance to apartheid
Passive resistance to apartheid was initiated by the African National Congress (ANC) with its Defiance Campaign in the early 1950s. Subsequent civil disobedience protests targeted curfews, pass laws, and "petty apartheid" segregation in public facilities. Some anti-apartheid demonstrations resulted in widespread rioting in Port Elizabeth and East London in 1952, but organised destruction of property was not deliberately employed until 1959. That year, anger over pass laws and environmental regulations perceived as unjust by black farmers resulted in a series of arsons targeting sugarcane plantations. Organisations such as the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) remained preoccupied with organising student strikes and work boycotts between 1959 and 1960. The Sharpeville massacre marked a shift in the tactics of some anti-apartheid movements, including the ANC and PAC, from peaceful non-cooperation to the formation of armed resistance wings.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid
The Organisation for African Unity (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 swore to aid the freedom movements in their fights against apartheid. In April 1969, fourteen autonomous nations from Central and East Africa gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, to argue about various African matters. The assembly formulated the 'Lusaka Manifesto', which was signed on 13 April by all of the countries in attendance, except for Malawi. This manifesto was later taken on by both the OAU and the United Nations.
Have You Heard from Johannesburg?
The first film begins in 1948 when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That same year South Africa implemented a system of laws called apartheid to racially segregate its people in every aspect of life. The black majority in South Africa, led by the African National Congress, mounted the Defiance Campaign, attracting the attention of activists in places like England, Sweden, and the United States - and sowed the seeds of an international anti-apartheid movement. The world reacted with horror when peaceful protesters were shot in the South African township of Sharpeville and the entire African National Congress leadership was forced underground or imprisoned. At the end of "Road To Resistance" Nelson Mandela is jailed for life and the movement in South Africa is effectively shut down as hundreds escape into exile.
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-class status. It has been used to describe situations that are unintended, such as the absence of computers and information technology in the favelas of Brazil or other impoverished areas. The term also applies to the deliberate denial of technology for geopolitical or neocolonialist reasons. The government of Iran has characterized the efforts by Western governments to deny nuclear technology to Iran as technological apartheid.
Inequality in post-apartheid South Africa
Nelson Mandela's electoral victory in 1994 signified the end of apartheid in South Africa,  a system of widespread racially-based segregation to enforce almost complete separation of different races in South Africa. Under the apartheid system, South Africans were classified into four different races: White, Black, Coloured, and Indian/Asian, with about 80% of the South African population classified as Black, 9% as White, 9% as Coloured, and 2% as Indian/Asian. Under apartheid, Whites held almost all political power in South Africa, with other races almost completely marginalised from the political process. While the end of apartheid allowed equal rights for all South Africans regardless of race, modern-day South Africa struggles to correct the social inequalities created by decades of apartheid. Despite a rising GDP, indices for poverty, unemployment, income inequality, life expectancy, land ownership, have declined due to the increase in population; with the end of the apartheid system in South Africa leaving the country socio-economically stratified by race. Subsequent government policies have sought to correct inequity with varying amounts of success.
Apartheid
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.
Human rights in South Africa
Apartheid was a system of segregation and discrimination implemented by a White minority onto the Black majority. For example, Blacks were not allowed to buy land outside of land reserves despite being the indigenous population. Many of South Africa's anti-apartheid laws have been enacted while keeping in mind that what is seen by the international community, human rights organisations, and the Black majority in the country as the social and legal injustices associated with apartheid, and its anti-apartheid message has been hailed as an exemplary face of a Sub-Saharan nation.
Desmond Tutu
Allen stated that the theme running through Tutu's campaigning was that of "democracy, human rights and tolerance, to be achieved by dialogue and accommodation between enemies." Racial equality was one of his core principles, and his opposition to apartheid was unequivocal. He believed that the apartheid system had to be wholly dismantled rather than being reformed in a piecemeal fashion. Tutu compared the apartheid ethos of South Africa's National Party to the ideas of the Nazi Party, and drew comparisons between apartheid policy and the Holocaust. He noted that whereas the latter was a quicker and more efficient way of exterminating whole populations, the National Party's policy of forcibly relocating black South Africans to areas where they lacked access to food and sanitation had much the same result. In his words, "Apartheid is as evil and as vicious as Nazism and Communism".
Apartheid
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 Asian 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, 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.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid
In the after-effects of World War II, the Western world quickly switched from ideas of racial dominance and policies based on racial prejudice. Racially discriminative and segregationist principles were not novelties in South Africa. From unification in 1910, the state had been run by the white minority and pursued segregation. Apartheid was a certified, lawful and inflexible type of separation that was methodically entrenched from 1948 through a battery of legislation. As it was not completely new to the country, and because many Western countries still exercised their own forms of prejudice in their assorted colonies, there was minimal rejoinder and indignation. The conclusion of the Second World War signified the commencement of the Cold War, and South Africa, with its anti-communist stance, was considered a possible assistant in the passive battle against the Soviet Union.
Defiance Campaign
In 1948, the National Party (NP) won the election in South Africa and began to impose apartheid measures against blacks, Indians and any people of mixed race. The NP restricted all political power to white people and allocated areas of South Africa for different races of people. Workers, trade unionists and others spoke out on October 6, 1949 against apartheid measures and discuss a possible political strike. In December of that year, leaders in the African Congress Youth League (ANCYL), such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, took power. The African National Congress (ANC) also "adopts the Programme of Action" on December 17, which advocated a more militant approach to protesting apartheid.
Apartheid
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. 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.
Global apartheid
Global apartheid is a term used to mean minority rule in international decision-making. The term comes from apartheid, the system of governmental that ruled South Africa until 27 April 1994 when people of all races were able to vote as equals for the first time.
Internal resistance to apartheid
While the majority of white South African voters supported the apartheid system for the first few decades, a minority fervently opposed it. Although assassination attempts against government members were rare, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, called the "architect of grand apartheid", suffered two attempts on his life (the second of which was successful) on the hands of David Pratt and Dimitri Tsafendas, both legally considered white (although Tsafendas had a mother from Portuguese East Africa). The moderate United Party of Jan Smuts (the official opposition in 1948–1977) initially opposed the Nationalists' programme of apartheid, having favoured the dismantling of racial segregation by the Fagan Commission, but eventually came to revert its policy and even criticised the NP government for "handing out" too much South African land to the bantustans. In parliamentary elections during the 1970s and 1980s between 15% and 20% of white voters voted for the liberal Progressive Party, whose main champion Helen Suzman for many years constituted the only MP consistently voting against apartheid legislation. Suzman's critics argue that she did not achieve any notable political successes, but helped to shore up claims by the Nationalists that internal, public criticism of apartheid was permitted. Suzman's supporters point to her use of her parliamentary privileges to help the poorest and most disempowered South Africans in any way she could.
Sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era
South Africa under apartheid was subjected to a variety of international boycotts, including on sporting contacts. There was some debate about whether the aim of the boycott was to end segregation in sport, or to end apartheid together.
Aziz Pahad
Under the apartheid regime in South Africa, Aziz Pahad was given a banning order in 1963, restricting his movement and preventing him from attending public meetings. In 1966, he left South Africa and lived mostly in London but also spent some time in Angola and Zimbabwe. He started working full-time for the ANC, developing the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the United Kingdom and Europe. In 1985, he was elected a National Executive Committee member of the ANC – a position he still holds.
Apartheid
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 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 and Ciskei homelands. The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in Johannesburg, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of Soweto (an abbreviation for South Western Townships).
Apartheid
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 language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups.
Apartheid
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.
Apartheid
Blacks could never 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.
Jaap Marais
Jaap Marais claimed that it was the British and not the National Party of 1948 who had invented apartheid. "Is it asking too much of English-speaking South Africans to acknowledge this evident truth?" Marais, who up to his death held to Verwoerdian apartheid ideology, wrote in the "Sunday Independent." Marais also demanded an apology from then UK prime minister Tony Blair for Britain's conduct during the Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902, when it had instituted concentration camps in which 27,000 Boer civilians perished (24,000 children and 3,000 women). Blair refused to do so.
List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid
Banning was a repressive extrajudicial measure, used by the racist South African apartheid régime (1948-1994) against its political opponents. A banning order entailed restrictions on where the banned person could live and who they could have contact with, required that they report weekly to a police station, and also proscribed them from traveling outside a specific magisterial district and from appearing or speaking in public. It proscribed broadcasters and the press from broadcasting, publishing or reporting the banned person's words. It thus mixed elements of internal exile, suppression orders and censorship.
Tamil South Africans
Apartheid alienated all Indians as disenfranchised "non-whites", and Hinduism in particular was perceived by many whites as antithetical to Christianity. The imposition of apartheid system also curtailed the opportunities for improvement and included the forced removals program, causing great disruption and social hardship.
Siphiwe Mvuyane
Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Western Powers, particularly the US, lost appetite in sustaining the South African apartheid government. The apartheid government was given an ultimatum to hand over political power to the indigenous people of the land, failing which further sanctions would be imposed. At the time, the apartheid government could not afford any further sanctions as the economy had already begun to cripple. The apartheid growth strategy had been rendered obsolete by the global dynamics at the time. This development meant that the apartheid government had to begin negotiations with its enemies in order to pave way for the democratic elections in the country, and this represented a paradigm shift in the apartheid government's political strategy - the new strategic objective was to achieve a favourable negotiated settlement. Despite the fact that the South African apartheid state was a formidable force in Africa in the same way as the State of Israel is in the present day in the Middle East, the South African apartheid government had to succumb to the Western pressure as the US did not want South Africa to be another source of conflict for the continuation of the Cold War.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid are studied as the foreign relations of South Africa between 1948 and 1993. South Africa introduced "apartheid" in 1948, as a systematic extension of pre-existing racial discrimination in the country. Initially the regime implemented an offensive foreign policy trying to consolidate South African hegemony over Southern Africa. These attempts had clearly failed by the late 1970s. As a result of its racism and foreign interventionism in Angola and the occupation of Namibia, the country became increasingly isolated internationally, with few allies except similarly isolated countries or countries facing allegations of human rights and foreign intervention, such as Israel, Taiwan, Indonesia, Morocco, and Chile, until apartheid was ended and racial equality introduced in the early 1990s.
Apartheid
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. 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; for example, as early as 1933 the executive council of the Broederbond formulated a recommendation for mass segregation.
Cape Town
In the 1948 national elections, the National Party won on a platform of "apartheid" (racial segregation) under the slogan of "swart gevaar". This led to the erosion and eventual abolition of the Cape's multiracial franchise, as well as to the Group Areas Act, which classified all areas according to race. Formerly multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town were either purged of unlawful residents or demolished. The most infamous example of this in Cape Town was District Six. After it was declared a whites-only region in 1965, all housing there was demolished and over 60,000 residents were forcibly removed. Many of these residents were relocated to the Cape Flats and Lavender Hill. Under apartheid, the Cape was considered a "Coloured labour preference area", to the exclusion of "Bantus", i.e. Africans.
National Party (South Africa)
The question of apartheid dominated the 1958 election and the NP took 55% of the vote, thus winning a clear majority for the first time. When Strijdom died that same year, there was a tripartite succession contest between Swart, Dönges and Verwoerd. The latter, devoted to the cause of a republican South Africa, was the new Prime Minister. Verwoerd, a former Minister of Native Affairs, played a leading role in the institution of the apartheid system. Under his leadership, the NP solidified its control over South African apartheid-era politics.
Anti-Apartheid Movement
The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), originally known as the Boycott Movement, was a British organisation that was at the centre of the international movement opposing the South African apartheid system and supporting South Africa's non-White population who were persecuted by the policies of apartheid. The AAM changed its name to in 1994, when South Africa achieved majority rule through free and fair elections, in which all races could vote.
List of Frontline (U.S. TV program) episodes
The end of "Frontline"s 5th season featured the documentary "Apartheid". Spanning over 3 centuries, the 5-part historical documentary looked into the background and practice by South Africa's government of apartheid, the institutionalized form of racial segregation that favored the country's white minority at the expense of its indigenous black population.
Apartheid
Indonesians arrived at the Cape of Good Hope as slaves until the abolishment of slavery during the 1800s. They were predominantly Muslim, 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.
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid
QuAIA member Elle Flanders spoke on her experience living in Ramallah for a year, saying, "My partner and I traveled every day for six months on a segregated road system; they are known as the apartheid roads because they are segregated by your ethnic identity. Roads for Jewish Israelis, roads for Palestinians."
Malnutrition in South Africa
In the 1960s, the Apartheid-centered government created African reserves where blacks could live and have a chance at "separate development." Although the majority of South Africans were (and continue to be) black, the reserves compromised a disproportionally small amount of land (13% of South Africa). The reserves were geographically isolated and had poor healthcare, infrastructure and irrigation. Although the first multiracial election in 1994 brought an immediate end to Apartheid, the detrimental effects of Apartheid in South Africa continue to be felt today.
Apartheid
Pope John Paul II was an outspoken opponent of apartheid. In 1985, while visiting the Netherlands, he gave an impassioned speech at the International Court of Justice 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, he called for economic sanctions against the South African government.
National Party (South Africa)
Beginning in 1948 the party as the governing party of South Africa began implementing its policy of racial segregation, known as apartheid (the Afrikaans term for "separateness"). Although white-minority rule and racial segregation based on white supremacy were already in existence in South Africa with non-whites not having voting rights and efforts made to encourage segregation, apartheid intensified the segregation with stern penalties for non-whites entering into areas designated for whites-only without having a pass to permit them to do so (known as the pass laws), interracial marriage and sexual relationships were illegal and punishable offences, and blacks faced significant restrictions on property rights. Upon South Africa being condemned in the British Commonwealth for its policies of apartheid the NP-led government had South Africa leave the Commonwealth, abandon its monarchy led by the British monarch and become a republic.
D'Oliveira affair
From the time that European settlers first arrived in South Africa in 1652, the country was divided on racial lines, in common with similar settlements. In contrast to other European colonies, racial distinction and segregation intensified during the early 20th century, and the various ethnic groups became more sharply defined and divided. Following its general election victory in 1948, the National Party, led by Daniel Malan, formalised this racism under a government policy called apartheid. Under apartheid, different races were kept apart in all aspects of life. This system was thoroughly enforced during the 1950s; any resistance from non-white races was put down and laws, supposedly to prevent the rise of communism, were passed to prevent political agitation.
Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration
During Ronald Reagan's presidency South Africa continued to use a non-democratic system of government based on racial discrimination, known as apartheid, in which the minority of white South Africans exerted nearly complete legal control over the lives of the non-white majority of the citizens. In the early 1980s the issue had moved to the center of international attention as a result of events in the townships and outcry at the death of Stephen Biko. Reagan administration policy called for "constructive engagement" with the apartheid government of South Africa. In opposition to the condemnations issued by the US Congress and public demands for diplomatic or economic sanctions, Reagan made relatively minor criticisms of the regime, which was otherwise internationally isolated, and the US granted recognition to the government. South Africa's military was then engaged in an occupation of Namibia and proxy wars in several neighboring countries, in alliance with Savimbi's UNITA. Reagan administration officials saw the apartheid government as a key anti-communist ally.
Apartheid (disambiguation)
Apartheid was a system of racial segregation in South Africa.
Decolonization of higher education in South Africa
After the Afrikaner Nationalist Party won the 1948 General Election, the policy of Apartheid began with force. The government continued the indigenization of indigenous Africans through the "Policy of Separate Development"—the dividing up of Africans by tribe—and the creation of “Bantu groups”, who were each given their own homelands or Bantustans—which were separate nations. The policy of Apartheid impacted every aspect of black life: where they lived; where they worked; and even where, what and how they learned.
1948 South African general election
The putative policy of apartheid proposed by the NP served the economic interests of certain groups of white South Africans. Farmers from the northern portions of the country relied on cheap black labour to maximise profits while working class whites living in urban areas feared the employment competition that would follow an urban influx of black South Africans. Many commercial and financial Afrikaner interests based on agriculture saw the value of apartheid in promoting growth in this sector. The UP failed to realise the enormous economic benefits of apartheid to these large and influential groups and did not prioritise segregation as much as the NP.
Gender apartheid
Gender apartheid (also called sexual apartheid or sex apartheid) is the economic and social sexual discrimination against individuals because of their gender or sex. It is a system enforced by using either physical or legal practices to relegate individuals to subordinate positions. Feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler defines the phenomenon as "practices which condemn girls and women to a separate and subordinate sub-existence and which turn boys and men into the permanent guardians of their female relatives' chastity". Instances of gender apartheid lead not only to the social and economic disempowerment of individuals, but can also result in severe physical harm.
Apartheid
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races, and the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.
Apartheid
Blacks 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. They were required to move to the black "homelands" and set up businesses and practices there. Transport and civil facilities were segregated. 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. Residential areas were segregated and blacks were only allowed to live in white areas if employed as a servant and even then only in servants quarters. Blacks 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), although some commentators ascribe it to the Afrikaans words meaning "dumb pass". Only blacks 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 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. Blacks were not allowed to employ whites in white South Africa.
Apartheid
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.
Township (South Africa)
During the apartheid era, black people were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as "white only" and forced to move into segregated townships. Separate townships were established for each of the three designated non-white race groups - black people, Coloureds and Indians - as per the Population Registration Act, 1950. Legislation that enabled the apartheid government to do this included the Group Areas Act.
Apartheid
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.
Indigenous psychology
In South Africa, specifically, apartheid was a major downfall for their psychology. This period in time intentionally neglected and isolated the field of psychology. "…in 1948 the Afrikaner National Party gained power and created the system of apartheid to maintain control over the country’s social, economic, and political system" (Lawson, Graham, & Baker, 2007, p. 438).
Afrikaner nationalism
The South African opposition during the World War II of the country's involvement in the war against Nazi Germany led to the National Party's rise to power in the 1948 elections, to the implementation of the apartheid politics in the country and finally to the culmination of Afrikaner nationalistic mobilisation in 1961 when the country resigned from the British Commonwealth and became a republic. The National Party government implemented, alongside apartheid, a program of social conservatism. Pornography, gambling, and other such vices were banned because they were thought to be elements contrary to the "Afrikaner way of life". Even adultery and attempted adultery were banned (by the Immorality Amendment Act, Act No 23 of 1957).
Apartheid
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.
Crime of apartheid
Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as:Later in Article 7, the crime of apartheid is defined as:
The 'crime of apartheid' means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
Social apartheid
In South Africa, the term "social apartheid" has been used to describe persistent post-apartheid forms of exclusion and de facto segregation which exist based on class but which have a racial component because the poor are almost entirely black Africans. "Social apartheid" has been cited as a factor in the composition of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
Corruption in South Africa
Apartheid, the system of discrimination and segregation on racial grounds, dominated the ideology and political system in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. This system, which intentionally excluded non-Afrikaners from civil service jobs, government positions, and politics altogether, came to an end in 1994 when the African National Congress headed by Nelson Mandela conducted negotiations with the South African government at the time. Before the abolition of Apartheid, civil service was a pervasive medium for rent-seeking and the preferential treatment of Afrikaners. Policies favoring Afrikaner cultural and educational systems, the awarding of government contracts to Afrikaner businesses, and the funding of parastatal Afrikaner organizations was a common phenomenon during the era of Apartheid. The building of rural homeland states in the 1980s created ideal projects for rent-seeking with many homeland leaders presiding over massive patronage networks.
Anti-apartheid
Anti-apartheid may refer to any opposition to apartheid, the 1948–94 racial policy of the South African government; in particular:
Apartheid
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 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.
Foreign relations of South Africa
South Africa introduced "apartheid" in 1948, as a systematic extension of pre-existing racial discrimination in the country. As a result, the country became increasingly isolated internationally until apartheid was ended and racial equality introduced between 1990–1993. This transition produced a change in South Africa's foreign policy. The country stopped trying to regain regional hegemony and started to behave as a central hub for cooperation as a regional unipole.
Hendrik Verwoerd
Although apartheid existed before Verwoerd took office, his efforts to place it on a firmer legal and theoretical footing, in particular his opposition to even the limited form of integration known as baasskap "(boss-ship)", have led him to be dubbed the "Architect of Apartheid". It was the actions of Verwoerd that prompted the United Nations in 1962 to pass Resolution 1761 condemning apartheid, which ultimately led to international isolation and economic sanctions against South Africa.
Hendrik Verwoerd
Verwoerd was an authoritarian, socially conservative leader and an Afrikaner nationalist. His goal in founding the Republic of South Africa, thereby leaving the Commonwealth, was to preserve minority rule by white Afrikaners over the various non-white ethnic groups, including Bantu, Khoisan, Coloured and Indian people, who were the majority of South Africa's population. To that end, he greatly expanded apartheid ("apart-ness" or "separate development"), the system of forced classification and segregation by race that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.
Crime of apartheid
The crime of Apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".
Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa
The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of negotiations between 1990 and 1993 and through unilateral steps by the de Klerk government. These negotiations took place between the governing National Party, the African National Congress, and a wide variety of other political organisations. Negotiations took place against a backdrop of political violence in the country, including allegations of a state-sponsored third force destabilising the country. The negotiations resulted in South Africa's first non-racial election, which was won by the African National Congress.
Gender apartheid
The term "gender apartheid" stems from South Africa's racial apartheid that instituted a system of white supremacy () and separated the country's majority black inhabitants from whites. Afrikaans for "apartness" or "separateness", the use of the term "apartheid" to refer to gender reflects a human rights violation that entails both separation and oppression. In defining apartheid, Dr. Anthony Löwstedt wrote:
The concept of separateness in itself does not necessarily imply that any group is or will be favored over any other... The distinctive characteristic of apartheid and of other kinds of oppressive segregation is that political, economic, social, and even geographic conditions are created consciously and systematically in order to forcibly separate groups, invariably to the benefit—at least the short-term benefit—of at least one of the groups, but never, or only accidentally, to the benefit of all of them.
Occupational apartheid
Occupational apartheid is the concept in occupational therapy that different individuals, groups and communities can be deprived of meaningful and purposeful activity through segregation due to social, political, economical factors and for social status reasons.
Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa
Apartheid was a system of racial discrimination and segregation in South African government. It was formalised in 1948, forming a framework for political and economic dominance by the white population and severely restricting the political rights of the black majority.
Music in the movement against apartheid
The apartheid regime in South Africa began in 1948 and lasted until 1994. It involved a harsh system of racial segregation, and placed all political power in the hands of a white minority. Opposition to apartheid manifested in a variety of ways, including boycotts, non-violent protests, and armed resistance. Music played a large role in the movement against apartheid within South Africa, as well as in international opposition to apartheid. The impacts of songs opposing apartheid included raising awareness, generating support for the movement against apartheid, building unity within this movement, and "presenting an alternative vision of culture in a future democratic South Africa."
Apartheid
Concerned over the popularity of Mandela, Botha denounced him as an arch-Marxist committed to violent revolution, but to appease black opinion and nurture Mandela as a benevolent leader of blacks, the government moved him from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison in a rural area just outside Cape Town, where prison life was easier. The government allowed Mandela more visitors, including visits and interviews by foreigners, to let the world know that he was being treated well.
Hendrik Verwoerd
Verwoerd characterised apartheid as merely "good-neighbourliness", but its practical effects have been widely condemned, then and since, as a form of racism. Decisions that Prime Minister Verwoerd made in the areas of legislation, law enforcement and public policy caused almost the entire non-white population of South Africa to be disenfranchised, lose civil rights, and suffer discrimination. Verwoerd heavily repressed anti-apartheid activism, ordering the detention and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people and the exile of further thousands, while greatly empowering, modernising and enlarging the security forces and army. Black-dominated political organisations such as the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) were banned under Verwoerd, and ANC leaders including future President of South Africa Nelson Mandela were prosecuted for sabotage in the Rivonia Trial.
Apartheid in popular culture
There is a wide range of ways in which people have represented Apartheid in popular culture. During (1948 – 1994) and following the apartheid era in South Africa, apartheid has been referenced in many books, films, and other forms of art and literature.
Apartheid
The Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 instituted limits based on financial means and education to the black franchise, and the Natal Legislative Assembly Bill of 1894 deprived Indians of the right to vote. The Glen Grey Act of 1894, instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes limited the amount of land Africans could hold. In 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied blacks the vote, limited them to fixed areas and inaugurated the infamous Pass System. The Asiatic Registration Act (1906) required all Indians to register and carry passes. In 1910 the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion, which continued the legislative programme: the South Africa Act (1910) enfranchised whites, giving them complete political control over all other racial groups while removing the right of blacks to sit in parliament, the Native Land Act (1913) prevented blacks, except those in the Cape, from buying land outside "reserves", the Natives in Urban Areas Bill (1918) was designed to force blacks 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, rather than paramount chiefs, 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. One of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by Jan Smuts' United Party government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill (1946), which banned land sales to Indians.
Apartheid
Before South Africa became a republic in 1961, politics among white South Africans was typified by the division between the mainly Afrikaner 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.
White supremacy
A number of Southern African nations experienced severe racial tension and conflict during global decolonization, particularly as white Africans of European ancestry fought to protect their preferential social and political status. Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under the Dutch Empire, and it continued when the British took over the Cape of Good Hope in 1795. Apartheid was introduced as an officially structured policy by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party after the general election of 1948. Apartheid's legislation divided inhabitants into four racial groups—"black", "white", "coloured", and "Indian", with coloured divided into several sub-classifications. In 1970, the Afrikaner-run government abolished non-white political representation, and starting that year black people were deprived of South African citizenship. South Africa abolished apartheid in 1991.