Apartheid in South Africa: The Center Point of Reform, not Remorse

            In general, Africa has been on the forefront of suffering, despair, and change. It has become the face of deadly diseases. Poverty seems to freely haunt the continent’s families. Furthermore, its socioeconomic situation is constantly undergoing change of some sort. Even Jonathan Draper in his article entitled, “From Liberation to Wilderness: South Africa’s New Journey”, he states more specifically how “South Africa is changing. Events are taking place today which were unthinkable even six months ago.” He continues to briefly address the most memorable events of this nation which includes the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), the talks between the ANC and F. W. De Klerk's government at Groote Schuur in Cape Town, and lastly, the release of Nelson Mandela.

As the president of South African having served twenty-seven unjust years in jail, Nelson Mandela is a name that resonates throughout the minds of anyone with even the slightest knowledge of South Africa’s fight for socioeconomic equality and justice. This fight is referred to as the apartheid (the Afrikaan word for “apartness”) era— the period in history that marks the central point of transition for South Africa. To see the relevance and impact of the apartheid movement, one must first understand the condition of South Africa before the movement, to know the key events of the movement, and to be able to analyze life after the movement.

            The most impacting group of people for Africa was, and still is, the European colonists. Colonists mainly settled in Cape Town in order to supervise passing ships during the piloting period of trade. By the end of the 1650s, European settlers were allotted farmland which in turn caused for more labor. Thus, the Dutch East Indian Company imported slaves from East Africa, Madagascar, and parts of the East Indies. (South African Government Information) Over time, Africa experienced a series of rulers, wars, economic shifts, and cultural invasions. Additional slave trade allowed the VOC to expand further north and east. Despite efforts against it, the group of people called Khoisans fell victim to new diseases, forced emigration, and superior weaponry. This is reflective of what would typically happen all throughout Africa. Its people were undeniably ready for something different, something better, to occur. In chapter one of his text, African Perspectives on Colonialism, A. Adu Boahen states, “By 1880,[Africa] was in a mood of optimism and seemed poised for a major breakthrough” and “appeared to be in its dying throes, and a new and modern Africa was emerging.”  The abolishment and suppression of slave trade seems to have instilled a great deal of optimism in the citizens of South Africa. This illustrates the beginning of an enduring division and increasing tension between European colonists and inhabitants of Africa, or an apartheid. The term “apartheid”, however, was not coined until the 1940’s. (Alonford Robinson, Jr.)

Although the strategy of apartheid actually originated in the mid-17^th century when whites began to settle in South Africa, it was near the end of the 1940s that apartheid was lawfully systematized and was later referred to as “separate development.” The phrase “separate development” refers to the social breakdown of the South African population into a series of four groups. Under apartheid, a person was racially classified as 1) Bantu (black African), 2) white, 3) Coloured (of mixed race), or 4) Asian (Indians and Pakistanis). This legitimization was made possible under the execution of the Population Registration Act of 1950. This act resulted in a series of laws that would later be passed in the 1950s that put a strict limitation on all non-white races. For example, the participation of non-white races became truncated even further; educational institutes and other public facilities were to be segregated; there was generally to be little to no social contact between the races. There were also laws that limited the ability of non-white, native South Africans to own land; this application allowed the white minority to gained ownership to over 80% of the land. (Robinson, Jr.) Apartheid laws sought to limit South Africans’ physical, political, and educational abilities; however, it triggered a surge of energy, an energy that displayed their mental strengths and physical endurance. The opposition of those negative forces of apartheid is referred to as the era of anti-apartheid activism.

Although “that the foundations of anti-apartheid activism stretch back to the  nineteenth-century Cape, or that anti-apartheid can be viewed as part of a coherent humanitarian tradition from which contemporary activists may draw strength and legitimacy”(Rob Skinner 400), Britain’s Anti-Apartheid Movement was not truly acknowledged until the mid to late 1950s, or after World War II. Regardless, it shows a separation of emotion amongst the general European perspective. For these reasons, it was often linked with discussions in regards to decolonization. Additionally, the anti-apartheid movement of the 20^th century is often tied to origins of the anti-slavery movement of the 1800s because of his similarity in tactics such as consumer boycotting. Most anti-apartheid activists were motivated by morale, a new-found sense of Christian values, and, supposedly, by the rise of human rights related activities.

Just like the civil rights movements of the day, the anti-apartheid movement represented a type of social radicalism showing objection to the current state of Britain’s political system. Skinner points out that “an examination of the beginnings of anti-apartheid activism therefore illuminates the way that imperial and colonial issues began permeate into radical politics from the late 1950s, and that it did so in part because anti-apartheid was explicitly regarded as a response to a fundamentally moral issue” (401). Ironically, the anti-apartheid activists weren’t as passive as history has portrayed many civil rights activists to have been. However, the struggles of the two groups seem tantamount and were greeted with the same reaction which oftentimes ended in violence. For this reason, there was a continued pressure from local groups and U.S. governments as well which caused the apartheid power to slowly disintegrate. But whereas the civil rights unofficially ended in 1968, the apartheid movement is documented to have ended in the early 1990s when the Nationalist Party introduced a renewed government and reinstated the ability of black congress. It was in 1994 that the country of South Africa’s constitution was rewritten. With this amendment, a series of the country’s leaders were released from prison, thus marking a new day for South Africa.

What is deemed a long endured struggle for South Africa, a prolonged fight for well-deserved freedom, the post-apartheid era (which is inclusive of today) exhibits a recovering country. Seventeen years later, it is as if the country is still learning to operate sufficiently on its own and is still experiencing what many people consider economic and sociological troubles. Aiden Mosselson argues that “[t]he xenophobic violence of May 2008 is symptomatic of the politics of belonging and contestation for citizenship that has taken root in post-apartheid South Africa” (641). He later quotes I. Chipkin in saying that South Africans are “elusive and amorphous” suggesting the idea that the constant emphasis of inclusiveness and human rights are slowly stripping the people of their true identity. However, one may view South Africa as a baby nation trying to regain its identity. Shortly after the passing of the first anti-apartheid laws of the 1980s, South Africans (and Indians) began to gain access to more resources thus breaking down the heavy confines that apartheid had created. (Daniel Schensul 291) This was remarkable in both the literal and metaphorical sense; it allowed the citizens to regain control of their country. It allowed them to promote a positive change according to their people’s desires and not by the force of others.

It can be easily noted the changes that South Africa has underwent over the decades. Furthermore, it may be

determined that a major player in the continued political, social, and economic development and uprisings is apartheid. Before the official, recorded beginning of apartheid, South Africa suffered through wars, economic rollercoasters, and most memorable, slavery. During apartheid, they struggled with having to reassert the freedom as had been granted to all men in the 1800s. Finally, the years that followed were controversially marked by many events that are arguably signs of the effects of the post-apartheid activism.