Page 214 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

apartheid in south africa 99

Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice
and immorality. • Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)

cent of the population in theory (although never in fact)
Apartheid in to live on less than 14 percent of the land.The remaining

86 percent of the land was reserved for whites only.
South Africa Thus, when Daniel F. Malan (1874–1959) and his
Afrikaner Nationalist Party won the 1948 general elec-
partheid is an Afrikaans word meaning “apartness” tion on a platform that officially endorsed apartheid, the
Aor “separateness” and refers to a system of racial seg- concept was not alien to either the white or black popu-
regation practiced by the white minority against a black lations. Ironically, at a time when Europe and North
majority in the Republic of South Africa from 1948 to America were ending legalized discrimination against
1991. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries racial minorities, white South Africans began to imple-
the term has acquired a generic meaning, much like ment one of the harshest, most total systems of racial dis-
holocaust and diaspora, and is used to describe other sit- crimination in world history.
uations around the world in which one group of people
deny basic human and civil rights to another group Structure
based on gender, race, or sexual orientation. Thus, one The philosophy of apartheid was based on four major
hears of apartheid against women in Taliban-controlled points: the “separate development” of the four official
Afghanistan, apartheid against Palestinians in areas con- racial groups in the country; white control of every aspect
trolled by Israel, and apartheid against homosexuals in of government and society; white interests overruling
various countries. black interests, with no requirement to provide equal
facilities for all groups; and the categorization of “whites”
Early Years (people of European descent) as a single nation and
The notions of white supremacy and racial segregation Africans as members of several distinct nations or poten-
came to South Africa with the first European settlers.The tial nations.
Dutch East India Company imported slaves from East Under apartheid there were four official racial groups.
Africa and Malaysia soon after establishing a small colony The Africans (sometimes designated as Bantu) made up
at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Although the British about 78 percent of the total population and, although
abolished slavery shortly after annexing the Cape Colony of common ancestry, were divided into nine distinct
in 1806, they maintained various institutions and prac- nations: Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Tsonga, Pedi, Tswana,
tices that guaranteed white political and economic control Swazi, Ndebele, and Sotho. Colored was the name given
over the black majority. By the early twentieth century to people of mixed black, Malayan, and white descent
Britain controlled all of modern-day South Africa, with who traced their origins to the earliest days of European
political power nearly entirely in the hands of people of settlement.Asians, mainly of Indian ancestry, were a third
European descent.With the Act of Union in 1910, South official group. Coloreds and Asians made up roughly 10
Africa gained dominion status within the British empire percent of the population. The remaining 12 or 13 per-
and limited self-rule. Between 1910 and 1948 Union gov- cent were whites, with about 60 percent of Dutch descent
ernments passed numerous laws that severely restricted and 40 percent from the British Isles, although immi-
black rights. Blacks were denied equal citizenship through grants from nearly every European nation were repre-
such measures as pass laws (laws requiring blacks to carry sented in this single “nation.”
identification pass books), job reservations, restricted The apartheid system was sometimes described as hav-
voting rolls, and the right to form unions. The Native ing two aspects, so-called grand and petty apartheid.
Areas Acts of 1913 and 1936 relegated the African Grand apartheid refers to those racially discriminatory
majority to native reserves, forcing roughly 85 to 90 per- policies that related to land and politics. Petty apartheid