What was the nature of the Apartheid State?

by emilycgardenrayongcom (student)

History Essay: What was the nature of the Apartheid State?

The following piece of work will examine Apartheid which was a policy followed by the Afrikaner “National Party” between 1948 and 1994. Apartheid was invoked in 1948 when the National Party got into power. Apartheid is derived for the Afrikaans word and its direct translation is ‘apartness’. This was the racial segregation of Blacks and Whites. This was also when Black South African life’s started taking a downturn.

Racism towards the Blacks had already been an issue that was fairly common amongst the Boers and Afrikaners even before 1948. The Afrikaners already had a superiority complex towards Blacks but as the apartheid starting taking place, it increased. The Afrikaners were given two choices, apartheid or integration. ‘ The choice before us is one of these two courses: either integration, which would in the long run amount to national suicide on the part of the whites; or ‘apartheid ‘, which claims to preserve the identity and safeguard the future of every race.’ The White Afrikaners were economically uncertain; the worried about things such as work, towns and money. The Blacks were already taking over the skilled jobs and congregating around towns. This concerned the White Afrikaners greatly. The United Party who offered integration would keep things going this way but the National Party who offered apartheid wanted to terminate these two trends. At this point, apartheid seemed like a better choice because it would mean Whites getting the best of everything hence, the National Party won and gained power.

When apartheid first started, it was not very established. New ideas were slowly implemented to segregate Blacks and Whites but first, they needed to identify the races of the people. In 1950, the Populations Registration Act was introduced. This was to help the government differentiate between the races: Blacks, Whites and Coloureds. Their means by which to find out was sticking a pencil through the person’s hair and if it were to stay the person was black and if it did not, the person was coloured. Another way by which they determined a person’s race was by looking behind their ears. This was very ineffective as there were too many people to classify. It was inaccurate, too. ‘In one case a man was classified as White, his brother as Coloured.’ This shows the ineffectiveness of the government to segregate the races.

The government did whatever they could to segregate the races. They had acts such as the prohibition of mixed marriages act which prohibited mixed marriages and the immorality amendment act which banned sex between Blacks and Whites. These laws was very unfavourable to both Blacks and Whites hence they continued to ignore it . ‘Over the next ten years, 3890 people were found guilty, convictions steadily rose. Sex between Black and White went on unseen.’ This proved that the Blacks and Whites were ignorant towards the consequences.

But soon the government started being more forceful in implementing the acts. In ...

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But soon the government started being more forceful in implementing the acts. In 1974, a man by the name of Graham de Proft threw himself under a train when he found out that a White woman, Sonya was pregnant with his baby. This is an apparent clue that the government is trying harder to keep the races ‘pure’. ‘ The second strand of apartheid was to make sure the white race stayed white’. This showed the apartheid was intense and the government was doing their best to segregate the races.

The apartheid affected the life’s of the Blacks immensely. There were many consequences such as the losing of their freedom and having a poorer quality of life. They had to carry pass books wherever they went to proved who they were and where they lived. If they failed to do so, they would be sent to prison. Soon, there were also different toilets, park benches, restaurants and so on for Blacks and Whites. For example, there would be a bench with the sign ‘Whites only’ or a public swimming pool which only allowed Black entry. Blacks were also only allowed to get unskilled/semi skilled jobs which often paid them very little and not enough to support a family.

Blacks were also much compromised in education. Students were getting substandard education. The government had little budget set aside for the Black schools: less than 10% of the budget for white schools. Due to this, Black schools were often in bad condition and overcrowded. Students also did not get the attention they needed from teachers as there were too many students to a teacher: 1 teacher to 48 students. In 1945, a National Party politician said the following "We should not give the Natives any academic education. If we do, who is going to do the manual labour in the community?”. This shows that the motive of the South African government for giving Blacks substandard they wanted to repress the Blacks growth as much as possible so that they would not have the means to grow towards a higher echelon.

Blacks were not going to put up with an easy defeat by the government. There were people and organization who stood up for Black rights. Among them is The African National Congress(ANC). It was founded to protect Black rights by peaceful actions. The leaders of the ANC were mediocre Black men such as lawyers and ministers. The ANC later organized a campaign called The Freedom Charter. This encouraged the ANC to form links with other organisations who wanted freedom in South Africa. Among the organisations that the ANC formed links with were those that were coloured and whites: some members of the ANC strongly opposed this. Therefore, therefore they set up Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania(PAC). This consists of former ANC members who disagreed with the freedom charters. They believed that Blacks should work for their freedom alone. Lastly, Nelson Mandela: the man who sought justice and democracy for South Africa and the man who embodies true benevolent humanity. He was an anti-apartheid activist who stood up to the Black people’s freedom and what he believed was right. In Mandela’s autobiography, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ he stated the following: ‘I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.’ This shows that Mandela was determined and he only had one goal in his mind, which was justice and freedom for the Black people.

The government did a lot to repress their opposition. A visible illustration was the Massacre at Sharpeville that took place in 1960. A peaceful protest was planned: Blacks were asked to leave their pass books behind and report to the police station that they were breaking the law. They postulated that the prisons would not be able to contain so many blacks and that there was not enough human resource to arrest the Blacks. There was two parts of this story: one claimed tear gas and weapons were used and another claimed that it was a peaceful protest. The accurate story is unknown but what is definite was that a lot of people died and was hurt. The exact amount of deceased people is also unknown as different sources seem to give a different number but it can be estimated that the number of people who died was about 60. After this event took place, the ANC and PAC were both banned.

At this point, Mandela was appointed as the President of the Transvaal section in the ANC. The government did plenty to try to stop him: the banned him from attending public meetings, banned him from leaving Johannesburg, stopped him from attending the congress and did not allow him to work. Despite all the government’s attempts, Mandela continued working for the ANC, who was now an underground organization due to it being banned. In 1963, Mandela secretly left South Africa to try to gain support from other countries. This gave the government a reason to arrest him. When in returned in June, he was sent to prison and sentenced to five years of hard labour. Mandela was not surprised. He said, “I am a Black man in a White man’s court”. This showed that he was aware of the consequences yet he came back.

In 1976, the Soweto Riot took place. The government started making some lessons in the Black schools in Afrikaans. The students detested this. ‘For young blacks, Afrikaans was the symbol of oppression: it was the language of white supremacy. ‘ After being oppressed, silence and watching their families suffer, Blacks students had a fairly good reason to abhor this language. In June 16, 20,000 secondary students boycotted their examinations and led a protest. The unbelievable happened. The policed started shooting and firing tear gas at children.

The following three : Soweto Riot, imprisonment of Mandela and Massacre of Sharpeville are the examples of what the government did to try to repress their opposition. This was very visibly not effective other than killing some people. This only angered the Blacks more hence, their desire to take revenge is strengthened.

It is therefore prudent to conclude that the apartheid was nothing but a detriment to South Africa. Religion, what is meant to be good and to unite people, was misused unsparingly for the unsubstantial aim: racism, violence and discrimination. It is one of the most immoral, unethical and unscrupulous acts done in human history. It made Black South African slaves in their own country and impaired the country as a society and as individuals. As the result, South Africa today is still battling as a nation to overcome the dreadful impact that the apartheid, who brought along so many other problems, weighs on them.

By: Emily Chen