Even though South Africa happens to be the only place in the universe that boasts of an ethnic group called Coloureds, South Africa is a country with a very rich and vivid ethnic history because of its four ethnic groups: the Blacks, Whites, Coloureds, and Asians. South Africa has a unique culture and many diverse groups call South Africa their home. The largest ethnic group is the Blacks, and they are a part of many tribal groups. The next largest group is the Whites who are further divided into two groups: The Afrikaners and the English-speaking South Africans. The largest Caucasian group in the country is the Afrikaners and they speak a very distinct language that is a mixture of the Dutch, German, French, Flemish, and African languages. The smaller Caucasian group in the country is the English- speaking South Africans. The third largest group in the country is the people who are of mixed race called the Coloureds. The last of the ethnic groups in the country are the Asians.
The South African system of ethnic stratification resembles that of the United States in on interesting way and tragic way. That is the fact that the principal group materialized from a method of indigenous subordination, in which a colonist group restrained the native inhabitants. In the United States, the Caucasian settlers overwhelmed the Native Americans. In South Africa, the Afrikaner settlers overwhelmed the Blacks. Nowadays, in America the Whites still hold the power and are the majority group. In South Africa, however the Blacks now hold the power and are the majority group. Both of these countries also practiced the evil institution of slavery and had a distinct castelike form of society. Two other examples of distinct similarities are the separate systems of race, which were Apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow Laws in the southern United States (Marger, 397).
Among multiethnic civilizations of today, South Africa has been one of the excessive cases of inequalitarian pluralism (Farley, 2000). South Africa’s ethnic makeup is a racial dichotomy, black and white, but there these groups still are divided into smaller groups. The Caucasians, who are roughly 9 percent of the entire populace, consist of two chief subgroups, Afrikaners and English. Nonwhites encompass three subgroups: Coloureds, a racially mixed group; Asians, mostly Indians; and Africans of several different tribal origins. Apartheid was sad because it said where people could live, and only the poorest jobs were open to the Blacks (Farley, 2000). This reminds me of the Dalits and their lives under India’s caste system. South Africa has a unique culture and many diverse groups call South Africa their home. Emery states in Class and Race Domination and Transformation in South Africa, “The apartheid era of South Africa similar to Nazi Germany ordered racial purification, but unlike the genocide of the Holocaust, this cleansing had limits because of the Afrikaners’ need of inexpensive black manual labor” (Emery, 2008).
There is a unique correlation between the Church and State in the history of this country. Interestingly, the Dutch Reformed Church developed the idea of Apartheid (Giliomee, 2003). In my opinion, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People is a valuable textbook because it offers a different perspective on much of the usual intelligence about the Afrikaners as a race. Giliomee suggests that the first time someone used the term Afrikaner; it described a European in March 1707 (Giliomee, 2003). Ironically, it seems that the South Africans got the idea of prohibiting interracial relationships from the anti-miscegenation laws of America. The Immorality Amendment Act (1961) continued as an official law in South Africa until 1985, making intercourse between whites and non-whites a prohibited decree under apartheid (Barber, 2004). The only difference between these two countries was that America overturned the anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia whereas; South Africa persisted in prohibiting these relationships. One reason that makes South Africa unique is because it achieved a political revolution by negotiation and it transformed its status in world affairs (Barber, 2004).
South Africa has a variety of racial and ethnic groups, but they are all classified into a four-group scheme: Whites, blacks, colored, and Asians. Interestingly, as South Africa moved toward majority rule in the 1990s, ethnic divisions and tribal conflict intensified (World Book, 2010). An intense conflict erupted between the ANC (Mandela's group) and that of Chief Buthelezi (Inkatha Freedom Party). The ANC backers were Xhosas while Inkatha appealed to the Zulu nation (World Book, 2010). This intense conflict led to much violence and thousands of deaths. The African National Congress played a major role in winning political and civil rights for the country’s blacks and other nonwhites (World Book, 2010). Nelson Mandela believed that South Africa was a nation for everyone not only Whites or Blacks. The Inkatha Freedom Party was originally founded to generate mass support for the Zulu monarchy (World Book, 2010).
I agree with the author Emery when he states “class is basic but minor to race when explaining the creation and downfall of the racial upheaval in South Africa” (Emery, 2008). Racial discrimination wounds people and I know that from my personal experience. As Lever concludes that, some of the ones who have suffered acknowledge it with quiet submission even as others become irate and mutinous (Lever, 1976). Lever also writes about the frustration-aggression theory of prejudice. The Jewish community in South Africa was very sympathetic to the Black South Africans during the Apartheid era, since as a minority group the Whites have also discriminated against them (Lever, 1976). In an article that I read, Lever describes two studies that college students experimented in colleges and one study of the White residents of Johannesburg completing a survey. All three studies study the effect of frustration on prejudice in South Africa (Lever, 1976). I learnt that the slogan for the African National Congress was “We Are One People” which represents the fact that South Africa is for all the citizens irrespective of their race.
The significance of South Africa and their study of racial-ethnic relations lie equally in the past as much as it does in the current affairs of the present. I would have to agree with that because you always have to pay attention to history but also the present and future of racial-ethnic relations in a country. If you do not pay attention to the past, you are doomed to repeat their mistakes. It is sad that South Africa had a xenophobic system that the government completely justified and imposed. Other societies should learn from the injustice of the apartheid system that formally ruled South Africa just more than a decade ago. Ethnocentrism is wrong but of course people are only human and that makes them prone to making mistakes. The rigid system of Apartheid began in the year 1949 and finally ended in 1994.
The primacy of race over class is also indicated by the anti-apartheid movements’ historic demands for inclusive nationalism and the new regimes’ search for justice through policies of deracialization. Specifically, classes created a racialized labor repressive system. However, class theories inadequately explain the comprehensiveness and resilience of race domination. This consequently ensued from ethnic mobilizations to create a white ethnocracy and cleanse South Africa of other ethnic groups. The colonialization of the Boers instantaneously clashed with almost all the indigenous tribes of South Africa exactly like how the Anglos subjugated the Native Americans in the beginning of America. As the Boers pressed on to the borders of South Africa, conflicts between the various tribes were unceasing until complete supremacy of the Boers was recognized. Yet again, much like the white pioneers of America, the Boers assumed themselves to be ethnically advanced simply because they considered it was predestined by their religion. These beliefs became even stronger as they became more isolated from outside influence and in fact had become “white Africans,” maintaining no strong ties to a motherland; the Boers thus became “Afrikaners” (Marger, 2009).
In my third year at Kennesaw State University, in one of my Literature classes we watched an amazing movie called Bopha! and it was about South Africa’s Apartheid era. This movie looks at apartheid from the remarkable viewpoint of Micah Mangena who happens to be a black master sergeant in the South African Police. Bopha! is a memorable tragedy about one man that is played out against the backdrop of South Africa's own fight to come to terms with itself. Micah is almost unreasonably blind to what is happening around him. He does not question the injustices of apartheid or seem to see the horrendous financial and societal circumstances built into the system. When other blacks shun him and his family, he is prone to see that as proof of doing a good job. One extraordinary scene that is also one of my favorites is when Micah tells the new black recruits to be honored when they hear themselves being called pigs. He writes "PIG" on the blackboard and explains: "P" is for pride, "I" for intelligence and "G" for guts or glory (Canby, 1993).
Another movie about South Africa’s tragic apartheid era is The Color of Friendship and I watched it one night on the Disney Channel when it premiered. Mahree Bok lives on her family farm in South Africa. Her father is a police officer who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressional representative from California who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. This movie was based on the true story of black Congressman Ron Dellums, who is forced to confront his opposition to apartheid when an African exchange student comes to stay at his home in 1977. Expecting a person of color, he and his wife Roscoe are surprised when a white South African girl arrives. Even more startling was the fact that the girl was raised during Apartheid and taught to think of black people as second-class citizens. The situation teaches them valuable lessons about tolerance and racism.
References
Barber, J. (2004). Mandela’s World: the International Dimension of South Africa’s Political Revolution, 1990-1999. Oxford, James Currey.
Canby, V. (1993). Bopha! 1993 Movie Review. NYTIMES. .
Emery, A. (2008). Class and Race Domination and Transformation in South Africa. Critical Sociology (Sage Publications, Ltd.), 34(3), 409-431.
Farley, J. E., (2000). Majority - Minority Relations. (4th Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Giliomee, H., (2003). The Afrikaners: Biography of a People. London, Hurst & Co.
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Lever, H., (1976). FRUSTRATION AND PREJUDICE IN SOUTH AFRICA. Journal of Social Psychology, 100(1), 21. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.
Lewis, M.P., (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International.
Marger, M.N., (2009). Race and Ethnic Relations. (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
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