Apartheid

WHAP/Napp

Cues: / Notes:
  1. Background to Change
  1. The South Africangovernment that had declared freedom from Britain was controlled by a white minority, largely descended from Dutch Boers
  2. Afrikaners practiced a policy of apartheid, or extreme racial segregation
  3. South Africa is one of the world’s richest sources of gold and diamonds
  4. Groups like the Zulu Confederation and the African National Congress opposed the white government
  5. ANC’s leader, Nelson Mandela, gained status of sympathetic dissident during long imprisonment (1964-1990) by white authorities
  6. Another moral figure in anti-apartheid movement was Bishop Desmond Tutu, black clergyman in Anglican Church and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
  7. 1994, free electionsANC’s victory and Mandela became president
  1. Origins
  1. In 1948, South Africa had a new government, the National Party
  2. Elected by a small majority in a whites-only election, its victory followed a steady increase in black migration to the country's towns
  3. Migration led to fear of black domination among minority whites - Afrikaners, and English-speaking community, of British descent
  4. Among the first measures were statutes to separate the residential areas
  5. Then, racially mixed marriages were prohibited
  6. Apartheid, or racial separation, overshadowed South Africa for forty years
  7. System's chief objective was to deny non-whites the fruits of supposedly white labors: commerce and industry
  8. But African labor contributed to the rise of a modern industrial state
  9. Also an assumption of supremacy among South Africa's whites that stemmed back to first European settlers there in 1652
  10. For the Afrikaners, descended from Dutch immigrants, the idea that different cultures should live apart was nothing less than God's will
  11. Most Afrikaners were Calvinists with a strong streak of determinism
  12. First serious effort to establish a settlement in South Africa came in 1652, with arrival of Jan van Riebeeck and Dutch East India Company
  13. Van Riebeeck purchased slaves to do domestic and agricultural work
  14. Free burghers (similar to French bourgeoisie) came to regard manual labor as slaves' work
  15. So for many of burghers there was no other available employment
  16. Response to unemployment was to move away from coast, into vast open expanses sparsely occupied by Khoikhoi and San tribes
  17. Then the Congress of Vienna gave the southern tip of Africa to the British

Summaries:
Cues: /
  1. The British and the Dutch achieved an uneasy peace
  2. Until discovery of gold and diamonds in the Dutch colonies of the Orange Free State and Transvaal
  3. After the Boer Wars, the British gained complete control of the land
  4. But following independence from England, uneasy power-sharing between British and Afrikaners held sway until 1940's, when Afrikaner National Party was able to gain a strong majority
  5. Strategists in the National Party invented apartheid as a means to cement their control over the economic and social system
  1. Apartheid
  1. Apartheid laws in 1948racial discrimination was institutionalized
  2. 1950 Population Registration Act required all South Africans to be racially classified into one of three categories: white, black (African), or colored (of mixed decent)
  3. All blacks were required to carry “pass books” containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas
  4. 1951Bantu Authorities Act established a basis for ethnic government in African reserves, known as “homelands”
  5. Black South Africans were citizens of a homeland, losing citizenship in South Africa and any right of involvement with the South African Parliament which held complete hegemony over the homelands
  6. From 1976 to 1981, four of these homelands were created, denationalizing nine million South Africans
  7. Thus, Africans living in the homelands needed passports to enter South Africa: aliens in their own country
  8. In 1960, a large group of blacks in Sharpeville refused to carry passes; government declared a state of emergency
I.Emergency lasted for 156 days, leaving 69 people dead; 187 people wounded
J. Anyone could be detained without a hearing by a low-level police official for up to six months
IV. The Fight Against Apartheid
  1. Soweto riots of 1976 were most brutal and violent riots that had taken place against South African apartheid administration
  2. Apartheid government decided to start enforcing a long-forgotten law requiring secondary education be conducted only in Afrikaans
  3. Students resented being forced to learn language of their oppressors
  4. Government responseshut down schools and expel striking students
  5. Protest marchin Soweto township on June 16,1976
  6. Police showed no mercy attacked students of all ages, armed or unarmed
  7. Boycotts against South Africa, for withdrawal of U.S. firms from South Africa and for release of Mandela
  8. South Africa was ostracized from world community
  9. Boycotts, divestment, and protests
  10. In 1993, Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
  11. In 1994, Mandela was elected the first Black president of South Africa

Summaries:

Questions:

  1. Apartheid ended in South Africa because
(A)The African National Congress became radicalized and more politically active after the Sharpeville Massacre.
(B)The international community imposed economic sanctions against South Africa.
(C)President de Klerk convinced his party to dismantle and the system and hold free elections.
(D)The African National Congress provided a vehicle for resistance.
(E)All of the above.
  1. In 1948 in South Africa, the white minority ensured their political control over the black majority by relying on a policy of racial separation called
(A)Caste.
(B)Apartheid.
(C)The estate system.
(D)The slavery system.
  1. A system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy is called.
(A)Stereotyping.
(B)Social mobility.
(C)Social stratification.
(D)Social inequality.
4. The Boers were
(A) East African coastal merchants.
(B) Indians who served as soldiers for the British.
(C) Malaysian tribal chieftains who allied with the Dutch.
(D) Australian aborigines.
(E) Dutch settlers in South Africa. / 5. From 1948, South African politics were dominated by
(A) The Nationalist Party.
(B) The Black leadership of the Zulu nation.
(C) A U.N. mandate-government dominated by the United States.
(D) Nelson Mandela.
6. The white South African leader that negotiated with Mandela the transition to black rule was
(A) De Klerk.
(B) Nkrumah.
(C) Mugabe.
(D) Kimgangu.
7. “Apartheid” is the term often used to describe the racial policies followed until 1991 by the government of
(A) Zambia.
(B) Namibia.
(C) The Republic of South Africa.
(D) Botswana.
8. The policy of separation of whites from blacks in South Africa was called
(A) Segregation.
(B) Laws.
(C) Separate but equal.
(D) Apartheid.
9. The first President of the African National Congress (ANC) was
(A) Nelson Mandela.
(B) John Dube.
(C) Walter Sisulu.
(D) Oliver Tambo.

No Easy Walk to Freedom

Nelson Mandela

Long before he became President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela was an active member of the African National Congress. This political party worked to bring equality and end apartheid in South Africa. In the excerpts from his speech below (which he could not deliver in person under threat of arrest), Mandela describes the protest movement in 1952 and the government response to the protests.

“In June, 1952, the African National Congress and the South African Indian Congress, bearing in mind their responsibility as the representatives of the downtrodden and oppressed [badly treated] people of South Africa, took the plunge and launched the Campaign for the Defiance of the Unjust Laws. Starting off in Port Elizabeth … it spread throughout the country like wild fire. Factory and office workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students and the clergy; Africans, Coloreds, Indians and Europeans, old and young, all rallied to the national call and defied the pass laws and the curfew and the railway apartheid regulations. … The Campaign called for immediate and heavy sacrifices. Workers lost their jobs, chiefs and teachers were expelled from the service, doctors, lawyers and businessmen gave up their practices and businesses and elected to go to jail. Defiance was a step of great political significance [importance]. … It was one of the best ways of exerting pressure on the Government and extremely dangerous to the stability and security of the State…

The government launched its reactionary offensive and struck at us. Between July last year and August this year forty-seven leading members from both Congresses in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Kimberley were arrested, tried and convicted for launching the Defiance Campaign. … In November last year, a proclamation was passed which prohibited meetings of more than ten Africans and made it an offence for any person to call upon an African to defy. Contravention of [not obeying] this proclamation carried a penalty of three years or of a fine of three hundred pounds. In March this year the Government passed the so-called Public Safety Act which empowered it to declare a state of emergency and to create conditions which would permit of [allow] the most ruthless and pitiless [harsh] methods of suppressing our movement. Almost simultaneously [at the same time], the Criminal Laws Amendment Act was passed which provided heavy penalties for those convicted of Defiance offences. This Act also made provision for the whipping of defiers including women…”

Thesis Statement: Change Over Time:South Africa from 1652 – 1994 ______