Apartheid

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Apartheid

Apartheid, an Afrikaans word meaning literally "apartness," was first used in a political sense in 1948 by Daniel François Malan (1874–1959), prime minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. It refers to a political system in which different races are kept apart, or segregated, by law. Unlike forms of racial segregation practiced in the United States, however, the doctrine of apartheid called for each race to develop autonomously and almost entirely separately from one another. South Africa, which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), described as "the classic example of organized and institutionalized racism," officially implemented such a policy over the course of fifty years (1949–1989). Eventually, with growing internal resistance from an increasingly restive and oppressed majority population of blacks, deepening opposition to apartheid by whites, and strong international pressure, the policy of apartheid was discontinued by South African President F. W. de Klerk (b. 1936) in 1989.

ideological history and meaning

Apartheid is a political system that nominally requires each race to be given separate territories and separate governments, thereby allowing each race to develop autonomously. The proponents of such a doctrine argued that racial separation was necessary because the mixing of the races was unnatural and would result in conflict and social degradation, and that the "purity" of the races was something to be preserved. Such purity was important because, the proponents of apartheid asserted, racial mixing would dilute the superior qualities of the white race. Supporters also claimed to find justification for their views in the Bible, an argument adopted by the Dutch Reformed Church in the mid-nineteenth century.

The racial views of apartheid supporters mirrored, to a great extent, the views of segregationists within the United States and elsewhere. The difference is that supporters of apartheid argued for a different, and more dramatic, response to those racial views than did racial segregationists in other parts of the world. The notion of creating separate homelands within the national territory, to be maintained by the government, was a key concept of apartheid, but it was not a concept seriously entertained by most American segregationists—and it never found support in U.S. government policy.

political history

Although the word apartheid would not be used to describe official government policy until 1948, the roots of this policy stretch back to the sixteenth century, when European settlers first began establishing control over both territory and native populations, often importing slaves from other parts of

Africa and Asia in the process. The imported slaves and native populations were used primarily for labor and given no real political or economic power. Over the years, the developing legal and political system of the colony—and eventually the nation—of South Africa came to reflect these racial inequalities. In 1910 South Africa was granted independence from its colonial status and became a self-described "white dominion" in the British Commonwealth . Although whites comprised less than 20 percent of the population, they retained total control over the government, the powers of which they used to perpetuate economic, social, and political racial inequalities.

By the 1948 elections (in which blacks and other nonwhites were not eligible to vote), many in the white minority were increasingly worried about their declining numbers relative to those of other races. Daniel François Malan, the National Party candidate, ran on a platform of what he called apartheid. The policy was intended to further strengthen whites' privilege—and assuage fears of losing that privilege—by removing the growing populations of other races to so-called group areas or homelands, which, supposedly, would allow each race to develop autonomously. Legislation passed under Malan transformed the system of racial segregation long practiced in South Africa into the system of apartheid. Blacks and other nonwhites lost their ability and right to live as official residents in South Africa. Many were removed to special territories, collectively known as Bantustan, after a somewhat pejorative nickname, Bantu, that was used to describe Africans in South Africa and elsewhere. The homelands existed inside South African borders. Those who did not voluntarily relocate to the Bantustan could be removed whenever the government deemed it necessary, and they were subject to stringent forms of racial segregation while living and working in South Africa.

The South African government administered these group areas in such a way as to ensure large unemployment among nonwhites, thereby providing a source of cheap labor to white industry owners. The government maintained this system through violence and terror tactics, such as the detention and torture of those suspected of opposition to apartheid (opposition to apartheid was defined by South African law as an act of sabotage, punishable by death), as well as the deployment of lethal force against otherwise peaceful demonstrations.

The gross denial of equal political, legal, and social rights to South Africans of nonwhite ethnicity led to deep condemnation by the international community. A resolution condemning apartheid as a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and as a "crime against humanity" was passed in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1973. International opposition would come to include economic sanctions against trade with South Africa, and many companies divested themselves of their interests in South Africa.

The system of apartheid in South Africa, weakened from within by growing black (and white) opposition led most prominently by the African National Congress (ANC), and pressured from without by growing international outrage, eventually collapsed in 1989, and dramatic political reforms followed. A popular referendum held two years later resulted in the overwhelming rejection of apartheid policies: Two-thirds of whites voted against apartheid. In 1994 the first democratic elections were held, sweeping the long-imprisoned Nelson Mandela (b. 1918), a prominent black anti-apartheid activist and leader of the ANC, into the presidency, and the ANC, once banned, into the legislature. Shortly thereafter, in 1996, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to investigate crimes committed by government officials and others during the struggle over apartheid, and to provide a sense of peaceful closure. Even into the early twenty-first century, under more equitable laws, South Africa struggles to address the poverty and anger that are, in part, the legacy of apartheid.

See also: Biko, Stephen; Mandela, Nelson; Racism; South Africa.