South Africa

Officially called the Republic of South Africa, South Africa is located at the southern tip of Africa. With an area of 1,219,912 square kilometers (471,008 square miles), South Africa is just under twice the size of Texas. A dry plateau fills much of the nation's interior, while bands of forest and coastal plains dominate along the South African coasts. Despite the generally arid climate, however, conditions along the southwest coast of South Africa most closely resemble those of California or the Mediterranean.

As of 2003, an estimated 42,768,678 people lived in South Africa, with a median age of twenty-five. Life expectancy at birth was about the same for both male and female at forty-seven years. This very low life expectancy in part resulted from the large numbers of people infected with HIV or AIDS. In 2001 an estimated 20.1 percent of the population was infected, and the number in subsequent years was expected to climb even higher.

Most South Africans, 75.2 percent, are black, 13.6 percent are white, 8.6 percent are colored (South Africans of all races use the term "colored" to refer to South Africans of mixed white–non-white ancestry; the term is not pejorative), and 2.6 percent are Indian. Approximately 68 percent of the population are Christian, 2 percent are Muslim, and some 29 percent maintain religious and spiritual beliefs indigenous to the area. English and, to a lesser extent, Afrikaans, are the languages of government and commerce, but, in keeping with South Africa's ethnic and religious diversity, there are eleven official languages spoken in South Africa. According to the 2001 South African census, the official languages have the following percentages of "home" speakers: Zulu (23.8%); Xhosa (17.6%); Afrikaans (13.3%); Seped (9.4%); English (8.6%); Setswana (8.2%); Sesotho (8.2%); Xitsonga (4.4%); Siswati (2.75%); Tshivenda (2.3%); IsiNdebele (1.6%).

As of 2003, the South African gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was estimated at $10,700 and was growing at a rate of 3 percent. Inflation remained high, at about 10 percent, and roughly half the population lived below the poverty line. Including those workers who were no longer looking for a job, some 37 percent of South Africa's labor force remained unemployed. Despite these problems, South Africa has a wealth of natural resources on which to rely. The continuing high crime rates, however, and persistent social and public health problems—including the shockingly high rate of HIV/AIDS infection—have discouraged many foreign companies from investing in South Africa.

a brief history

Although humans settled in South Africa many millennia ago, the story of the modern nation-state began in the early seventeenth century. The Dutch East India Company had begun developing different shipping routes to India and Java. For these routes to work, however, a base had to be established on the southern tip of Africa where ships could refit and resupply themselves. The company's demands on the local population led rapidly to conflict, and so it decided to build a full-fledged colony (the Cape Colony) in South Africa, along the southwestern coast.

The establishment of the Cape Colony required that the Dutch East India Company forcefully take land from indigenous people, in this case the Khoikhoi (referred to, pejoratively, as "Hottentots"). Over the next several decades the colony grew rapidly, and eventually, around 1690, poorer farmers desperate for land began to move away from the colony and into the interior, fighting the African peoples they encountered, enslaving many of the survivors, and seizing land as they went. This process of expansion and war continued for the next two centuries.

In 1795 the British, busily fighting France and extending their dominance over the sea, took the colony from the Dutch. Much of the existing system was left in place, including the colony's legal apparatus, but the British did make some changes, including banning the slave trade in 1808.

By 1836 the non-British colonists (primarily of Dutch descent, who called themselves Afrikaners) had become increasingly restless, and Afrikaner farmers (called Boers) began to move farther north in a bid to establish settlements outside British rule. They succeeded in creating the Boer Republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1852 and 1854, respectively. Britain also continued to expand across South Africa, establishing a second colony, Natal, and waging several wars in the eastern portion of South Africa, eventually conquering the Zulus in 1879.

Tense relations between the British government and the Boer republics, made tenser by the discovery of diamonds and gold in the areas, resulted in two Boer Wars (1880–1881 and 1899–1902). Ultimately losing to the British, the two republics were assimilated into the British Empire as the Transvaal and Orange River colonies in 1902. By 1902 South Africa consisted of four political regions: Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River.

In general, the Boers' treatment of non-whites had been harsher than British actions toward the same groups, but British conduct was quite racist and brutal as well. Thus, despite the British abolition of slavery in the early nineteenth century, a white minority continued to brutally oppress non-white peoples, a state of affairs that would continue nearly to the end of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, this subtle difference in treatment was, in part, what led most non-whites to support the British during the Boer Wars.

In May 1910 the four colonies successfully negotiated with each other to unite into a republic. Under the terms of this unification, the British Parliament recognized the new unified state as a self-governing part of the British Commonwealth. The enfranchisement laws of each colony also remained in force in their respective territories. Blacks were not able to vote in the former Boer republics or Natal, but in Cape Colony, some wealthier blacks were able to participate in elections.

British liberals hoped that the more relaxed laws of the Cape would spread to the other former colonies, but this was not to be the case. Indeed, as economic competition increased between white and black laborers in the mines, and as the Afrikaners increasingly dominated South African government, laws were passed that swept away what few rights nonwhites possessed. This process culminated in 1948 under Prime Minister Daniel François Malan (1874–1959) in the implementation of apartheid , a policy designed to completely separate racial groups. The supporters of apartheid argued that this separation was necessary to ensure the harmonious development, and to maintain the purity, of the races, but in fact the policy entrenched the privileges of a white minority and resulted in the increasingly savage oppression of non-whites. Despite sporadic efforts by the African majority to oppose apartheid, the policy was successfully implemented and even expanded throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Protest demonstrations periodically met violent responses by the police, and the leading opposition group, the African National Congress (ANC), was banned and its leader, Nelson Mandela (b. 1918), tried and jailed. Criticism of South Africa by its Commonwealth colleagues led to its withdrawal from that body in 1961.

In the 1970s and 1980s internal and international opposition to apartheid resulted in numerous condemnations within the United Nations (UN) and widespread economic sanctions . As international condemnation grew louder, black opposition grew more powerful, opposition among whites grew more common, and economic conditions deteriorated as a result of both sanctions and economic inefficiencies caused by South Africa's legal and political systems, apartheid crumbled. A new and temporary constitution became law in 1993, eradicating the remaining vestiges of apartheid. In 1994 the first nonracial elections were held. Mandela, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his predecessor, former South African President F. W. de Klerk (b. 1936), for their work in ending apartheid, won the votes of enormous numbers of whites and blacks alike to become South Africa's first black president.

To address the ravages wrought by apartheid and the continuous anger that had resulted from decades under such a system, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established. The TRC allowed individuals to confess to crimes committed under apartheid in exchange for amnesty, and also provided victims of those crimes with an opportunity to testify publicly about their travails. Although approved by Mandela and enthusiastically supported by others, such as Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, who chaired the Commission, many opposed the TRC, including Mandela's own political party, the ANC. The TRC officially ended its work in 2001, issuing voluminous detailed reports and recommendations for the payment of modest reparations to victims of apartheid. The government has since begun to make these payments.

In 2004, under a permanent constitution signed into law by Mandela in 1997, Thabo Mbeki (b. 1942), like Mandela a longtime fighter against apartheid, occupied the office of president, a position he was first elected to in 1994. Nevertheless, South Africa continued to grapple with the economic and social legacies of apartheid.

current political structure and politics

The South African national government consists of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Some of the national government's power is shared with provincial governments, as provided for in the constitution. Two houses, the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, compose the legislative branch. The National Assembly originates and passes most laws, and is also responsible for electing the president. The National Assembly consists of 400 members, elected by popular vote to five-year terms. Unlike many other nations, however, voters do not cast ballots for individual members. Instead, each political party that wishes to participate in the elections submits a list of ranked candidates. On election day the people vote for a political party, not an individual. The proportion of votes received by a political party determines how many of their candidates will assume a seat in the National Assembly. This system of election is known as "list-proportional representation."

The National Assembly election in 1999, for example, resulted in the African National Congress (ANC) party—which dominates South African politics—receiving 66.4 percent of the popular vote. This means that the ANC received 66.4 percent of the seats on the National Assembly or 266 seats. In the April 2004 elections the ANC increased its share of the vote to 69.7 percent or 279 seats. No other party received as much as 10 percent of the vote in 1999. In 2004 the Democratic Alliance got 12.4 percent of the vote or 50 seats.

The National Council of Provinces (NCP) consists of ninety members, who also serve five-year terms. Ten members are elected by each of the nation's nine provincial legislatures. The NCP is intended to safeguard local interests, as well as ethnic and religious minorities. Certain types of legislation must be approved by the NCP to become law. Thus, the NCP plays a role analogous to that of the U.S. Senate, although the two do differ in important respects.

The executive branch consists of the president, who is elected by the National Assembly to a five-year term. The president is responsible for, among other duties, initiating legislation (only members from the executive branch may initiate bills allocating money or levying taxes or duties), signing bills into law, implementing the law, and commanding the military.

The judicial branch is independent and headed by two courts. The Constitutional Court has the final say on all constitutional issues, whereas

the Supreme Court of Appeal is the highest court for all other matters. The Constitutional Court has played a rather prominent role in the creation and shaping of the new South African constitution and government.

Importantly, especially given South Africa's history, the constitution provides a bill of rights. Many of its provisions reflect the difficult history of apartheid. For instance, South Africans are ensured freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, torture, execution, and cruelty. In addition, the bill of rights guarantees equality before the law, due process, freedom of expression and belief, movement, residency, and so forth.

Citizen participation and interest in the government are strong. In the 1999 nationwide elections some sixteen political parties participated and roughly 80 percent of eligible citizens registered as voters. Although women are still underrepresented in government, those numbers are improving, and signs exist that the major political parties are jockeying to garner more of the increasingly important women's vote. For example, the ANC declared that combating violent crimes against women and children was its top priority, and placed, relative to previous years, a large number of women candidates on its list (roughly 40% of the total were women). The Democratic Party (DP), the next largest political party, which took only 9.6 percent of the vote in 1999, also emphasized the importance of gender equality and fighting violent crime. Unlike the ANC, however, it opposes forms of affirmative action and is considered the more conservative party. Racial divisions continue to plague South African politics, as the 1999 campaign exemplified.

Among the issues of prime concern to South African voters in 2004, the economy, which though growing is still burdened with high unemployment, inflation, and widespread poverty, and crime top the list. Although most citizens have long listed the economy as their most important concern, in 2004 the issue of crime ranked on almost the same level, as violent crime rates skyrocketed throughout the nation. As of 2004, South Africa had one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world.

The transition to majority government after the end of apartheid has made South Africa a democratic success story. In 2003 Freedom House, an independent advocacy foundation, rated it as one of the world's eighty-nine free nations, giving it the highest possible rating of 1 on its political rights index and the next highest rating, a 2, on its civil rights and liberties. The U.S. State Department's 2003 Human Rights Reports concluded that the South African government generally respected the rights of its citizens, while noting some persistent problems: police abuse of suspects, overly long trial delays, and domestic abuse of women and children.

See also: Apartheid; Biko, Stephen; Mandela, Nelson.

bibliography

Deegan, Heather. The Politics of the New South Africa: Apartheid and After. London: Pearson, 2001.

Freedom House. "South Africa." Freedom in the World 2003: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. New York: Freedom House, 2003. <http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/south-africa.htm>.

Greenstein, Ran, ed. Comparative Perspectives on South Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Ross, Robert. A Concise History of South Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Shea, Dorothy C. The South African Truth Commission: The Politics of Reconciliation. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2000.

"South Africa." CIA World Factbook. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2005. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sf.html>.

Turner, Barry, ed. Southern Africa Profiled: Essential Facts on Society, Business, and Politics in Southern Africa. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Turner, Bary, ed. "South Africa: Republic of South Africa." SYBWorld: The Essential Global Reference. http://www.sybworld.com/views/entrymap?id=za&x=21&y=4.

U.S. Department of State. "South Africa." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2003. Washington, DC: Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. <http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27752.htm>.

Andrew Costello