Apartheid

Christopher Aandahl 9.D #20 Underskrift: Essay English Side 1 out of 1 Herlufsholm Skole 08/09/09 JOP

Apartheid

The English and the Dutch colonized South Africa in the seventeenth century. The English domination of the Dutch descendents made them colonize in Orange Free State and Transvaal. The discovery of diamonds and other minerals started the South African War between the Boers and the English troops. The independence from the English started an uneasy power sharing between the Boers and the English, until 1940 when the Afrikaner National Party gained a strong majority. The strategists in the political party invented the system that we call apartheid. Apartheid was made to keep the power of whites permanent and it made life hell for the non-white people in South Africa. With the endorsement of the apartheid laws in 1948, racial unfairness was institutionalized. The racial laws affected every single social aspect, including white only schools and jobs. In 1950 the Population Registration Act required that all South Africans should be racially classified. There were three different groups, the white who were the most powerful, the colored (of mixed decent) who were the middle class and the blacks that were treated the worst. The Bantu Authorities Act was endorsed in 1951. It was system where the government of South Africa would assign you to an independent state according to your origin. All political rights including voting were restricted to the designated homeland. The idea simply was that the Africans would become citizens of the homeland and then lose their citizenship to South Africa and any right of involvement in the South African parliament, which controlled the homelands. At the end, they had created four homelands, which denationalized nine million South Africans and that meant that nine million people had become aliens in their own country. In 1953, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed, which gave the government the power to increase penalties for protesting against or supporting the repeal of a law. The penalties imposed on a political protest were severe. During the states of emergency, which continued until 1989, anyone could be imprisoned for 6 months without even going to a criminal law court. Thousands of people died in custody, frequently after dreadful acts of torture. Those who were tried were sentenced to death, banished or imprisoned for life, like Nelson Mandela. The way apartheid came to an end was when President FW de Klerk announced the release of Nelson Mandela, the leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa, in 1990. FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela slowly dismantled the Apartheid system. In 1992 a whites-only referendum approved the reform process and then in 1994 the first democratic elections were held in South Africa, where all races were able to vote. That was also when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa. The end of Apartheid has made South Africa a better country with many possibilities. The only thing that South Africa has to do now is to educate all the people who weren’t able to get an education because of Apartheid. When this happens South Africa will become an even greater and more powerful country.