Apartheid in South Africa: History and Consequences

Apartheid is as most people know something which affected the world, in the years from 1948 and to around 1994. If I should use other words for apartheid, I would probably use the words; “Being apart” which means that some people, lives separated from other people. In South Africa, people got separated because of the color of their skin. In South Africa, apartheid had been a huge part of their history. Especially when it comes to their rights, they did not have many possibilities, at all. First I want to tell you about apartheids history, which actually goes a couple of years back. The first white people came to South Africa, for around 350 years ago. It was in 1652 some Dutchmen from Holland, came to South Africa, they build a fort in Cape Town, which is a pretty big city in South Africa. Here they stayed to make sure, that the boats that should go to Southeast Asia arrived safely. At the same time, some other men from Holland had started to settle down. Here they tried to chase the other people away from the area where they decided to settle down. The Dutchmen called themselves for “khoi-khoi” and “san-people”. Many people got killed and if they did not, they would be chanced into slaves. Many Dutchmen got kids with the female slaves. The consequence of getting kids with the female slaves was that they got those colored kids, which there actually is more than 4 million of today. Already in 1800 when the English men came to South Africa, they took the power of a fort in Cape Town. They told all the people who lived there to stop keeping slaves. Some people got very angry, because they did not like the new rule. Especially, the once called Zulus and Xhosas got angry. Before I continue I want to tell you, about the Zulus, and the Xhosa people.The Zulus is a part of South Africa, which has around 11 million people involved. The Zulus lives mostly in a city called KwaZulu-Natal. In KwaZulu-Natal, there is around 80, 6% who speaks the language Zulu. In the first place they were discriminated under apartheid but now, as you can see, they actually are a very big part of South Africa.And now, over to the once called the Xhosa people, which mostly is people from the southeast South Africa. They also got their own language, isiXhosa. They mainly work with the traditional farming, they do things like take care of cattle and stuff like a normal farmer does. But now, back to the story of apartheid: Under apartheid, it was illegal to have sex, with people who were not the same color as yourself. As an example, you could be punished, if you were in the same room with a person who was another color. As an example you could end up in prison if you were white, and stayed in a black person’s apartment. Unfortunately, it was the black people who were treated very badly. They were beaten, kicked and punished to death. Being black, was getting harder and harder, day after day, the black people fought for their rights. Many black leaders were caught and send to prison. One man, who was and is, a very good example, would be Nelson Mandela, who was a brave and clever man. An before the story of apartheid continues I will tell you about Mandela.