Apartheid: What is it?

Contents: INTRODUCTION • FACTS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA • The report says apartheid means racial separation and inequality; apartheid comes from an Afrikaans word which means "separateness"; it is a system that enables a small white minority to maintain political, social, and economic control of the majority and, at the same time, maintain its own wealth, power, and privilege. The report says the government enforces racial segregation by law. Every child born must be registered and classified into one of the four main groups: African, mixed-race or "coloured", Asian or White.mThe report says Africans are divided into tribal groups by the white government which has assigned them to reserves (Bantustans) which constitute less than 13% of the least productive land in South Africa; eighty seven percent (87%) of the land is set aside for the white minority; apartheid laws attempt to control the lives of Black people; they determine where people can live, work and travel, and what kind of education, justice, health care and social services they will receive. The report says South Africa has a tricameral form of government; only white, coloured and Asian people are represented in the three houses of the legislature; African people cannot vote or run for office in national elections; Africans can only vote in some municipal elections which are generally not considered legitimate elections. The report says billions of rands (equivalent to about $.50 in U.S. currency) are spent to enforce the apartheid laws; enforcement is carried out by the huge government bureaucracy as well as by the armed forces, the police, and the intelligence network. The report says petty apartheid is the system of South African laws which are designed to keep certain public facilities segregated; grand apartheid is the policy of stripping Black people of their human and civil rights. The report says apartheid is a system some people refer to as a form of genocide; the United Nations calls apartheid a "crime against humanity, a crime against the conscience and dignity of mankind"; there is a long history of struggle against colonial rule and apartheid in South Africa by both Black and white South Africans. The report says this brief history was compiled with information from several sources including: South Africa, Hope and Challenge by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), The Apartheid Handbook by Roger Omond, Apartheid: The Facts by International Defense and Aid Fund (IDAF) and the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid, and Strangers in Their Own Country, by William Bigelow. The report discusses the Cape of Good Hope, the Khoikhoi, the San, slavery, Dutch (Afrikaners or Boers), Holland, the Great Trek, Battle of Blood River, Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Zulus, struggles by Africans against colonial rulers, the British, discoveries of mineral deposits, gold, diamonds, migratory labor, foreign capital, industrialization, the African labor force, Imbumba Yama Afrika, the African National Congress (ANC), Mahatma Gandhi, an anti-Indian immigration law, the Natal Indian Congress, the Anglo-Boer War, the Native Land Act, nonviolent mass movements against racially discriminatory laws, the e Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), the Communist Party of South Africa, a miners strike, the Native Trust and Land Act, the war against Germany, bus boycotts, Alexandra township, bus fares, Food Committees, the Johannesburg squatters' movement, Soweto, the ANC Youth League, the Smut's 'Ghetto' Bill, the National Party, Prohibition of Mixed-Marriage Act, the Program of Action, civil disobedience and noncooperation against the pass system and other laws of apartheid, Population Registration Act, the Suppression of Communism Act, the Communist Party of South Africa (South African Communist Party, SACP), South African Indian Congress, the Defiance Campaign, unjust laws, the Bantu Education Act, South African Congress of Trade Union (SACTU), inferior curriculum, Black students, protests, the Federation of South African Women, the Women's League of the ANC, the Freedom Charter, Kliptown, the Congress of the People, bus boycotts against fare increases in Evaton and Alexandra, arrested, charges of treason, Nelson Mandela, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Sharpeville, a State of Emergency, the Minister of Justice, banned, the British Commonwealth, Umkhonto-we-Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), sabotage against the apartheid government, the Rivonia Trial, Walter Sisulu, the South African Students Organization (SASO), the Black Consciousness movement, Steven Biko, the Publications Act, independent, students, protested against Bantu education, the Soweto uprising, killings, arrests, police custody, the United Nations, mandatory arms embargo of South Africa, the United Democratic Front (UDF), troops, townships, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Stevie Wonder, school boycotts and closing, a new State of Emergency, missing persons, mass detentions, and newspapers. [Note: This item was included in a packet produced by the Mozambique Support Network.]