What+is+Apartheid?

= = =What is Apartheid?=



In simple term, apartheid is merely a five-hundred dollar word for segregation. Emerging out of South Africa apartheid consisted of numerous laws that allowed the ruling white minority in South Africa to segregate, exploit and terrorize the vast majority: Africans, mostly, but also Asians and Coloureds - people of mixed race. In white-ruled South Africa, black people were denied basic human rights and political rights. Their labor was exploited, their lives segregated. Schools were segregated much like those in the Unites States before the landmark ground breaking U.S. Supreme Court case Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education.

The word //apartheid// means “separateness” in the Afrikaans language and it characterized the rigid racial division between the governing white minority population and the nonwhite majority population, the blacks. The National Party, at the time South Africa’s largest political party, introduced apartheid as part of their campaign in the 1948 elections, and with their victory, apartheid became the governing political policy for South Africa until the early 1990s. Although there is no longer a legal basis for apartheid, the social, economic, and political inequalities between white and black South Africans continue to exist.

Under Apartheid, racist beliefs were enshrined in law and any criticism of the law was suppressed. As acknowledged by the United Nations, apartheid was racism made by law. It was a system dictated in the minutest detail as to how and where the large black majority would live, work and die. Under this system segregation unfolded not only in the schools, but in the work force and community as well. In fact, blacks were not permitted to travel in certain areas without permission. Blacks also had to carry with them, identification cards at all times, detailing where they were going and coming from as well as their personal information such as tribal group, occupation, etc.

The laws determined where members of each group could live, what jobs they could hold, and what type of education they could receive. Laws prohibited most social contact between races, authorized segregated public facilities, and denied any representation of nonwhites in the national government. If you opposed apartheid or spoke out about it you were considered a national trader and a communist. The apartheid government institutionalized strict legislation to punish those who sought to challenge their system and way of living.

On an international level, South African apartheid was criticized by many governments around the world. In fact many countries along side the United States imposed strict economic sanctions on South Africa. It wasn’t until a continued flow of urban revolts continued to erupt the government’s unfair and segregated apartheid system soon began to unravel. It wasn't until 1990 that South Africa's newly elected president announced an end to the apartheid system and declared a new way of government. This monumental stretch was concluded with the release of South Africa's popular human rights and civil rights activist and leader Nelson Mandela.