Apartheid In South Africa

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“Apartheid” is the Afrikaans word for “Separate” or “Apart”. It was a system of racial segregation enshrined in law in South Africa, “justified” by the claim it represented a solution to the “problems” of a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. On the other hand, the United Nations thought of Apartheid as a "crime against humanity”. Under apartheid, the rights, associations, and movements of black citizens and other ethnic groups were restricted and white minority rule was maintained. Racial segregation in South Africa began during colonial times, under Dutch control. The British maintained the policy of segregation when they reached the Cape of Good Hope; according to Asidedu: “the first British occupation of the Cape took place from 1795 …show more content…

It split South African citizens into separate racial groups: Black, White, Coloured and Indian. Between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million non-white South Africans were told to leave their homes and were forced into segregated neighbourhoods, one of the biggest mass resettlements in modern history. According to Murray: "just 13% of South Africa was allocated to blacks who made up about 75% of the population". Non-white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and black citizenship was officially stolen. A black person’s life expectancy during the era of Apartheid was 46 years, extremely low considering white expectancy was 65. Languages other than Afrikaans and English were not deemed to be official languages in South Africa during the period of Apartheid, robbing non-whites of their cultural identity on the basis of the language they …show more content…

During the 1970s and 1980s, the AWB recruited several thousand white South African members who feared or hated the “swaartgevaar” (black danger). The AWB harassed liberal politicians and held large political rallies, dressed in military clothing and armed with light weaponry. Terre’Blanche railed against the lifting of minor Apartheid laws, such as the law banning interracial sex and marriage (originally outlawed under the “Race Relations Act”) and the general mixing of the races (originally outlawed under the “Group Areas Act”). When political unrest was at its most intense, during the so-called “State of Emergency” in the 1980s, there were reports of the AWB using violence and committing murders of unarmed non-white South Africans. During the discussions in the early 1990s that led to South Africa’s first multiracial elections, the AWB threatened all-out

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