Apartheid

For the legal definition of apartheid, see the crime of apartheid. For other uses, see Apartheid (disambiguation).

Apartheid (meaning apartness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of legalized racial segregation enforced by the National Party (NP) South African government between 1948 and 1994. It arose from a longer history of settler rule and Dutch and British colonialism. These colonial relations became policies of separation after South Africa gained self-governance as a dominion within the British Empire and were expanded and formalised into a system of legitimised racism and white nationalism after 1948. Apartheid was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in elections in 1994, the first in South Africa with universal suffrage, but the legacies of apartheid still shape South African politics and society.

Apartheid legislation classified South Africa's inhabitants and visitors into racial groups (Black, White, Coloured and Indian). The system of apartheid sparked significant internal resistance.. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which in turn increased local support for the armed resistance struggle. In response to popular and political resistance, the apartheid government resorted to detentions without trial, torture, censorship, and the banning of political opposition from organisations such as the African National Congress, the Black Consciousness Movement, the Azanian People's Organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress, and the United Democratic Front, which were popularly considered liberation movements. Despite suffering extreme repression and exile, these organisations maintained popular support for the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and forged connections with the international anti-apartheid movement during this period. White South Africa became increasingly militarised, embarking on the border war with the covert support of the USA, and later sending the South African Defence Force into black townships. The anti-apartheid organisations had strong links with other liberation struggles in Africa, and often saw their armed resistance to apartheid as part of the socialist struggle against capitalism.

In 1973, an International Convention of the United Nations General Assembly ruled that the system of apartheid amounted to a crime against humanity, and defined the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

In South Africa, under apartheid, blacks were stripped of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten, theoretically sovereign, bantustans (homelands). The government created the homelands out of the territory of Black Reserves founded during the British Empire period. These reserves were akin to the US Indian Reservation, Canadian First Nations reserves, or Australian aboriginal reserves. Many Black South Africans, however, never resided in these "homelands." The homeland system disenfranchised black people residing in "white South Africa" by restricting their voting rights to the black homelands, the least economically-productive areas of the country. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services with inferior standards for blacks. The black education system within "white South Africa", by design, prepared blacks for lives as a labouring class. There was a deliberate policy in "white South Africa" of making services for black people inferior to those of whites, to try to "encourage" black people to move into the black homelands, hence black people ended up with services inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indians, and 'coloureds'.

Creation of apartheid

Racial segregation and colonialism prior to apartheid

For more information on the period of history leading up to apartheid, see History of South Africa.

Although the creation of apartheid is usually attributed to the Afrikaner-dominated government of 1948-1994, it is also partially a legacy of British colonialism which introduced a system of pass laws in the Cape Colony and Natal during the nineteenth century. This stemmed from the regulation of blacks' movement from the tribal regions to those occupied by whites and coloureds, ruled by the British. There were similar regulations in Australia and New Caledonia (the French Code de L'indigenat).

Laws were passed not only to restrict the movement of blacks into these areas, but also to prohibit their movement from one district to another without a signed pass. Blacks were not allowed onto the streets of towns in the Cape Colony and Natal after dark and had to carry their passes at all times. Mahatma Gandhi, a young lawyer at the time, cut his political teeth by organizing non-violent protests against restrictions which hurt middle-class Indians. Jan Smuts' United Party government began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II. Amid fears integration would eventually lead the nation to racial assimilation, the legislature established the Sauer Commission to investigate the effects of the United Party's policies. The commission concluded integration would bring about a loss of personality for all racial groups.

The practice of apartheid retained many of the features of the above segregationist policies of earlier administrations. Examples include the 1913 Land Act and the various workplace "colour bars". However, Werner Eiselen, the man who designed apartheid, argued the government could not sustain segregation and white supremacy. He also proposed in 1948 apartheid as a "political partition" policy instead of segregation in public facilities. Hence, the idea behind apartheid was more one of political separation, later known as "grand apartheid," than segregation, later known as "petty apartheid." Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd is considered the most influential politician in the growth of apartheid. Natives were discriminated against in almost every facet of life. Racist legislation stated where and how they could live, travel, work, be educated, get married and mingle.

There are numerous distinct differences between segregation and apartheid:

• Segregation was a more elastic strategy which was not officially concurrent with religious ideas; apartheid was ostensibly based on a Christian National dogma of the 'calling' and 'mission' of Afrikanerdom.
• Segregation was employed at time when colonial policies were being followed by the British in Africa and by the Americans in their southern states; apartheid was implemented at a time when the world order was moving away from racism and from using race as an organising criterion.
• The Native Affairs Department was less ferocious than the Bantu Affairs Department that took over from it under the apartheid regime. It played a more direct political role and was characterised by its authoritarian rigidity and unremitting control over blacks' daily lives.
• Only a small amount of segregationist legislation was passed, most of it more moderate than that passed during the apartheid years. Apartheid was formalised systematically by many laws, which mandated racism.

Elections of 1948 and the Group Areas Act

"Petty apartheid": sign on Durban beach in English, Afrikaans and Zulu (1989)

In the run up to the 1948 elections, the National Party (NP) campaigned on its policy of apartheid. The NP narrowly defeated Smuts' United Party and formed a coalition government with the Afrikaner Party (AP), then under the leadership of Protestant cleric Daniel Francois Malan. The coalition government immediately began implementing apartheid policies, passing legislation prohibiting miscegenation, classifying individuals by race, and creating a classification board to rule on race-based infractions. The Group Areas Act of 1950, designed to geographically separate racial groups, became the heart of the apartheid system. The Separate Amenities Act was passed in 1953. Under this Act, municipal grounds could be reserved for a particular race. It created, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. Signboards outlined things clearly with words like "whites only". These notices applied to entire buildings or parts of buildings such as government houses, hospitals, parks, restaurants, shops, beaches, post offices and all other public areas, including park benches.

Interracial contact in sport was frowned upon, but there were no segregatory sports laws. The government was able to keep sport segregated using other legislation, such as the Group Areas Act.

The government tightened existing pass laws, compelling all South Africans to carry identity documents. For the government, these identity documents became a barrier through which the migration of blacks to 'white' South Africa could be prevented. Blacks were prohibited from living in or visiting 'white' towns without a migration permit. For blacks, living in cities required employment. Families were excluded, thus separating wives from husbands and parents from children. Some authors, such as David Yudelman and Hermann Giliomee, argued the system of Apartheid can be traced to the labour movement in South Africa and Cape Colony policies as early as 1907.

Disenfranchisement of coloured voters

J.G. Strijdom, Malan's successor as Prime Minister, moved to strip coloureds and blacks of their voting rights in the Cape Province. The previous government had first introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill in parliament in 1951. However, a group of four voters, G Harris, WD Franklin, WD Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party. The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but the Appeal Court upheld the appeal, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament was needed in order to change the entrenched clauses of the Constitution. The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill, which gave parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court. The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too. In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to eleven, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places. In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the senate from 49 seats to 89. Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats. The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the Separate Representation of Voters act in 1956, which removed coloureds from the common voters' roll in the Cape, and established a separate voters' roll for them.

Apartheid legislation

Main article: Apartheid legislation in South Africa

From the 1950s onwards, various repressive and racist laws were passed. The principal "apartheid laws" were as follows:

• An amendment to The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marital union between persons of different races.
• An amendment to The Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.
• The Population Registration Act of 1950 introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of sixteen, stipulating their racial group on the card.
• The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the South African Communist Party as well as any other party that the government chose to label as 'communist'. It made membership in the SACP punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. The South African minister of justice, R.F. Swart, drafted the law.
• The Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956 prohibited disorderly gatherings.
• The Unlawful Organisations Act of 1960 outlawed certain organisation that were deemed threatening to the government.
• The Sabotage Act was passed 1962, the General Law Amendment Act in 1966, the Terrorism Act in 1967 and the Internal Security Act in 1976.
• The Group Areas Act, passed on 27 April 1950, partitioned the country into different areas, with different areas allocated to different racial groups. This law represented the very heart of apartheid because it was the basis upon which political and social separation was constructed.
• The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks. It was the first piece of legislation established to support the government's plan of separate development in the Bantustans. It made a provision for the institution of Tribal, Regional and Territorial Authorities in the "reserves". Tribal Authorities were set up and positions given to Chiefs and Headmen, who became accountable for the distribution of land, the well-being and annuity systems and the progress of the small money which trickled down to them. The traditional leadership of the African populace became effective representatives of the NP. Disobliging traditional leaders were faced with cruel penalties and were often unseated, as was the case with Chief Albert Lutuli when he was discharged from his position as Chief on declining to quit the African National Congress.
• The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951 allowed the government to demolish black shackland slums.
• The Native Building Workers Act and Native Services Levy of 1951 forced white employers to pay for the construction of proper housing for black workers recognized as legal residents in 'white' cities.
• The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 prohibited people of different races from using the same public amenities, such as restaurants, public swimming pools, and restrooms.
• The Bantu Education Act of 1953 crafted a separate didactic scheme for African students under the aegis of the Department of "Bantu" Education. According to Verwoerd, then Education Minister, the principle of Bantu Education was to ready Africans for a subordinate role under white rule. This was what he had to say about equality in 1953: "When I have control of native education, I will reform it so that the natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them."
  • It brought all black schooling under government control, ending mission-run schools. Apartheid placed great emphasis on separate education for different ethnic groups. Eventually there were 17 separate education systems. The education provided by the black system was of a lower standard to that provided in white, coloured or Indian schools.
• The Bantu Urban Areas Act of 1954 curtailed black migration to cities.
• The Mines and Work Act of 1956 formalised racial discrimination in employment.
• The Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1958 entrenched the NP's policy of separate development, outlining the political and geographic character of South Africa. It set up separate territorial governments in the "homelands", designated lands for black people where they could have a vote. The map of South Africa thus had a white centre with a cluster of black states along its borders. The aim of the Act was that these homelands or bantustans would eventually become independent of South Africa. The principle of ethnicity thus became established in law. The introduction to the Act read thus: "The Bantu people of the Union of South Africa do not constitute a homogeneous people but form separate national units on the basis of language and culture."
• Instead of the Native delegate system founded under the Natives Representative Act of 1936, a scheme for "self–governing Bantu units" was proposed. These national units were to have substantial administrative powers which would be decentralised to each "Bantu" unit and which would ultimately have autonomy and the hope of self-government. These national units were identified as North-Sotho, South-Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, Tsonga and Venda. In later years, the Xhosa national unit was broken further down into the Transkei and Ciskei. The Ndebele national unit was also added later after its "discovery" by the apartheid government. The government justified its plans on the basis that South Africa was made up of different "nations", asserting that "(t)he government's policy is, therefore, not a policy of discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, but a policy of differentiation on the ground of nationhood, of different nations, granting to each self-determination within the borders of their homelands -- hence this policy of separate development." The South African government exercised strong influence over the homelands even after some of them became "independent".
• The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands in order to create employment in the black homelands.
• The Extension of University Education Act of 1959 created separate universities for Blacks, Coloureds and Indians. Under this Act, there were no longer "open universities", and existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. Fort Hare University in the Ciskei (now Eastern Cape) was to register only Xhosa-speaking students. Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Venda speakers were placed at the newly-founded University College of the North at Turfloop, while the University College of Zululand was launched to serve Zulu scholars. Coloureds and Indians were to have their own establishments in the Cape and Natal respectively. Known as "tribal colleges" or "bush campuses" because of their localities, these establishments were part of the state's scheme of South Africa's division into "national units". Ironically, these institutions, set up by the government, became the breeding grounds for black intellectualism and student activism, which was to cause a stern challenge to the NP in later years.
• The Physical Planning and Utilisation of Resources Act of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in 'white' cites and redirect such development to homeland border areas. The aim was to speed up the relocation of blacks to the homelands by relocating jobs to homeland areas. White-owned business was effectively forced to relocate away from 'white' cities. This resulted in the building of cities (housing millions of people) in the black homelands such as Babalegi, Temba, Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa, Mdantsane and Madadeni.
• The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 was a pivotal piece of legislation which marked a new phase in the government's Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of the inhabitants of the "homelands" so that they were no longer citizens of South Africa. All of them became citizens of one or other of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure whites became the demographic majority within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans choose "independence". The homelands would take accountability for millions of Africans, who would cease to be South African citizens. Not all the homelands chose to become self-governing, as they understood that, while they would have absolutely no place in South Africa, they would still be controlled by the apartheid government (in spite of their "independence"). Those who did choose autonomy were the Transkei (1976), Bophuthatswana (1977), Venda (1979) and the Ciskei (1981).
• The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans and English on a fifty-fifty basis in high schools outside the homelands.

To oversee the apartheid legislation, the bureaucracy expanded, and, by 1977, there were more than half a million white state employees. The purpose of these laws was to keep the races apart and any resistance in check. The essential thinking behind apartheid was straightforward: although South Africa was a unitary country, the Nationalists argued that the people did not comprise a single nation but, rather, were made up of four distinct racial groups, namely white, black, Coloured and Indian. These races were split further into thirteen 'nations' or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and Afrikaans language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups. This had the result of making the white race the prevalent one. Whites were seen as the most sophisticated and, in nature, entitled to rule South Africa.

Unity among white South Africans

Before South Africa became a republic, white politics was typified by the division between the chiefly-Afrikaans pro-republicans and the largely English anti-republicans, with the legacy of the Boer War still a factor for some people. Once republican status was attained, Verwoerd called for improved relations and greater accord between the English and Afrikaners. He claimed that the only difference now was between those who supported apartheid and those in opposition to it. The ethnic divide would no longer be between Afrikaans and English, but rather white and black. Most Afrikaners supported the notion of white unanimity to ensure their safety. English whites were divided. Many had voted in opposition to a republic, especially in Natal, where most votes said "No". Later, however, some of them recognised the perceived need for white unity, convinced by the growing trend of decolonisation elsewhere in Africa, which left them apprehensive. Harold Macmillan's "Winds of Change" pronouncement left the English faction feeling that Britain had ditched them. The more conservative English-speakers gave support to Verwoerd; others were troubled by the severing of ties with Britain and remained loyal to the Crown. They were acutely displeased at the choice between British and South African nationality. Although Verwoerd tried to bond these different blocs, the subsequent ballot illustrated only a minor swell of support, proving that a great many English speakers remained apathetic and that Verwoerd had not succeeded in uniting the white populace.

Black South Africans

The republic arrangement brought about greater harmony between English and Afrikaans white South Africans but intensified the split between those who supported and those who opposed apartheid. Black resistance adopted a more drastic approach, as blacks became conscious of the fact that they were damned by the apartheid republic.

Blacks had no say in the construction of a South African republic. They had gone up against it, realising that it would cut them off from international security. Under a republic, white South Africans had absolute autonomy and the power to entrench apartheid even more. Nevertheless, condemnation by the Commonwealth and United Nations Organisation (UNO) encouraged them with the knowledge that exterior support for the liberation effort was not lost. The NP regime had outlawed the ANC and PAC after anti-pass protests and the carnage in the Sharpeville and Langa townships. Resistance organisations went underground. In May 1961 an assembly representing the banned ANC called for negotiations between the members of the different ethnic groupings. They cautioned the Government that, if it disregarded their appeal, demonstrations would be held during the republic's inauguration. When the government overlooked them, the strikers carried out their threats. The government countered swiftly and clinically, giving police the authority to arrest people for up to twelve days. Many resistance directors were detained and numerous cases of police brutality were reported. Defeated, the protesters called off their strike. The ANC then chose to add armaments to the struggle and launched a martial wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which would perform acts of sabotage on tactical state structures. Its first sabotage plans were set to be carried out on 16 December 1961, the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River.

Apartheid system

The apartheid system is often classified into "grand apartheid" and "petty apartheid". Grand apartheid involved an attempt to partition South Africa into separate states, while petty apartheid referred to the segregationist dimension. The National Party clung to grand apartheid until the 1990s, while they abandoned petty apartheid during the 1980s.

Grand Apartheid, the "homeland" system

A rural area in Ciskei, one of the apartheid era "homelands"

Main article: Bantustan

When the NP came into power in 1948, its primary endeavour was to attain a white supremacist Christian National State and implement racial segregation. The key building blocks to enforcement of racial segregation were

• the arrangement of the population into African, Coloured, Indian and white racial groups;
• strict racial segregation in the urban areas;
• restricted African urbanisation;
• a tightly-controlled and more restricted system of migrant labour;
• a stronger accent on tribalism and orthodoxy in African administration than in the past; and
• a drastic strengthening of security legislation and control.

These were to form the foundation on which the "Homelands" guidelines were developed. Territorial separation was not a new-fangled institution. There were, for example, the "reserves" created under the British government in the Nineteenth Century. Under HF Verwoerd's jurisdiction, however, this land was seen as a way to control the increasing movement of black people into the city. Black people would work in the cities but live in their own areas, where they would be housed, educated, and vote for their own internal governments. The ultimate plan was to create ten independent national states out of these homelands.

The state passed two laws which paved the way for "grand apartheid", which was centred on separating races on a large scale, through spatial divisions; that is, compelling people to live in separate places defined by race. The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act 30 of 1950, which necessitated all citizens' being categorised according to race and this being recorded in their identity passes. Official team or Boards were established to come to an ultimate conclusion on those people whose race was unclear. This caused much difficulty, especially for Coloured people, separating their families as members were allocated different races.

The second pillar of grand apartheid was the Group Areas Act 21 of 1950. Until then, most settlements had people of different races living side by side. This Act put an end to diverse areas and determined where one lived, how one survived and how one earned a living by virtue of racial inequality. Each race was allotted its own area, establishing the base for forced removals in later years.

The policy of separate development came into being with the accession to power of Dr HF Verwoerd in 1958. He began implementing the homeland structure as a cornerstone of separate development. Verwoerd came to believe in the granting of "independence" to these homelands. Border industries and the Bantu Investment Corporation, were established to promote economic development and the provision of employment in the homelands (to draw black people away from "white" South Africa).

The Tomlinson Commission of 1954 decided that apartheid was justifiable, but stated additional land ought to be given to the homelands, favouring the development of border industries. In 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act was passed, and proponents of apartheid began to argue that, once apartheid had been implemented, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa; they would instead become citizens of the independent "homelands". In terms of this model, blacks became (foreign) "guest labourers" who merely worked in South Africa as the holders of temporary work permits.

The South African government attempted to divide South Africa into a number of separate states. Some thirteen per cent of the land was reserved for black homelands -- representing fifty per cent of South Africa's arable land (Davenport, 1977: p. 268). That thirteen per cent was divided into ten black "homelands" amongst eight ethnic units. Four of these were given independence, although this was never recognised by any other country. Each homeland was supposed to develop into a separate-nation state within which the eight black ethnic groups were to find and grow their separate national identity, culture and language; Transkei -- Xhosa (given "independence"), Ciskei -- Xhosa (given "independence" in 1981), Bophuthatswana -- Tswana (given "independence"), Venda -- Venda (given "independence"); KwaZulu -- Zulu, Lebowa -- Pedi, Kangwane -- Swazi, QwaQwa -- Sotho, Gazankulu -- Tsonga, and KwaNdebele -- Ndebele. Each homeland controlled its own education and health system.

Once a homeland was granted its "independence," its designated citizens had their South African citizenship revoked, replaced with citizenship in their homeland. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the supposedly "autonomous" homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, and so became less than South African. The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black "citizens" of the "homelands" and the problems which other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.

While other countries were dismantling their discriminatory legislation and becoming more liberal on racial issues, South Africa continued to construct a labyrinth of legislation promoting racial and ethnic separation. Many white South Africans supported apartheid because of demographics; that, is separation and partition were seen as a means of avoiding a one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified South African state, which would render whites a politically-powerless minority. In addition, leaders of the above homelands became important defenders of apartheid, such as Kaiser Matanzima, Bantu Holomisa, Oupa Gqozo, Lucas Mangope and Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

Apartheid placed great emphasis on "self-determination" and "cultural autonomy" for different ethnic groups. For this reason, "mother-tongue" education was strongly emphasised. Thus, in addition to pouring resources into developing Afrikaans educational material, resources were also poured into developing school textbooks in black languages like Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Pedi. As a result, one of the consequences of apartheid was a South African population literate in black-African languages (a rare thing in Africa where schooling is normally carried out in colonial languages like English and French).

Forced removals

During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of 'resettlement', to force people to move to their designated "group areas". Some argue that over three and a half million people were forced to resettle during this period. These removals included people re-located due to slum clearance programmes, labour tenants on white-owned farms, the inhabitants of the so-called 'black spots', areas of black-owned land surrounded by white farms, the families of workers living in townships close to the homelands, and 'surplus people' from urban areas, including thousands of people from the Western Cape (which was declared a 'Coloured Labour Preference Area') who were moved to the Transkei and Ciskei homelands. The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in Johannesburg, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of Soweto, an acronym for South Western Townships.

Until 1955 Sophiatown had been one of the few urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land, and was slowly developing into a multiracial slum. As industry in Johannesburg grew, Sophiatown became the home of a rapidly expanding black workforce, as it was convenient and close to town. It could also boast the only swimming pool for black children in Johannesburg. However, one of the oldest black settlements in Johannesburg and held an almost symbolic importance for the 50,000 blacks it contained, both in terms of its sheer vibrancy and its unique culture. Despite a vigorous ANC protest campaign and worldwide publicity, the removal of Sophiatown began on 9 February 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme. In the early hours, heavily armed police entered Sophiatown to force residents out of their homes and load their belongings onto government trucks. The residents were taken to a large tract of land, thirteen miles from the city centre, known as Meadowlands (that the government had purchased in 1953). Meadowlands became part of a new planned black city called Soweto. The Sophiatown slum was destroyed by bulldozers, and a new white suburb named Triomf (Triumph) was built in its place. This pattern of forced removal and destruction was to repeat itself over the next few years, and was not limited to people of African descent. Forced removals from areas like Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in Durban, and District Six in Cape Town, where 55,000 coloured and Indian people were forced to move to new townships on the Cape Flats, were carried out under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Ultimately, nearly 600,000 coloured, Indian and Chinese people were moved in terms of the Group Areas Act. Some 40,000 white people were also forced to move when land was transferred from "white South Africa" into the black homelands. Forced removals continue in post-apartheid South Africa and are being vigorously contested by, amongst others, the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo.

Petty Apartheid

The National Party passed a string of paltry (but nevertheless very painful) legislation which became known as petty apartheid. The first of these was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 55 of 1949, prohibiting matrimony between white people and people of other races. The Immorality Amendment Act 21 of 1950 (as amended in 1957 by Act 23) marched into the most personal liberties of individual expression and forbade "unlawful racial intercourse" and "any immoral or indecent act" between a white person and an African, Indian or Coloured person.

Blacks were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in those areas designated as "white South Africa" without a permit. They were supposed to move to the black "homelands" and set up businesses and practices there. Transport and civil facilities were segregated. Black buses stopped at black bus stops and white buses at white ones. Trains were segregated. Hospitals and ambulances were segregated. Because of the smaller numbers of white patients and the fact that white doctors preferred to work in "white" hospitals, conditions in white hospitals were much better than those in often overcrowded black hospitals. Blacks were excluded from living or working in white areas, unless they had a pass — nicknamed the dompas ("dumb pass" in Afrikaans). Only blacks with "Section 10" rights (those who had migrated to the cities before World War II) were excluded from this provision. A pass was issued only to a black person with approved work. Spouses and children had to be left behind in black homelands. Many white households employed blacks as domestic workers, who lived on the premises — often in small rooms external to the family home. A pass was issued for one magisterial district (usually one town) confining the holder to that area only. Being without a valid pass made a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This was often followed by deportation to the person's homeland and prosecution of the employer (for employing an illegal migrant). Police vans patrolled the "white" areas to round up "illegal" blacks found there without passes. Black people were not allowed to employ white people in "white South Africa".

Although trade unions for black and "coloured" (mixed race) workers had existed since the early 20th century, it was not until the 1980s reforms that a mass black trade union movement developed. In the 1970s each black child's education within the Bantu Education system (the black education system within "white South Africa") cost the state only a tenth of each white child's. Higher education was provided in separate universities and colleges after 1959. Eight black universities were created in the homelands; an Indian university built in Durban and a coloured university built in Cape Town. In addition, each black homeland controlled its own separate education, health and police system. Blacks were not allowed to buy hard liquor. They were able only to buy an African home brewed beer. (although this was relaxed later). Public beaches were racially segregated. Public swimming pools, some pedestrian bridges, drive-in cinema parking spaces, graveyards, parks, and public toilets were segregated. Cinemas and theatres in "white areas" were not allowed to admit blacks. There were practically no cinemas in black areas. Most restaurants and hotels in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks except as staff. Black Africans were prohibited from attending "white" churches under the Churches Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957. This was, however, never rigidly enforced, and churches were one of the few places races could mix without the interference of the law. Blacks earning 360 rand a year, 30 rand a month, or more had to pay taxes while the white threshold was more than twice as high, at 750 rand a year, 62.5 rand per month. On the other hand, the taxation rate for whites was considerably higher than that for blacks.

Blacks could never acquire land in white areas. In the homelands, much of the land belonged to a 'tribe', where the local chieftain would decide how the land had to be utilized. This resulted in white people owning almost all the industrial and agricultural lands and much of the prized residential land. Most blacks were stripped of their South African citizenship when the "homelands" became "independent". Thus, they were no longer able to apply for South African passports. Eligibility requirements for a passport had been difficult for blacks to meet, the government contending that a passport was a privilege, not a right. As such, the government did not grant many passports to blacks. Apartheid pervaded South African culture, as well as the law. This was reinforced in many media, and the lack of opportunities for the races to mix in a social setting entrenched social distance between people.

Coloured classification

Main article: Coloured

The population was classified into four groups: Black, White, Indian, and Coloured. (These terms are capitalized to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or Black, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or White. Different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloureds. Many of those who formerly belonged to this racial group are opposed to the continuing use of the term "coloured" in the post-apartheid era, though the term no longer signifies any legal meaning. The expressions 'so-called Coloured' (Afrikaans sogenaamde Kleurlinge) and 'brown people' (bruin mense) acquired a wide usage in the 1980s.

Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloureds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships — in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations — and received an inferior education, though better than that provided to Black South Africans. They played an important role in the struggle against apartheid: for example the African Political Organisation established in 1902 had an exclusively coloured membership.

Voting rights were denied to Coloureds in the same way that they were denied to blacks from 1950 to 1983. However, in 1977 the NP caucus approved proposals to bring coloured and Indians into central government. In 1982, final constitutional proposals produced a referendum among white voters, and the Tricameral Parliament was approved. The Constitution was reformed the following year to allow the Coloured and Asian minorities participation in separate Houses in a Tricameral Parliament, and Botha became the first Executive State President. The theory was that the Coloured minority could be granted voting rights, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands. These separate arrangements continued until the abolition of apartheid. The Tricameral reforms led to the formation of the (anti-apartheid) UDF as a vehicle to try and prevent the co-option of coloureds and Indians into an alliance with white South Africans. The subsequent battles between the UDF and the NP government from 1983 to 1989 were to became the most intense period of struggle between left-wing and right-wing South Africans.

Women under apartheid

Colonialism and apartheid had a major impact on women since they suffered both racial and gender discrimination. Oppression against African women was different from discrimination against men. Indeed, they had very few or no legal rights, no access to education and no right to own property. Jobs were often hard to find but many African women worked as agricultural or domestic workers though wages were extremely low if not non-existent. Children suffered from diseases caused by malnutrition and sanitary problems, and mortality rates were therefore high. The controlled movement of African workers within the country through the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the pass-laws, separated family members from one another as men usually worked in urban centers, while women were forced to stay in rural areas. Marriage law and births were also controlled by the government and the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church, who tried to restrict African birth rates.

Other minorities

Defining its East Asian population, which is a minority in South Africa but who do not physically appear to belong any of the four designated groups, was a constant dilemma for the apartheid government. Chinese South Africans who were descendants of migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late 19th century, were classified as "Indian" and hence "non-white", whereas immigrants from Republic of China (Taiwan), South Korea and Japan, with which South Africa maintained diplomatic relations, were considered "honorary whites" and termed "Worthy Oriental Gentlemen", thus granted the same privileges as normal whites. It should be noted that "Non-Whites" were sometimes granted an 'honorary white' status as well, based on the government's belief that they were "civilised" and possessed Western values. This was frequently the case with African-Americans.

Internal resistance

ANC and the PAC

In 1947, the "Three Doctors Pact" was signed doctors Naicker, Dadoo and Xuma, committing the African National Congress (ANC), Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and Natal Indian Congress (NIC) to co-operation. Earlier, in 1943, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) had been established, becoming a significant component of the ANC. In 1949, the conservative leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) was overthrown by its Youth League (ANCYL). Led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, elected to the ANC's National Executive that year, the ANCYL advocated a radical black nationalist programme which combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with those of Marxism. They brought the notion that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns.

Once the ANCYL had taken control of the ANC, the organization advocated a policy of open defiance and resistance for the first time. This unleashed the 1950s Programme of Action, instituted in 1949, which laid emphasis on the right of the African people to freedom under the flag of African Nationalism. It laid out plans for strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience, resulting in occasionally violent clashes, with mass protests, stay-aways, boycotts and strikes predominating. The 1950 May Day stay-away was a strong, successful expression of black grievances.

In 1952 the Joint Planning Council, made up of members from the ANC, the South African Indian Congress as well as the Coloured People's Congress, agreed on a plan for the defiance of unfair laws. They wrote to the Prime Minister, DF Malan and demanded that he repeal the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act, the Bantu Administration Act and other legislation, warning that refusal to do so would be met with a campaign of defiance. The Prime Minister was haughty in his rejoinder, referring the Council to the Native Affairs Department and threatening to treat insolence callously.

The Programme of Action was launched with the Defiance Campaign in June 1952. By defying the laws, the organisation hoped for mass arrests with which the government would be unable to cope. Nelson Mandela led a crowd of fifty men down the streets of a white area in Johannesburg after the 11 pm curfew that forbade black peoples' presence. The group was apprehended, but the rest of the country followed its example. Defiance spread throughout the country and black people disregarded racial laws by, for example, walking through "whites only" entries. At the campaign's zenith, in September 1952, more than 2,500 people from 24 different towns had been arrested for defying various laws.

By the end of the campaign, the government arrested 8,000 people, but was forced to temporarily relax its apartheid legislation. In addition, as a direct result of the campaign, membership of the ANC increased and attention was drawn to apartheid's injustices. Once things had calmed down, however, the government responded with an iron fist, taking several supreme measures -- among which were the Unlawful Organisations Act, the Suppression of Communism Act, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Procedures Act. Thus, in the longer term, this spelt defeat for the resistance movement. In December 1952, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and eighteen others were tried under the Suppression of Communism Act for leading the Defiance Campaign. They received nine months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.

The Criminal Law Amendment Act stated that "[a]ny person who in any way whatsoever advises, encourages, incites, commands, aids or procures any other person [...] or uses language calculated to cause any other person to commit an offence by way of protest against a law [...] shall be guilty of an offence".

The government also constricted the regulation on separate amenities. Protesters had argued to the courts that different amenities for different races ought to be of an equal standard. The Separate Amenities Act removed the façade of mere separation; it gave the owners of public amenities the right to bar people on the basis of colour or race and made it lawful for different races to be treated inequitably. Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and other famous ANC, Indian Congress and trade union chiefs were all vetoed under the Suppression of Communism Act. The proscription meant that the headship was now restricted to its homes and adjacent areas and they were banned from attending public gatherings.

Though cruelly limited, the movement was still able to struggle against the oppressive instruments of the state. More importantly, collaboration between the ANC and NIC had increased and strengthened through the Defiance Campaign. Support for the ANC and its endeavours increased. In August of 1953, the ANC Cape conference suggested an Assembly of the people.

Meanwhile, on the global stage, India demanded that apartheid be challenged by the United Nations. It led to the establishment of a UN commission on apartheid. This first encouraged black South Africans in their campaign, but, after five months, the African and Indian Congresses opted to call it off because of the increasing number of riots, strikes and heavier sentences on those who took part. During the campaign, almost 8,000 black and Indian people had been detained. At the same time, however, ANC membership grew from 7,000 to 100,000, and the number of subdivisions went from fourteen at the start of the campaign to 87 at its end. There was also a change in headship. Shortly before the campaign's end, Albert Luthuli was elected as the new ANC president.

A National Convention of all South Africans was proposed by Professor ZK Matthews at the Cape ANC conference on 15 August 1953. The intention was to chew over the national problems on an all-inclusive basis and outline a manifesto of amity. In March 1954, the ANC, the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Coloured People's Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) met and founded the National Action Council for the Congress of the People. Delegates were drawn from each of these establishments and a nationwide organiser was assigned. A campaign was publicised for the drafting of a freedom charter, and a call was made for 10,000 unpaid assistants to help with the conscription of views from across the country and the organisation of the Congress of the People. Demands were documented and sent to the local board of the National Action Council in preparation for drafting the Charter.

The Congress of the People was held from 26 to 27 of June 1955 in Kliptown, just south of Johannesburg. Under the attentive gaze of the constabulary, 3,000 delegates gathered to revise and accept the Freedom Charter that had been endorsed by the ANC's National Executive on the eve of the Congress. Among the organisations present were the Indian Congress and the ANC. The Freedom Charter, which articulated a vision for South Africa radically different to the partition policy of apartheid, emphasising that South Africa should be a just and non-racial society. It called for a one-person-one-vote democracy within a single unified state and stated that all people should be treated equally before the law, that land should be "shared among those who work it" and that the people should "share in the country's wealth" -- a statement which has often been interpreted as a call for socialist nationalisation. The congress delegates had consented to almost all the sections of the charter when the police announced that they suspected treason and recorded the names and addresses of all those present.

In 1956 the Federation of South African Women was founded and led by Lilian Ngoyi and the more famous Helen Joseph. On 9 August that year, the women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, protesting against the pass laws. On the morning of December 5, 1956, however, the police detained 156 Congress Alliance leaders. 104 African, 23 white, 21 Indian and eight Coloured people were charged with high treason and plotting a violent overthrow of the state, to be replaced by a communist government. The charge was based on statements and speeches made during both the Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People. The Freedom Charter was used as proof of the Alliance's communist intent and their conspiracy to oust the government. The State relied greatly on the evidence of Professor Arthur Murray, an ostensible authority on Marxism and Communism. His evidence was that the ANC papers were full of such communist terms as "comrade" and "proletariat", often found in the writings of Lenin and Stalin. Halfway through the drawn-out trial, charges against 61 of the accused were withdrawn, and, five years after their arrest, the remaining thirty were acquitted after the court held that the state had failed to prove its case.

Sharpeville massacre

Main article: Sharpeville massacre

In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members broke away from the ANC and formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), saying the ANC was too strongly influenced by white communists. First on the PAC's agenda was a series of nationwide demonstrations against the pass laws. The PAC called for blacks to demonstrate against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of the mass demonstrations organized by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging. Estimates of the size of the crowd vary from 3,000 to 20,000. The crowd converged on the Sharpeville police station, singing and offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their pass books. A group of about 300 police panicked and opened fire on the demonstrators after the crowd trampled down the fence surrounding the police station. They killed 69 people and injured 186. All the victims were black, and most of them had been shot in the back. Many witnesses stated that the crowd was not violent, but Colonel J. Pienaar, the senior police officer in charge on the day, said, "Hordes of natives surrounded the police station. My car was struck with a stone. If they do these things they must learn their lesson the hard way". The event became known as the Sharpeville massacre. In its aftermath the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

The Sharpeville Massacre helped shape ANC policy. Before Sharpeville those advocating the use of organized violence, such as Nelson Mandela, had been marginalized as too radical by the ANC's leadership. After Sharpeville Mandela was allowed to launch his guerilla struggle (called the "M" Plan). Hence, from 1961 the ANC adopted terrorist tactics, such as intimidation, bombing, murder and sabotage. Although their units detonated bombs in restaurants, shopping centres, cinemas and in front of government buildings over the following years, the military wings of the ANC and PAC were never a military threat to the state.

Resistance goes underground

Sharpeville signalled that the South African government was not going to yield to the mood of black nationalism then sweeping across Africa, and that white South Africans did not accept that they were "colonials" to be swept into the sea by "decolonization". Sharpeville thus foreshadowed the coming conflict between black nationalists and Afrikaner nationalists over the next thirty years.

In the wake of the shooting, a massive stay-away from work was organised and demonstrations continued. Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd declared a state of emergency, giving security forces the right to detain people without trial. Over 18,000 were arrested, including much of the ANC and PAC leadership, and both organizations were banned. The National Party government felt that outlawing the ANC and PAC would discontinue their operations. This was not the case. Some leaders went into exile abroad, while others stayed in South Africa and pursued the fight domestically. They went underground and initiated secret armed opposition groups.

The ANC and PAC ran campaigns of sabotage and terrorism through their armed wings, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, MK) and Poqo ("Pure" or "Alone"). The ANC leader, Chief Albert Luthuli, did not support an armed struggle, but there was growing backing for a violent struggle as people became more and more aggravated by the government's aversion to hearing them out. In June 1961 the ANC executive concurred on the formation of an armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), meaning "Spear of the Nation".

Nelson Mandela, who was the commander of the ANC's military wing (MK), had developed the "M Plan" (Mandela Plan), a programme of controlled sabotage, launching a guerilla war modelled upon the FLN's struggle in Algeria. Its policy involved the targeting of state buildings for sabotage without resorting to murder. On 16 December 1961 MK carried out its first acts of sabotage by assaulting post offices and other structures in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Many other acts of sabotage would take place over the next few years. In its first eighteen months, MK carried out about 200 acts of sabotage, but despite its policy, some deaths did occur. The headquarters were at the farm Lilliesleaf in Rivonia, just outside Johannesburg.

Mandela began planning for MK members to be given military tuition outside South Africa and managed to slip past authorities as he himself moved in and out of the country, earning him the moniker "The Black Pimpernel". Mandela initially resisted arrest within South Africa, but in August 1962, after receiving some inside information, the police put up a roadblock and captured him. MK's success declined after this, and the police infiltrated the organisation.

A crusade was launched against the dissident establishments. Many people were outlawed or placed under house arrest. In this way, the ANC net was shattered by the mid-1960s. Some people were held in detention, where they were often tormented or executed. In 1963, through a leak from informant Gerard Ludi, the police found the location of the MK headquarters at Lilliesleaf. In July, they raided the farm and arrested many major leaders of the ANC and MK, including Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Ahmed Kathrada. They were detained and indicted with sabotage and attempting to bring down the government. At the same time, police collected evidence to be used in the trial, which enabled them to arrest other such people, like Denis Goldberg. Especially harmful was the information on Operation Mayibuye (Operation Comeback), a plan for bringing exiles back into the country. It also revealed that MK was planning to use guerrilla warfare.

Some ANC members, including Oliver Tambo, avoided capture and escaped South Africa to pursue the ANC's interests from beyond the country's boundaries. Tambo was to lead the ANC in exile for another thirty years. Many supporters also left South Africa for military training under MK.

The PAC's secretive martial arm was called Poqo, meaning "go it alone" or "pure" in the Xhosa tongue. Poqo was prepared to take lives in the quest for liberation. It murdered whites, police informants and black people who supported the government. It arranged a national revolution in order to conquer the white government, but poor organisation and in-house nuisances crippled the PAC and Poqo.

The PAC did not have adequate direction. When Robert Sobukwe (jailed following the Sharpeville massacre) was discharged from Robben Island in 1969, he was placed under house arrest in Kimberley until he died in 1978. Police repeatedly lengthened his incarceration through the "Sobukwe clause", which permitted the state to detain people even after they had served their sentences. Many other PAC principals were taken into custody on 21 March 1960, and those released were hampered by bans.

The PAC's management difficulties also existed in exile. When they were outlawed, PAC leaders set up headquarters, in among places, Dar es Salaam, London and the United States. In 1963, Potlako Leballo left the country for Maseru, Lesotho, and became the PAC's acting president. When Leballo bragged misguidedly about a radical conflict that the PAC was about to get under way, the police confiscated correspondence being carried across the border and discovered lists with names of other PAC members. A wave arrests followed, and 3,246 PAC and Poqo members went to jail. This led to the crumpling of the PAC within South Africa.

Leballo also annoyed PAC leaders with his apparently frail management. In 1968, they tried to drive him out of the organisation, and the PAC was eventually expelled from Maseru and Lusaka. All in all, MK ran a far more successful guerilla campaign than Poqo.

The widely-publicised Rivonia Trial began in October 1963. Ten men stood accused of treason, trying to depose the government and sabotage. Nelson Mandela was tried, along with those arrested at Lilliesleaf and another 24 co-conspirators. Many of these people, however, had already fled the country, Tambo being but one.

The ANC used the lawsuit to draw international interest to its cause. During the trial, Mandela gave his legendary "I am prepared to die" diatribe. In June 1964, eight were found guilty of terrorism, sabotage, planning and executing guerilla warfare, and working towards an armed invasion of the country. The treason charge was dropped. All eight were sentenced to life imprisonment. They did not get the death penalty, as this hazarded too much international criticism. Goldberg was sent to the Pretoria jail, and the other seven were all banished to the prison on Robben Island. Bram Fischer, the defence trial attorney, was himself arrested and tried shortly thereafter.

The trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council, and was a major force in the introduction of international sanctions against the South African government. After Sharpeville the ANC, PAC and South African Communist Party were banned, and leaders like Mandela were either in jail or in exile.

By incarcerating leaders of MK and the ANC, the government was able to break the potency of the ANC within South Africa's borders, and greatly affect its efficiency outside of them. The ANC faced many problems in the aftermath of the Rivonia Trial, its inner administration cruelly afflicted. Exiled leaders understood that conveying skilled guerrillas into South Africa would be complicated, as bordering states were unfriendly towards the ANC. Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Bechuanaland (now Botswana) were still in colonial hands, and South West Africa (now Namibia) was controlled by the South African government. Thus, by 1964, the government had essentially broken the activist movements.

At the same time, international criticism of apartheid increased. The United Nations denounced the trial and commenced steps for the introduction of sanctions. The PAC and Poqo persisted in their activities through the late 1960s and 1970s, but, because of their use of violence, members were under continuous police surveillance, and there were few acts of damaging sabotage. The ANC looked into ways of infiltrating South Africa in spite of its dearth of internal structure.

Although the ANC attempted to reconstruct itself, there would be no real action until the 1970s, when striking militancy began to reappear. At the end of the 1960s, new organisations and ideas would form to confront apartheid. The next key act of opposition would come only in 1976, however, with the Soweto uprising.

The government's effort at defeating all opposition had been effective. The State of Emergency was de-proclaimed; the economy boomed; and the government began implementing apartheid by building the infrastructures of the ten separate Homelands, and relocating blacks into these homelands. In 1966, Verwoerd was stabbed to death in parliament, but his policies continued under B.J. Vorster and later P.W. Botha.

File:Soweto Riots.jpg

Famous photograph of the Soweto riots showing a student carrying the body of Hector Pieterson, one of the first casualties.

Black Consciousness Movement

Prior to the 1960s, the NP government had been most effective in crushing anti-apartheid opposition within South Africa. This it did by outlawing freedom movements like the ANC and PAC, and driving their leaders into exile or captivity. This planted the seeds for the struggle, particularly at such tertiary-education organisations as the University of the North and Zululand University. These institutions were fashioned out of the Extension of University Education Act of 1959, which guaranteed that black and white students would be taught individually and inequitably.

After the banning of the ANC and PAC, and the Rivonia Trial, the struggle within South Africa had been dealt a stern blow. The age bracket that had seen the Sharpeville Massacre had become apathetic in its gloom and despair. This changed in the late 1960s and most notably from the mid-1970s, when new devotion came from the latest, more radical generation. During this epoch, new anti-apartheid ideas and establishments were created, and they gathered support from across South Africa.

The surfacing of the South African Black Consciousness Movement was influenced by its American equivalent, the American Black Power movement, and directors such as Malcolm X. African heads like Kenneth Kaunda also stirred ideas of autonomy and Black Pride by means of their anti-colonialist writings. Scholars grew in assurance and became far more candid about the NP's bigoted policies and the repression of the black people.

During the 1970s, resistance gained force, first channelled through trade unions and strikes, and then spearheaded by the South African Students' Organisation, under the charismatic leadership of Steve Biko. A medical student, Biko was the main force behind the growth of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, which stressed the need for psychological liberation, black pride, and non-violent opposition to apartheid.

The BC faction was the most important movement of the late 'sixties and 'seventies. Founded by Biko, it materialised out of the ideas of the civil rights movement and Black Power movement in the USA. The motto of the movement was "Black is Beautiful", first made popular by boxer Mohammed Ali. BC endorsed black pride and African customs, and did much to alter feelings of inadequacy, while also raising awareness of the fallacy of blacks being seen as inferior. It defied practices and merchandise that were meant to make black people "whiter", such as hair straighteners and skin lighteners. Western culture was toured as destructive and alien to Africa. Black people became conscious of their own distinctive identity and self-worth, and grew more outspoken about their right to freedom.

The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was the first student representative, but it had a principally white membership, and black students saw this as an impediment. White students had concerns more scholastic than political, and, although the administration was multi-racial, it was not tackling many of the issues of the mounting number of black students since 1960. This resulted in the 1967 creation of the University Christian Movement (UCM), an organisation rooted in African-American philosophy.

In July 1967, the annual NUSAS symposium took place at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. White students were permitted to dwell on university grounds, but black students were relegated to an abode further away in a church vestibule. This brought about the construction of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), under Steve Biko, in 1969.

Black Consciousness grew very fashionable among the millions of blacks around the globe who had known and experienced intolerance. Churches did much to swell its popularity, and a number of establishments were formed to support and spread the idea -- especially among the students and workers. One of these administrations, and one in which Steve Biko played a pivotal role, was the South African Student's Organisation (SASO).

Since 1959, black people had been forced to attend universities separate to those of white students. Although the active student organisation, the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), remained a radical, multi-racial unification opposed to apartheid, white students played the most dynamic and active role. With the growth of Black Consciousness, however, black students began to understand the need for their own organisation. In 1968, many of them broke away from NUSAS and helped to form SASO. They wanted to give more prominence to the troubles of black students and black society.

The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was an umbrella organisation for groups such as SASO. It was created in 1967, and among its members were the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), SASO, the black Community Programme (which directed welfare schemes for blacks), the Black People's Convention (which, at first, attempted to unite charitable associations like that for the Education and Cultural Advancement of African People of South Africa) and the South African Students Movement (SASM), which represented high-school learners. The BPC finally expanded into a political administration, with Steve Biko as its honorary president.

When the BCM's principles were illuminated, a number of fresh organisations, staunch in their endorsement of black liberation, came into being. AZAPO was only launched in 1978, a long time after the birth of the BCM, as a medium for its message.

The BCM drew most of its backing from high schools and tertiary institutions. Black Consciousness ethics were crucial in lifting consciousness amongst black people of their value and right to a better existence, along with the need to insist on these. The BCM's non-violent approach subsided in favour of a more radical element as its resolve to attain liberty was met with state hostility.

After the carnage in Soweto, Nelson Mandela, head of the ANC, grudgingly concurred that bloodshed was the only means left to convince the NP to accede to commands for an end to its apartheid policy. A subversive plan of terror was mapped out, with Steve Biko and the BCM to the fore. The BCM and other opinionated elements were prohibited during the 1970s because the government saw them as dangerous. Black Consciousness in South Africa adopted a drastic theory, much like socialism, as the liberation movement progressed to challenging class divisions and shifting from an ethnic stress to focusing more on non-racialism. The BCM became more worried about the destiny of the black people as workers, believing that "economic and political exploitation has reduced the black people into a class".

With Black Consciousness increasing throughout black communities, quite a few other organisations were formed to combat apartheid. In 1972, the Black People's Convention was founded, and the black Allied Worker's Union, formed in 1973, focused on black labour matters. The black Community Programmes gave attention to the more global issues of black communities. School learners began to confront the policy Bantu education, a policy designed to ready them for a second-rate role in society. They created the South African Student's Movement (SASM). It was particularly popular in Soweto, where the 1976 insurrection against Bantu Education would prove to be a crossroads in the fight against apartheid.

The chief reason for the Soweto Uprisings was the adjustment to black schooling brought in by the National Party government following the 1948 elections. The Bantu Education Act was finally instituted in 1953 after the Eiselen Commission's 1949 enquiry into the edification of non-whites. The commission advocated drastic measures in the form of restructuring the "Bantu" school arrangement. Before the Bantu Education Act, the vast majority of black children went to mission schools that obtained economic propping from the state. This changed with the conception of the Bantu Education Department. Mission schools lost government aid and had to close. Funding for the black schools now came from the taxes paid by the black people, most of whom were impoverished. The upshot was a very uneven distribution of teaching reserves between black and white scholars.

Learners and teachers alike were against the introduction of Bantu Education, which they saw as substandard. This discontent effected the creation of a number of lobby groups and movements which regarded the new organism as a governmental plan for the grooming of blacks for unskilled or semi-skilled toil. For a while, alternative culture guilds were employed as unofficial instruction facilities, but these ultimately shut down in 1960.

1959 brought the severance of black and white tertiary schooling via the Extension of University Act. Only the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand, with their considerable amount of non-white learners, were significantly impinged on. Special tertiary institutions, such as Vista, Fort Hare, Venda and Western Cape, were started up to look after the educational needs of black students. These, referred to as "Tribal colleges" or "bush universities", ignited further remonstration. As the requirement remained for a semi-skilled black workforce, more state finances were supplied in the late-'sixties for Bantu Education. The standard was far below that of white institutions, but an increasing number of black brood went to school. Teachers and amenities were scarce, with many teachers hardly more learned than their learners.

The Coloured Person's Education Act of 1963 made "coloured" education the responsibility of the Department of Coloured Affairs. These institutions had to enrol with the government and were obligatory for all coloured kids, who were no longer permitted to go to white schools. The NP regime moved forward in its endeavour to divide all racial clusters, and, in 1965, the Indian Education Act consigned Indian education to the Department of Indian Affairs.

New-fangled schools in the "homelands" made certain that no fresh schools were constructed for non-white scholars in municipal regions from 1962 to '71. The majority were employed in and around major cities, and commerce in these regions strained the state until, in 1972, it committed itself to generating better-qualified labourers by perking up the education system. This culminated in the building of forty new schools in Soweto, and, from '72 to '76, the learning populace multiplied threefold. Still, though, only one in every five Soweto children attended school.

The teaching structure was not the only root of the Soweto Uprising; there was also, of course, growing irritation with apartheid. The mechanism which most directly set the uprising in motion was the Southern Transvaal Bantu Education Department's choice, in 1974, to have all junior secondary black undergraduates be educated in the English and Afrikaans media in a fifty-fifty ratio. The Afrikaans Medium Decree, forcing all schools for blacks to use the Afrikaans language as the medium for instruction in Mathematics, Social Sciences, Geography and History at secondary-school level. Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education, was quoted as saying, "I have not consulted the African people on the language issue, and I'm not going to. An African might find that 'the big boss' spoke only Afrikaans or spoke only English. It would be to his advantage to know both languages."

The policy was deeply unpopular, since Afrikaans was regarded by some as "the language of the oppressor". English was favoured as the handy global medium. Protestations came from educators' establishments and school boards. Both teachers and parents felt deeply let down because, in 1973, Dr. H. J. van Zyl, the Secretary for Bantu Education, had sent out a declaration promising that each school board could decide on its teaching language after consulting him. He had also declared that training in two tongues was not advantageous to the scholars. School boards and teacher administrations initiated action, sending reps to the Minister of Bantu Education, M. C. Botha, requesting that he withdraw his verdict, but they were all left dissatisfied. In May 1975, Southern Transvaal school boards voted for a board to fight their cause, but again they failed. Some boards commanded their educators to employ only English, but, after warnings from the Department of Bantu Education, they conceded defeat and followed their orders.

Soweto learners were displeased with the admin-board structure and the rule of the Johannesburg City Council. The accumulated pressure and discontent gave rise to strikes and demonstrations by thousands of school children and, of course, the great defining moment of 16 June 1976. The Belle, Emthonjeni, Khulangolwasi, Pimville, and Thulasizwe Primary High Schools, and the Phefeni and Senoaoane Junior Secondary Schools were just some of the institutions which joined in on the strike. Most of the protest leaders came from the Naledi and Morris Isaacson High Schools.

On 30 April 1976, students at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion spread to other schools in Soweto.

The revolts in Soweto commenced on 16 June and went on for three days more. The occasion marked a watershed due to the viciousness of the authorities' reply: police opened fire on marching, stone-throwing school children.

The first student to be shot was Hastings Ndlovu, aged fifteen, but the image of Hector Pieterson who was killed at age twelve, became an international symbol of and for the uprising. The official death toll on the day lies at 23, including the two children, but some place it as high as 200. The incident triggered widespread violence throughout South Africa, claiming further lives.

The clash between law-enforcement officials and protesting students enraged contract workers in Soweto. They had to neglect their work and put their jobs in jeopardy because of the conflict. Further altercations were had with the students over this. The consequential turmoil went on until October 1977, when all Black Consciousness Movements were prohibited by Jimmy Kruger, the Minister of Justice, after the death of Steve Biko a month earlier.

The Soweto protests swelled all over South Africa. The University of Zululand's records and administrational houses were set ablaze, and 33 people died in insurgences in Port Elizabeth in August. Cape Town lost 92 people between August and September. Most of the bloodshed had abated by the close of 1976, but, by that time, more than 600 people had perished. The Soweto Uprising alone brought about 170 deaths, together with injuries to another 1,430. Infrastructural harm was huge, affecting schools, municipal amenities and companies.

The consequences of the Soweto Uprising were felt for ages. Youths became aware and appreciative of their ability to stand up to the state. The Uprising had altered the political climate of the country. The deaths of over 100 Soweto school children incited the struggle in other parts of South Africa.

The growing clout and feeling of accomplishment inspired the black youth to arrange themselves for fierce resistance. They became certain of the need to use whatever way possible to bring an end to apartheid. More than 1,000 young people left South Africa, most of them to Tanzania, to be educated in militant struggle at the guerilla training. Political youth organisations increased with the creation of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) in 1969. It drew the membership of over a million learners, but security police launched an attack on it in July 1985, and more than 500 members were seized.

The ANC also underlined youth gripes, thus strengthening and mobilising more people for the freedom fight. The ANC and PAC recruited emigrant students to join the armed struggle. Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana were primary destinations for those escaping South Africa to continue their learning rather than hazard being locked up or murdered. The South African administration responded with additional suppressive measures to stifle the deluge.

Insistences on an advanced commission of inquiry into the happenings of 16, 17 and 18 July 1976 were printed in countrywide broadsheets, and the Urban Bantu Council was condemned for its want of action. The Regional Director of Bantu Education reacted by finding fault with the Black People's Convention for inciting a student rebellion. Minister of Bantu Education MC Botha remarked in The World paper of 18 June 1976 that "[t]he alleged aversion to Afrikaans as a medium can hardly be the only reason for the demonstrations", adding that this was manifest in the fact that seven of the participant schools were not affected by the use of Afrikaans as a teaching language. He was correct, of course, but not in the way that he believed.

In August 1976, Soweto's Black Parents' Association held a conference of more than 200 people, including some students. Dr Manas Buthelezi, leader of the BPA, encouraged students to return to their schools and attempt to resolve their gripes with internal endeavours rather than external remonstration. A list of resolutions was drawn up. The foremost applications were for the instantaneous discharge of all arrested learners and a conclusion to the Bantu Education structure. Although Jimmy Kruger promised parents that all of their children would be freed, that is not what transpired. The BPA and sympathetic sister black bodies decided to have a protest rally against the imprisonment of students.

Misery and fury amongst the black youth spilt over into violent behaviour. Afraid of the tide of hostility and annihilation, and viewing it as a threat to state security and stability, the NP government came down with a heavy hand. Police raided the townships in search of ringleaders. Among those arrested was Steve Biko.

Pictures and reports of the revolts were put out in newspapers across the globe, increasing substantially its awareness of the uprisings and South Africa's political milieu. The United Nations Security Council passed a mandatory arms ban on South Africa.

Taken into custody on 18 August 1977, Steve Biko was brutally tortured by unidentified security personnel until he lapsed into a coma. He went for three days without medical treatment and finally died in Pretoria. At the subsequent inquest, the magistrate ruled that no-one was to blame, but the South African Medical Association eventually took action against the doctors who had failed to treat Biko.

There was tremendous reaction both within and outside South Africa. Foreign countries imposed even more stringent sanctions than those which had come before, and the United Nations imposed an arms embargo. Young blacks inside South Africa committed themselves even more fervently to the struggle against apartheid, under the catchphrase "Liberation before education". Black communities became highly politicised.

The Black Consciousness Movement began to change its focus during the 1980s from being on issues of nation and community to issues of class and, perhaps as a result, had far less of an impact than in the mid-'seventies. Still, there is some evidence to suggest that it retained at least some influence, particularly in workers' organisations.

The role of Black Consciousness could be quite clearly seen in the approach of the National Forum, which believed that the struggle ought to hold little or no place for whites. This ideal, of blacks leading the resistance campaign, was an important aim of the traditional BC groups, and it shaped the thinking of many 'eighties activists, most notably the workforce. Furthermore, the NF focused on workers' issues, which became more and more important to BC supporters.

The Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) was the leading BC group of the 1980s. It got most of its support from young black men and women -- many of them educated at colleges and universities. The organisation had a lot of support in Soweto and also amongst journalists, helping to popularise its views. It focused, too, on workers' issues, but it refused to form any ties with the whites.

Although it did not achieve quite the same groundswell support that it had in the late 1970s, BC still influenced the thinking of a few resistance groups.

Student organisations

Student organisations played a significant role in the Soweto uprisings. Opposition to Bantu Education offered a stage for the growth of youth organisations such as the South African Students Movement (SASM), which later became the Soweto Students' Representatives Council (SSRC), and the South African Students Organisation (SASO).

South African Students Movement

Students from Orlando West and Diepkloof High Schools created the African Students Movement in 1970. This spread to the Eastern Cape and Transvaal, drawing other high schools. In March 1972, the South African Students Movement (SASM) was instituted.

SASM gave support to its members with school work and exams, and with progress from lower school levels to university. Security forces pestered its members continually until, in 1973, some of its headship fled the country. In 1974 and 1975, some affiliates were captured and tried under the Suppression of Communism and Terrorism Acts. This flagged the SASM's progress. Many school headmasters and -mistresses forbade the organisation from playing a role in their schools.

When the Southern Transvaal local Bantu Education Department concluded that all junior secondary black students had to be taught in Afrikaans in 1974, SASM limbs at Naledi High and Orlando West Secondary Schools opted to vent their grievances on school books and refused to attend their schools This form of struggle spread fast to other schools in Soweto and hit boiling point around 8 June 1976. When law enforcement attempted to arrest a regional SASM secretary, they were stoned and had their cars torched.

On 13 June 1976, nearly 400 SASM associates gathered and chose to start a movement for mass action. An Action Committee was shaped with two agents from each school in Soweto. This board became known as the Soweto Students' Representatives Council (SSRC). The protest was set aside for 16 June 1976, and the organisers were determined only to use aggression if they were assaulted by the police.

National Union of South African Students

After the Sharpeville Massacre, some black student organisations came out but were short-lived under state proscription and antagonism from university powers. They were also unsuccessful in cooperating effectively with one another, resulting in a dearth of harmony and force.

By 1963, one of the few envoys for tertiary students was the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Although the organisation was meant to be non-racial and anti-government, it was made up primarily of white English students from customarily broad-minded universities such as those in Natal, Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and Grahamstown. These students were had compassion for the effort against the state. By 1967, however, NUSAS was forbidden from functioning on black universities, making it almost impossible for black Student Representative Councils to join the union.

South African Students Organisation

Growing displeasure among black students and the expansion of Black Consciousness led to the incarnation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) at Turfloop. In July 1969, Steve Biko became the organisation's inaugural head. This boosted the mood of the students and the Black Consciousness Movement. By means of the unified configuration of SASO, the principles of Black Consciousness came to the forefront as a fresh incentive for the strugglers.

Trade-Union movement

In 1973, the world's fiscal boom came to an end. At the same time, labour action in South Africa was renewed, and there were a number of strikes in Durban. The abuse of black workers had been vogue, and, as a consequence, there were many black people being paid too little on which to live. A strike, commenced in January by 2,000 workers of the Coronation Brick and Tile Company for a pay raise (from under R10 to R20 a week), drew a lot hype and encouraged other workers to do the same. Strikes for higher wages, improved working conditions and the end of exploitation occurred throughout this period.

Police employed tear gas and violence against the strikers, but could not apprehend the masses of people involved. The strikers never chose individuals to stand for them, because these people would be the first to be detained. Blacks were not permitted trade unions, which meant that the government could not act against any particular individuals. Strikes usually concluded when income boosts were tendered, but these were generally lower than had initially been insisted upon.

The Durban strikes soon extended to other parts of the country. 1973 and 1974 saw a countrywide amplification of labour opposition. There was also an increasingly buoyancy among black workers as they found that the state did not retort as harshly as they had expected. They thus began to form trade unions, even though these remained illegitimate and unofficial.

After 1976, trade unions and their workers began to play a massive role in the fight against apartheid. With their thousands of members, the trade unions had great strength in numbers, and this they used to their advantage, campaigning for the rights of black workers and forcing the government to make changes to its apartheid policies. Importantly, trade unions filled the gap left by banned political parties. They assumed tremendous importance because they could act on a wide variety of issues and problems for their people -- and not only work-related ones, as links between work issues and broader community grievances became more palpable.

Fewer trade-union officials (harassed less by the police and army) were jailed than political leaders in the townships. Union members could meet and make plans within the factory. In this way, trade unions played a pivotal role in the struggle against apartheid, and their efforts generally had wide community support.

In 1979, one year after Botha's accession to power, black trade unions were legalized, and their role in the resistance struggle grew to all-new proportions. Prior to 1979, black trade unions had had no legal clout in dealings with employers. All strikes that took place were illegal, but they did help to establish the trade unions and their collective cause. Although the legalisation of black trade unions gave workers the legal right to strike, it also gave the government a degree of control over them, as they all had to be registered and hand in their membership records to the government. They were not allowed to support political parties either, and it goes without saying that some trade unions did not comply.

Later in 1979, the FOSATU body was formed, followed by the Council of Unions of South Africa (COSAS). It was influenced strongly by the ideas of Black Consciousness and wanted to work to ensure black leadership of unions.

The establishment of the trade-union federations led to greater unity amongst the workers. The tremendous size of the federations gave them increased voice and power. 1980 saw thousands of black high-school and university students boycotting their schools, and a country-wide protest over wages, rents and bus fares. In 1982, there were 394 strikes involving 141,571 workers. FOSATU and CUSA grew from a mere 70,000 members in 1979 to 320,000 by 1983, the year of the establishment of first the National Forum and then the UDF. Both of these had an important impact, but the latter was far more influential.

With the establishment of the new constitution in 1984, the biggest and longest black uprising exploded in the Vaal Triangle. COSAS and FOSATU organised the longest stay-away in South African history, and, all told, there were 469 strikes that year, amounting to 378,000 hours in lost business time.

In accordance with the State of Emergency in 1985, COSAS was banned and many UDF leaders arrested. A meeting between white business leaders and those of the ANC in Zambia brought about the formation of COSATU in 1985. The newly-formed trade-union governing body, committed to improved working conditions and the fight against apartheid, organised a nationwide strike the following year, and a new State of Emergency was declared. It did not take long for COSATU's membership to grow to 500,000.

With South Africa facing a neigh-unprecedented shortage of skilled white labour, the government was forced to allow black people to fill the vacancies. This, in turn, led to an increase in spending on black, coloured and Indian education.

Still, there were divides amongst the trade-union faction, which had the membership of only ten per cent of the country's workforce. Not all trade unions joined the federations, while agricultural and domestic workers did not even have a trade union to join and were thus more liable. Nevertheless, by the end of this period, the unions had emerged as one of the most effective vehicles for black opposition.

Churches

The government's suppression of anti-Apartheid political parties limited their influence but not church activism. The government was far less likely to attack or arrest religious leaders, allowing them to potentially be more politically active in the struggle. The government did, however, take action against some churches.

Beyers Naudé left the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church and founded the Christian Institute, bringing white and black people together. He, along with the Institute, were banned in 1977, but he later became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), a religious association which supported anti-apartheid activities. Significantly, it also refused to condemn violence as a means of ending apartheid. Frank Chikane was another general secretary of the SACC. He was detained four times because of his criticism of the government and once allegedly had an attempt on his life, initiated by Adriaan Vlok, former Minister of Law and Order. The charismatic Archbishop Desmond Tutu was yet another general secretary of the SACC. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1984 and used his position and popularity to denounce the government and its policies. Alan Boesak led the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). He was very influential in founding the UDF and was once jailed for a month after organising a march demanding the release of Nelson Mandela.

Although church leaders were not totally immune to prosecution, they were able to criticise the government more freely than the leaders of militant groups. They were pivotal in altering public opinion regarding apartheid policies.

MDM

The Mass Democratic Movement played a brief but very important role in the struggle. Formed in 1989, it was made up of an alliance between the UDF and COSATU, and organised a campaign aimed at ending segregation in hospitals, schools and beaches. The campaign proved successful and managed to bring segregation to an end. Some historians, however, argue that this occurred because the government had planned to end segregation anyway and did not, therefore, feel at all threatened by the MDM's action.

Later in 1989, the MDM organised a number of peaceful marches against the State of Emergency (extended to four years now) in the major cities. Even though these marches were illegal, no-one was arrested -- evidence that apartheid was coming to an end and that the government's hold was weakening.

Although the MDM emerged only very late into the struggle, it did add to the effective resistance that the government faced, organising a series of protests and further uniting the opposition movement. Certainly, it was characteristic of the "mass resistance" which characterised the 'eighties: many organisations were united, dealing with different aspects of the fight against apartheid and its implications.

Student organisations

The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) and the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) were two of the main anti-apartheid student organisations. NUSAS was largely white, but it worked closely with the black opposition groups and also educated fellow whites about the evils of apartheid. COSAS was aimed at coordinating the educational struggles. It organised strikes, boycotts and mass protests around community issues.

Protests by school children became more and more frequent after 1976, in both rural and urban areas. Members of COSAS made a number of demands to the Department of Education and Training, DET, including the scrapping of matric examination fees. It also barred many DET officials from entering schools, demanded that all students pass their exams -- "pass one, pass all" -- and disrupted exams.

There were two major urban school boycotts in 1980 and then 1983. Both involved black, Indian and coloured children, and both went on for months. There were also extended protests in rural areas in 1985 and 1986. In all of these areas, schools were closed and thousands of students, teachers, parents and principals were arrested.

As a result of all this, the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) was set up in 1986. It comprised parents, teachers and students, and encouraged students to return to their studies, taking on forms of protest less disruptive to their education. Consumer boycott, certainly, were highly recommended. Teachers and students were also encouraged to work together to develop an alternative educational system.

White resistance

File:War04.jpg

A poster of the End Conscription Campaign.

While the majority of white South African voters supported the apartheid system, a substantial minority opposed it. In parliamentary elections during the 1970s and 1980s between 15% and 20% of white voters voted for the liberal Progressive Party, whose MP Helen Suzman provided for many years the only Parliamentary opposition to apartheid. Suzman's critics argue that she did not achieve any notable political successes, but helped to shore up claims by the Nationalists that internal, public criticism of apartheid was permitted. Suzman's supporters point to her use of her parliamentary privileges to help the poorest and most disempowered South Africans in any way she could.

Harry Schwarz was in the minority opposition for over 40 years and was leader of the opposition for the United Party from 1963-1974 in the Transvaal. Schwarz was one of the defence barristers in the Rivonia Trial. In 1975, Schwarz left the United Party and formed the Reform Party which later joined the Progressive Party. in 1991 Harry Schwarz was made ambassador to the United States.

Non-violent resistance to apartheid came from the Black Sash, an organisation of white women formed in 1955 to oppose the removal of Coloured (mixed-race) voters from the Cape Province voters' roll. Even after that failure, however, it went on assisting blacks with issues such as pass laws, housing and unemployment.

Covert resistance was expressed by banned organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party, whose leader Joe Slovo was also Chief of Staff of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Whites also played a significant role in opposing apartheid during the 1980s through the United Democratic Front and End Conscription Campaign. The latter was formed in 1983 to oppose the conscription of white males into the South African military. The ECC's support-base was not particularly large, but the government still saw fit to ban it 1988.

The army played a major role in the government's maintenance of its apartheid policies. It was expanded considerably to fight the resistance, and more money was being spent on increasing its effectiveness. It is estimated that something between R4,000,000,000 and R5,000,000,000 was spent on defence in the mid-'eighties. Conscription was used to increase the size of the army, with stiff prison sentences imposed for draft evasion or desertion. Only white males were conscripted, but volunteers from other races were also drawn in. The army was used to fight battles on South African borders and in neighbouring states, against the liberation movements and the countries that supported them. During the 1980s, the military was also used to repress township uprisings, which saw support for the ECC increase markedly.

Cultural opposition to apartheid came from internationally known writers like Breyten Breytenbach, André Brink and Alan Paton (who founded the South African Liberal Party) and clerics like Beyers Naudé.

Some of the first violent resistance to the system was organised by the African Resistance Movement (ARM) who were responsible for setting off bombs at power stations and notably the Park Station bomb. The membership of this group was virtually all drawn from the marginalized white intellectual scene. Founded in the 1960s, many of ARM's members had been part of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Unlike pro-peace opposition NUSAS, however, ARM was a radical organisation. Its backing came mostly from Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. By 1964, though, ARM ceased to exist, most of its members having been arrested or fled the country.

On 24 July 1964, Frederick John Harris, an associate of ARM, deposited a time bomb in the Johannesburg station. One person was slain, and 22 were injured. Harris explained that he had wanted to show that ARM was still in existence, but both ARM and the ANC slammed his actions. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1965.

Role of women

South African women greatly participated in the anti-apartheid and liberation movements that took hold of South Africa. They demanded the independence of their country and their people. These female activists were rarely at the head of the main organizations, at least at the beginning of the movement, but were nonetheless prime actors. One of the earliest organization was The Bantu Women's League founded in 1913. In the 1930s and 1940s, female activists were strongly present in trade union movements, which also served as a vehicle for future organization. In the 1950s, organizations specifically for women were created such as the ANC Women's League(ANCWL) or a Women's Council within the South West Africa People's Organization(SWAPO). In April 1954, the more global Federation of South African Women (FSAW or FedSAW) was founded with the objective to fight against racism and oppression of women as well as to make African women understand that they had rights both as human beings and as women. While female actvists fought along men and participated to demonstrations and guerrilla movements, FSAW and ANCWL also acted independently and organized bus boycotts, campaigns against restrictive passes in 1956 in Pretoria and in Sharpeville in 1960. 20.000 women attended these kind of demonstrations. Many participants were arrested, forced into exile or imprisoned such as Lilian Ngoyi. In 1958, 2000 women were arrested during an anti-pass campaign. After the Sharpeville Massacre, however, many organizations such as FSAW were banned and went underground.

At the same time South African women fought against gender discrimination and called for rights specific to women, such as family, children, gender equality and access to education. At a conference in Johannesburg in 1954, the Federation of South African Women adopted the "Women's Charter", which focused on rights specific to women both as women and mothers. The Charter referred both to human rights, women's rights and asked for universal equality and national liberation. In 1955, in a document drafted in preparation for the Congress of People, the FSAW made more demands, including free education for children, proper housing facilities and good working conditions, such as the abolition of child labor and a minimum wage.

The difficulty for these local movements was to raise global awareness in order to truly have an impact. Yet, their actions and demands gradually attracted the attention of the United Nations and put pressure on the international community. In 1954, Lilian Ngoyi attended the World Congress of Women in Lausanne, Switzerland. Later, in 1975, the ANC was present at the 1975 United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen and in 1980 an essay on the role of women in the liberation movement was prepared for the United Nations World Conference. This has been crucial in the recognition of Southern African women and their role in the anti-apartheid movement.

Among important activists during the liberation movement were Ida Ntwana, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Dorothy Nyembe. Lilian Ngoyi joined the ANC National Executive and was elected first vice-president and later president of FSAW in 1959. Many of these leaders served long prison sentences.

International relations

Main article: Foreign relations of South Africa

In the after-effects of World War II, the Western world quickly moved from ideas of racial dominance and policies based on racial prejudice. Racially discriminative and segregationist principles were not novelties to the country. Since unionisation in 1910, the state had stood only for the white minority and pursued segregation. Apartheid was a certified, lawful and inflexible type of separation that was methodically entrenched through a battery of legislation. As it was not completely new to the country, and because many Western countries still exercised their own forms of prejudice in their assorted colonies, there was minimal rejoinder and indignation. Another issue, apparently graver, dwelled in the most prominent part of the Western world's (and, together with it, the UN's) agenda. The conclusion of the Second World War signified the commencement of the Cold War, and South Africa, with its anti-red stance, was considered a possible assistant in the passive battle against the Soviet Union.

Initial relations

The world did not, however, condone South Africa's discriminatory policies. At the first UN gathering in 1946, South Africa was placed on the programme. The primary subject in question was the handling of South African Indians, a great cause of divergence between South Africa and India. In 1952, apartheid was thrashed out again in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign. The UN set up a task team to keep watch on the progress of apartheid and the racial state of affairs in South Africa. Although racial variance in South Africa was a cause for concern, most countries in the UN concurred that this was one of South Africa's in-house issues, which fell outside the UN's jurisdiction. The UN only became resolute in challenging South Africa later.

South-West Africa

The apartheid issue aside, there was also a major quarrel between the UN and South Africa about the management of South West Africa. After World War I, all German colonies were made mandates of the League of Nations, the UN's forbearer. Direction of these mandates was allotted to certain countries. The Treaty of Versailles declared German West Africa a League of Nations Mandate under South African administration, and it then became known as South West Africa.

South Africa formally excluded Walvis Bay from the mandate and annexed it as an exclave. After the configuration of the UN in 1945, and the transferral of mandates from the League of Nations to the new body, the arrangement changed: former obligatory powers (vis-à-vis those in charge of ex-German colonies) were now obliged to form new concurrences with the UN over their management of the mandates. South Africa, however, refused to play ball, declining to allow the territory to move towards independence. The NP government argued that, for a quarter of a century, South-West Africa had been directed as a piece of South Africa, and the preponderance of South-West Africans wanted to become South Africans anyway. Instead, South-West Africa was treated as a de facto "fifth province" of the Union. The South African government turned this mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid to South-West Africa.

The UN attempted to compel South Africa to let go of the mandate, and, in 1960, Liberia and Ethiopia requested that the International Court of Justice announce that South Africa's management of South West Africa was illegitimate. They argued that South Africa was bringing apartheid to South-West Africa, too. South Africa was formally accused of maladministration, and the lawsuit, commencing in November 1960, lasted almost six years. The International Court's verdict astonished the UN: it ruled that Liberia and Ethiopia had no right to take issue with South Africa's deeds in South-West Africa. The Court did not, however, pass judgement on whether or not South Africa still had a mandate over the region. The UN declared that the mandate was indeed concluded, and a council of the UN was to run the state until its independence in 1968. South Africa rebuffed the resolution, but declared its ostensible intention to ready South-West Africa for independence.

Anxiety increased when the UN Council for South-West Africa was declined admission, and steepened still further when South Africa indicted 35 South-West Africans and then found them guilty of terror campaigns. The UN reproached South Africa and declared that South-West Africa would thenceforth be known as Namibia. At the New York Accords in 1988, South Africa finally signed the agreement that granted the country its independence.

Sharpeville and the severing of British ties

South Africa's policies were subject to international scrutiny in 1960, when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan criticised them during his celebrated Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville Massacre, resulting in more international condemnation. Soon thereafter, Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should sever links with the British monarchy and become a republic instead. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to eighteen and included whites in South West Africa on the voter's roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked whites, "Do you support a republic for the Union?", and 52 per cent voted "Yes".

As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. Even though India became a republic within the Commonwealth in 1947 it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.

In 1960, the UN's conservative stance on apartheid changed. The Sharpeville massacre had jolted the global neighbourhood, with the apartheid regime showing that it would use violent behaviour to repress opposition to racial inequity. Many Western states began to see apartheid as a possible danger to global harmony, as the policy caused much intercontinental abrasion over human-rights violation.

In April 1960, the Security Council of the UN settled for the first time on concerted action against the apartheid regime, demanding that the NP bring an end to racial separation and discrimination; but, instead, the South African administration merely employed further suppressive instruments. The ANC and PAC were forbidden from continued existence, and political assemblies were prohibited. From then on, the UN placed the South African issue high on its list of priorities.

In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold stopped over in South Africa and subsequently stated that he had been powerless to effect a concurrence Prime Minister Verwoerd. That same year, Verwoerd proclaimed South Africa's extraction from the Commonwealth as a result of its censure of his government.

Sanctions

On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On 7 August 1963 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 181 calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and that very year, a Special Committee Against Apartheid was established to encourage and oversee plans of action against the regime.

In 1966, the United Nations held the first (of many) colloquiums on apartheid. The General Assembly announced 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory of the Sharpeville bloodbath. In 1971, the UN General Assembly formally denounced the institution of homelands, and a motion was passed in 1974 to eject South Africa from the UN, but this was discarded by France, Britain and the United States of America, all of them key trade associates of South Africa.

One probable type of action against South Africa was economic sanction. If UN affiliates broke fiscal and trading links with the country, it would make it all the trickier for the apartheid government to uphold itself and its policies. Such sanctions were argued frequently within the UN, and many recognised and backed it as an effectual and non-violent way of applying force, but South Africa's major trading partners once more voted against mandatory sanctions. In 1962, the UN General Assembly requested that its members split political, fiscal and transportation connections with South Africa. In 1968, it suggested the deferral of all cultural, didactic and sporting commerce as well. From 1964, the US and Britain discontinued their dealings of armaments to South Africa. In spite of the many cries for sanctions, however, none were made obligatory, because South Africa's main trading partners were again primarily concerned for their own financial security.

In 1977, the voluntary UN arms embargo became mandatory with the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 418.

Aid to apartheid casualties

Another way in which the UN could do something to combat apartheid was to lend support and aid to its victims. In 1963, the General Assembly passed a decree requesting that members contribute financially towards assisting apartheid sufferers. Many states took note of the call and carried out the necessary action.

Lusaka Manifesto

The Organisation for African Unity (OAU) was created in 1963. Its primary objectives were to eradicate colonialism and improve social, political and economic situations in Africa. It censured apartheid and demanded sanctions against South Africa. African states swore to aid the freedom movements in their fights against apartheid. In April 1969, fourteen autonomous nations from Central and East Africa gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, to argue about various African matters. The assembly formulated the 'Lusaka Manifesto', which was signed on 13 April by all of the countries in attendance, except for Malawi. This manifesto was later taken on by both the OAU and the United Nations.

The Lusaka Manifesto summarised the political situations of self-governing African countries, snubbing racism and inequity, and calling for black majority rule in all African nations. It did not rebuff South Africa entirely, though, adopting an appeasing manner towards the apartheid government, and even recognising its autonomy. Although African principals desired the emancipation of black South Africans, they trusted in their abilities to attain this in peaceable ways, intercession instead of militancy. The manifesto's signatories did not want to engage in a military war by supporting the liberation pugilists, because, for one thing, they could ill afford it and, for another, they dreaded retaliation.

Morogoro Conference

Neither the ANC nor the PAC was content with the Lusaka Manifesto. The signatories had not checked with them before laying out the document, and they foresaw the fact that African backing for the struggle would taper. The Manifesto did not truly recognise the significance of the liberation groups in the answer to South Africa's problems and even proposed dissuading them from an armed struggle. Both the ANC and the PAC had started using violent means in the 1960s, with the formation of their military wings.

Disinclined to destroy the support that they did have, however, the ANC and PAC did not explicitly condemn the Manifesto. In 1969, though, the ANC held the inaugural National Consultative Conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, where it ironed out its troubles and anxieties. The result was a decision not to end the armed struggle but, rather, to advance it. Oliver Tambo summed up thus: "Close Ranks! This is the order to our people, our youth, the army, to each Umkhonto we Sizwe militant, to all our many supporters the world over. This is the order to our leaders, to all of us. The order that comes from this conference is 'Close Ranks and Intensify the Armed Struggle!'"

Unlike the independence factions, the South African administration hailed the Lusaka Manifesto's plans for arbitration and détente. This tied in nicely with Prime Minister Vorster's own plan for the reduction of South Africa's seclusion from the rest of the world. He called his "Outward looking" policy. The state also maintained that the preservation of separate development through homelands carried out the Manifesto's insistence on human equality and dignity. The homelands, it argued, were meant eventually to be self-governing, decolonised nations where black people could take part in ballots and be free to live how they wished.

That is not to say that the NP government agreed to the Lusaka Manifesto, however. It rejected the manifesto's backing of liberation movements, in spite of the fact that the movements themselves felt the Manifesto was showing a lack of support.

Mogadishu Declaration

South Africa's negative response to the Lusaka Manifesto and rejection of a change to her policies brought about another OAU announcement in 1971. The Mogadishu Declaration declared that South Africa's rebuffing of negotiations meant that her black people could only be freed through fighting, and that no African state should converse with the apartheid government. Henceforth, it would be up to South Africa to keep contact with other African states.

Outward-Looking Policy

In 1966, BJ Vorster was made South African Prime Minister. He was not about to eliminate apartheid, but he did try to redress South Africa's seclusion and the purported laager mentality. He wanted to perk up the country's global reputation and overseas dealings, even those with black-ruled nations in Africa. This he called his "Outward-Looking" policy: South Africa would look outwards, towards the global neighbourhood, rather than adopting a siege mentality and estranging it. The buzzwords for his strategy were "dialogue" and "détente", signifying arbitration and reduction of pressure.

Effect of the Soweto Uprising

Following the Soweto Uprising in 1976 and its brutal suppression by the apartheid regime, the arms embargo was made mandatory by the UN Security Council on 4 November 1977 and South Africa became increasingly isolated internationally, with tough economic sanctions weighing heavily. Not all countries imposed or fully supported the sanctions, however; instead, they continued to benefit from trade with apartheid South Africa. During the 1980s, though, the number of countries opposing South Africa increased, and the economy came under tremendous strain.

Other African states

Vorster's attitude towards other African countries was not so much a modification of strategy as a continuance of Verwoerd's approach. Vorster's forerunner had already become aware of the fact that cordial dealings with as many black states as possible was of paramount importance. As more and more African states acquired freedom from their colonial dictatorships, bitterness towards a repressively racialist South Africa increased. If South Africa did not wish to become completely cut off from the rest of the African continent, she had to sustain gracious associations with it, starting, of course, with mutual economic support. Vorster persisted with this strategy and built good relationships with a number of independent African states.

In 1967, Vorster proffered technological and fiscal counsel gratis to any African state prepared to receive it, asserting that absolutely no political strings were attached. He gave great attention to financial facets, aware of the fact that many African states were very run-down and would require financial aid in spite of their rebuffing of South Africa's racial principles. Malawi and Lesotho were the first countries to enter discussions with the NP government. Angola and Mozambique soon followed.

One of the first steps to take in initiating dealings was to convene with the heads of these African countries. Here Vorster worked decidedly contrary to Verwoerd's policies. Where Verwoerd had declined to get together and engage in dialogue with such leaders as Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria in 1962 and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia in 1964, Vorster, in 1966, met with the heads of the states of Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. There was still mutual suspiciousness, however, particularly after Vorster's denunciation of the Lusaka Manifesto in 1969. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland stayed candid critics of apartheid, but they hinged on South Africa's economic aid. This was inclusive of pecuniary credit and the fact that many navvies from these states worked the South African mines.

Malawi was the first country not on South African borders to accept South African aid. She identified the monetary benefits of such a deal, for there were also many Malawians were working on South African mines. In 1967, the two states delineated their political and economic relations, and, in 1969, Malawi became the only country at the assembly which did not sign the Lusaka Manifesto. In 1970, Malawian President Hastings Banda made his first and most successful official stopover in South Africa.

Associations with Mozambique followed suit and were sustained after that country won its sovereignty in 1975. Angola was also granted South African loans. Other countries which formed relationships with South Africa were Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritius, Gabon, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Ghana and the Central African Republic. These African states slammed apartheid (more than ever after South Africa's denunciation of the Lusaka Manifesto), but fiscal reliance on South Africa, together with fear of her armed potency, resulted in their forming the aforementioned ties.

Western ties

The "Outward Looking" principle had a significant consequence for South Africa's relationships with Western nations. When Vorster brought forth his strategy, it appeared to them that South Africa might be loosening her racist grip. At the same time, the West regarded the apartheid administration as a significant friend in the Cold War of ideologies. Economically, such nations as Britain and America had numerous concerns in South Africa, and, although they did not endorse apartheid, these concerns led them to a more moderate stance on the country and to vote against financial sanctions against her at UN conferences.

Britain

When South Africa pulled out of the Commonwealth in 1961, some members felt that the only way to sort her out was to enforce monetary sanctions and forbid the sale of armaments to her. Other members, most notably Britain, resisted this. She had many key trade links and, in particular, needed South Africa's gold.

There were also tactical motives for not severing all ties with the apartheid government. As the southernmost nation in Africa, and the juncture at which the Indian and Atlantic Oceans collided, South Africa was still a vital point in sea-trade routes. In 1969, the Commandant General of the South African Defence Force (SADF) confirmed that, "[i]n the entire ocean expanse from Australia to South America, South Africa is the only fixed point offering modern naval bases, harbours and airfield facilities, a modern developed industry and stable government." South Africa was also a pivotal partner to the West in the years of the Cold War. If the West ever required martial, maritime or air-force services on the African continent, it would have to rely on South Africa's assistance.

From 1960 to 1961, the relationship between South Africa and Britain started to change. In his "Winds of Change" speech in Cape Town, Harold Macmillan spoke of the changes in Africa and how South Africa's racist policies were swimming upstream. Even as more countries added to the call for sanctions, Britain remained unwilling to sever her ties with the apartheid administration. Possible reasons were her copious assets in the state, an unwillingness to hazard turbulence brought on by intercontinental meddling, and the fact that many British people had kith and kin living in South Africa or, indeed, were living there themselves. Along with America, Britain would persistently vote against certain sanctions against South Africa.

USA

At the outset of apartheid, the United States was not particularly blunt about South Africa's racial policies. Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, however, the country voted at the UN conference against it. The US impressed a severe armament embargo on South Africa from 1964, and, from 1967, the American navy avoided the South African harbours. Unlike Britain, the USA did not see much importance in the Cape route, but they did see the economic opportunities for South African investment. Imports and exports between the two nations came to many millions of Dollars. Financial ties aside, there were also numerous cultural links between South Africa and America. South Africans of all creeds were given the chance to study in America with scholarships. The US even utilised South Africa for her exploration of outer space, setting up a satellite tracking post near Krugersdorp, and building numerous telescopes for lunar probes. This picked up ailing ties between the two countries, but, in the 1970s, America withdrew from the tracking station.

As fiscal ties between South Africa, America and Britain were reinforced, however, sporting and cultural boycotts became important gadgets in South Africa's isolation from international society. The arms prohibition obliged South Africa to look elsewhere (particularly France) for its artillery, build up its own technology and manufacture weapons itself. At first, the Cold War had little influence on the connection between the West and South Africa: America believed that the armament embargo would not put up a barrier between them. If a major quarrel broke out in Africa, South Africa would be forced to work with America anyway.

Isolation

One of the primary means for the international community to show its aversion to apartheid was to boycott South Africa in a variety of spheres of multinational life. Economic and military sanctions were among these, but cultural and sporting boycotts also found their way in. South Africa, in this way, was cut off from the rest of the globe. It also awoke the South African community to the opinions of other countries. Despite financial shunning causing significant harm to black South Africans, the ANC proclaimed it as an essential means of achieving liberty. Cultural and sporting boycotts, on the other hand, did not have a negative effect on the lives of blacks, as they were already barred from these by their own government. Not being able to partake in global sporting and cultural affairs was most trying to the whites, however, who thought themselves equal to the best in the world.

Sporting seclusion commenced in the mid-1950s and increased through the 1960s. Apartheid forbade multiracial sport, which meant that overseas teams, by virtue of their having players of diverse races, could not play in South Africa. In 1956, the International Table Tennis Federation severed its ties with the all-white South African Table Tennis Union, preferring the non-racial South African Table Tennis Board in its stead. The apartheid government came back by confiscating the passports of the Board's players so that they were unable to attend international games. Other global sports unions followed the example, but they were sluggish in doing so.

In 1959, the non-racial South African Sports Association (SASA) was shaped to secure the rights of all players on the global field. After meeting with no success in its endeavours to attain credit by collaborating with white establishments, SASA went to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1962, calling for South Africa's eviction form the Olympic Games. The IOC sent South Africa a caution to the effect that, if there were no changes, she would be barred from the 1964. The changes were initiated, and in January 1963, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) was set up. The Anti-Apartheid Movement persisted in its campaign for South Africa's exclusion, and the IOC acceded in barring the country from the 1964 Games in Tokyo. South Africa selected a multi-racial side for the next Games, and the IOC opted to incorporate her in the 1968 Games in Mexico. Because of protests from AAMs and African nations, however, the IOC was forced to retract the invitation.

Foreign complaints about South Africa's bigoted sports brought more isolation. In 1960, Verwoerd barred a Maori rugby player from touring South Africa with the All Blacks, and the tour was cancelled. New Zealand made a decision not to convey an authorised rugby team to South Africa again.

B. J. Vorster took Verwoerd's place as PM in 1966 and declared that South Africa would no longer dictate to other countries what their teams should look like. Although this reopened the gate for sporting meets, it did not signal the end of South Africa's racist sporting policies. In 1968, Vorster went against his policy by refusing to permit Basil D'Oliveira, a Coloured South African-born cricketer, to join the English cricket team on its tour to South Africa. Vorster said that the side had been chosen only to prove a point, and not on merit. After protests, however, "Dolly" was eventually included in the team. Protests against certain tours brought about the cancellation of a number of other visits, like that of an England rugby team in 1969/70.

As sporting segregation persisted, it became obvious that that South Africa would have to make further changes to its sporting policies if it was to be recognised on the international stage. More and more careers were impinged upon by segregation, and they began to stand up against apartheid. In 1971, Vorster altered his policies even further by distinguishing multiracial from multinational sport. Multiracial sport, between teams with players of different races, remained outlawed; multinational sport, however, was now acceptable: international sides would not be subject to South Africa's racial stipulations.

International censure of segregated sport and calls for sporting sanctions persisted. The UN would continue to hold them against South Africa until the end of apartheid. These measures did not bring an end to international sport for South African teams, but they add very much to the country's seclusion. The bans were revoked in 1993, when conciliations for a democratic South Africa were well under way.

In the 'sixties, the Anti-Apartheid Movements began to campaign for cultural boycotts of apartheid South Africa. Artists were requested not to present or let their works be hosted in South Africa. In 1963, 45 British writers put their signatures to an affirmation approving of the boycott, and, in 1964, American actor Marlon Brando called for a similar affirmation for films. In 1965, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain called for a proscription on the sending of films to South Africa. Over sixty American artists signed a statement against apartheid and against professional links with the state. The presentation of some South African plays in Britain and America was also vetoed. After the arrival of television in South Africa in 1975, the British Actors Union, Equity, boycotted the service, and no British programme concerning its associates could be sold to South Africa. Sporting and cultural boycotts did not have the same impact as economic sanctions, but they did much to lift consciousness amongst normal South Africans of the global condemnation of apartheid.

These facets of social remoteness from the worldwide hamlet made apartheid a discomfiture and were most trying for sports and culture fans. These boycotts effectively egged on little changes to apartheid policy, and corroded white South Africans' dedication to it.

Numerous conferences were held and the United Nations passed resolutions condemning South Africa, including the World Conference Against Racism in 1978 and 1983. A significant divestment movement started, pressuring investors to refuse to invest in South African companies or companies that did business with South Africa. South African sports teams were barred from participation in international events, and South African culture and tourism were boycotted.

Countries such as Zambia, Tanzania and the Soviet Union provided military support for the ANC and PAC. It was more difficult, though, for neighbouring states such as Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, because they were economically dependant on South Africa. Still, they did feed the struggle underground.

Ordinary people in foreign countries did much in protest against the apartheid government, too. The British Anti-Apartheid Movement was one of these, organising boycotts against South African sports teams, South African products such as wine and fruit, and British companies that dared trade with or in South Africa. Other organisations were formed to prevent musicians and the like from coming into the country, and others raised funds for the ANC and PAC.

After much debate, by the late 1980s the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa. A divestment movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.

In an analysis of the effect of sanctions on South Africa by the FW de Klerk Foundation, it was argued that they were not a leading contributor to the political reforms leading to the end of Apartheid. The analysis concluded that in many instances sanctions undermined effective reform forces, such as the changing economic and social order within South Africa. Furthermore, it was argued that forces encouraging economic growth and development resulted in a more international and liberal outlook amongst South Africans, and were far more powerful agents of reform than sanctions.

Western influence

While international opposition to apartheid grew, the Nordic countries in particular provided both moral and financial support for the ANC. On 21 February 1986 – a week before he was murdered – Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm. In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathizers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared:

"Apartheid cannot be reformed; it has to be eliminated."

Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. In the 1980s, both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the USA and UK followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, as they both fiercely believed in free trade, and seeing South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation,, and in 1987 her spokesman, Bernard Ingham, famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".

By the late 1980s, however, with the tide of the Cold War turning and no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience with the apartheid government began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions (realized as the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act), the release of Nelson Mandela and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line, but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle.

Some might argue that Britain's significant economic involvement in South Africa provided some leverage with the South Africa government, with both the UK and the US applying pressure on the government, and pushing for negotiations. However, neither Britain nor the US were willing to apply economic pressure upon their multinational interests in South Africa, such as the mining company Anglo American. A high-profile case claiming compensation from these companies was thrown out of court in 2004.

South African Border War

Main article: South African Border War

By 1966, SWAPO launched guerilla raids from neighbouring countries against South Africa's occupation of South-West Africa/Namibia. Initially South Africa fought a counter-insurgency war against SWAPO. But this conflict deepened after Angola gained its independence in 1975 under Communist leadership, the MPLA, and South Africa promptly challenged them, allying with the Angolan rival party, UNITA. By the end of the 1970s, Cuba had joined the fray, in one of several late Cold War flashpoints throughout Southern Africa. This developed into a conventional war between South Africa and UNITA on one side against the Angolan government, the Cubans, the Soviets and SWAPO on the other side.

Total onslaught

By 1980, as international opinion turned decisively against the apartheid regime, the government and much of the white population increasingly looked upon the country as a bastion besieged by communism and radical black nationalists. Considerable effort was put into circumventing sanctions, and the government even went so far as to develop nuclear weapons, allegedly with the help of Israel. South Africa and Libya are the only countries to date to have developed and voluntarily relinquished their nuclear arsenals.

Negotiating majority rule with the ANC was not considered an option (at least publicly), and it left the government to defend the country against external and internal threats through sheer military might. A siege mentality developed among whites, and, although many believed that a civil war against the black majority could not possibly be won, they preferred this to "giving in" to political reform. Brutal police and military actions seemed entirely justifiable. Paradoxically, the international sanctions that cut whites off from the rest of the world enabled black leaders to develop sophisticated political skills as those in exile forged ties with both regional and world leaders.

P. W. Botha initiated a policy of "Total Onslaught, Total Strategy", whereby reform was mixed with repression. With big businesses (affected by apartheid policies) ardently desirous of change, the government established two important commissions of enquiry. The Riekert Commission concluded that blacks ought to be allowed to buy their own homes in urban areas, while the Wiehahn Commission dictated that black trade unions be given more freedom, more money be spent on black education and some apartheid legislation be abolished. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act most certainly was, while the pass laws and employment colour bar were relaxed. Fewer people were arrested for offences pertaining to the latter as segregation in everyday life was gradually lessened. The government also gave so-called "independence" to a number of the homelands, but this seems to have been in part due to the fact that, as foreign citizens, their people could no longer expect anything from the South African government. Indeed, none of these reforms lessened the power of the white minority.

The term "front-line states" referred to countries in Southern Africa geographically near South Africa. Although these front-line states were all opposed to apartheid, many were economically dependent on South Africa. In 1980, they formed the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), the aim of which was to promote economic development in the region and hence reduce dependence on South Africa. Furthermore, many SADCC members also allowed the exiled ANC and PAC to establish bases in their countries.

Other African countries also contributed to the fall of apartheid. In 1978, Nigeria boycotted the Commonwealth Games because New Zealand's sporting contacts with the South African government were not considered to be in accordance with the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement. Nigeria also led the 32-nation boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games because of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's ambivalent attitude towards sporting links with South Africa, significantly affecting the quality and profitability of the Games and thus thrusting apartheid into the international spotlight.

A number of African countries contributed to the ANC's guerilla-insurgency campaign within South Africa.

Cross-border raids

South Africa had a policy to attack terrorist bases in neighbouring countries. These attacks were mainly aimed at ANC, PAC and SWAPO guerrilla-bases and safe houses in retaliation for acts of terror - like bomb explosions, massacres and guerrilla actions (like sabotage) by ANC, PAC and Swapo guerrillas in South Africa and Namibia. The country also aided organisations in surrounding countries who were actively combatting the spread of communism in Southern Africa. The results of these policies included:

• Support for anti-government guerrilla groups such as UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique
• South African Defence Force (SADF; now the South African National Defence Force; SANDF) hit-squad raids into front-line states. Bombing raids were also conducted into neighbouring states.
• A full-scale invasion of Angola: this was partly in support of UNITA, but was also an attempt to strike at SWAPO bases.
• Targeting of exiled ANC leaders abroad: Joe Slovo's wife Ruth First was killed by a parcel bomb in Maputo, and 'death squads' of the Civil Co-operation Bureau and the Directorate of Military Intelligence attempted to carry out assassinations on ANC targets in Brussels, Paris and Stockholm, as well as burglaries and bombings in London.

In 1984, Mozambican president Samora Machel signed the Nkomati Accord with South Africa's president P.W. Botha, in an attempt to rebuild Mozambique's economy. South Africa agreed to cease supporting anti-government forces, while the MK was prohibited from operating in Mozambique. This was an awful setback for the ANC.

In 1986 President Machel himself was killed in an air crash in mountainous terrain near the South African border after returning from a meeting in Zambia. South Africa was accused of continuing its aid to RENAMO and having caused the crash using a new advanced electronic beacon capable of luring aircraft into crashing. This was never proven and is still a subject of great controversy. The South African Margo Commission found that the crash was an accident while a Soviet delegation issued a minority report implicating South Africa.

Conservatism

The National Party government implemented, alongside apartheid, a program of social conservatism. Pornographic movies, gambling and other vices were banned. At the same time, it instituted the International Freedom Foundation. Printed or filmed pornography (of even the mildest variety) was banned and its possession was punishable by incarceration.

Television was not introduced until 1975 because it was viewed as dangerous by right-wingers. Television was also run on apartheid lines -- TV1 broadcast in Afrikaans and English (and was geared to a white audience); TV2 in Zulu and Xhosa (and geared to a black audience); TV3 in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (and geared to a black audience); and TV4 showed mostly African-American programmes (for an urban-black audience). All TV channels were government-owned and acted as propaganda agents for apartheid.

Sunday was considered holy. Cinemas, bottle stores and most other businesses were forbidden from operating on Sundays. Abortion and sex education were also restricted; abortion was legal only in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened.

State security

During the 1980s the government, led by P.W. Botha, became increasingly preoccupied with security. On the advice of American political scientist Samuel Huntington, Botha's government set up a powerful state security apparatus to "protect" the state against an anticipated upsurge in political violence that the reforms were expected to trigger. The 1980s became a period of considerable political unrest, with the government becoming increasingly dominated by Botha's circle of generals and police chiefs (known as securocrats), who managed the various States of Emergencies.

Botha's years in power were marked also by numerous military interventions in the states bordering South Africa, as well as an extensive military and political campaign to eliminate SWAPO in Namibia. Within South Africa, meanwhile, vigorous police action and strict enforcement of security legislation resulted in hundreds of arrests and bannings, and an effective end to the ANC's sabotage campaign.

The government punished political offenders brutally. Between 1982 and 1983, 40,000 people were subjected to whipping as a form of punishment. The vast majority had committed political offences and were lashed ten times for their trouble. If convicted of treason, a person could be hanged, and the government executed numerous political offenders in this way.

State of emergency

During the last years of apartheid rule in South Africa, the country was more or less in a constant state of emergency.

Increasing civil unrest and township violence led to the government declaring a State of Emergency on 20 July 1985, giving it the power to deal with resistance to apartheid. More human rights were violated during this period than ever before. It became a criminal offence to threaten someone verbally or possess documents that the government perceived to be threatening. It was illegal to advise anyone to stay away from work or oppose the government. It was illegal, too, to disclose the name of anyone arrested under the State of Emergency until the government saw fit to release that name. People could face up to ten years' imprisonment for these offences. However, although the government increased its repressive measures, it was not enough to secure a lasting position in power.

Then-President P.W. Botha declared the State of Emergency in 36 magisterial districts. Areas affected were the Eastern Cape, and the PWV region ("Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Vereeniging"). Three months later the Western Cape was included as well. During this state of emergency about 2,436 people were detained under the Internal Security Act. This act gave police and the military sweeping powers. The government could implement curfews controlling the movement of people. The president could rule by decree without referring to the constitution or to parliament.

Four days before the ten-year commemoration of the Soweto uprising, another state of emergency was declared on 12 June 1986 to cover the whole country. The government amended the Public Security Act, expanding its powers to include the right to declare certain places "unrest areas". This allowed the state to employ extraordinary measures to crush protests in these areas. Television cameras were banned from entering "unrest areas". The state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) provided propaganda in support of the government. This version of reality was challenged by a range of pro-ANC alternative publications.

In 1989, with the State of Emergency extended to a fourth year, Prime Minister Botha met Mandela and agreed to work for a peaceful solution to the conflict in the country. Talks commenced with the ANC, prominent business leaders, the Commonwealth and the Eminent Persons Group.

The state of emergency continued until 1990, when F.W. de Klerk became the State President, and lifted the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid group the African National Congress, the smaller Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party. He also made his first public commitment to release jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, returned to press freedom and suspend the death penalty.

HIV/AIDS epidemic

In 1982, the first recorded death from AIDS occurred in the country. Within a decade, the number of recorded AIDS cases (overwhelmingly in the black population) had risen to over 1,000, and by the mid-1990s, it had reached 10,000.

In late 1980s, the South African Chamber of Mines began an education campaign to try to stem the rise of cases. But without a change in the underlying conditions of mine workers, a major factor contributing to the epidemic, success could hardly be expected. Long periods away from home under bleak conditions and a few days leave a month were the apartheid-induced realities of the life thousands of miners and other labourers worked. Compounding the problem was the fact that as of the mid-1990s, many health officials still focused more on the incidence of tuberculosis than HIV.

Final years of apartheid

File:Southafricaracialdemographics1979.png

Serious political violence was a prominent feature of South Africa from 1985 to 1995. There was virtually a civil war between left-wing and right-wing South Africans. From 1985-1988 the P.W. Botha government tried to crush left-wing organizations. For three years police and soldiers patrolled South African towns. Thousands of people were detained. Deaths mounted on both sides. Many of those detained by the government were interrogated and tortured; while anti-government activists used the "necklace method" (burning people alive) to kill black people suspected of supporting apartheid. The government banned television cameras from filming "unrest zones".

The ANC and the PAC exploded bombs in restaurants, shopping centres and in front of government buildings such as magistrates courts, killing and maiming civilians and government officials in the process. By 1985, it had become the ANC's aim to make black townships "ungovernable" (a term later replaced by "people's power") by forcing residents to stop paying for services. The townships duly became the focus areas in the apartheid struggle.

Throughout the 'eighties, township people resisted apartheid by acting against the local issues that faced their particular communities. The focus of much of the resistance was against the community organisations and their leaders, who were seen to be supporting the government. The fact that they were also the ones responsible for rent collection merely added to their unpopularity. (A common form of township protest was the rent boycott.) The official governments of numerous townships were either overthrown or collapsed, to be replaced by unofficial organisations, led generally by the youth but welcoming workers and residents of all ages. People's courts were set up, and township residents accused of supporting the government were "put on trial" and dealt extreme (often lethal) punishments. Black town councillors and policemen, and their families, were attacked with petrol bombs and "necklaces", a fate suffered by many residents who resisted such tactics: they were brutally murdered by having a burning tire placed around their necks. This became known as necklacing.

During the ANC-enforced consumer boycotts of manufacturers who were seen to be treating workers badly or supporting apartheid, residents had to eat soap powder and drink kerosene if they were alleged to have bought from white-owned shops. During this period an average of more than 100 people died as a result of black-on-black violence in the black townships every month with the figure increasing to as high as 259 per month between 1990 and 1993.

Much of this unrest took the ANC by surprise. Its calls to make the townships "ungovernable" were most certainly being heeded. Much of the unrest was directed at government, but a substantial quantity was between the residents themselves. Rivalries existed between members of INKATHA and the UDF-ANC faction, and many people died as a result of this violence. It was later proven that the government manipulated the situation by supporting one side or the other when it suited it. Between 1984 and 1988, over 4,000 people died as a result of political violence.

In the early 1980s, PW Botha's National Party government recognised the need to reform apartheid. These reforms were driven by a combination of internal violence, international condemnation, changes within the National Party's constituency, and changing demographics — whites constituted only 16% of the total population and dropping, in comparison to 20% fifty years earlier. P.W. Botha told white South Africans to "adapt or die". In 1984 the Tricameral reforms were introduced. Ironically, these served only to trigger intensified political violence through the remainder of the 'eighties as more communities and political groups across the country joined the resistance movement. Between 1986 and 1988, all petty apartheid laws were repealed. In 1984, a new constitution was introduced, which gave Parliamentary representation to coloureds and Indians (but not blacks, expected to remain citizens of the homelands). Of course, PW Botha's government stopped well short of reform that included releasing ANC, PAC and SACP political prisoners, with the Prime Minister often reiterating that he would negotiate only with those groups which rejected political violence.

The 1983 constitution was part of the NP government's larger plan to reform its policy of apartheid. The new constitution, in practice, hardly amounted to much of a reform: although it gave Indians and Coloureds at least some form of say in government, it ensured that their political influence was decidedly limited. More importantly, though, the constitution did not grant black people, who made up the majority of the population, any such involvement.

Under the new constitution, parliament was divided into three distinctly racial houses -- the House of Assembly (178 members) for whites, the House of Representatives (85 members) for coloureds and the House of Delegates (45 members) for Indians. Each House handled laws pertaining to their "own affairs". These included health, education and other community issues. All laws relating to "general affairs" were handled by a cabinet made up of representatives from all three houses -- although, naturally, the whites had the majority. "General affairs" normally concerned matters such as defence, industry and taxation, but it was up to the State President, of course, to decide upon what was "general" and what was not.

The 1983 Tricameral reforms led to both a right- and a left-wing backlash, such that unrest and political violence dramatically increased, as South Africa became increasingly polarised and fragmented, the government's hold on the country steadily weakening. As a result of increased pressure both within and outside the country, the state was forced to take measures to bring an end to apartheid.

The right-wing backlash gave rise to a neo-Nazi paramilitary group, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), led by Eugène Terre'Blanche. A left-wing United Democratic Front (UDF) was also formed at this time, as a direct response to the new constitution. The UDF was a cleverly-crafted, broad-based democratic coalition of affiliated organisations, calling for everyone opposed to the Tricameral System to "join hands"; its aim was to coordinate resistance within the country. It brought together 400 anti-apartheid organisations, unifying the struggle and made it more effective. All told, the UDF had about 1,500,000 members.

The UDF called first for resistance against the 1983 constitution and later organised some more general resistance against the government. Most resistance between 1984 and '86 was UDF-organised, but the National Forum also had a role to play (albeit a comparatively insignificant one). Like the UDF, the National Forum comprised a number of organisations, but it was also different in two ways:

• The NF was not as non-racial, believing that whites should not be allowed to work together with the oppressed races to overthrow the government.
• The NF felt that workers' interests were of utmost importance.

With so many political organisations banned at the time, the NF and UDF did important work in resistance to apartheid.

As the 1980s progressed, so more and more anti-apartheid organizations were formed and affiliated to the UDF. Led by the Reverend Allan Boesak and Albertina Sisulu, the UDF called for the government to abandon its reforms and instead abolish apartheid and eliminate the homelands completely.

Many Indians and coloureds also rejected the Tricameral system. Their lives were hardly any better, they still had to endure a battery of apartheid legislation, and they could do nothing with the limited power afforded them to make any real changes. The first Tricameral elections were largely boycotted, and there was widespread rioting.

Blacks saw the new constitution as an insult to both them and their struggle. Although they made up the majority of the population, they still found themselves, even after constitutional reforms, totally excluded from any real form of political representation. Rioting died down soon enough in the Indian and coloured areas, but it was sustained and far more violent in the black areas.

While these widespread protests were taking place, the ANC launched a series of violent attacks on the government, whose attempt with the new constitution to garner support among the non-white populace had failed miserably.

International pressure also increased as economic sanctions began to impact on the value of the rand, which all but collapsed. In 1985, the government declared a State of Emergency which was to stay in effect for the next five years. Television cameras were banned from the "unrest areas", and, by 1988, 30,000 people had been detained. Media opposition to the system increased, supported by the growth of a pro-ANC alternative press within South Africa.

In 1987, the State of Emergency was extended for another two years, and white intellectuals met the ANC in Senegal for talks. Meanwhile, about 200,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers commenced the longest strike (three weeks) in South African history. Violence increased between the UDF and INKATHA supporters. 1988 saw the banning of the activities of the UDF and other anti-apartheid organisations.

International pressure on Botha's government continued to grow, with the US and UK now actively promoting the solution of a negotiated settlement with the black majority. Reforms gradually increased in number and magnitude. Early in 1989, however, Botha suffered a stroke, resigned on 13 February 1989 and was succeeded later that year by FW de Klerk. In his opening address to parliament in February 1990, in what has come to be known as the "unbanning speech", President De Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws and lift the ban on the ANC, the UDF, the PAC, and the SACP. The Land Act was brought to an end. Media restrictions were lifted, and De Klerk released political prisoners not guilty of common-law crimes.

A number of reasons have been put forward for the NP's abolishment of apartheid after having stood by it for so long:

• With all the unrest in the country, the government was losing control.
• The economy was getting weaker and weaker due to unrest, strikes, boycotts and economic sanctions. The value of the Rand had dropped significantly, and business leaders were putting pressure on the government to change.
• The NP was losing support, while the more conservative white parties were gaining it. The 1982 NP breakaway, indeed, had resulted in the formation of the Conservative Party.
• President De Klerk respected Mandela and knew that he needed him to help to sort out the country's problems.
• De Klerk believed that God had chosen him to change his country.
• With the Cold War now over, the government could no longer argue that apartheid was saving the country from Communism.
• The NP and ANC had been meeting in secret. Both were willing to negotiate.
• Optimistic NP members naively believed that the ANC would not do well in an election and, moreover, that the NP would win it.
• The more realistic members of the NP hoped that the ANC would share power with them in an interim government.

On 11 February 1990, 27 years after he had first been incarcerated, Nelson Mandela walked out of the grounds of Victor Verster Prison as a free man, immediately calling for an even more determined effort against apartheid -- affirming his commitment to a peaceful and disciplined process. His release provoked unbridled joy and excitement throughout the country, and had a major and neigh-universal effect. Mandela had refused to be released until the other political prisoners were let out and the ANC and other such organisations unbanned.

There were, however, several problems that Mandela and the rest of the ANC faced. Much of the resistance had been disorganised and fragmentary. The ANC needed to get control over and the support of the people. There were also differences between members of the ANC who had been in exile and those who had remained in SA to fight apartheid.

Having been forced by the UN Security Council to end its long-standing military occupation in Namibia, South Africa had to relinquish control of the disputed territory, and it officially became an independent state on 21 March 1990.

Negotiations

Main article: Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa

From 1990 to 1991, the legal apparatus of apartheid was abolished. In 1990 negotiations were earnestly begun, with two meetings between the government and the ANC. The purpose of the negotiations was to pave the way for talks towards a peaceful transition of power. These meetings were successful in laying down the plans for the negotiations -- despite the considerable tensions still abounding within the country.

File:FWdeKlerk.jpg

From 1990 to 1994, F. W. de Klerk led the National Party government in negotiating with the ANC in order to end apartheid.

At the first meeting, the NP and ANC discussed the conditions for negotiations to begin. The meeting was held at Groote Schuur, the President's official residence. They released the Groote Schuur Minute, which said that, before negotiations commenced, political prisoners would be freed and all exiles allowed to return.

De Klerk made further political changes in 1990, calling off the long-running State of Emergency (except in Natal) and abolishing the Separate Amenities Act. These changes were meant to make it patently clear that apartheid was ending. Mandela, however, called on other countries to persist with their economic sanctions, but, at the second 1990 meeting of the ANC and the NP at Pretoria, he announced the ANC's bringing an end to its armed struggle. However, although the Pretoria and Groote Schuur meetings had laid the foundations for peaceful negotiation, there were still ample tensions within the country.

The last major apartheid laws, the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act, were removed in 1991, convincing numerous countries to bring to an end their cultural, economic and sporting boycotts.

There were fears that the change of power in South Africa would be violent. To avoid this, it was essential that a peaceful resolution between all parties be reached. In December 1991, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) began negotiations on the formation of a multiracial transitional government and a new constitution extending political rights to all groups. CODESA adopted a Declaration of Intent and committed itself to an "undivided South Africa". Although the talks broke down several times, they were eventually successful in getting the ANC and NP to reach an agreement.

The opening CODESA meeting was a success. The government met with major political parties (apart from the PAC and Conservative Party) at the end of 1991. They agreed that the new South Africa should be free from racial segregation and that an interim government ought to run the country until a new constitution had been drafted.

Most of the persistent violence through the country was due to impatience for change on the part of those still living under repression, and also the intense rivalry between the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the ANC. Political violence exploded across the country, and, although Mandela and Buthelezi met to settle difference, they could not stem the tide of violence, creating more distrust between the two factions. One of the worst cases of ANC-IFP violence was the Boipatong Massacre of 17 June 1992, when 200 IFP militants attacked the Gauteng township of Boipatong. 45 people met their end. Witnesses said that the men had arrived in police vehicles, supporting claims that elements within the police and army contributed to the general violence. There have also been claims that high-ranking government officials and politicians ordered or at least condoned these massacres. When De Klerk tried to visit the scene of the incident, he was driven away by angry crowds, on whom the police opened fire, killing thirty.

The Bisho Massacre also added seriously to mounting tensions between the ANC and NP. It started off as an ANC march in protest against the leader of the Ciskei homeland, but 29 people were killed and 200 injured when, once more, the police opened fire as the marchers broke through their barriers.

The CP, meanwhile, not having taken part in CODESA, challenged the government to a general election so that white voters could decide on the future of South Africa. De Klerk responded by holding the last whites-only referendum in March 1992 to decide whether or not negotiations should continue. A 68-percent majority gave its support, and the victory instilled in De Klerk and the government a lot more confidence, giving the NP a stronger position in negotiations.

Thus, when CODESA II met in 1992, stronger demands were made. The ANC and the government could not reach a compromise on how power should be shared. The NP wanted to retain a strong position in government, as well as the power to change decisions made by parliament. Escalating violence added to the tensions, Mandela arguing that, as head of state, De Klerk ought to do something to bring an end to the bloodshed. He also accused the South African police of involvement in the ANC-IFP violence, and this was the primary reason for the ANC's withdrawal from the CODESA talks, which immediately broke down. Although De Klerk denied the allegation, they are still strongly suspected to be true today.

The ANC and COSATU, meanwhile, launched a campaign of mass action, and the fervent strike forced the NP to give in. Talks came to an official end but still continued on an unsanctioned basis. The ANC's Cyril Ramaphosa and the NP's Roelf Meyer took the negotiations forward. Both sides were willing to compromise and, accordingly, came to an agreement. Mandela and De Klerk signed a Record of Understanding, agreeing that a constituent assembly would be created to draw up the new constitution and that there would also be a five-year Government of National Unity so that all political parties would have the chance to participate in government. The Government of National Unity was believed to be an important factor in the reduction of tensions between the political parties. To give the chance to as many political parties as possible, it was decided that any party with five per cent or more of the vote would be represented in government. Any party with more than twenty per cent would receive a deputy president position.

There were a number of attacks on white civilians by the PAC's army, the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). The PAC was hoping to attract the support of the angry, impatient youth. In one such attack, members of the APLA entered a Cape Town church and opened fire, killing and wounding members of the congregation.

Right-wing violence also added to the hostilities of this period. The assassination of Chris Hani threatened to derail talks altogether. Hani, the popular general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), was assassinated in 1993 in Dawn Park in Johannesburg by Janusz Walus, an anti-Communist Polish refugee who had close links to the white nationalist AWB. His death brought forth protests throughout the country. Soon afterwards, the AWB broke through the gates of the World Trade Centre, where, despite everything, talks were now going ahead under the Negotiating Council. An armoured vehicle was crashed through the front of the building, but even this failed to derail the process. Although final agreements were not directly attained from CODESA I or II, it was as a result of their foundations that a peaceful resolution was agreed upon.

In 1993, the Negotiating Council reached an agreement on the election date, choosing 27 April 1994. Preparations amidst a sustained climate of terrifying unrest. It was decided that everyone over the age of eighteen would be allowed to vote. In 1993, the Interim Constitution was published and accepted, guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion, access to adequate housing and numerous other rights, as well as explicitly prohibiting discrimination on almost any ground. The Transitional Executive Council was formed to supervise the elections and an Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) set up to run them. Ballot papers were printed and election stations set up. Independent officials were appointed to supervise and ensure a free and fair process. Ironically, the army, which had only a few years before been zealously defending apartheid, was now ensuring that nothing got in the way of its peaceful dissolution.

The IFP refused to join all other parties in registering for the elections. It wanted a guarantee that the Zulu king and IFP supporters would not be subject to discrimination. After talks with Mandela and De Klerk, the IFP changed its stance, just a week before the elections. With the ballot papers already printed, the IEC now had to add IFP stickers to them.

Violence persisted right through to the 1994 elections. Lucas Mangope, leader of the Bophuthatswana homeland, declared that it would not take part in the elections. It had been decided that, once the temporary constitution had come into effect, the homelands would be incorporated into South Africa, but Mangope did not want this to happen. There were strong protests against his decision, and he eventually backed down. This did not, however, bring a halt to the right-wing violence as several militants came to Mangope's aid. Three of them were killed, and harrowing images were shown on national television and in newspapers across the world.

Two days before the elections, a car bomb exploded in Johannesburg, killing nine. The day before the elections, another one went off, injuring thirteen. Finally, though, at midnight on 26–27 April 1994, the old flag was lowered, and the old (now co-official) national anthem Die Stem ("The Call") was sung, followed by the raising of the new rainbow flag and singing of the other co-official anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika ("God Bless Africa"). The election went off peacefully amidst a palpable feeling of goodwill throughout the country. International observers were agreed that the elections were free and fair.

20,000,000 South Africans turned up to cast their votes. There was some difficulty in organising the voting in rural areas, but, throughout the country, people waited patiently for many hours in order to vote. An extra day was added to give everyone the chance. People had two votes to cast -- one for a National Government and another for a Provincial Government. As part of the new governmental structure, each province -- there were now nine -- was given a degree of political power. This meant that not all decisions were made by the national government.

The ANC won 62.7% of the vote, less than the 66.7% that would have allowed it to rewrite the constitution. As well as deciding the national government, the election decided the provincial governments, and the ANC won in all but two provinces. The NP captured most of the white and Coloured vote and became the official opposition party. The Government of National Unity was established, its cabinet made up of twelve ANC representatives, six from the NP and three from the IFP. Thabo Mbeki and FW De Klerk were made deputy presidents, and Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first democratically-elected president. The ANC won seven provinces, the NP the Western Cape and the IFP Natal.

Since then, 27 April is celebrated as a public holiday in South Africa known as Freedom Day.

In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa".

Legacies of apartheid

Economic inequality and Black Economic Empowerment

Many of the inequalities created and maintained by apartheid still remain in South Africa. The country has one of the most unequal income distribution patterns in the world: approximately 60% of the population earns less than R42,000 per annum (about US$7,000), whereas 2.2% of the population has an income exceeding R360,000 per annum (about US$50,000). Poverty in South Africa is still largely defined by skin colour, with black people constituting the poorest layer. Despite the ANC government having implemented a policy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), blacks make up over 90% of the country's poor but only 79.5% of the population.

Part of the policy of Black Economic Empowerment is the imposition of 'employment equity' targets. In terms of this, companies are assessed based on their racial composition. To attain the 'correct' racial balance in a company, the Employment Equity Act allows for legal discrimination against White males and to a lesser extent White females when appointing staff. Government contracts and a few in the private sector are also preferentially awarded to companies with good BEE ratings. In September 2006 the Labour Ministry ordered private companies to classify their employees according to race. The classification was to be done based on a form that every employee had to complete, which used the apartheid-era racial categories. On the form the employee had to confirm whether they regarded themselves as White, Indian, Coloured or African. This caused some controversy and some employees refused to classify themselves saying it was a return to the race classification system of the Apartheid era. In such cases employers were forced in terms of the Employment Equity Act to do a classification based on the general appearance of those employees who refused to classify themselves.

Land ownership inequality and land claims

Eighty percent of farming land still remains in the hands of white farmers; the requirement that claimants for restoration of land seized during the apartheid era make a contribution towards the cost of the land "excludes the poorest layers of the population altogether", while a large number of white farmers have been murdered since 1994 (roughly 313 per 100 000 annually) in what campaign groups claim is a campaign of genocide. Human Rights Watch contend that the publicity given to these murders and attacks removes attention from the plight of poor black rural people, and contend that they are purely criminal in nature. Regardless, crime against white farmers receives strong media coverage. Opposition against land reforms fear that by removing commercial farmers from their land and dividing up the land to poor urbanized people with no comprehension of agriculture or agricultural management would lead to a state of famine like the one being experienced in Zimbabwe at the moment.

In Durban a large movement of shackdwellers has mobilized against city authorities claiming that popular attempts to desegregate the city in the 1980s are now being reversed by the mass eviction of shack dwellers.

Contrition

The following individuals, who had previously supported apartheid, made public apologies:

• FW de Klerk[1] - "I apologise in my capacity as leader of the NP to the millions who suffered wrenching disruption of forced removals; who suffered the shame of being arrested for pass law offences; who over the decades suffered the indignities and humiliation of racial discrimination."
• Marthinus van Schalkwyk[2]
• Adriaan Vlok[3] - who washed the feet of apartheid victim Frank Chikane
• Leon Wessels[4] - who said "I am now more convinced than ever that apartheid was a terrible mistake that blighted our land. South Africans did not listen to the laughing and the crying of each other. I am sorry that I had been so hard of hearing for so long".

Establishment of the "crime of apartheid" by the International Criminal Court

Main article: Crime of apartheid

South African apartheid was condemned internationally as unjust and racist. In 1973 the General Assembly of the United Nations agreed on the text of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The immediate intention of the Convention was to provide a formal legal framework within which member states could apply sanctions to press the South African government to change its policies. However, the Convention was phrased in general terms, with the express intention of prohibiting any other state from adopting analogous policies. The Convention came into force in 1976.

The Rome Statute defined Apartheid as one of eleven crimes against humanity. Citizens of the majority of states, including South Africa, which have ratified the statute can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for committing or abetting the crime of apartheid.

See also

• Africa Hinterland (Arms smuggling operation)
• Discrimination
• Necklacing
• Nuremberg Laws
• Second-class citizen
• Settler colonialism
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• White supremacy
• Sandra Laing
• Apartheid in art and literature

References

• Davenport, T.R.H. South Africa. A Modern History. MacMillan, 1977.
• De Klerk, F.W. The last Trek. A New Beginning. MacMillan, 1998.
• Eiselen, W.W.N. The Meaning of Apartheid, Race Relations, 15 (3), 1948.
• Giliomee, Herman The Afrikaners. Hurst & Co., 2003.
• Meredith, Martin. In the name of apartheid: South Africa in the postwar period. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.
• Meredith, Martin. The State of Africa. The Free Press, 2005.
• Hexham, Irving, The Irony of Apartheid: The Struggle for National Independence of Afrikaner Calvinism against British Imperialism." Edwin Mellen, 1981.
• Visser, Pippa. In search of history. Oxford University Press Southern Africa, 2003.
• Louw, P.Eric. The Rise, Fall and Legacy of Apartheid. Praeger, 2004.
• Terreblanche, S. A History of Inequality in South Africa, 1652-2002. University of Natal Press, 2003.
• Federal Research Division. South Africa - a country study. Library of Congress, 1996.
• Book: Crocodile Burning. By Michael Williams. 1994
• Davied, Rob, Dan O'Meara and Sipho Dlamini. The Struggle For South Africa: A reference guide to movements, organizations and institution. Volume Two. London: Zed Books Ltd. 1984
• Lapchick, Richard and Urdang, Stephanie. Oppression and Resistance. The Struggle of Women in Southern Africa. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 1982.
• Bernstein, Hilda. For their Triumphs and for their Tears: Women in Apartheid South Africa. International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa.London, 1985

External links

• Struggles For Freedom materials in Aluka library
• In Focus: The 1956 Women's Struggle in South Africa SAHO
• The evolution of the white right
• A comprehensive timeline of the peace process negotiations during the 1980s and 90s.
• History of the freedom charter SAHO
• Bearer of an Ideal - a public release document of the Afrikanerbond (formerly Afrikaner Broederbond): thinktank which influenced policies of separate development in South Africa
• Full text of the UN convention on apartheid
• South Africa, 10 years later from National Public Radio
• Historical Documents of the African National Congress
• Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg
• The Effect of Sanctions on Constitutional Change in SA
• CBC Digital Archives - Canada and the Fight Against Apartheid
• What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife
• "Today it feels good to be an African" - Thabo Mbeki, Cape Town, 8 May 1996
• Encyclopedia.com
• BBC World Service Audio: Apartheid
• African Congress Women's League
• FSAW Women's Struggle
• DISA - South Africa's Struggle for Democracy: Anti-Apartheid Periodicals, 1960-1990
• [5]
• Documentary about Apartheid and Robben Island