To fully understand the rise of apartheid (Afrikaans: set apart) and its subsequent policies, it is necessary to first understand the history of South Africa prior to 1948. For many years, this area, once known as the Boer Republic, had been ruled by whites who They had come from Europe. Until 1899, this area was ruled by Dutch settlers who spoke Afrikaans. When the British Empire invaded in 1899, the Boer Republic consisted of two independent states: the Republic of South Africa and the Orange Free State.
This Second Boer War, which lasted nearly three years, would end in a British victory. Both Boer republics were annexed by the British Empire and later joined the Union of South Africa in 1910. Although they had once been enemies, Great Britain and the Union of South Africa allied themselves and joined forces against the Germans. Empire in World War I. Former generals in the Boer War against Britain, Prime Minister Louis Botha and Defense Minister Jan Smuts, were now both members of the Imperial War Cabinet.
Defense Minister Smuts was a member of the United Party. In 1948, his party was defeated by the Reunited National Party (RNP) led by the Protestant cleric Daniel Malan, who followed a policy of apartheid. The RNP joined forces with the Afrikaner Party and later merged to form the National Party (NP). Malan became prime minister and thus began the apartheid era.
Apartheid legislation was actually nothing new, as it was in fact based on earlier British laws that Britain had put in place after the Anglo-Boer War in an effort to keep the different races segregated. Using British laws as a model, NP leaders reasoned that South Africa was not one united nation, but rather four nations separated along racial lines. While some of his reasoning may seem strange to us today, it was in fact in line with most of the beliefs of the time that tended not only to disparage interactions between different races, but in many cases considered them immoral, or even in certain situations. illegal.
Although various subgroups were designated, the country was divided into four main racial groups: White, Black, Indian, and Colored. Whites were immigrants or descendants of English-speaking and Afrikaans immigrants from Europe.
Two types of apartheid laws were instituted: great apartheid and petty apartheid. The great apartheid was the separation of peoples according to racial criteria. The great laws of apartheid separated the cities into small municipalities to which people were transferred according to the color of their skin. All interaction between the races was illegal. The small apartheid laws were those that dealt with everyday places like beaches, clubs, restaurants and the like.
An article on the Stanford.edu website states “that with the enactment of the apartheid laws in 1948, racial discrimination was institutionalized. The racial laws touched all aspects of social life, including the prohibition of marriage between whites and non-whites.” whites, and the sanction of “whites only” jobs. (History) The first law was the Mixed Marriage Prohibition Act, which made it a crime for people to marry outside of their race.
The second such law was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which required people to carry an identification card indicating which racial group they belonged to.
In 1950 the Law of Group Areas was approved. This apartheid law officially sanctioned the separation of the races in areas based solely on race. Forced removal was often implemented.
According to an article on the website africanhistory.about.com, the Separate Services Reservation Act of 1953 was “enforced segregation in all public services, public buildings, and public transportation with the aim of eliminating contact between whites and other races.” . “and ‘For Non-Europeans Only’ signs were put up. The law stated that the facilities provided for different races did not have to be the same.” (Evans body)
The Suppression of Communism Act 1950 banned the South African Communist Party and any other party that subscribed to any form of communism. However, the law was written in such a broad sense that any form of government that opposed apartheid could be banned regardless of whether it had anything to do with communism or not.
The Bantu Education Act of 1953 created a system of schools and colleges that were tailored to individual races. With this type of educational system, it made it impossible for blacks to become anything more than ordinary workers.
While interracial contact in sports was frowned upon, there were no official laws separating the races in sports.
Other nations, through the United Nations (UN), began to show concern about the apartheid laws in 1946, but it was seen as an internal matter best left to South Africa. Finally, in 1960, after the Sharpeville Massacre, in which police killed 69 protesters, the UN agreed to concerted action against apartheid. It was demanded that apartheid and racial segregation be eliminated in South Africa.
In 1962, the UN passed Resolution 1761 formally condemning South African policies. Resolution 181 was passed in 1963 calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. Apartheid was officially made illegal and classified as a crime against humanity, open to prosecution for the perpetrators. In 1977, Resolution 181 changed from a voluntary arms embargo to a mandatory one.
During the 1980s, many leaders attempted to reform apartheid in an effort to put down various uprisings, but to no avail. It was determined that the only way to solve the problems in South Africa was to repeal the apartheid laws, and in 1990 then President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to repeal them. Although all apartheid laws were repealed in 1990, the recognized end of apartheid was not until 1994 when South Africa celebrated its first non-
racial general election won by the African National Congress under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, who only 4 years earlier had been released from prison after serving 27 years of life for leading anti-apartheid protests.