Apartheid: summary, history, meaning and developments from 1948 to 1991. Reforms in South Africa and the end of apartheid.
Apartheid: summary
What does apartheid mean?
Apartheid is the racial segregation formally adopted in South Africa from 1948 to 1991. In Afrikaans, the term apartheid means “separation” and refers to the rigid division that regulated relations between the white minority and the black majority of the South African population . Only in 1992 did a referendum to end racial segregation and reform the Constitution take place, and in 1994 the first political elections were held in which all citizens voted, regardless of skin color.
History of apartheid
Apartheid was introduced in South Africa in 1948 following the electoral victory of the Nationalist Party (NP). Apartheid laws classified citizens into three main racial groups :
- White
- Bantu (Black Africans)
- coloured (people of mixed descent)
Later a fourth category was established for Asians, Indians and Pakistanis. What did the apartheid laws dictate ?
- the places where each group could live
- what kind of jobs he could do
- what kind of school system could he access?
The laws prohibited nearly all interracial relationships , established segregated public places, and excluded nonwhites from all forms of political representation.
The conflict grew to the point that it transformed South Africa into a police state: opponents of apartheid were prosecuted and the government tightened its repressive policy . The African National Congress (ANC), founded in 1912 by blacks, intervened to counter this state of affairs. But after the strikes against apartheid that culminated in the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960, the government banned all black political organizations including the ANC. But the demonstrations, violent clashes, strikes and boycotts that followed in the 1960s and 1970s by those who opposed apartheid, the failure of the white policy and the international condemnation that had isolated South Africa, forced the government to loosen the restrictions .
Reforms in South Africa and the easing of apartheid
In the 1970s and 1980s, the government carried out a series of reforms that allowed black trade unions to organize and engage in limited political activity. The 1984 Constitution extended parliamentary representation to Asians and Coloureds , but not to blacks , despite their demographic weight: blacks constituted over 75% of the population. New riots broke out in the cities, but as international pressure against South Africa grew, the government’s apartheid policies began to loosen.
In 1990, the first major changes took place: the new president Frederick de Klerk lifted the thirty-year ban on the ANC and freed its leader, Nelson Mandela , and in 1993 an agreement was reached and signed by Mandela and De Klerk on the transition of South Africa from apartheid to a democratic regime. In the first free elections in 1994, Mandela became the first black president in the history of South Africa to head a government coalition that also included the National Party.
