Apartheid - Survey Flashcards
Social impact
Black people were treated inferior under a ‘master servant relationship.
White people as ‘baas’ or master and worked in roles such as maid or gardners (Nelson Mandela “It was quite common for any white person to call on any black person to perform a chore”)
Economic impact
White communities prospered due to the mining boom of the 1960s, particularly Afrikanners who started running businesses (In 1948 English speakers earned double that of Afrikanners, but by late 1970s Afrikanners earned 80% of English incomes)
Black people worked in labour intensive unskilled work and did not enjoy this prosperity,
( earning less than half the earnings of a white worker)
Political Impact
The National Party dominated among the white voters by campaigning on Apartheid, which protected them from the ‘black danger’(In 1961, the National Party won 105 seats)
The Sharpeville Massacre saw the banning of the Pan African Congress (PAC) and African National Congress (ANC) under the Supression of Communism Act 1950. This prompted the formation of military wings with the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, also known as MK.)
Political Issues
Majority of African nations achieved their independence in the 1950s and 1960s
Population Registration Act 1950
- Required the classification of all South Africans along racial lines.
- Your future could be decided by the notorious pencil test.
- If the pencil remained in the hair, the person was classified as black.
Economic Issues
South Africa was a country split by economic inequality in 1960. At that time, the black population’s average income level was less than 10 per cent of that of the white population.
Other people of colour and Asian people earned less than 20 per cent of the white income, but still twice as much as black South Africans.
Demographic Issues
Two policies prevent mixed marriage
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 1949 and the Immorality Act 1950
The rare areas where non-white and white people had interacted freely and without incident
- Such as Sophiatown near Johannesburg, and Cape Town’s District Six were broken up.
‘Upright’ white citizens were encouraged to spy on people and report transgressions.
Bantustans
Ideology of ‘separate development’ of different critical in Verowerd’s passage of the Bantu Self Government Act as he believed that the government would provide for the basic needs of the resettled blacks
However, in practice there was little development in these communities due to overcrowding and poor employment prospects as the government refused to commit to the spending as outlined in the 1955 Tomlinson Report
THE GRAND APARTHEID SOLUTION
Vermound estimated that by 2000 there would be 6 million Africans resident in South Africa’s cities, albeit all of them migrant workers without permanent rights of residence
An additional 4 million Africans would be resident on white farms but those were, he argued, places ‘where the problems of apartheid presents no difficulty to us and where Apartheid is maintained locally’ that is by the autocratic power of white farmers supported by the policies
Foreign investment attracted by rates of return on capital often running as high as 1.5 to 2.0 per cent more than doubled between 1963 and 1972 while immigration levels boosted the white population during the same period
Apartheid Segregation
Ideology that black people were only in urban areas temporarily reinforced by moving of townships such as Sophiatown from ‘white areas’ under the Group Education Act 1955
However, ideology limited by the fact that there was still a growing black presence in urban townships as they were required for white factories, despite the ‘separate development’ ideology (population of Botshabelo near Bloemfontein grew by 200 000 between 1980 and 1985)
Education
The ideology was applied to facilitate white dominance and superiority in education, with the Bantu Education Act 1953 seeing government taking control of black schools and teaching them in ethnic languages to prepare them for life in the bantustans or in unskilled labour
Verowerd: “The natives will be thought from childhood that equality with Europeans is not for them”
Acts implemented by the Apartheid Government
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriage Act (1949)
Separate Amenities Act (1952)
Marked all public places and services with signs such as “Europeans Only” or “Coloureds”
The Population Registration Act (1950)
Group Areas Act (1950)
Gave the government power to declare areas ‘for whites only’ and move black’s out, whether or not they wished to go
The Suppression of Communism Act (1950)
The Native Laws Amendment Act (1952)
The Abortion of Passes Act (1952)
Contradicted its title and tightened up the pre-war pass laws
The Bantu Education Act (1953)
Brought black education fully under government control, Black schools had to provide different courses from white ones and teach in their ethnic language, not in English
The Separate Representation of Voters Act (1956)
Ended the right of the Cape Coloureds, to vote with the whites in elections In future they the Cape Coloured, to vole with the whites in elections.
URBAN COMMUNITIES
Group Areas Act controlled where blacks lived in SA townships (1955)
Pass Laws controlled length of time that blacks had permission to be in urban areas (72 hours without a job).
Rigid enforcement of the Pass laws - police raids and pass checks - 5.8 million prosecutions 1966-75
Laws restricted the blacks to poorer and temporary townships
e.g. Sophiatown
Power to deport any blacks without jobs out of urban areas - 1.6 million Africans removed
Blacks lived a great distance from their work and industrial and commercial areas - costly transport
‘Different education system’ applied - Bantu Education Act
This inequality meant that South Africa was one of the most unequal industrialised nations by the early 1980s, with 40% of the population earning 6% of national income
RURAL COMMUNITIES
1960s-1980s up to 3.5 million forcibly removed as result of Group Areas (1950) and Separate
Development(1959) legislation
80% of population were black and were to be removed to 13.5% of SA land mass
Bantustans separated / fragmented - not whole sections of territory
eg KwaZulu =70 separate parts
Verwoerd ‘separate development’ ideology
Tomlinson Report recommended that Bantustans needed £ 104mill in govt spending - economic investment and industrial development for employment, self sufficiency but only £ 500,000 spent
How Apartheid was introduced
Prime Minister Malan (1948-54) a new policy called ‘apartheid’ (separateness) was introduced. This tightened control over blacks still further
Afrikaner Nationalist Party
- Claimed whites were a master race, and that non-whites were inferior beings
The Nationalists won the 1948 elections with promises to rescue the whites from the ‘black menace and to preserve the racial purity of the whites.
Homeland system
Introduced in 1960
Areas were impoverished rural area with no real capacity to function as separate states
Relocation of Black Africans to the homelands meant they were no longer South African citizens and were forced to work as foreign migrants without citizen’s right
13% of the country was divided into 10 homelands
8% of the population lived in these homelands
