Personal Information
Personal information
A lot of controversial and hard for understanding things happens in our history. One of these things we want to talk about is Africa’s apartheid policy of 1948.
Apartheid is the name of the racial institution which was established in 1948 by the National Party that governed South Africa until 1994. The term, which literally means “apartness”, meant that people with white skin, who were about 20% of the population, would continue dominating over the other people, mostly over the native population of Africa (Evans). As we all know from the course of history, South Africa was colonized by the British Empire and Holland in the 17th century. Since that time the attributes of inequality of rights emerged in one or another way.
Race laws were connected with every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of jobs allowed only for white men. In 1950, the Population Registration Act required that all South Africans be racially classified into one of three categories: white, black (African), or colored. The situation became even worse after the 50s. Special reservations called “homelands” were established in 1951. In 1953, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed, which empowered the government to declare states of emergency and increased penalties for protesting against the law. The penalties included fines, imprisonment and whippings (The History of Apartheid in South Africa).
According to Evans, three important movements challenged apartheid. Pan Africanist Congress and African National Congress initiated campaign against apartheid in 1958. South African Students’ Organization, which was formed in the late 60s, also tried to fight for the rights of natives.
References
The History of Apartheid in South Africa. Retrieved from http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html
Evans, Marissa K. Apartheid (1948-1994). Retrieved from http://www.blackpast.org/gah/apartheid-1948-1994
