Summary

Apartheid and Nelson Mandela

Apartheid, an Afrikaans word meaning the status of being apart becomes

government policy in 1948. It separates whites from natives, coloureds and
Asians, in every area of life from the buses they travel to work on, to the beaches
where they holiday. Resistance, like the 1952 Defiance Campaign during which Mandela
burns his pass book, is initially non-violent. In 1955 the ANC campaign for the human
rights Freedom Charter. The following year, 156 of its supporters are tried for high treason.
This five year trial will be the longest in South African history but all of the accused will be
acquitted.

A STATE OF EMERGENCY

In 1960, a State of Emergency is declared after police kill 69 unarmed anti-apartheid

protesters. Detention without trial is introduced and the ANC declared illegal. A new
underground armed wing is formed and Mandela joins. As sabotage increases on the
streets, internationally, the UN General Assembly calls for sanctions against South African.
In 1962, Mandela is arrested and is later sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1966, the
architect of apartheid, Prime Minister Verwoerd is assassinated by a white man appalled
by apartheid. He escapes the death penalty as hes considered insane.

The governments that follow become more draconian. An attempt to impose the Afrikaans
language in 1976 causes nationwide violence. And tragedies, like the beating to death in
police custody of the student leader, Steve Biko, characterise the 1970s and the following
decade. Both sides experience such loss, commit such atrocities, and become so
entrenched that despite massive, overwhelming internal and international opposition to
apartheid, few believe it will end in their lifetime.

But in 1986, President Botha secretly begins talks with Mandela leading to the latters
release in 1990. The years between this and the countrys first free elections in 1994 see
some of the worst bloodshed in the countrys history.

The ANC, once illegal, is elected and goes on to win the next three elections.


Apartheid Origins

The roots of apartheid go back long before the National Party came to power in 1948 with
the idea of apartheid, a system for systematically separating the races.

In 1685, a law in the Cape Colony forbade marriage between Europeans and Africans,
although it did permit Europeans and mixed race people to marry. Back in the 1850's, the
missionary and traveler
David Livingstone , noticed the Afrikaner obsession with race. He wrote:

"The great objection many of the Boers had and still have to English law is that it makes
no distinction between black men and white. They felt aggrieved by their supposed losses
in the emancipation for their Hottentot slaves, and determined to erect themselves into a
republic, in which they might pursue without molestation, the 'proper treatment of the
blacks.'

It is almost needless to add that the 'proper treatment' has always contained in it the
essential element of slavery, namely, compulsory unpaid labour"
Extract from David Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.

THE LAW
By the mid-19th century, equality for all before the law was, in theory, a principle
established by the British, regardless of the race or religion of the litigant.

In 1853, a franchise was established in the Cape, determined by a person's wealth, but not
restricted in any way by race; as long as you were rich enough, you could vote whether
black, white or mixed race.

RESTRICTED FRANCHISE
In the 1870's, Rhodes changed the franchise to exclude 'unwesternised' peasant farmers.
Natal also briefly had a nonracial franchise, although this ended in 1896.

In the run up to the creation of the Union of South Africa, the Cape Colony was alone in
sending delegates who weren't European to the constitutional conference. But the
Afrikaners were determined to deprive Africans and people of African ancestry of political
power.

LAND STOLEN
A turning point in African European relations was reached in 1913 when hundreds of
thousands of Africans were forced off land which they either owned or were squatting on. It
became compulsory to live in African 'reserves' (Natives Land Act).

Around the same time, segregation began to be introduced into the mines so that Africans
were barred from taking jobs involving any skilled labour.

ANC
The ANC (African National Congress) was formed largely in response to these early
segregation laws. But the momentum proved impossible to stop. In 1936 the African and
mixed race people of the Cape lost the right to vote. From here on the majority of people in
South Africa lost any control over the running of their country.

Apartheid law

After the Second World War, the National Party came to power in 1948 on a ticket of racial
segregation and support for poor Afrikaners.

A large number of laws were passed to establish the apartheid structure of government.
The three most important blocks of legislation were:

The Race Classification Act. Every citizen suspected of not being European was
classified according to race.
The Mixed Marriages Act. It prohibited marriage between people of different races.
The Group Areas Act. It forced people of certain races into living in designated areas.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF RACIAL CLASSIFICATION

The apartheid regime had a number of pseudo scientific tests for classifying people as
belonging to one of four main groups: White, Black, Indian, Coloured (mixed race). One of
these tests involved putting a comb through hair - if it got stuck, that meant the person
being tested was identified as African.

Every year, people were reclassified racially. In 1984, for example:

518 Coloured people were defined as White
2 whites were called Chinese
1 white was reclassified Indian
1 white became Coloured
89 Coloured people became African

Vic Wilkinson's case is significant. He was originally classified mixed race. Later he was
defined as White. But the process of classification did not end there. He was also
classified as Coloured, went back to being registered White, and conclusively became
Coloured in 1984.

Interestingly the word 'African' was never used by the authorities. The problem was it
translated back in the Boer language into the word Afrikaner, which was the very name the
white Dutch descendants called themselves. Africans were referred to by white officialdom
as black or Bantu.

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH

The Afrikaner sense of identity is tied up closely with Christian worship. This religiosity sat
curiously alongside a strong conviction in white racial superiority.

In 1957, the Native Laws Amendment Act contained a 'Church Clause' which allowed
Africans to be barred from a service if they were considered to be 'causing a nuisance'.

In the 1950's, Drum magazine began investigating the day to day realities of apartheid.
Can Themba, one of their top writers, took on the churches setting himself the task of
visiting a number of different ones, with white congregations, to see what kind of reception
he would get.

TURNED AWAY FROM THE HOUSE OF GOD

"The Presbyterian Church in Noord Street allowed me in, yet the one in Orange Grove
refused me admittance. They explained that the hall was rented from some boys' club

whose policy did not allow Non-whites into the hall. They also said something about the
laws of the country.

At the Kensington DRC (Dutch Reform Church), an aged church official was just about to
close the doors when he saw me. He bellowed in Afrikaans: 'What soek jy? (What do you
want?) 'I've come to church,' I said.
He shoved me violently, shouting for me to get away. I walked off dejected.

A few doors away was the Baptist Church, and as I walked towards it I began to think that
people didn't want me to share their church. As I walked through the Baptist door I was
tense, waiting for that tap on the shoulderbut instead I was given a hymn book and
welcomed into the church. I sat through the serviceThis up and down treatment wasn't
doing my nerves much good."
From anthology of works of Can Themba, entitled The Will to Die.

Apartheid also affected the world of beauty pageants. Whites were chosen as
representatives of the South African peoples.

Nelson Mandela

Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on 18 July 1918 and was given the
name of Nelson by one of his teachers. His father Henry was a respected advisor to the
Thembu royal family.

ANC involvement
Mandela was educated at the University of Fort Hare and later at the University of
Witwatersrand, qualifying in law in 1942. He became increasingly involved with the African
National Congress (ANC), a multi-racial nationalist movement trying to bring about political
change in South Africa.
In 1948, the National Party came to power and began to implement a policy of 'apartheid',
or forced segregation on the basis of race. The ANC staged a campaign of passive
resistance against apartheid laws.
In 1952, Mandela became one of the ANC's deputy presidents. By the late 1950s, faced
with increasing government discrimination, Mandela, his friend Oliver Tambo and others
began to move the ANC in a more radical direction. In 1956, Mandela went on trial for
treason. The court case lasted five years, and ended with Mandela being acquitted

Sharpeville
In March 1960, 69 black anti-apartheid demonstrators were killed by police at Sharpeville.
The government declared a state of emergency and banned the ANC. In response, the
organisation abandoned its policy of non-violence and Mandela helped establish the
ANC's military wing 'Umkhonto we Sizwe' or 'The Spear of the Nation'. He was appointed
its commander-in-chief and travelled abroad to receive military training and to find support
for the ANC.

Life imprisonment
On his return he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1963, Mandela and
other ANC leaders were tried for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. The
following year Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was held in Robben Island
prison, off the coast of Cape Town, and later in Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland. During
his years in prison he became an international symbol of resistance to apartheid.

In 1990, the South African government responded to internal and international pressure
and released Mandela, at the same time lifting the ban against the ANC. In 1991 Mandela
became the ANC's leader.

A respected global statesman

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with FW de Klerk, then president of
South Africa, in 1993. The following year South Africa held its first multi-racial election and
Mandela was elected its first black president.
In 1998, he was married for the third time to Graa Machel, the widow of the president of
Mozambique. Mandela's second wife, Winnie, whom he married in 1958 and divorced in
1996, remains a controversial anti-apartheid activist.
In 1997 he stepped down as ANC leader and in 1999 his presidency of South Africa came
to an end.
In 2004, Mandela announced his retirement from public life, although his charitable work
continued. On 29 August 2007, a permanent statue to him was unveiled in Parliament
Square, London.