--The Apartheid in South Africa was their government's attempt to segregate black citizens and create economic and political superiority of people with a European background. They made it legal to group people by their race and discriminate against them. Apartheid literally means separateness, and that's definately what happened. Black citizens rights were controlled in all aspects of their lives.
--The Apartheid started in 1948 when Daniel F. Malan became Prime Minister. He was a strong believer in white supremacy, so he introduced the Apartheid policy. Throughout the years until the 1980s new laws and policies were put in place that restricted blacks rights. Some jobs became "white only jobs" and people were not allowed to marry interracially. The two racial groups were not even supposed to interact.
--Black citizens were also forced to carry passbooks. These passbooks limitted where they could live, work, and travel, among other things. In 1960 a large group of black citizens refused to carry their passbooks. This caused the government to declare a state of emergency that lasted 156 days. Sixty-nine people were killed and 187 were wounded by the police. During states of emergency anyone could be arrested without a trial and over the years thousands died in custody from being tortured.
--As well as having to carry passbooks, black citizens were forced to make their homes in small shacks and had very poor living conditions. There were over four times the number of black citizens in South Africa, but they were forced to live on only 13% of the land. They made much less money than white citizens and there was an insufficient number of doctors for their population. In addition to their houses being extremely small, they were also packed very tightly.
--In the 1960s the government carried out their plans for a "Grand Apartheid." The government's goal for this plan was to make territorial separation and police repression in South Africa even more radical. Many more laws that supported the segregation and degradation of the black community were passed. These laws also began to be more strictly enforced by the police. Blacks' rights were definitely being compromised.
1 comment:
We studied apartheid in South Africa in 7th grade, but i never realized the atrocities of it. The pictures really brought it to life for me. I can't imagine not being allowed into certain places, or having to live in the poorer section of town just based on my skin color. The blacks in South Africa had to face circumstances like this daily. Nelson Mandela is an extremely inspirtational person, and good example to how you should always stick to your beliefs. Apparently, the Holocaust was not a lesson learned, because aparthied was very similar to it. The thing that bothers me, is that the world didn't learn their lesson from apartheid. The same kind of thing is happening TODAY in Chechnya. People are detained, tortured and killed for no reason at all but their ethnicity. I just hope once this is all over the world can go on in peace.
-Christina Garbarino
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