The story of South Africa

The modern history of South Africa is a story of more or less organised brutality and disastrous social divisions. Of the original inhabitants, the San and the Khoikhoi peoples, few survived the brutality of the early European settlers, who hunted them like animals, or the smallpox which the Dutch, French, and Germans brought with them and to which the native South Africans had no natural resistance. Of those who remained, the vast majority were enslaved by their boer (farmer) masters.

The Netherlands, conquered by the French in 1795, ceded the South African Dutch colony to the British empire in order to keep it out of French hands. The first British settlers began to arrive in the Cape within twenty years; eventually slavery was eventually abolished, and English became the only official language of the colony. For these reasons and others, the boers became resentful of their British rulers. Several thousand of them trekked north and east into the interior. In so doing, they came into contact with the other peoples who had settled in South Africa and established their own kingdoms. Those who resisted them were defeated. Natal was annexed by the British after a period of bloody conflict with the Zulu people. The British were forced to recognise the independence of both the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In these independent states, the boers began to refer to themselves as the Afrikaner nation, and Afrikaans became their official language.

When the gold and diamond reserves of the South African interior were discovered, war broke out between the British and the Afrikaners. By the dawn of the twentieth century, not one of the original African nations retained its independence, and the Afrikaners had surrendered to the British. The Cape, Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal formed the Union of South Africa, which became a self-governing country within the British empire. This country was founded on a constitution which gave people of European descent (as judged by the colour of their skin) virtually complete and unassailable power.

South Africa's connection with Britain, first as part of the British empire and later as an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations, continued for the next four decades. However, neither African nor Afrikaans-speaking people were content to be governed for ever by the British. The African National Congress (ANC) had been formed in 1912, with the proclaimed purpose of seeking equality for African people. One year later, Afrikaners established the National Party. They succeeded in having their language officially recognised, which resulted in South Africa having two official languages. Under British rule, the Native Land Act of 1913 began to restrict land ownership by African people, and legislation was passed to create separate services and amenities for black and white people, and to protect the interests of white workers.

The apartheid era

The National Party, with its mostly Afrikaans-speaking support base, came to power in the elections of 1948. Shortly afterwards, the National Party government instituted modern apartheid (literally, apart-ness), with such notorious legislation as the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Group Areas Act, which created separate residential areas for people of differing ethnic backgrounds. 'Homelands' were allocated to particular ethnic groups. The land allocated in this way was for the most part extremely poor agricultural land and far removed from the cities and industrial centres of the country. Many black South Africans were forced to live and work at great distances from their families and were closely regulated while outside their homeland. The indigenous people of South Africa had become aliens on their own land.

With the establishment of the homelands came the most oppressive period of South Africa's history, when homes and communities were destroyed and many people were forcibly moved to other parts of the country. Land and property taken in this way was in most cases sold to white farmers or white-controlled industry. Townships grew up around all commercial and industrial centres, and here black people lived while working in the cities. In addition, hostels were created in many areas and at the mines, where migrant labourers were housed by their employers in extremely poor conditions.

The impact of these forced economic migration patterns on family life is difficult to measure. For generations, South African families have accepted as normal that at least one parent will be away from the family home for extended periods of time. Those women who remained in the rural communities of the homelands were forced to take on the traditional work of men, in addition to their own responsibilities. Many women have supported their families through subsistence farming, in addition to caring for children and aged relatives, while their husbands are away for long periods in the cities. Women who joined the men in seeking work in the urban areas were prevented by law from taking their children with them, and had to leave them behind in the care of siblings or other relations.

Even non-violent political protests were crushed by the government, and the apartheid regime's response to political opposition became more and more brutal. Security forces enjoyed enormous powers, including detention without trial; entry, search, and seizure without warrant; restriction and banning of persons; restriction and banning of organisations, campaigns, gatherings, and publications; the imposition of curfews; and immunity from prosecution. The apartheid regime and its security forces were not afraid to use these far-reaching powers to silence all opposition within the country. As an example of their abuse of power, Coleman (1998) reports that from i960 onwards 75,000 persons were detained without trial, of whom at least 25 per cent were children and young people, and ten per cent were women. Detention might be in solitary confinement and for virtually indefinite periods, often as long as 32 months. There is clear evidence of torture in detention.

Political repression was not exerted only through the formal mechanisms of legislation and legal security-force actions. With an extensive network of informants and spies, security forces monitored and harassed suspected political activists and their families. There were clear links between homeland police, vigilante groups, hit squads, and the security forces.

Resistance and change

Since the 1960s, the violence implicit in South Africa's social structure has not been limited to a minority group of political activists and the security forces of the apartheid regime. On 21 March i960, a national demonstration led to the massacre of protesters...