Apartheid was the system of racial segregation and discrimination which was practiced in South Africa between 1948, when the first policies associated with it were adopted, and the early 1990s, when it was gradually phased out as the country transitioned to a more integrated society. The program of racial discrimination sought to benefit the white population of South Africa, which stood at around 20% of the total in the aftermath of the Second World War, at the expense of the black majority. It could take the form of things as disadvantageous as blocking black South Africans from employment in certain positions to social segregation in terms of having white-only toilets and swimming pools. The end of Apartheid led to the departure of over one million white South Africans from South Africa between the early 1990s and the 2010s. Thus, many people today in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands and Ireland trace their family’s history back to South Africa, but left the country in the 1990s, 2000s or 2010s.[1]
Apartheid chronology of events
The first major chapter of European colonization of the lands approximating to modern-day South Africa began in 1652 when Dutch settlers founded the Cape Colony at what is now Cape Town. Over the next century and a half they expanded into the hinterland to acquire farmland for cereal and wine-production. By the early nineteenth century when the Dutch formally ceded the Cape Colony to Britain at the end of the Napoleonic Wars there were about 25,000 European settlers of Dutch, west Germanic and French Huguenot (Protestant) heritage living here, the basis for what would later become known as the Boer community and then later again the Afrikaner community.[2]
European settlement here exploded in the last quarter of the nineteenth century with the discovery of extensive gold and diamond mines in the Victoria region. By then the Boers had begun migrating north and northeast to establish their own states independent of British rule, but all of these, along with the native Zulu kingdom, were absorbed into the British colonies between the late 1870s and the early 1900s. In 1910 the Union of South Africa was created out of the several British colonies and in 1934 South Africa became a sovereign state within the British Empire, remaining a Commonwealth country down to the present day. This would be a different post-colonial society in Africa, one in which the white minority population was so large that independence did not lead to native rule, but rather a different type of colonial rule where the white minority continued to hold a monopoly on power and wealth, albeit now broadly independent of the mother country back in Europe.[3]
Apartheid was in many ways similar to the policy of Segregation which had been adopted in the southern states of the United States following the failure of Reconstruction there in the aftermath of the American Civil War (1861–1865). For instance, it involved measures which were woven into the daily fabric of life in South Africa, such as the creation of white-only public spaces and utilities, from swimming pools to toilets. Perhaps more saliently, it involved a high degree of political and economic discrimination, with black South Africans blocked from opportunities in the spheres of politics, employment, housing and schooling. These different forms of discrimination were generally categorized as ‘petty apartheid’ and ‘grand apartheid’.[4]
For many years after it was first introduced apartheid seemed like it had a long future. The white minority was in a strong position politically, economically and demographically, it had politically aligned neighbors like white minority-dominated Rhodesia and it faced little opposition to its approach on the international stage as countries like the United States pursued similar policies of racial discrimination well into the 1960s. However, over time the African National Congress movement grew in strength, inspired by the long imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, while international opposition to apartheid South Africa mounted from the late 1950s onwards. The latter movement became problematic in the 1970s and 1980s as economic boycotts of South African goods badly damaged the country’s economy.[5]
Eventually in the course of the 1980s white Afrikaner politicians began to consider how apartheid could be gradually phased out. The end of the discrimination began when a former supporter of apartheid, F. W. de Klerk, became state president of South Africa in 1989 and after a Pauline conversion to the principles of racial integration began a process of bringing about an end to apartheid. He ordered the release of Mandela from prison and together the two men oversaw a period in the early 1990s in which apartheid was dismantled and full democratic elections were planned for 1994. It brought the African National Congress to power and saw Mandela become the first president of post-apartheid South Africa.[6]
Extent of migration associated with Apartheid
A lot of migration was directly associated with apartheid and has impacted on how different families have ended up living in different countries over the last fifty years. One element of this during the apartheid era was the migration of 40,000 white Rhodesians from what later became Zimbabwe to South Africa in the late 1970s and 1980s as white minority rule was replaced there by black majority rule under Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe.[7] More dramatically, the end of apartheid and the transition to black majority governance in South Africa in the 1990s and 2000s saw a mass flight of white South Africans from the country. An estimated 800,000 white South Africans left the country between 1995 and 2005, with the figure standing at over one million today, more than one-fifth of the white South African population.[8]
Demographic impact of Apartheid
The demographic impact of the end of apartheid has been felt most dramatically in South Africa itself. When apartheid was introduced back in 1948, it is understood that white people, whether of Boer, British or other extraction, made up about 20% of the population. Today that figure has declined to just over 7%.[9] This is owing to both white migration away from South Africa and also the simple fact that birth rates amongst the black population have been substantially higher since 1948. The South African diaspora today as a result of this post-apartheid migration has been most keenly felt in the United Kingdom (210,000), Australia (210,000), the United States (140,000), New Zealand (70,000), Canada (50,000), the Netherlands (40,000) and Israel (20,000).[10]
Explore more about South Africa and Apartheid
- South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church Registers, 1660-1970 records collection on MyHeritage
- South Africa, Methodist Parish Registers, 1822-1996 records collection on MyHeritage
- South Africa, Free State Dutch Reformed Church Records, 1848-1956 records collection on MyHeritage
- South Africa, Orange Free State, Estate Files, 1951-2006 records collection on MyHeritage
References
- ↑ https://www.history.com/topics/africa/apartheid
- ↑ https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/dutch-settlement
- ↑ Martin Meredith, Diamonds, Gold and War: The British, the Boers and the Making of South Africa (New York, 2008).
- ↑ https://www.thoughtco.com/grand-apartheid-history-43487
- ↑ https://www.history.com/topics/africa/apartheid
- ↑ https://www.history.com/news/end-apartheid-steps
- ↑ Alan Simon, ‘Rhodesian Immigrants in South Africa: Government, Media and a Lesson for South Africa’, in African Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 346 (January, 1988), pp. 53–68.
- ↑ https://unherd.com/2023/06/south-africas-infinite-humiliation/
- ↑ https://www.gov.za/about-sa/south-africas-people
- ↑ https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-israel-new-memorial-park-in-the-jewish-state-highlights-complex-history-199997