Apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained. Apartheid was developed after World War II by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party and Broederbond organizations and was practiced also in South West Africa, under South African administration under a League of Nations mandate (revoked in 1966), until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990. Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times. However, apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. New legislation classified inhabitants into four racial groups ("native", "white", "coloured", and "Asian"),
and residential areas were segregated, sometimes by means of forced removals. Non-white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and starting in that year black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called
bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white people.
Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence as well as a long trade embargo against South Africa.
Since the 1950s, a series of popular uprisings and protests were met with the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders. As unrest spread and became more violent, state organisations responded with increasing repression and state-sponsored violence.
Reforms to apartheid in the 1980s failed to quell the mounting opposition, and in 1990 President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid,
culminating in multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which were won by the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela. The vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and society.
Precursors of apartheid
Under the 1806 Cape Articles of Capitulation the new British colonial rulers were required to respect the previous legislation enacted under Roman-Dutch law and this led to a separation of the law in South Africa from English Common Law and a high degree of legislative autonomy. The governors and assemblies that governed the legal process in the various colonies of South Africa were then launched on a different and independent legislative path from the rest of the British Empire. In the days of slavery, slaves in general required passes to travel away from their masters. However, in 1797 the Landdrost and Heemraden of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinett (the Dutch colonial governing authority) extended pass laws beyond slaves and ordained that all Hottentots moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes. This was confirmed by the British Colonial government in 1809 by the Hottentot Proclamation which decreed that if a Hottentot (and Khoikhoi) were to move they would need a pass from their master or a local official. Ordinance No. 49 of 1828 decreed that prospective black immigrants were to be granted passes for the sole purpose of seeking work. The Hottentot Proclamation was repealed by Ordnance 50 in 1828 for Coloreds and Khoikhoi but not for other Africans and other Africans were still forced to carry passes. The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire and overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation. To comply with the Slavery Abolition Act the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835 which effectively changed the status of slaves to indentured labourers. This was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848 which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa that was little different from slavery. The various South African colonies then passed legislation throughout the rest of the nineteenth century to limit the freedom of unskilled workers, to increase the restrictions on indentured workers and to regulate the relations between the races. The Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 instituted limits based on financial means and education to the black franchise, and the Natal Legislative Assembly Bill of 1894 deprived Indians of the right to vote. In 1905 the General Pass Regulations Bill denied blacks the vote altogether, limited them to fixed areas and inaugurated the infamous Pass System. Then followed the Asiatic Registration Act (1906) requiring all Indians to register and carry passes. In 1910 the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion that continued the legislative program: the South Africa Act (1910) that enfranchised whites, giving them complete political control over all other race groups and removing the right of blacks to sit in parliament, the Native Land Act (1913) which prevented all blacks, except those in the Cape, from buying land outside "reserves", the Natives in Urban Areas Bill (1918) designed to force blacks into "locations", the Urban Areas Act (1923) which introduced residential segregation and provided cheap labour for industry led by white people, the Colour Bar Act (1926), preventing anyone black from practising skilled trades, the Native Administration Act (1927) that made the British Crown, rather than paramount chiefs, the supreme head over all African affairs, the Native Land and Trust Act (1936) that complemented the 1913 Native Land Act and, in the same year, the Representation of Natives Act, which removed previous black voters from the Cape voters' roll. One of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by the Jan Smuts' United Party government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill (1946), which banned any further land sales to Indians. For example, before the laws mine owners preferred hiring black workers because they were cheaper. Because the market forces direct against discrimination, the whites had to persuade the government to enact laws that highly restricted the black' rights to work, in order to get higher wages than their comparative performance would otherwise yield. Jan Smuts' United Party government began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II. Amid fears integration would eventually lead the nation to racial assimilation, the legislature established the Sauer Commission to investigate the effects of the United Party's policies. The commission concluded integration would bring about a "loss of personality" for all racial groups.
Institution of apartheid
In the run-up to the 1948 elections, the main Afrikaner nationalist party, the Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party) under the leadership of Protestant cleric Daniel Francois Malan, campaigned on its policy of apartheid. The NP narrowly defeated Smuts's United Party and formed a coalition government with another Afrikaner nationalist party, the Afrikaner Party. Malan became the first apartheid prime minister, and the two parties later merged to form the National Party (NP).
Apartheid legislation
National Party leaders argued that South Africa did not comprise a single nation, but was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, coloured, and Indian. These groups were split further into thirteen nations or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and Afrikaans language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups.
The state passed laws which paved the way for "grand apartheid", which was centred on separating races on a large scale, by compelling people to live in separate places defined by race (This strategy was in part adopted from "left-over" British rule that separated different racial groups after they took control of the Boer republics in the Anglo-Boer war. This created the so called black only "townships" or "locations" where blacks were relocated in their own towns). In addition, "petty apartheid" laws were passed. The principal apartheid laws were as follows:
The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of eighteen, specifying their racial group.
Official teams or Boards were established to come to an ultimate conclusion on those people whose race was unclear.
This caused difficulty, especially for coloured people, separating their families as members were allocated different races.
The second pillar of grand apartheid was the Group Areas Act of 1950.
Until then, most settlements had people of different races living side by side. This Act put an end to diverse areas and determined where one lived according to race. Each race was allotted its own area, which was used in later years as a basis of forced removal.
Further legislation
in 1951 allowed the government to demolish black shackland slums and forced white employers to pay for the construction of housing for those black workers who were permitted to reside in cities otherwise reserved for white people. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races, and the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence. Under the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953, municipal grounds could be reserved for a particular race, creating, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. Signboards such as "whites only" applied to public areas, even including park benches.
Black people were provided with services greatly inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indian and coloured people.
An act of 1956
formalised racial discrimination in employment. Further laws had the aim of suppressing resistance, especially armed resistance, to apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the South African Communist Party and any other political party that the government chose to label as 'communist'. Disorderly gatherings were banned, as were certain organisations that were deemed threatening to the government. Education was segregated by means of the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which crafted a separate system of education for African students and was designed to prepare black people for lives as a labouring class.
In 1959 separate universities were created for black, coloured and Indian people. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans and English on an equal basis in high schools outside the homelands.
The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for black and white citizens and was the first piece of legislation established to support the government's plan of separate development in the Bantustans. The Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1958 entrenched the National Party's policy of nominally independent "homelands" for black people. So-called "self–governing Bantu units" were proposed, which would have devolved administrative powers, with the promise later of autonomy and self-government. The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands in order to create employment there. Legislation of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in "white" cities and redirect such development to the "homelands". The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 marked a new phase in the Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of black people living in South Africa so that they were no longer citizens of South Africa, but became citizens of one of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure a demographic majority of white people within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans achieve full independence. Interracial contact in sport was frowned upon, but there were no segregatory sports laws. The government tightened existing pass laws, compelling black South Africans to carry identity documents to prevent the migration of blacks to South Africa. Any black residents of cities had to be in employment. Up until 1956 women were for the most part excluded from these
pass requirements as attempts to introduce
pass laws for women were met with fierce resistance.
Disenfranchisement of coloured voters
In 1950, D F Malan announced the NP's intention to create a Coloured Affairs Department. J.G. Strijdom, Malan's successor as Prime Minister, moved to strip voting rights from black and coloured residents of the Cape Province. The previous government had first introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill in parliament in 1951; however, a group of four voters, G Harris, WD Franklin, WD Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party. The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but the Appeal Court reversed on appeal, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament was needed in order to change the entrenched clauses of the Constitution. The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill (1952), which gave parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court. The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too. In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to eleven, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places. In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the senate from 49 seats to 89. Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats. The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the Separate Representation of Voters Act in 1956, which transferred coloured voters from the common voters' roll in the Cape to a new coloured voters' roll. Immediately after the vote, the Senate was restored to its original size. The Senate Act was contested in the Supreme Court, but the recently enlarged Appeal Court, packed with government-supporting judges, rejected the application by the Opposition and upheld the Senate Act, and also the Act to remove coloured voters.
Unity among white South Africans
Before South Africa became a republic, politics among white South Africans was typified by the division between the chiefly-Afrikaner pro-republic conservative and the largely English anti-republican liberal sentiments,
with the legacy of the Boer War still a factor for some people. Once republican status was attained, Verwoerd called for improved relations and greater accord between those of British descent and the Afrikaners.
He claimed that the only difference now was between those who supported apartheid and those in opposition to it. The ethnic divide would no longer be between Afrikaans speakers and English speakers, but rather white and black ethnicities. Most Afrikaners supported the notion of unanimity of white people to ensure their safety. White voters of British descent were divided. Many had opposed a republic, leading to a majority "no" vote in Natal.
Later, however, some of them recognised the perceived need for white unity, convinced by the growing trend of decolonisation elsewhere in Africa, which left them apprehensive. Harold Macmillan's "Wind of Change" pronouncement left the British faction feeling that Britain had abandoned them.
The more conservative English-speakers gave support to Verwoerd;
others were troubled by the severing of ties with Britain and remained loyal to the Crown.
They were acutely displeased at the choice between British and South African nationality. Although Verwoerd tried to bond these different blocs, the subsequent ballot illustrated only a minor swell of support,
indicating that a great many English speakers remained apathetic and that Verwoerd had not succeeded in uniting the white population.
Homeland system
Under the homeland system, the South African government attempted to divide South Africa into a number of separate states, each of which was supposed to develop into a separate nation-state for a different ethnic group. Territorial separation was not a new institution. There were, for example, the "reserves" created under the British government in the nineteenth century. Under apartheid, some thirteen per cent of the land was reserved for black homelands, a relatively small amount compared to the total population, and generally in economically unproductive areas of the country. The Tomlinson Commission of 1954 justified apartheid and the homeland system, but stated that additional land ought to be given to the homelands, a recommendation which was not carried out. With the accession to power of Dr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd in 1958, the policy of "separate development" came into being, with the homeland structure as one of its cornerstones. Verwoerd came to believe in the granting of independence to these homelands. The government justified its plans on the basis that "(the) government's policy is, therefore, not a policy of discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, but a policy of differentiation on the ground of nationhood, of different nations, granting to each self-determination within the borders of their homelands – hence this policy of separate development". Under the homelands system, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa; they would instead become citizens of the independent homelands who merely worked in South Africa as foreign migrant labourers on temporary work permits. In 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act was passed, and border industries and the Bantu Investment Corporation were established to promote economic development and the provision of employment in or near the homelands. Many black South Africans who had never resided in their identified homeland were nonetheless forcibly removed from the cities to the homelands. Ten homelands were ultimately allocated to different black ethnic groups: Lebowa (North Sotho, also referred to as Pedi), QwaQwa (South Sotho), Bophuthatswana (Tswana), KwaZulu (Zulu), KaNgwane (Swazi), Transkei and Ciskei (Xhosa), Gazankulu (Tsonga), Venda (Venda) and KwaNdebele (Ndebele). Four of these were declared independent by the South African government: (Transkei in 1976, Bophuthatswana in 1977, Venda in 1979, and Ciskei in 1981) (also known as the TBVC states). Once a homeland was granted its nominal independence, its designated citizens had their South African citizenship revoked, replaced with citizenship in their homeland. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the nominally autonomous homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, meaning they were no longer legally considered South African. The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black citizens of the homelands and the problems which other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.
Forced removals
During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of 'resettlement', to force people to move to their designated "group areas". Millions of people were forced to relocate during this period. These removals included people re-located due to slum clearance programmes, labour tenants on white-owned farms, the inhabitants of the so-called 'black spots', areas of black-owned land surrounded by white farms, the families of workers living in townships close to the homelands, and 'surplus people' from urban areas, including thousands of people from the Western Cape (which was declared a 'Coloured Labour Preference Area') who were moved to the Transkei and Ciskei homelands. The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in Johannesburg, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of Soweto, an abbreviation for South Western Townships. Until 1955 Sophiatown had been one of the few urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land, and was slowly developing into a multiracial slum. As industry in Johannesburg grew, Sophiatown became the home of a rapidly expanding black workforce, as it was convenient and close to town. It could also boast the only swimming pool for black children in Johannesburg. As one of the oldest black settlements in Johannesburg, Sophiatown held an almost symbolic importance for the 50,000 blacks it contained, both in terms of its sheer vibrancy and its unique culture. Despite a vigorous ANC protest campaign and worldwide publicity, the removal of Sophiatown began on 9 February 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme. In the early hours, heavily armed police entered Sophiatown to force residents out of their homes and load their belongings onto government trucks. The residents were taken to a large tract of land, thirteen miles (19 km) from the city centre, known as Meadowlands (that the government had purchased in 1953). Meadowlands became part of a new planned black city called Soweto. The Sophiatown slum was destroyed by bulldozers, and a new white suburb named Triomf (Triumph) was built in its place. This pattern of forced removal and destruction was to repeat itself over the next few years, and was not limited to people of African descent. Forced removals from areas like Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in Durban, and District Six in Cape Town, where 55,000 coloured and Indian people were forced to move to new townships on the Cape Flats, were carried out under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Ultimately, nearly 600,000 coloured, Indian and Chinese people were moved in terms of the Group Areas Act. Some 40,000 white people were also forced to move when land was transferred from "white South Africa" into the black homelands.
Petty apartheid
The National Party passed a string of legislation which became known as petty apartheid. The first of these was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 55 of 1949, prohibiting marriage between white people and people of other races. The Immorality Amendment Act 21 of 1950 (as amended in 1957 by Act 23) forbade "unlawful racial intercourse" and "any immoral or indecent act" between a white person and an African, Indian or coloured person. Blacks were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in those areas designated as "white South Africa" without a permit. They were supposed to move to the black "homelands" and set up businesses and practices there. Transport and civil facilities were segregated. Black buses stopped at black bus stops and white buses at white ones. Trains, hospitals and ambulances were segregated. Because of the smaller numbers of white patients and the fact that white doctors preferred to work in white hospitals, conditions in white hospitals were much better than those in often overcrowded black hospitals. Blacks were excluded from living or working in white areas, unless they had a pass—nicknamed the dompas ("dumb pass" in Afrikaans). Only blacks with "Section 10" rights (those who had migrated to the cities before World War II) were excluded from this provision. A pass was issued only to a black person with approved work. Spouses and children had to be left behind in black homelands. A pass was issued for one magisterial district (usually one town) confining the holder to that area only. Being without a valid pass made a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This was often followed by deportation to the person's homeland and prosecution of the employer (for employing an illegal migrant). Police vans patrolled the white areas to round up illegal blacks found there without passes. Black people were not allowed to employ white people in white South Africa. Although trade unions for black and coloured (mixed race) workers had existed since the early 20th century, it was not until the 1980s reforms that a mass black trade union movement developed. In the 1970s each black child's education within the Bantu Education system (the education system practised in black schools within white South Africa) cost the state only a tenth of each white child's. Higher education was provided in separate universities and colleges after 1959. Eight black universities were created in the homelands. Fort Hare University in the Ciskei (now Eastern Cape) was to register only Xhosa-speaking students. Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Venda speakers were placed at the newly founded University College of the North at Turfloop, while the University College of Zululand was launched to serve Zulu scholars. Coloureds and Indians were to have their own establishments in the Cape and Natal respectively. In addition, each black homeland controlled its own separate education, health and police system. Blacks were not allowed to buy hard liquor. They were able only to buy state-produced poor quality beer (although this was relaxed later). Public beaches were racially segregated. Public swimming pools, some pedestrian bridges, drive-in cinema parking spaces, graveyards, parks, and public toilets were segregated. Cinemas and theatres in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks. There were practically no cinemas in black areas. Most restaurants and hotels in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks except as staff. Black Africans were prohibited from attending white churches under the Churches Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957. This was, however, never rigidly enforced, and churches were one of the few places races could mix without the interference of the law. Blacks earning 360 rand a year, 30 rand a month, or more had to pay taxes while the white threshold was more than twice as high, at 750 rand a year, 62.5 rand per month. On the other hand, the taxation rate for whites was considerably higher than that for blacks. Blacks could never acquire land in white areas. In the homelands, much of the land belonged to a 'tribe', where the local chieftain would decide how the land had to be used. This resulted in white people owning almost all the industrial and agricultural lands and much of the prized residential land. Most blacks were stripped of their South African citizenship when the "homelands" became "independent". Thus, they were no longer able to apply for South African passports. Eligibility requirements for a passport had been difficult for blacks to meet, the government contending that a passport was a privilege, not a right. As such, the government did not grant many passports to blacks. Apartheid pervaded South African culture, as well as the law. This was reinforced by much of the media, and the lack of opportunities for the races to mix in a social setting entrenched social distance between people.
Coloured classification
The population was classified into four groups: Black, White, Indian, and Coloured. (These terms are capitalised to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people regarded as being of mixed descent, including people of Bantu, Khoisan, European and Malay ancestry. Many were descended from people brought to South Africa from other parts of the world, such as India, Madagascar, China and the Philippines, as slaves and indentured workers. The Apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or Black, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or White. Different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloureds. Many of those who formerly belonged to this racial group are opposed to the continuing use of the term "coloured" in the post-apartheid era, though the term no longer signifies any legal meaning. The expressions 'so-called Coloured' (Afrikaans sogenaamde Kleurlinge) and 'brown people' (bruinmense) acquired a wide usage in the 1980s. Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloureds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships—in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations—and received an inferior education, though better than that provided to Black South Africans. They played an important role in the anti-apartheid movement: for example the African Political Organization established in 1902 had an exclusively coloured membership.Voting rights were denied to Coloureds in the same way that they were denied to blacks from 1950 to 1983. However, in 1977 the NP caucus approved proposals to bring coloured and Indians into central government. In 1982, final constitutional proposals produced a referendum among white voters, and the Tricameral Parliament was approved. The Constitution was reformed the following year to allow the Coloured and Asian minorities participation in separate Houses in a Tricameral Parliament, and Botha became the first Executive State President. The idea was that the Coloured minority could be granted voting rights, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands. These separate arrangements continued until the abolition of apartheid. The Tricameral reforms led to the formation of the (anti-apartheid) UDF as a vehicle to try to prevent the co-option of coloureds and Indians into an alliance with white South Africans. The subsequent battles between the UDF and the NP government from 1983 to 1989 were to become the most intense period of struggle between left-wing and right-wing South Africans.
Apartheid details
Colonialism and apartheid had a major impact on women since they suffered both racial and gender discrimination. Oppression against African women was different from discrimination against men. They had very few or no legal rights, no access to education and no right to own property. Jobs were often hard to find but many African women worked as agricultural or domestic workers though wages were extremely low, if existent. Children suffered from diseases caused by malnutrition and sanitary problems, and mortality rates were therefore high. The controlled movement of African workers within the country through the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the pass-laws, separated family members from one another as men usually worked in urban centres, while women were forced to stay in rural areas. Marriage law and births were also controlled by the government and the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church, who tried to restrict African birth rates. Defining its East Asian population, a minority in South Africa who do not appear to belong to any of the four designated groups, was a constant dilemma for the apartheid government. Chinese South Africans who were descendants of migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late 19th century, were classified as "Other Asian" and hence "non-white", whereas immigrants from Japan and Taiwan, with which South Africa maintained diplomatic and economic relations, were considered "honorary whites" with the same privileges as normal whites. The National Party government implemented, alongside apartheid, a programme of social conservatism. Pornography, gambling and other such vices were banned. Cinemas, shops selling alcohol and most other businesses were forbidden from operating on Sundays. Abortion, homosexuality and sex education were also restricted; abortion was legal only in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened. Television was not introduced until 1976 because the government viewed it as dangerous. Television was also run on apartheid lines – TV1 broadcast in Afrikaans and English (geared to a white audience), TV2 in Zulu and Xhosa and TV3 in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (both geared to a black audience), and TV4 mostly showed programmes for an urban-black audience.
Internal resistance
The system of apartheid sparked significant internal resistance. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which in turn increased local support for the armed resistance struggle. Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protests, passive resistance and armed insurrection. In 1949 the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) took control of the organisation and started advocating a radical black nationalist programme. The new young leaders proposed that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns. In 1950 that philosophy saw the launch of the Programme of Action, a series of strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience actions that led to occasionally violent clashes with the authorities. In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), which organised a demonstration against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of those protests was held in the township of Sharpeville, where 69 people were killed by police in the Sharpeville massacre. In the wake of the Sharpeville incident the government declared a state of emergency. More than 18 000 people were arrested, including leaders of the ANC and PAC, and both organisations were banned. The resistance went underground, with some leaders in exile abroad and others engaged in campaigns of domestic sabotage and terrorism. In May 1961, before the declaration of South Africa as a Republic, an assembly representing the banned ANC called for negotiations between the members of the different ethnic groupings, threatening demonstrations and strikes during the inauguration of the Republic if their calls were ignored. When the government overlooked them, the strikers (among the main organizers was a 42-year-old, Thembu-origin Nelson Mandela) carried out their threats. The government countered swiftly by giving police the authority to arrest people for up to twelve days and detaining many strike leaders amid numerous cases of police brutality. Defeated, the protesters called off their strike. The ANC then chose to launch an armed struggle through a newly formed military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which would perform acts of sabotage on tactical state structures. Its first sabotage plans were carried out on 16 December 1961, the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River. In the 1970s the Black Consciousness Movement was created by tertiary students influenced by the American Black Power movement. BC endorsed black pride and African customs and did much to alter the feelings of inadequacy instilled among black people by the apartheid system. The leader of the movement, Steve Biko, was taken into custody on 18 August 1977 and was murdered in detention. In 1976 secondary students in Soweto took to the streets in the Soweto uprising to protest against forced tuition in Afrikaans. On 16 June, police opened fire on students in what was meant to be a peaceful protest. According to official reports 23 people were killed, but news agencies put the number as high as 600 killed and 4000 injured. In the following years several student organisations were formed with the goal of protesting against apartheid, and these organisations were central to urban school boycotts in 1980 and 1983 as well as rural boycotts in 1985 and 1986. In parallel to student protests, labour unions started protest action in 1973 and 1974. After 1976 unions and workers are considered to have played an important role in the struggle against apartheid, filling the gap left by the banning of political parties. In 1979 black trade unions were legalised and could engage in collective bargaining, although strikes were still illegal. At roughly the same time churches and church groups also emerged as pivotal points of resistance. Church leaders were not immune to prosecution, and certain faith-based organisations were banned, but the clergy generally had more freedom to criticise the government than militant groups did. Although the majority of whites supported apartheid, some 20 percent did not. Parliamentary opposition was galvanised by Helen Suzman, Colin Eglin and Harry Schwarz who formed the Progressive Federal Party. Extra-parliamentary resistance was largely centred in the South African Communist Party and women's organisation the Black Sash. Women were also notable in their involvement in trade union organisations and banned political parties.
International relations
"We speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?"
— Che Guevara, speech to the United Nations as Cuba's representative, December 11, 1964
At the first UN gathering in 1946, South Africa was placed on the agenda. The primary subject in question was the handling of South African Indians, a great cause of divergence between South Africa and India. In 1952, apartheid was again discussed in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign, and the UN set up a task team to keep watch on the progress of apartheid and the racial state of affairs in South Africa. Although South Africa's racial policies were a cause for concern, most countries in the UN concurred that this was a domestic affair, which fell outside the UN's jurisdiction.
In April 1960, the UN's conservative stance on apartheid changed following the Sharpeville massacre, and the Security Council for the first time agreed on concerted action against the apartheid regime, demanding an end to racial separation and discrimination. From 1960 the ANC began a campaign of armed struggle of which there would later be a charge of 193 acts of terrorism from 1961 to 1963, mainly bombings and murders of civilians.
Instead, the South African government then began further suppression, banning the ANC and PAC. In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld stopped over in South Africa and subsequently stated that he had been unable to reach agreement with Prime Minister Verwoerd. On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. In 1966, the UN held the first of many colloquiums on apartheid. The General Assembly announced 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory of the Sharpeville massacre.
In 1971, the General Assembly formally denounced the institution of homelands, and a motion was passed in 1974 to expel South Africa from the UN, but this was vetoed by France, Britain and the United States of America, all key trade associates of South Africa.
On 7 August 1963 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 181 calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and in the same year, a Special Committee Against Apartheid was established to encourage and oversee plans of action against the regime. From 1964, the US and Britain discontinued their arms trade with South Africa. It also condemned the Soweto massacre in Resolution 392. In 1977, the voluntary UN arms embargo became mandatory with the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 418. Economic sanctions against South Africa were also frequently debated as an effective way of putting pressure on the apartheid government. In 1962, the UN General Assembly requested that its members sever political, fiscal and transportation ties with South Africa. In 1968, it proposed ending all cultural, educational and sporting connections as well. Economic sanctions, however, were not made mandatory, because of opposition from South Africa's main trading partners.
In 1973, the UN adopted the Apartheid Convention which defines apartheid and even qualifies it as a crime against humanity which might lead to international criminal prosecution of the individuals responsible for perpetrating it.
In 1978 and 1983 the UN condemned South Africa at the World Conference Against Racism, and a significant divestment movement started, pressuring investors to disinvest from South African companies or companies that did business with South Africa. After much debate, by the late 1980s the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa.
A divestment movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.
South Africa's policies were subject to international scrutiny in 1960, when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan criticised them during his celebrated Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville Massacre, resulting in more international condemnation. Soon thereafter, Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should become a republic. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to eighteen and included whites in South West Africa on the voter's roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked whites, "Are you in favour of a Republic for the Union?", and 52 percent voted "Yes".
As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. Even though India became a republic within the Commonwealth in 1950 it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.
Organization for African Unity
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was created in 1963. Its primary objectives were to eradicate colonialism and improve social, political and economic situations in Africa. It censured apartheid and demanded sanctions against South Africa. African states agreed to aid the liberation movements in their fight against apartheid.
In 1969, fourteen nations from Central and East Africa gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, and formulated the 'Lusaka Manifesto', which was signed on 13 April by all of the countries in attendance except Malawi.
This manifesto was later taken on by both the OAU and the United Nations.
The Lusaka Manifesto summarised the political situations of self-governing African countries, condemning racism and inequity, and calling for black majority rule in all African nations.
It did not rebuff South Africa entirely, though, adopting an appeasing manner towards the apartheid government, and even recognising its autonomy. Although African leaders supported the emancipation of black South Africans, they preferred this to be attained through peaceful means.
South Africa's negative response to the Lusaka Manifesto and rejection of a change to her policies brought about another OAU announcement in October 1971. The Mogadishu Declaration declared that South Africa's rebuffing of negotiations meant that her black people could only be freed through military means, and that no African state should converse with the apartheid government.
Henceforth, it would be up to South Africa to keep contact with other African states.