Apartheid and Post-apartheid

Week 22Ethnicity and ‘Race’

Recap

• Considered complexity of concepts and terms and the contested and political nature of theories of ‘race’ and racism

• Considered ideas about nationalism, ethnicity identity and migration

• Considered how different forms of imperialism had similar discourses and reasoning

Outline

• Look at the Apartheid system in South Africa

• Consider the changes since the ending of Apartheid

• Consider the concept

of new racism

Definition of Apartheid

• Simms (2000) argues that:

‘Apartheid was a political system that granted material and social privilege to White South Africans and ensured that they monopolize political power so as to maintain that privilege’

Simms (2000) Black Theology, a weapon in the struggle for freedom Race and Society 2(2) 165-193

Development of Apartheid

• Roots of Apartheid trace back to colonialism

• Separation of ‘races’ key element in history of the area

• 1913 Natives Land Act forced Black people off the land into ‘reserves’

• Employment segregation began

to be legally enforced

National Party

• In 1948, The National Party won an election based on racial segregation and support for poor Afrikaners.

• Laws began to be introduced including:

– The Race Classification Act. – The Mixed Marriages Act. – The Group Areas Act.

Racial Classification

• By 1950, 4 official categories of people established:– White– Black– Coloured (Mixed-race)– Asian (sometimes called Indian)

• Segregation was enforced for housing, employment, education, social services

Passbooks

• Nonwhites had to carry passbooks

• Stated legal residence and employment

• Spot checks by police common

• Punishment through expelling to ‘homelands’

‘Homelands’

• The creation of homelands meant that legally Black citizens were no longer citizens of south Africa

• In practice, this prevented non-white residents in South Africa from having political rights

• They held ‘guestworker’ status inwhite South-Africa

Ideological enforcement

• Simms argues that apartheid was hegemonic:

– Churches sanctioned it Makes it right

– State institutionalised it Makes it legal

– Schools supported it Made it

reasonable

• Christianity was used to justify the apartheid system, does this surprise you?

• How do you think its ideological ideas related into the other institutions of state and education?

‘Resettlement',

• During the 1960s and 1970s Black people were forced to move to ‘designated group areas‘

• These were mass evictions

• In 1955 over 50,000 residents were

forcibly removed from Sophiatown

to a new township Soweto

Petty Apartheid

• Under section 37 of the

Durban Beach By-Laws

This Bathing Area is

reserved for the sole

use of the white race

group

Apartheid Ends

• Political protests both inside and outside of South Africa led to the dismantling of Apartheid.

• In 1994 the ANC won the first nonracial election and Mandela becomes president

• Forms Government of National Unity.

New Racism?

• Since legal enforced separation ended a new form of segregation has emerged

• Segregation achieved through:

– ‘Exercising preference’– Emphasising cultural ‘differences’ – ‘Market-forces’

New Racism?

• New racism avoids overt racism

• Linked to class differences (ignores racialised poor)

• Leads to ‘natural’ division in education, neighbourhood and employment

Retaining White privilege?

Durrheim and Dixon (2000) argue that

‘Arguments about culture allow speakers to downplay or ignore the recent and longer political history of South Africa, while they transform segregation into an a-moral and a-political natural inevitability’

Durrheim and Dixon (2000) Theories of culture in racist discourse Race and Society 3 93-109

‘Natural’ Segregation

• New emphasis on cultural differences between ‘races’ emerging

• Hierarchies remain with white culture marked as superior

• ‘Natural’ cultural segregation encourages discrediting of anti-racist policies and practices as unreasonable and unnatural

Separate and unequal?

• Walkers study of a former white Afrikaans University found segregation institutionalised

• Running dual classes in English and Afrikaans meant that some white students never have classes with black students

• Whilst formally mixed, student residences maintain unofficial ‘white-only’ areas

• Some white students felt more able to communicate with Black ‘servants’ than other students

Economic apartheid

• The ANC Government has embraced the liberal ‘market’

• Racialised exclusion of the poor is increasing

• Battles over evictions and privatised water are increasingly commonplace

• Do you think cultural and economic apartheid will be overcome more or less easily than the previous apartheid system?

Summary

• Apartheid was the logical conclusion of the imperial ideas and Social Darwinism

• It separated every aspect of social lives

• Although direct racism is no longer acceptable ‘new racism’ focuses on cultural differences