Fridays with Geoff

 As I have mentioned before, Geoff is our advisor here. He is this wonderful man who is a professor in the economics department. Last week we decided to have weekly seminars with him to discuss various topics and issues relating to South Africa. 

This week we decided to discuss apartheid. Apartheid was South Africa's legal system of segregation and discrimination based on race. The word "apartheid" was derived from an Afrikaans word meaning "apartness". Apartheid was practiced from the 1948 until its official end in 1994 under the National Party. During apartheid, the rights of the majority black inhabitants of South Africa were restricted, and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule, was maintained. Afrikaners and Afrikaans are the white South Africans who descended from the Dutch. The Afrikaans language is very similar to Dutch but is basically the South African version.

After the 1948 elections, when apartheid rule started, new legislation classified inhabitants into four racial groups: "native", "white", "coloured", and "Asian". Residential areas were segregated, sometimes by means of forced removals. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white people.

The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which formalized racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of 18. This card specified the individuals racial group. As Geoff explained it, everyone was forced to carry this card, which looked very similar to a modern passport. It stated your name and the area which you lived (it may state the specific township for example). That card determined where you could work, live, or visit.

The Group Areas Act of 1950 led to residential segregation. Prior, 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. During our tour, Geoff would point out different areas were groups would be. The government would allocate a few blocks where only the Fingo's would live and then the Asians would take the next few blocks and so forth. 

During the 1960s- 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 time.

Other acts included the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, which prohibited marriage between persons of different races. There was also the Immorality Act of 1950 which made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offense. 

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 laboring class. In 1959 separate universities were created for black, colored, and Indian people. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans or English on an equal basis in high schools outside the homelands. 

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 effective and militarized, state organizations responded with repression and violence. 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. 

By the late 1980s the United States, United Kingdom, and 23 other nations passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa. A "Disinvestment from South Africa" movement in many countries spread. Individual cities and provinces around the world implemented various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.

The way Geoff explained it, apartheid was the worst-case scenario. The US had the civil rights movement, but South Africa had over 40 years of legalized segregation.

One of the allocated residential areas

Early in 1989, Botha suffered a stroke and he resigned in February 1989. He was succeeded as president by F. W. de Klerk. Despite his initial reputation as a conservative, De Klerk moved decisively towards negotiations to end the political stalemate in the country. In his opening address to the parliament on 2 February 1990, De Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws and lift the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress (ANC).

The Land Act was brought to an end and De Klerk also made his first public commitment to release jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela. Apartheid was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990-1993 which culminated in elections in 1994 (the frist in South Africa with universal suffrage!). Nelson Mandela won these elections.

De Klerk and Mandela 

As someone who is extremely interested in social justice and theology, I am very interested in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that happened in South Africa. Basically the TRC was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid. Witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty for both civil and criminal prosecution. 

The TRC was a tool to help the country acknowledge what happened and move forward. One of the goals was to bring the victims face to face with the perpetrators. Each side was allowed to share their experiences and get answers. The TRC provided closure for many families and allowed the country to heal together. Geoff mentioned that apartheid almost had a brain-washing affect on many of the people, similar to Germans living in Nazi Germany. People were not aware the extent of which the government was oppressing its people, whether out of ignorance or survival. 

There were three committees of the TRC:

1. The Human Rights Violations Committee: investigated human rights abuses that occurred between 1960-1994.

2. The Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee: charged with restoring victims' dignity and formulating proposals to assist with rehabilitation.

3. The Amnesty Committee: considered applications for individuals who applied for amnesty in accordance with the provisions of the Act. 

A key member and leader of the TRC was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He was a South African social rights activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. Tutu consistently advocated reconciliation between all parties involved in apartheid. Tutu's opposition to apartheid was vigorous and unequivocal, and he was outspoken both in South Africa and abroad. He often compared apartheid to Nazism and Communism, as a result the government twice revoked his passport, and he was jailed briefly in 1980 after a protest march.

The TRC's emphasis on reconciliation is a sharp contrast to the approach taken by the Nuremberg Trials after WW2 and other de-Nazification measures. Because of its perceived success, the SA TRC has been used as a model of reconciliatory approaches in dealing with human-rights violations after political change. Other countries have instituted similar commissions, such as Rwanda after their 1994 genocide. 

Needless to say, I have learned a lot about apartheid, but I am sure that I will continue to learn more as my semester continues! I plan on covering Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in more depth later on. For anyone interested in learning more, I would simply suggest googling "apartheid" (which is what I did for all my facts). It is such an fascinating era that can teach us so much about racism and those who speak out against it.