Chapter Notes
Chapter 2 Twentieth-Century Political History
The South African national anthem
- South Africa's national anthem today is a combination of Nkosi sikelel'iAfrika (the official anthem of the African National Congress and several other countries in Africa) and Die Stem (the anthem of the apartheid regime)
- Nkosi sikelel'iAfrika is usually sung in either Xhosa or Zulu and then in Sesotho. This is followed by singing the first part of Die Stem in its original language of Afrikaans, and the second part in English (a translation of the Afrikaans) Note: Xhosa and Zulu both fall under the Nguni langauge group and are fairly similar.
Apartheid
- Although the first European settlement in South Africa was by the Dutch in 1652, apartheid did not formally begin until 1948
- Apartheid officially began in 1948 when white South Africans voted the Afrikaner Nationalist Party into power
- The Afrikaans people of South Africa are of European descent, and Afrikaans is most similar to Dutch, although the Afrikaans also contains elements of English, French, and other European languages
- The English had come into conflict with the Afrikaners for centuries in South Africa. This culminated in the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), which the British won
- Soon after the Anglo-Boer War the English and the Afrikaners formed the joint Union of South Africa (in 1910)
- Apartheid was based on a system of forced racial and cultural segragation, in which black South Africans were forced to live in ‘bantustans’ (or ‘homelands’)
- Although black South Africans officially lived in these bantustans, many millions of men and women spent much of their lives working in the cities on what was termed a ‘temporary’ basis
- Black South Africans were not permitted to move about freely within South Africa, and had to apply for entrance into areas for work. They were made to carry ‘passbooks’ at all times
- Apartheid intensified after 1948, with many new laws being made to separate the various races and cultures of South Africa along economic, political, social, and personal lines
- Apartheid was based on a rhetoric of ‘separate development’ in which each cultural group would allegedly develop along its own lines and on its own terms in its separate areas
- The idea of apartheid was not only based on race, but also on language and culture: Zulu-speaking people were forced to live in different areas to Sesotho-speaking people, for example
- Aside from blacks and whites, the apartheid government created two further categories: ‘Coloured’ and ‘Asiatic’.