My final installment of Apartheid South Africa through the eyes of the I.B. History textbook has arrived. We begin with trade unions. They were formed in defiance of the law. The foremost among these was the African Mine Workers’ Union (A.M.W.U.) which organized a strike of about 100,000 gold miners in 1946. Unfortunately it was defeated when police intervened and killed nine protesters. The 1946 miners’ strike alerted the government to the urgency of the labor situation.

Smuts’s response was to set up the Fagan Commission. Fagan’s report concluded that the tide of African urbanization was irreversible and that it was in the best economic interest of the country for the government to bring about a partial normalization in status of the Blacks who lived in the cities. This recommendation included a relaxation of the pass laws. Fagan’s report formed the basis of the United Party’s policy manifesto going into the 1948 general election. This only heightened the racial anxieties of many White voters.

The National Party reacted by forming its own Sauer Commission. This body concluded that the survival of the White race in South Africa was dependent upon the preservation of the country’s exclusively White identity. According to Sauer, this could only be achieved through policies designed to reverse the trend of Black urbanization and engineer a complete separation of races.

The N.P.’s ability to articulate a clear apartheid vision contrasted sharply with the uneasy complexity of the U.P.’s position. Their message resonated with many Afrikaner voters in a fearful and embattled white electorate. The party’s slogan of swart gevaar “black peril” and rooi gevaar “red peril” raised twin spectres of white cities overwhelmed by migrant Black workers on the one hand and the civilized Afrikaner way of life threatened by a godless, revolutionary communism on the other. This was enough to see Malan’s N.P. triumph over its U.P. rival.

In our second to last installment of history textbook blogging, we begin with the end of the 1930’s. They saw a dramatic resurgence of Afrikaner Nationalist spirit. The semi-secret group, Afrikaner Broederbond, an extreme wing of the populist Afrikaner nationalism, worked with the National Party to organize centenary celebrations of the Great Trek and the Battle of Blood River. These events involved hundreds of participants!

By now, the G.N.P. and the Afrikaner Broederband were supported by the majority of the poorer Afrikaners who felt alienated by the perceived elitism of the U.P. and its inability to deliver a better standard of living for all Whites. They demanded an even more radical system of racial discrimination and segregation.

South African’s entry into the second World War on the side of the allied powers had a major impact on the country. Hertzog resigned from the government over Smuts’ support of the war and his subsequent reconciliation with Malan led to the renaming of the nationalists. They became known as the Herenigde Nasionale Party, the Reunited National Party or the National Party (N.P.).

This week we’ll be traveling back in time a bit, to the mid 1800’s. At this time, the British recognized the independence of the republics in the Bloemfontein and Sand River Conventions. What is a Republic? According to the dictionary it is “a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.” This meant that these areas in South Africa were now free of British rule. However, the terms of these republics’ treaties forbade them from reviving slavery. Despite this, it was still widely practiced.

The discovery of gold on Witwatersrand in 1866 led to the sudden and dramatic transformation of Transvaal (one of the Boer Republics). Johannesburg soon emerged as the largest city in the region, following a huge influx of mainly English-speaking white workers. This caused the capital’s land and power to become concentrated in the hands of a small number of mining magnates (a wealthy and influential person, especially in business) aka Randlords.

A dispute between the Uitlander population and the Randlords and Afrikaner government of Paul Kruger formed. The issue of whether to extend the right to vote to all White people in the republic was one of the main causes of the South African War of 1899-1902. However, one of the few things all parties agreed on was the need to ensure the perpetuation of white domination over Blacks in politics and the wider economy. The Afrikaner farmers who supported the Kruger government required a ready supply of cheap and pliable African labor. It was also imperative that this workforce was rendered as immobile as possible so that Africans couldn’t leave their farms in search of employment elsewhere. In many ways, this reminds me of sharecropping in the United States. People were tied to the land they worked usually because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else and the system was created to keep them that way. South Africa was no different.

Another textbook reading provides further insight into the ever saddening history of apartheid South Africa. As one can imagine, the economic devastation of the Great Depression led to the merger of Smuts’ South African Party and Hertzog’s National Party. This formed the New United Party (U.P.) government, that took office in 1934. However, there was still a risk that the government might be outflanked by the more radical racialism of Malan’s breakaway Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party (G.N.P.), also known as the Purified National Party. This led to even further discriminatory legislation later in the decade.

The Representation of Natives Act of 1936 removed the Africans but not the coloreds from the electoral roll in the Cape. It established an advisory Natives Representative Council, made up of largely traditional African leaders. However, just like the Seattle Public Schools graduation survey, it was all just for show. The council lacked any real power, just like responding to the survey didn’t provide any real results.

The Native Trust and Land act of 1936 extended the area of the native reserves to 13% of the total land area of the country. While this was accomplished on paper, it never was truly achieved in practice. Instead, it enhanced the power of authority to evict Africans who lived illegally in White areas. What should have been a sanctuary for the Natives turned out to be more of a prison. To make matters worse, the 1937 Native Laws Amendment Act allowed for stricter enforcement and tighter regulation of the existing pass laws. Sadly, the natives were only halfway through a terrible period of unjust rule in their country.

Continuing on the theme of last week, there are many more Acts to talk about in regards to South Africa. Going in chronological order, our first topic of discussion is the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923. It decreed that cities were principally for the use of the White population. Any Africans residing there were required to carry passes. Any black person found without a pass was liable to be arrested and expelled to the reserves. This is eerily reminiscent similar to what the Jews were forced to do just 20 years later. However in their case they had to wear the yellow star of David and were being sent off to concentration camps.

The Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 allowed for the legal registration of whites in a trade union, but not blacks. Trade unions in the United States exist for plumbers, electricians, carpenters and the like which allow the workers the opportunity to negotiate for better pay and working situations. However, in South Africa the blacks were denied the ability to do so as they were not included in the Industrial Conciliation Act. That wasn’t the only change that occurred in 1924. The South African Party was swept from power and replaced by a National Party led coalition government under J.B.M. Hertzog. What is a coalition you ask? Lucky for you I was wondering the same thing. According to the Dictionary a coalition is, “an alliance for combined action, especially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government or of states.”

The last to laws to be enacted in the 1920’s include the Wage Act of 1925. It permitted the government to instruct private firms to grant preference to White workers when hiring. This meant employers decisions were based off the color of people’s skin, not their work ethic. Lastly, the Minds and Works Amendment Act of 1926. It further entrenched the color bar in the mining industry. Things always get worse before they get better, and the 1930’s will be a prime example of that in my next blog.

The history of apartheid South Africa seems ever more similar to the southern United States under Jim Crow laws. From my most recent textbook reading I have gleaned that the South African Party (S.A.P.) was a government led by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts. Their main objective was to entrench in law a comprehensive system of racial segregation. In order to accomplish this multiple laws were enacted each year through the next three decades. The first one was the Act of Union, also known as the South African Act. It restricted all voting rights to the minority white population with the exception of a very small number of “coloreds” and blacks who had previously met the narrow franchise qualification in Cape Province and Natal. Elsewhere, all non-Whites were excluded from the voters’ roll.

The next act put in place was the Mines and Works Act of 1911. It reserved all semi-skilled positions in the mining industry for whites. This meant that Blacks had no other option but to accept the poorly paid unskilled jobs in cities or rural farms. This was quite the opposite of a law common in today’s society known as Affirmative Action. Enacted in 1961 in the U.S. by President Kennedy the executive order mandated government employers, “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” For more on the order see the link below.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/affirmative_action

The Native Land Act of 1913 was a landmark piece of legislation. It prohibited Africans, who made up over two-thirds of the population, from owning or renting land anywhere outside certain parcels of territory that would be designated as native reserves. The Act further stipulated that Africans could reside outside reserves only on the condition that they were employed by Whites. This reminds me of what the United States did to Natives when they forced them to move onto reservations so those of European descent could do what they wanted with the land. It is interesting how across continents and countries, the same methods of oppression are used for the same greedy reasons.

When the Trekboers (Boers) set out from the Netherlands they had the fortunate coincidence that many of the lands they settled in Africa had already been extensively depopulated as a result of Mfecane earlier in the century. What is Mfecane? In the first half of the nineteenth century the rise of the Zulu military kingdom under Shaka, the founder of the empire, revolutionized Nguni warfare. This led to many deaths and refugees fleeing into the mountains, clearing the way for white settlers. For more on the history of the Mfecane and its impacts, see the link below.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Mfecane

Similar to Western expansion in what is now the United States under the belief that it was Manifest Destiny, the Boers seeing such a sparsely populated land reinforced their sense of divine deliverance. Then when they battled the Zulu at Blood River in 1838 and won, it affirmed in their minds that they were indeed, “God’s Chosen People”. Following the Battle of Blood River, the Boers made a solemn covenant (agreement) with God, that, if honored, would allow them to triumph over their enemies. They also vowed to bring “civilization” to Africa in return for God’s favor and protection. From this, two Boer Republics were established. The Transvaal (South African Republic) and the Orange Free State. Although the naming of the latter was rather ironic, as slaves were owned in both. That topic however, is something we’ll save for my next textbook reading.

Continuing in my textbook expedition, today I’m delving into the National Party. This is the institution that set the demeaning and demoralizing laws into place against the indigenous people. In May of 1948, the whites-only electorate of the Union of South Africa voted the Herenigde Nasionale Party (National Party or N.P.) led by Dr. D.F. Malan into power. The margin of the N.P. victory was narrow. Similar to when Trump won the presidency, as the ruling United Party (U.P. ) of sitting Prime Minister Jan Smuts won the majority of the popular vote yet the electoral system was weighted in favor of the larger, rural constituencies where the N.P. managed to outperform rivals.

From this, Malan was able to form a coalition government with the smaller Afrikaner Party (A.P.) of Nicolaas Havenga. The N.P. remained in power for more than four decades and implemented an extreme version of racial segregation (apartheid). Malan and his successors enacted a series of legislative measures designed to reinforce the dominance of the minority white population over other peoples of South Africa. The ruling party sought to engineer complete separation of different racial groups in the country. This caused problems however. Those actions resulted in an explosion of opposition to the apartheid system among non-white peoples of South Africa and a growing disgust and opposition to the country from the international community. This lead to diplomatic pressure and trade sanctions.

Continuing my reading of the textbook, the history of apartheid South Africa continues to become grim. Following the establishment of British rule, new urban settlements were built on the far eastern frontier. The largest of these towns were East London and Grahamstown. Contact with the indigenous inhabitants, the Xhosa, was fairly frequent as Africans traveled to farms and cities in search of work.

The 1853 Constitution of the Cape Colony distinguished between “civilized” and “uncivilized” peoples. While it never blatantly states that they are segregating by skin color and ancestry, that is clearly their intention if you read between the lines. Furthermore, punitive (which I learned from the dictionary means “inflicting or intended as punishment”) laws, required the Xhosa to carry passes used to regulate their movement. Additionally, it could prevent them from leaving their jobs and seeking work elsewhere. In some ways, this reminds me of the current pandemic. In the most infected countries that are locking down the most, you must provide paperwork simply to commute to work and prove that you are an essential service member. However, in South Africa these passes weren’t used to ensure everyone’s health and well being, they were used to deepen the colonizers control over the native people.

Another way residential segregation was supported was through the imposition of curfews on Blacks to prevent them from entering White areas at night. This reminded me of a movie I recently watched, The Diary of Anne Frank. Anne was Jewish, living in Germany when Hitler rose to power. While she suffered the cruel fate of concentration camps, before she was forced into hiding she experienced having curfews imposed upon her because of her religion. It is curious that just a few years after WWII ended (1945), apartheid began in South Africa (1948). It seems the colonizers took a few ideas with them from the oppressors in Nazi Germany. There truly is nothing new under the sun.

As school has not been held in person for almost a month, I have taken it upon myself to continue learning and further my knowledge of history. While I.B. exams have been cancelled I still desire to learn about the topics which would have been on my test. I am fortunate enough to have a textbook at my disposal and I have taken it upon myself to read, what would have been, our final units in history class. Immediately upon opening the book, I was transported to a world completely foreign to me.

Before diving into the details, it is important to get a general overview and context of the situation. The topic of study, Apartheid South Africa, is unique for its location but the plot of one group of people oppressing another has sadly been experienced all over the world. My first question was, “what does Apartheid even mean?” well in Afrikaans it means apartness. Naturally, one question leads to another and my answer left me wondering what Afrikaans is. Turns out, it is the official language of South Africa and is a West Germanic language. So why would a European language be the official language spoken in a country on the opposite end of the globe? Well this is where the story begins.

When the Dutch began colonizing South Africa, those that lived on the colonial ‘frontier’ were called Trekboers. Isolated from Europe and its modern intellectual currents, slavery was a part of their everyday life and thus racial inequality was taken for granted. When the British decided to abolish slavery in 1833 it led some Boers to undertake the Great Trek to the “promise land” where they’d be free to oppress other humans in whatever way they felt. This reminded me of last year, in history class, when we were learning about the U.S. Civil War. The United States had divided views over whether it was right to own people as slaves, the north wanting them to be free and the south wanting to continue to profit off of their “property”. With the Dutch, once again, it was the country in the north ending slavery and those colonizing in the south that wanted to continue it. I find this interesting. While the American Civil War took place almost 30 years after Britain outlawed slavery, the same responses arose to the same action on three different continents. The difference is, in the case of the Dutch, rather than fighting within the country over the decision to abolish slavery, those that wished to continue mistreating people simply fled to a place they knew they could get away with it.