Anti-Apartheid and
South African Identity
We
see and understand the identity of South African society in multiple outlets.
Through song and dance, native South Africans express their joy, sorrows, and
beliefs. Centuries of colonization and persecution have allowed Africans to
grow strong in their traditions and values; remembering the sense of community
needed to overcome the restrictions of apartheid. Apartheid, a word meaning “apartness" in Afrikaans, describes
the white supremacy and segregation imposed by Afrikaner (White South African)
leaders all over the country from the year 1948, ending in the year 1994 with
the election of President Nelson Mandela. Through apartheid, black South Africans
felt the realities of true persecution and banded together through a common goal
for justice and an identity of oppression. Movements began in small ghettos or
"Bantus" in the forms of boycotts and civil disobedience. As
oppression of black and "coloured" people continued, the movement
grew to a nationwide protest. Soon, thousands were violating imposed curfews,
segregation restrictions, and additional ordinances; all for the sake of
freedom (Ackerman 339). Harsh segregations imposed by the white man had united
black South Africans through shared goals for justice and for peace.
Several
facets of identity formed through the restrictions of apartheid. The government
order of apartness called for specific identification and discrimination of any
race of people that couldn't be directly linked to European descent. This
included not only black citizens but also, Indians (non-white natives), and
"coloured" people of mixed race. Segregation was prominent among
these groups as well; so much so that several Indians and mixed race
individuals played important roles in the African National Congress, an
anti-apartheid group headed by figures such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
The encompassing discrimination by all non-whites, (who made up around eighty
percent of South Africa) throughout the nation, allowed for a national
contestation against white oppression and the discriminatory practices of
apartheid (Marx 157). In this essay, I will delve into this national discontent
and analyze individual protests throughout the anti-apartheid movement as a
reason and an architect of national identity; as well as the rhetoric behind
the creation and the performance of freedom songs throughout the era. However,
one must first have a knowledge of the historical events of colonization and
pre-apartheid society to recognize the identity and pride that attributed to
the anti-apartheid movement.
In
order to understand the struggles and triumphs of the South African people, it is
imperative to first analyze historical contexts of invasion and oppression
before apartheid regimes rose to power. Ever since the beginning of Dutch
colonization in South Africa, the wants and needs of native peoples were pushed
aside to accommodate the rising power of white leaders and civilians (The Rise
of Apartheid 1). Summoned by the promise of diamonds and silver in the South
African city of Johannesburg, the Dutch quickly industrialized the once
agrarian nation by the end of the 19th century. However, with industrialization
came complete political and economic isolation for indigenous peoples. Racist
laws were imposed upon the less-educated natives in order to grant newly
white-owned mining companies complete control over workers of the mines in the
forms of severe wage cuts and unbalanced profit control. Black men who worked
in the mines were often placed in hazardous working environments; while working
for wages that were pushing the boundaries between employment and slavery.
Privatized
mining companies enforced additional regulations upon blacks that controlled
where they were allowed to work and live. Throughout post-colonization, natives
were forced to carry around documentation that identified them as non-whites,
and thus lesser in the eyes of colonists. Upon discovery, these documents
prohibited holders from living, working, and thriving within white areas. As a
result, black Africans were forced to live in poverty stricken villages
hundreds of miles away from the caves in which they worked. These rural spaces
were so far from the mines; mine workers would often be away from home for up
to nine months of the year. Restrictive laws produced by boers Louis Botha, Jan
Smuts, and JB Hertzog such as the Native's Land Act of 1913, acted to enforce and
lengthen white control in similar ways. Under this law, ninety-three percent of
South African land was reserved for whites while black Africans (two thirds of
the population), were prohibited from purchasing land and relocated to reserves
in the countryside. Living conditions of these reservations have been described
as bleak; ridden with illness and malnutrition (Origins of Apartheid 1). Racism
was overtly prominent in South Africa at this time; and while the majority of
land was under white ownership, we see a massive shift of Afrikaner power in
the years following the first World War.
In
the years between the first and second world wars, South Africa was undergoing
significant social and economic development through immense forms of
urbanization. As a result of the poor conditions of reservations, the number of
city-dwelling Africans more than tripled in the thirty-year period between
1904-1936 (Origins of Apartheid 2). With the growth of black cities, however,
came intensifying systems of discrimination. Referred to as "a European
area in which there is no place the redundant Native,” by the native affairs
commission, the city was predominantly a place for whites (Origins of Apartheid
2). Whites, who were uneasy of the encroachment of black Africans in
"their" territories. This uneasiness brought additional examples of
black segregation. Africans endured poor living conditions in the city; with
inadequate homes, transportation services, health, and for several decades, a
lack of electricity. The poorer areas of the city were also known to be crime
ridden and unsanitary. These unfortunate circumstances essentially prompted the
first examples of protest in the black community.
Provoked
by the "evisceration of black rights" in the 1930's, non-white South Africans
were encouraged by British and American missionaries to speak out against
maltreatment in the form of peaceful protest (Origins of Apartheid 3). Protesting
bills like the Masters and Servants Act, which legalized whipping of black
subordinates, indigenous leaders wrote letters, drew petitions, and enacted
other polite methods in hopes to halt the growing tensions of segregation
within their homeland. When their calls for action were ignored, the persecuted
of South Africa began to grow more and more dissatisfied with white control;
resulting in a multi-platform recognition of national identity. This identity
reached beyond the color of one's skin and was more associated with discontent
than it was racial boundaries (Marx 161). Through Afrikaner oppression, all
non-white races (indigenous, mixed race, and especially black people) began to
identify as "African"; an identity that commanded respect and rights
as the first people of the continent (Origins of Apartheid 3).
The
"African" identity, formed through white oppression, set the tone for
opposition to rising states of apartheid in the following years. In the midst
of severe political isolation, by the 1948 South African election nearly all
non-white citizens were prohibited from voting. A revival of the Nationalist
Party, led by Dutch colonist, Daniel Francois Malan, promised to appease the
worries of rising African identity, held by white civilians, of the if elected.
(Neocosmos 153) As a result of this fear of uprising and black power, the
predominantly white election, ended in the inauguration of Daniel Malan for the
Afrikaner party in 1948 and the beginning of the social coalition we know as apartheid.
The
worsening of African separatism during the era of the apartheid regime
differentiated the African feeling of discontent from, beginning in the 1960's,
complete opposition. Uprisings accompanied protests of Afrikaner leadership
throughout the anti-apartheid movement; all staged by the rhetoric of isolation
by the apartheid state. Regimes that imposed extreme identifications of rural
ethnic identities and citizenship backfired in that they attributed to the
unification of all oppressed Africans, and with that a sense of nationalism.
(Neocosmos 19) Laws were enacted such as the Population Registration Act of
1950 which required all South Africans to register in a category of several
races in attempts to separate the "superior from the inferior." These
included but were not limited to, White, Cape Coloured, Malay, Griqua, Chinese,
Other Asian, and Other Coloured. Segregation of non-whites was further
encouraged with the Group Areas Act of 1950, which ended all remains of
diversity in South African communities and determined where all citizens lived
according to their race. The separation of races reignited the alliance of the
ANC and encouraged non-black involvement in the new "African"
nationhood to fight against oppression.
"Thirty
years had been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately, and modestly at a
closed and barred door" (Mandela 1965). The resurgence of the ANC (African
National Congress), a, for the most part non-militant group of black middle
class and traditional elites, brought about an entirely new generation of black
activists with a much more confrontational mass mobilization of Africans (Marx
162). In order to achieve their goals against oppression, the new ANC teamed up
with non-white, mixed races and Indian groups in the 1950's to broaden their range
of activism. The new "Freedom Charter" was drawn in 1955 to signify
"South Africa belongs to all who live in it." The latest idea of a democratic
South Africa against apartheid however, did not last long, and was met with
opposition in the forms of both violent and non-violent protest throughout the
nation.
During
the 1970's, the rhetoric of democratic nationalism and the idea of white and
black harmony was abandoned due the development of the PAC (Pan Africanist
Congress) and the notion of BC, "Black Consciousness." Founded by
prominent apartheid activist, Steve Biko, BC disavowed whites as a part of
their movement and instead stressed the racial identity of traditional
"Africans" (Marx 164.) While there was a slight confusion of who
could identify as African, BC pushed for the assertiveness of all races
oppressed by the white man; Black, mixed race, and "Indian." In its
formative years, BC caught the attention of the student populace of South
Africa. These students with a newfound black pride would go on to push their
mentality of self-reliance and assertiveness to a violent impasse during the
Soweto uprising of 1976.
Perhaps
the most violent, significant, and identifying protest of the anti-apartheid
movement, The Soweto uprising of 1976 solidified African identity with an
"Us vs. Them" mentality. On the morning of June 16, 1976, thousands
of students from the African township outside Johannesburg took to the town
soccer stadium to protest the "language of the oppressors." Many
students, some as young as the age of twelve, carried signs "down with
Afrikans" and "to hell with Bantu education" to protest the
forced learning of Afrikaner language in black schools (Soweto Student Uprising
1). When the crowd swelled to upwards of 10,000 protestors, the demonstration
was met with the opposition of about fifty police officers who advised them to
turn back. Influenced by the pride of the Steve Biko's Black Consciousness
movement" the students refused to concede and a riot erupted. The officers
attempted to disperse violent throwing stones with tear gas and warning shots
fired in the air. Following additional provocation, the police officers fired
directly into the crowd injuring hundreds and fatally wounding two black
students caught in the crossfire. As a result of the tragic events that
occurred in Soweto, the majority of South Africans halted violent protest and
moved to more peaceful demonstrations to spread their quest for freedom.
Noteworthy
examples of non-violent protest occur in the forced relocations or
"Bantus" in the poorer areas of South Africa. Motivated by the
passive protests of Mahatma Gandhi, the ANC encouraged a large scale refusal, within
these bantus, to cooperate with ordinances imposed by the apartheid state. This
"Defiance Campaign" called for thousands to violate curfews,
segregation laws, and other ordinances; but was prevalent in few regions and
thus won little support from those in power (Ackerman 339). When those
motivated to protest were jailed, additional laws were enforced by the
apartheid state to curb other uprisings. These laws, such as those which
authorized the whipping of protestors, were met with extreme opposition and
riots which prompted the ANC to abandon their efforts for non-violent protest until
the 1970's.
Worsening
labor militancy of the apartheid state and increasing community support for
opposition led to several more waves of non-violent resistance in the 1970's.
In Durban, a coastal city of eastern South Africa, several black laborers
abandoned their factory jobs prompting transport and industrial workers to
follow in their footsteps days later. By early February of 1973, thirty
thousand black laborers were on strike in Durban (Kurtz 2010). Movements such
as these speak to the apartheid regime's vulnerability and how the nationalism
of Africans led to its exposure to failure. With nearly two thirds of the South
African population being non-white, Afrikaners relied on the labor of blacks
and other races to generate the economy and the labor force. Widespread strikes
that grew outside of Durban, showed the oppressed side of the apartheid regime
they had more power than previously thought. With the mobilization of thousands
of Africans, the anti-apartheid regime began to disrupt the very core of what
kept non-whites disenfranchised and what kept Afrikaners in power.
Sparked
by the non-violent strikes in the prior decade, the anti-apartheid resistance
in the 1980's was largely centered around mass noncooperation with segregation.
The realization of their massive numbers in comparison to whites drove Africans
to reconsider their oppression and drew in crowds of participants that violent
protest and guerilla warfare just couldn't reach. The rhetoric of non-violent
protest promised large-scale participation, action without force, and a new
perspective of the African identity in the eyes of their oppressors. Due to the
fact that protestors would not be bombing buildings or throwing rocks at
police, the idea of peaceful protest was viewed as inherently attractive.
Instead, thousands of protestors would participate in boycotts of epic
proportions; refusing to use all inadequate modes of transportation, South
African made tools and machinery, and refusing to pay a tax simply for being black.
It
can be argued these methods were fundamentally more effective than those of
violent protest which accomplished little other than scare tactics and
reinforcing traditional African stereotypes as "savages" (Zunes
2013). It was noted by sociologist, Heribert Adam, that the early bombing
campaigns of the ANC which aimed at frightening whites into conceding goals of
the apartheid state, "instead resulted in a strengthening of the
repressive machinery and general discouragement of African militancy closer to
general resignative despair than determination to actively resist white
domination." During the 1980's, the rhetoric of non-violent struggle effectively
swayed the white population away from Afrikaner dominion and toward compassion
for Africans. Though it was difficult for whites to give up some of the
privileges gained through African oppression, according to Stephen Zunes,
"the use of largely nonviolent methods by the black majority was seen as
indicative of a movement less likely to engage in reprisals against the white
minority upon obtaining power, thereby making possible a greater willingness to
accept majority rule."
As
we see black South Africans making strides toward freedom through successful
anti-apartheid demonstrations like the Port Elizabeth boycott of 1985 and the
release of President Mandela, there was still much to be done in the form of
civic legislation. Thanks to massive non-violent demonstrations like these, the
struggle of the black South African caught the attention of industrialized
nations all over the globe. Seeing innocent protesters shot and beaten on the
public screen, western nations implemented sanctions on the South African
government which raised the price of good and made trade with other countries
practically impossible. The Apartheid regime was crumbling. With the majority
of the South African population, and the world against African discrimination,
the apartheid government was forced to repeal segregation laws such as: The Natives
Land Act of 1913, which prohibited African purchase of land from white owners,
the Group Areas Act of 1950, which assigned South Africans a place to live
based on their race, and The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953,
which legalized discrimination of restaurants, parks, and transportation
services based on race. With nearly all apartheid restrictions lifted, the only
course of action left was to unite the anti-apartheid movement to elect a new
president who would keep the freedom of non-whites in-tact. In 1994, South
Africa did just that. The election of Nelson Mandela signified the end of
apartheid and a new era of social justice in which all members of the South
African nation were granted equal rights and liberty. In his inaugural speech,
Mandela united all of South Africa through his rhetoric of the Jeremiad and his
hope for the future of his country. In the next section, I will analyze the
rhetoric of freedom songs, created and sung by protestors throughout the
anti-apartheid movement. Freedom songs unified black South Africa, through a
common understanding of their persecution, a mockery of the Dutch colonizers
whom brought them so much suffering, and a ubiquitous love for African
tradition and culture.
Questions from the writer:
1. Do you feel it is confusing
how the historical and rhetorical contexts overlap in proving identity? Do you
feel the in-depth analysis of pre-colonization history is warranted?
2. Are there any terms that need
to be defined further?
3. Do you have an understanding
of South African identity now having read my essay? Do you think I effectively
proved the identity and how it was shaped through the persecutions of
apartheid?
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