Thursday, November 3, 2016

Anti-Apartheid movement Historical & Rhetorical Draft

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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