A (very) brief history of South Africa

Written 1-18-08

I realized while writing my last entry that I was only writing about myself. While this is largely natural, I wanted to use this entry to write about South Africa. I’m staying with a friend from my camp this week and being a tourist. The one thing that I wanted to do during my week here was visit the Apartheid Museum and today I did that. What follows is my brief synopsis of South Africa history. The information comes from what I have read and learned today in the Museum. Please note I skip over large periods of time and simplify things for sake of space. I hope my shortcomings will provide motivation for your own studies of this tremendously fascinating and unique country.

The first thing you must know is South Africa is not just made of blacks and whites.
The first people in South Africa were the San and then the KhoiKhoi. They would be known by most westerners by the offensive term “bushmen.” Through intermarriage and general mistreatment there are hardly any of these people left today in South Africa. Many descendants of the San are today’s coloureds, people who are mixed race.
Long after the San and Khoikhoi arrived, Bantu tribes arrived from the north. These were the forerunners of what is today the Black African population in the country.
The first permanent white settlement was started in 1652 by the Dutchman Jan Van Riebeeck. He was the ancestor of the Afrikaners in South Africa. Afrikaners are whites who because they have lived in South Africa for so many generations believed they were truly Africans. Many in the past believed they were God’s chosen people and God had given South Africa for them.
British settlers and colonists arrived later and wished to use South Africa for their own colonial purposes. The white population is today a mix of Afrikaners and British-origin people.
A final segment are the Asians. Because of past migrant labor, many Indians and other Asians live in South Africa now. Gandhi lived in South Africa for a time before going back to India in the early 20th century.
Before the 20th-century there was much fighting for land between African tribes, Afrikaners and British people. After numerous wars and conflicts, Union came in 1910. Keep in mind this Union was a whites-only agreement, no blacks were consulted. Nevertheless the modern borders of South Africa had been formed.
Segregation was enforced throughout this time until 1948. Keep in mind segregation was not apartheid, which did not begin until 1948. 1948 brought about a victory for the Afrikaner Nationalist Party which was the government that instituted Apartheid.
Apartheid was not a simple system but a ludicrously complicated one made up of hundreds of laws instituted over decades. Some highlights (or rather, lowlights) were the following.
Every citizen was rigidly classified by race and had to carry a pass identifying them as that race.
Everything was segregated, from buses, to beaches, to bathrooms.
Separate schooling was set up for black Africans that was inferior to what whites received.
The grand plan of apartheid was quite insidious. It desired blacks and whites to be completely separated and that was possible through land control. The Apartheid government essentially told blacks where they were supposed to live
Bantustans were set up that were only for Blacks, far from white communities. The Bantustans were only 13 percent of the country even though blacks were over 80 percent of the population.
This never completely worked as townships like Soweto were set up and kept huge populations of blacks very close to the cities.
Apartheid last until 1994 when after decades of harsh and often violent struggle the first democratic elections were held. Nelson Mandela became the countries first black president.
Today South Africa is still struggling to overcome its past. Apartheid left millions of blacks without proper homes, jobs or education. The government is faced with the task of providing all these things as fast as possible. South Africa does have a high crime rate but is this to be expected. 80% of the population became pariahs in their own land for the last century. Until more progress has been made crime will remain an issue.
That said South Africa has tremendous wealth. It has gold, diamonds and other minerals. It has nice, though heavily secured, suburbs. It is making progress. I have said to pray for me often and I’m grateful for those prayers, but now I request that you pray for South Africa. Pray that they continue to grow and overcome the past and that they can look toward the future with hope and not despair.
You can find more information from my pictures which I will caption on facebook as soon as I can. I thank you if you have read this far and I hope it has given you a better understanding of the country.