In Time of Lockdown: Reflections on Locks, Lockdown, Isolation

Apartheid: Isolation of Race Philippa Blossom (IH L6) In the language of Afrikaans, the word ‘apartheid’ literally translates to ‘apartness’. This was a period of South African history in the twentieth century that isolated half a nation based on the colour of their skin. A system was created to uphold segregationist policies against all non-white citizens in South Africa. White people were a racial minority in the country since the Dutch East India Company colonised the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 – yet by the mid-1900s, the racial minority were running the country. Though there had been tensions between the white and black communities in the past, and the second half of the twentieth century saw the segregation between the races legalised in all aspects of society.

White supremacy and racial segregation were the two main driving forces in the lead-up to apartheid.

After British parliament had passed the Act of Union in 1910, the four British colonies (Cape, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal) became the Union of South Africa, and three years later, when the 1913 Land Act was approved (forcing black Africans to live in reserves and legislating against them working as sharecroppers), the territorial exclusion had already begun. This caused much controversy within the country and challengers of the Land Act would collaborate to form the South African Native Congress, which later progressed to become the African National Congress (ANC). World crises such as the Great Depression and Second World War also had a significant impact on the economic troubles of the country which reinforced racial segregation policies. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the all-white Afrikaner National Party won the general election in South Africa in 1948. Its slogan advertised ‘apartheid’, showing that a majority of the country’s population had indirectly voted for racial separation in their country. Not only was the aim of the new government to disconnect the nonwhite majority from the white minority, but also to divide the non-white communities further to reduce their political authority. These events marked the initiation of the South African apartheid.

The next stage of apartheid was to legalise the isolation of non-white races. The prohibition of marriage between a white person to a person of another race, and the illegalising of sexual relations between two different races in South Africa became the reality by 1950, under the Afrikaner National Party. The Population Registration Act of 1950 classified people by their race. There were three categories a person could fall under: Bantu (black Africans), Coloured (mixed race) or White. An Asian category was later enrolled too. As a result of this act, families were split up and, in some cases, children would effectively be left orphaned if they fell into the ‘Coloured’ category as their parents were black and white (so they too would be separated). White supremacy was also prominent via a succession of Land Acts, which allowed for more than 80% of the land for the white minority. Also, non-white people were obliged to carry documents to authorise themselves in restricted zones, overtly demonstrating discrimination against the majority, as white people were not forced to do the same. The government ensured the difficulty of contact between races and this was consolidated through the establishment of separate public facilities to accommodate the different communities. The disadvantages and inequality which non-white people faced was exacerbated by the limitations of placed on their labour unions and the rejection of non-white representation in national government. Therefore, via the law, it was becoming clear that the white population of South Africa was in a much more advantageous position than the rest of the population owing to the all-white government and strong objectives of white supremacy.

In 1958, Hendrik Verwoerd became Prime Minister of South Africa, with his main focus being to further improve apartheid policy and make it become more systematic: this was known as the ‘separate development’. He created the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act in 1959, which created 10 Bantu homelands (known as Bantustans) to additionally divide the black majority and weaken the probability of black unification against the government. In order to retain the black people’s political rights, they were split up and designated a Bantustan to remove them from the main political structure. This system forced black South Africans to leave their homes in the newly established ‘white’ zones. and their farmland in rural parts was sold on cheaply to white farmers.

This showed the authority that the government had to effectively reorder and redistribute the population of the country. Between 1961 and 1994, over 3.5 million people emigrated without choice to Bantustans in the areas less desirable to the white minority. Poverty and lack of proper formation of the black ‘homelands’ made it difficult for the inhabitants to prosper. On top of this, the government’s foreseeing of opposition against their 76