1.
Apartheid
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Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991, when it was abolished. The countrys first multiracial elections under a universal franchise were held three years later in 1994, Apartheid as a policy was embraced by the South African government shortly after the ascension of the National Party during the countrys 1948 general elections. Apartheid was also enforced in South West Africa until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990, with the rapid growth and industrialisation of the British Cape Colony in the nineteenth century, racial policies and laws became increasingly rigid. Cape legislation that discriminated specifically against black Africans began appearing shortly before 1900, the policies of the Boer republics were also racially exclusive, for instance, the Transvaal constitution barred nonwhite participation in church and state. Places of residence were determined by racial classification, from 1960 to 1983,3.5 million nonwhite South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass removals in modern history. Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the population to ten designated tribal homelands, also known as bantustans. The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans, Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the twentieth century. It was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations, some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed in appeasing most activist groups. In 1990, prominent ANC leaders such as Nelson Mandela were released from detention, Apartheid legislation was abolished in mid-1991, pending multiracial elections set for April 1994. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning separateness, or the state of being apart and its first recorded use was in 1929. The governors and assemblies that governed the process in the various colonies of South Africa were launched on a different and independent legislative path from the rest of the British Empire. In the days of slavery, slaves required passes to travel away from their masters, in 1797 the Landdrost and Heemraden of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet extended pass laws beyond slaves and ordained that all Khoikhoi moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes. Ordinance No.49 of 1828 decreed that prospective black immigrants were to be granted passes for the purpose of seeking work. These passes were to be issued for Coloureds and Khoikhoi, but not for other Africans, the United Kingdoms Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery throughout the British Empire and overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation. To comply with the act the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835 and this was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848, which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa that was little different from slavery. The Glen Grey Act of 1894, instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes limited the amount of land Africans could hold, in 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied blacks the vote, limited them to fixed areas and inaugurated the infamous Pass System. The Asiatic Registration Act required all Indians to register and carry passes, one of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by Jan Smuts United Party government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill, which banned land sales to Indians. The United Party government began to move away from the enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II
2.
South African general election, 1948
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The parliamentary election in South Africa on 26 May 1948 represented a turning point in the countrys history. During the election battle, both the UP and the NP formed coalitions with smaller parties, the UP was aligned with the left-leaning Labour Party, while the Afrikaner Party sought to advance Afrikaner rights by allying with the HNP. The HNP, realising that many White South Africans felt threatened by black political aspirations, the Nationalists labelled this new system of social organisation apartheid, the name by which it became universally known. The HNP also took advantage of white fear of crime. In contrast to the HNPs consistent, straightforward platform, the UP supported vague notions of slowly integrating the different racial groups within South Africa. Together, the HNP and the Afrikaner Party won 79 seats in the House of Assembly against a total of 74 won by the UP. By a quirk of the First Past the Post system the NP had won more seats, the Nationalist coalition subsequently formed a new government and ushered in the era of formal, legally binding apartheid. In 1951, the HNP and the Afrikaner Party merged, returning to the name National Party, one of the central issues facing the white electorate in the 1948 election was that of race. The United Party and the National Party presented voters with differing answers to questions relating to racial integration in SA, in contrast to this seemingly vague ideology, the NP advanced the notion of further strictly enforced segregation between races and the total dis-empowerment of black South Africans. Rural to urban movement by blacks was to be discouraged, the UP position was supported by the Fagan Commission while the Sauer Commission informed the NPs stance. The putative policy of apartheid proposed by the NP served the interests of certain groups of white South Africans. Many commercial and financial Afrikaner interests based on saw the value of apartheid in promoting growth in this sector. The UP failed to realise the economic benefits of apartheid to these large and influential groups. As regards election tactics, the NP was extremely adroit at exploiting white fears while campaigning in the 1948 election, NP propaganda linked black political power to Communism, an anathema to many white South Africans at the time. Slogans such as Swart Gevaar, Rooi Gevaar, Die kaffer op sy plek, much was made of the fact that Smuts had developed a good working relationship with Joseph Stalin during World War II, when South Africa and the USSR were allies in the fight against Nazi Germany. Smuts had once remarked that he doffs his cap to Stalin, the Smuts governments controversial immigration programme served to further inflame Afrikaner disquiet. Under this programme, numerous British immigrants had moved to South Africa and were perceived to have taken homes, in preparation for the 1948 election, the NP moderated its stance on republicanism. English speaking South Africans tended to favour a relationship with the UK
3.
Coloured vote constitutional crisis
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The crisis ended when the government enlarged the Senate and altered its method of election, allowing the amendment to be successfully enacted. Before the creation of the Union of South Africa, elections in the Cape Colony were conducted on the basis of the qualified franchise and this meant that the right to vote was limited to men meeting property and literacy qualifications, but not restricted on the basis of race. The South Africa Act, which was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, unified these four colonies to form the Union but preserved their franchise arrangements unchanged. Section 35 was entrenched by section 152, which provided that neither section 35 nor section 152 itself could be amended without a similar supermajority in joint session. Although this Act was passed by the required joint-session supermajority, its validity was challenged by a voter in the case of Ndlwana v Hofmeyr. In 1948, the National Party, campaigning on a platform of apartheid, the following year, Prime Minister D. F. The bill attracted much opposition both inside and outside Parliament, the United Party leader J. G. N. A group of Coloured activists formed the National Convention Co-ordinating Committee to oppose the bill within constitutional limits, the Franchise Action Council, a multi-racial organisation, led a campaign of rallies, strikes and civil disobedience. The Torch Commando was founded by white Second World War veterans in response to the bill, the Governor-General gave his assent on 15 June 1951 and the act was promulgated on 18 June. G. Harris, E. Franklin, W. D. Collins and this decision was immediately taken on appeal to the Appellate Division. The governments first contention was that the act did not disqualify voters on the basis of race, as all voters previously qualified were still able to vote, the court dismissed this argument as untenable. The governments claim regarding the Statute of Westminster was based on two principal theories, the first was based on the repeal of the application of the Colonial Laws Validity Act to South Africa. The Colonial Laws Validity Act provided that any act of a parliament would be valid within the colony unless it contradicted a British act applying to the colony. The second theory was that, by expanding the powers of the dominion parliaments. Section 2 of the Statute of Westminster gave a dominion parliament the power to repeal or amend any act of the British Parliament as it applied in the dominion. This did not affect the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, as Parliament was fully sovereign over South Africa, the court ruled that it was entitled to overrule its own previous decisions if they were clearly wrong. In Ndlwana there had been no discussion of the Statute of Westminster nor any argument for or against the conclusion drawn by the court, and the court therefore felt free to overrule it. The resulting order of the Appellate Division was that the Separate Representation of Voters Act was invalid, null and void and of no legal force, the ruling, authored by Chief Justice Albert van der Sandt Centlivres and handed down on 20 March 1952, was unanimous
4.
Sharpeville massacre
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The Sharpeville massacre was an event which occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in Transvaal. After a day of demonstrations against pass laws, a crowd of about 5,000 to 7,000 black protesters went to the police station, the South African Police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people. In present-day South Africa,21 March is celebrated as a holiday in honour of human rights. South African governments since the century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of black South Africans into cities. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s, under the countrys National Party government, black residents in urban districts were subject to influx control measures. From the 1960s, the laws were the primary instrument used by the state to detain. The African National Congress prepared to initiate a campaign of protests against pass laws. On March 21, a group of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the police station in the township of Sharpeville. The Sharpeville police were not completely unprepared for the demonstration, as they had already forced to drive smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night. By 10,00, a crowd had gathered. Fewer than 20 police officers were present in the station at the start of the protest. Later the crowd grew to about 20,000, and the mood was described as ugly, prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four Saracen armoured personnel carriers, the police were armed with firearms, including Sten submachine guns and Lee–Enfield rifles. There was no evidence that anyone in the gathering was armed with anything other than rocks, f-86 Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within a hundred feet of the ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it. The protesters responded by hurling stones and menacing the police barricades, tear gas proved ineffectual, and policemen elected to repel these advances with their batons. At about 13,00 the police tried to arrest a protestor, resulting in a scuffle, the official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot in the back as they turned to flee, Police reports in 1960 claimed that young and inexperienced police officers panicked and opened fire spontaneously, setting off a chain reaction that lasted about forty seconds. It is likely that the police were nervous as two months before the massacre nine constables had been assaulted and killed during a raid at Cato Manor, in addition, few of the policemen present had received public order training. Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite, for them to gather means violence
5.
Rivonia Trial
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The Rivonia Trial took place in South Africa between 9 October 1963 and 12 June 1964. The Rivonia Trial led to the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and the others among the accused who were convicted on life sentences in the Palace of Justice, Pretoria. The Rivonia Trial was named after Rivonia, the suburb of Johannesburg where leaders had arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, privately owned by Arthur Goldreich. The farm had been used as a hideout for the African National Congress, among others, Nelson Mandela had moved onto the farm in October 1961 and evaded security police while masquerading as a gardener and cook called David Motsamayi. Most of the Rivonia defendants were to be convicted, and in turn sentenced to life imprisonment, the government took advantage of legal provisions allowing for accused persons to be held for 90 days without trial, and the defendants were held incommunicado. Withstanding beatings and torture, Goldreich and Wolpe escaped from jail on 11 August and their escape infuriated the prosecutors and police who considered Goldreich to be the arch-conspirator. The chief prosecutor was Dr. Percy Yutar, deputy attorney-general of the Transvaal, the presiding judge was Dr. Quartus de Wet, judge-president of the Transvaal. The first trial indictment document listed 11 names as the accused, the trial began in October 1963. Counsel for the accused successfully challenged the legal sufficiency of the document, the second indictment thus only listed 10 out of the original 11 names, referring to them as Accused 1 through 10. Hilda Bernstein approached Joffe, after being rebuffed by other lawyers who claimed to be too busy or afraid to act for her husband, Joffe was subsequently also approached by Albertina Sisulu, Annie Goldberg and Winnie Mandela. Joffe agreed to act as attorney for all of the accused except Kantor, who would require separate counsel, Joffe initially secured the services of advocates Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos, then persuaded Bram Fischer to act as lead counsel. Vernon Berrangé was also recruited to join the team of advocates. He thus arranged a separate defence team, while Harold Hanson primarily represented Kantor, he was also invited to deliver the plea for mitigation for the other 9 accused. The defence line-up for Kantor was John Coaker Harold Hanson George Lowen H. C, production requirements for munitions for a six-month period were sufficient, the prosecutor Percy Yutar said in his opening address, to blow up a city the size of Johannesburg. Kantor was discharged at the end of the prosecutions case, the trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council and nations around the world, leading to international sanctions against the South African government in some cases. Arthur Goldreich and Harold Wolpe escaped from The Fort prison in Johannesburg while on remand after bribing a prison guard. After hiding in safe houses for two months they escaped to Swaziland dressed as priests with the aid of Manni Brown who posed as a tour operator as a cover to deliver weapons to the ANC. From Swaziland, Vernon Berrangé was to charter a plane to take them on to Lobatse, wolpes escape saw his brother-in-law James Kantor, who had been serving as a member of the defence team, arrested and charged with the same crimes as Mandela and his co-accused
6.
Soweto uprising
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The Soweto uprising was a series of protests led by black school children in South Africa that began on the morning of 16 June 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools and it is estimated that 20,000 students took part in the protests. They were met with police brutality. The number of killed by police is usually given as 176. In remembrance of these events, the 16th of June is now a holiday in South Africa. The Regional Director of Bantu Education, J. G, indigenous languages would only be used for religious instruction, music, and physical culture. The association of Afrikaans with apartheid prompted black South Africans to prefer English, even the Bantustan regimes chose English and an indigenous African language as official languages. In addition, English was gaining prominence as the language most often used in commerce, the 1974 decree was intended to forcibly reverse the decline of Afrikaans among black Africans. The Afrikaner-dominated government used the clause of the 1909 Union of South Africa Act that recognised only English, while all schools had to provide instruction in both Afrikaans and English as languages, white South African students learned other subjects in their home language. Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education at the time, was quoted as saying and he may work for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the medium of instruction among the Black people as well, no, I have not consulted them and I am not going to consult them. Teacher organisations, such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa, a change in language of instruction forced the students to focus on understanding the language instead of the subject material. This made critical analysis of the content difficult and discouraged critical thinking, the resentment grew until 30 April 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to other schools in Soweto. Black South African students protested because they believed that they deserved to be treated, a student from Morris Isaacson High School, Teboho Tsietsi Mashinini, proposed a meeting on 13 June 1976 to discuss what should be done. Students formed an Action Committee, which organised a rally for 16 June. On the morning of 16 June 1976, between 10,000 and 20,000 black students walked from their schools to Orlando Stadium for a rally to protest against having to learn through Afrikaans in school. Many students who participated in the protest arrived at school that morning without prior knowledge of the protest
7.
Alexander Sinton Secondary School
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Alexander Sinton Secondary School, also known as Alexander Sinton High School, is an English-medium school in Crawford, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The school is located in the Cape Flats, a designated as non-white under the Group Areas Act during apartheid. The school was involved in the student uprisings of the 1970s and 1980s. Staff and students at the school made headlines when they barricaded the police into their school in September 1985, the following month, three youths were killed near the school by police officers who opened fire on protesters in the Trojan Horse Incident. It was the first school to be visited by Nelson Mandela after his release from prison, as of 2014, the school has 1,100 pupils, half boys and half girls. The school employs 40 teachers and six non-teaching staff, the school was named for its benefactor Alexander Sinton, who bequeathed money to found the school in 1951. In 1976 Nabil Swart, a teacher at the school, was arrested after helping a student who had shot during the protests. Swart was released on bail after being detained for a weekend, internal resistance to apartheid intensified, and a state of emergency was declared in parts of the country in 1985. The Committee of 81, a student organisation representing coloured schools in the Western Cape which organised student boycotts and protests, held some meetings at the school in 1985. The school effectively stopped teaching from February and was closed on 6 September when the government ordered more than 400 schools to close as a result of civil unrest. Some teachers resigned their positions and others were confused as to their role, the Teachers League of South Africa, a professional association for coloured teachers, encouraged its members not to resign for the sake of the children. Teachers decided to teach, but not to co-operate with the authorities, the school defiantly re-opened on 17 September 1985 when the principal, Khalied Desai, led teachers, uniformed students and parents who sang protest songs. The police were aware of the plans, and arrived quickly. The students threw stones, built barricades and the police replied with armoured vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets, Teachers and parents supported the students and their protests against injustice. The police had difficulty taking away the people they had arrested, the New York Times noted that the action taken by coloured teachers and students at the school was remarkably different to the boycotts taking place at black schools. Swart was again jailed for two weeks in 1985 for helping to re-open the school, the state of emergency was extended to include Cape Town on 25 October 1985, giving the police and army greater powers to deal with instability in the area. Swart was again jailed for eighteen months in 1986 for his involvement in the school unrest, on 15 October 1985 three male youths, aged 11,15 and 21, were killed by the police nearby in Belgravia Road in Athlone in what was called the Trojan Horse Incident. Students and activists had gathered where they regularly had battles with the police and were stoning vehicles, most of the people in the crowd were from the school
