2 rare autographs of Mirian Makeba with inscription All is Love

Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

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Zenzile Miriam Makeba (/məˈkeɪbə/ mə-KAY-bə,[2][3] Xhosa: [máˈkʼêːɓà̤] ⓘ; 4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

Born in Johannesburg to Swazi and Xhosa parents, Makeba was forced to find employment as a child after the death of her father. She had a brief and allegedly abusive first marriage at the age of 17, gave birth to her only child in 1950, and survived breast cancer. Her vocal talent had been recognized when she was a child, and she began singing professionally in the 1950s, with the Cuban Brothers, the Manhattan Brothers, and an all-woman group, the Skylarks, performing a mixture of jazz, traditional African melodies, and Western popular music. In 1959, Makeba had a brief role in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa, which brought her international attention, and led to her performing in Venice, London, and New York City. In London, she met the American singer Harry Belafonte, who became a mentor and colleague. She moved to New York City, where she became immediately popular, and recorded her first solo album in 1960. Her attempt to return to South Africa that year for her mother's funeral was prevented by the country's government.

Makeba's career flourished in the United States, and she released several albums and songs, her most popular being "Pata Pata" (1967). Along with Belafonte, she received a Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording for their 1965 album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. She testified against the South African government at the United Nations and became involved in the civil rights movement. She married Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Black Panther Party, in 1968, and consequently lost support among white Americans. Her visa was revoked by the US government when she was traveling abroad, forcing her and Carmichael to relocate to Guinea. She continued to perform, mostly in African countries, including at several independence celebrations. She began to write and perform music more explicitly critical of apartheid; the 1977 song "Soweto Blues", written by her former husband Hugh Masekela, was about the Soweto uprising. After apartheid was dismantled in 1990, Makeba returned to South Africa. She continued recording and performing, including a 1991 album with Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, and appeared in the 1992 film Sarafina!. She was named an FAO Goodwill Ambassador in 1999, and campaigned for humanitarian causes. She died of a heart attack during a 2008 concert in Italy.

Makeba was among the first African musicians to receive worldwide recognition. She brought African music to a Western audience, and popularized the world music and Afropop genres. Despite her cosmopolitan background, she was frequently viewed by Western audiences as an embodiment of Africa: she was also seen as a style icon in both South Africa and the West. Makeba made popular several songs critical of apartheid, and became a symbol of opposition to the system, particularly after her right to return was revoked. Upon her death, former South African President Nelson Mandela said that "her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us."
Early years
Childhood and family

Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born on 4 March 1932 in the black township of Prospect, near Johannesburg, as the only child of her father and the sixth of her mother. Her Xhosa father, Caswell Makeba, was a teacher; he died when she was six years old. Her Swazi mother, Christina Makeba, was a domestic worker; she had previously separated from her first husband and met and married Caswell shortly afterwards.[4][5][6] Makeba later said that before she was conceived, her mother had been warned that any future pregnancy could be fatal. Neither Miriam nor her mother seemed likely to survive after a difficult labour and delivery. Miriam's grandmother, who attended the birth, often muttered uzenzile, a Xhosa word that means "you brought this on yourself", to Miriam's mother during her recovery, which inspired her to give her daughter the name "Zenzile".[7]

When Makeba was eighteen days old, her mother was arrested and sentenced to a six-month prison term for selling umqombothi, a homemade beer brewed from malt and cornmeal. The family could not afford the small fine required to avoid a jail term, and Miriam spent the first six months of her life in jail.[a][5][9][10] By the time of her mother's release from prison, Makeba's father, who had been having difficulty finding work as a teacher, had obtained a job as a clerk at the Shell Oil Company in Nelspruit (now Mbombela) and the family moved along with him accordingly.[6][11] After her father's death she moved to the house of her maternal grandmother in Riverside Township outside of Pretoria, along with her siblings and cousins, while her mother worked for white families in Johannesburg to support the family.[6][12]

As a child, Makeba sang in the choir of the Kilnerton Training Institute in Pretoria, an all-black Methodist primary school that she attended for eight years.[5][13] Her talent for singing earned her praise at school.[11] Makeba was baptised and sang in church choirs, in English, Xhosa, Sotho, and Zulu; she later said that she learned to sing in English before she could speak the language.[12]

Makeba was influenced by her family's musical tastes; her mother played several traditional instruments, and her elder brother collected records, including those of Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, and taught Makeba songs. Her father played the piano and sang in a group called The Mississippi 12, and his musical inclination was later a factor in Makeba's family accepting what was seen as a risque choice of career.[6][12]

Makeba left school to support her family and first worked as a live-in nanny for a Greek family in the Johannesberg suburb of Waverley for three months. The mother stopped paying her and went to the police to accuse her of stealing, so Makeba fled back to her grandmother's home in Riverside. Around that time Makeba's mother began the process of becoming a sangoma or traditional healer, which required her to go back to her ancestral homeland in Eswatini (then Swaziland). Makeba stayed behind working as a launderer for expatriate workers to support her family.[6]

In 1949, Makeba married James Kubay, a policeman in training, with whom she had her only child, Sibongile "Bongi" Makeba, in 1950. Makeba was then diagnosed with breast cancer, and her husband, who was said to have beaten her, left her shortly afterwards, after a two-year marriage.[4][14][11][12][15] A decade later she overcame cervical cancer via a hysterectomy.[12]
Early career

Makeba began her professional musical career with the Cuban Brothers, a South African all-male close harmony group, with whom she sang covers of popular American songs.[16][17] Soon afterwards, at the age of 21, she joined a jazz group, the Manhattan Brothers, who sang a mixture of South African songs and pieces from popular African-American groups.[16] Makeba was the only woman in the group.[18] With the Manhattan Brothers she recorded her first hit, "Lakutshn, Ilanga", in 1953, and developed a national reputation as a musician.[19] In 1956 she joined a new all-woman group, the Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional South African melodies. Formed by Gallotone Records, the group was also known as the Sunbeams.[17][19] Makeba sang with the Skylarks when the Manhattan Brothers were travelling abroad; later, she also travelled with the Manhattan Brothers. In the Skylarks, Makeba sang alongside Rhodesian-born musician Dorothy Masuka, whose music Makeba had followed, along with that of Dolly Rathebe. Several of the Skylarks' pieces from this period became popular; the music historian Rob Allingham later described the group as "real trendsetters, with harmonisation that had never been heard before."[11][12] Makeba received no royalties from her work with the Skylarks.[19]

While performing with the Manhattan Brothers in 1955, Makeba met Nelson Mandela, then a young lawyer; he later remembered the meeting, and that he felt that the girl he met "was going to be someone."[12] With the Manhattan Brothers, Makeba recorded "Lakutshona Ilanga",[20][b] written by Mackay Davashe. The song's popularity prompted requests for an English version, and in 1956, Gallotone Records released "Lovely Lies", Makeba's first solo success and first recording in English.[12][20] However, the Xhosa lyric about a man looking for his beloved in jails and hospitals was replaced with the unrelated and innocuous line "You tell such lovely lies with your two lovely eyes" in the English version. The piece became the first South African record to chart on the United States Billboard Top 100.[12] In 1957, Makeba was featured on the cover of Drum magazine.[22]
A young black man singing
The American singer Harry Belafonte met Makeba in London and adopted her as his protégé.

In 1959, Makeba sang the lead female role in the Broadway-inspired South African jazz opera King Kong;[5][13] among those in the cast was the musician Hugh Masekela.[23] The musical was performed to racially integrated audiences, raising her profile among white South Africans.[11] Also in 1959, she had a short guest appearance in Come Back, Africa, an anti-apartheid film produced and directed by the American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin.[24] Rogosin cast her after seeing her on stage in African Jazz and Variety show,[25] on which Makeba was a performer for 18 months.[26] The film blended elements of documentary and fiction and had to be filmed in secret as the government was expected to be hostile to it. Makeba appeared on stage, and sang two songs: her appearance lasted four minutes.[27] The cameo made an enormous impression on viewers, and Rogosin organised a visa for her to attend the premiere of the film at the twenty-fourth Venice Film Festival in Italy, where the film won the prestigious Critics' Choice Award.[24][28] Makeba's presence has been described as crucial to the film, as an emblem of cosmopolitan black identity that also connected with working-class black people due to the dialogue being in Zulu.[29]

Makeba's role in Come Back, Africa brought her international recognition and she travelled to London and New York to perform.[17][26] In London she met the American singer Harry Belafonte, who became her mentor, helping her with her first solo recordings.[30][31] These included "Pata Pata",[c] which would be released many years later, and a version of the traditional Xhosa song "Qongqothwane", which she had first performed with the Skylarks.[11] Though "Pata Pata"—described by Musician magazine as a "groundbreaking Afropop gem"[33]—became her most famous song, Makeba described it as "one of my most insignificant songs".[34] While in England, she married Sonny Pillay,[d] a South African ballad singer of Indian descent; they divorced within a few months.[4]

Makeba then moved to New York, making her US music debut on 1 November 1959 on The Steve Allen Show in Los Angeles for a television audience of 60 million.[4][35] Her New York debut at the Village Vanguard occurred soon after;[36] she sang in Xhosa and Zulu, and performed a Yiddish folk song.[37] Her audience at this concert included Miles Davis and Duke Ellington; her performance received strongly positive reviews from critics.[35] She first came to popular and critical attention in jazz clubs,[38] after which her reputation grew rapidly.[36] Belafonte, who had helped Makeba with her move to the US, handled the logistics for her first performances.[39] When she first moved to the US, Makeba lived in Greenwich Village, along with other musicians and actors.[40] As was common in her profession, she experienced some financial insecurity, and worked as a babysitter for a period.[41]
Exile
United StatesBreakthrough

    I always wanted to leave home. I never knew they were going to stop me from coming back. Maybe, if I knew, I never would have left. It is kind of painful to be away from everything that you've ever known. Nobody will know the pain of exile until you are in exile. No matter where you go, there are times when people show you kindness and love, and there are times when they make you know that you are with them but not of them. That's when it hurts.

—Miriam Makeba[42]

Soon after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Makeba learned that her mother had died. When she tried to return home for the funeral, she found that her South African passport had been cancelled.[11][43] Makeba would remain in exile until 1990.[44] Two of Makeba's uncles were killed in the massacre. The incident left her concerned about her family, many of whom were still in South Africa, including her daughter: the nine-year-old Bongi joined her mother in the US in August 1960.[26][45][46] During her first few years in the US, Makeba had rarely sung explicitly political music, but her popularity had led to an increase in awareness of apartheid and the anti-apartheid movement.[47] Following the Sharpeville killings, Makeba felt a responsibility to help, as she had been able to leave the country while others had not.[48] From this point, she became an increasingly outspoken critic of apartheid and the white-minority government; before the massacre, she had taken care to avoid overtly political statements in South Africa.[48]

Her musical career in the US continued to flourish. She signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, and released Miriam Makeba, her first studio album, in 1960, backed by Belafonte's band.[19][43] RCA Victor chose to buy out Makeba's contract with Gallotone Records, and despite the fact that Makeba was unable to perform in South Africa, Gallotone received US$45,000 in the deal, which meant that Makeba received no royalties for her debut album.[19] The album included one of her most famous hits in the US, "Qongqothwane", which was known in English as "The Click Song" because Makeba's audiences could not pronounce the Xhosa name.[26] Time magazine called her the "most exciting new singing talent to appear in many years", and Newsweek compared her voice to "the smoky tones and delicate phrasing" of Ella Fitzgerald and the "intimate warmth" of Frank Sinatra.[49] The album was not commercially successful, and Makeba was briefly dropped from RCA Victor: she was re-signed soon after as the label recognised the commercial possibilities of the growing interest in African culture. Her South African identity had been downplayed during her first signing, but it was strongly emphasised the second time to take advantage of this interest.[50] Makeba made several appearances on television, often in the company of Belafonte.[51] In 1962, Makeba and Belafonte sang at the birthday party for US President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, but Makeba did not go to the party afterwards because she was ill. Kennedy nevertheless insisted on meeting her, so Belafonte sent a car to pick her up.[52]

In 1964, Makeba released her second studio album for RCA Victor, The World of Miriam Makeba. An early example of world music, the album peaked at number eighty-six on the Billboard 200.[43][50] Makeba's music had a cross-racial appeal in the US; white Americans were attracted to her image as an "exotic" African performer, and black Americans related their own experiences of racial segregation to Makeba's struggle against apartheid.[53][54] Makeba found company among other African exiles and émigrés in New York, including Hugh Masekela, to whom she was married from 1964 to 1966.[55] During their marriage, Makeba and Masekela were neighbours of the jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie in Englewood, New Jersey; they spent much of their time in Harlem.[56] She also came to know actors Marlon Brando and Lauren Bacall, and musicians Louis Armstrong and Ray Charles.[36] Fellow singer-activist Nina Simone became friendly with Makeba, as did actor Cicely Tyson;[57] Makeba and Simone performed together at Carnegie Hall.[58] Makeba was among black entertainers, activists, and intellectuals in New York at the time who believed that the civil rights movement and popular culture could reinforce each other, creating "a sense of intertwined political and cultural vibrancy"; other examples included Maya Angelou and Sidney Poitier.[59] She later described her difficulty living with racial segregation, saying "There wasn't much difference in America; it was a country that had abolished slavery but there was apartheid in its own way."[12]
Travel and activism
Makeba standing before an aeroplane flanked by three men
Makeba being welcomed during a visit to Israel in 1963

Makeba's music was also popular in Europe, and she travelled and performed there frequently. Acting on the advice of Belafonte, she added songs from Latin America, Europe, Israel, and elsewhere in Africa to her repertoire.[36] She visited Kenya in 1962 in support of the country's independence from British colonial rule,[60] and raised funds for its independence leader Jomo Kenyatta.[61] Later that year she testified before the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid about the effects of the system, asking for economic sanctions against South Africa's National Party government. She requested an arms embargo against South Africa, on the basis that weapons sold to the government would likely be used against black women and children.[60] As a result, her music was banned in South Africa,[26] and her South African citizenship and right to return were revoked.[12][13] Makeba thus became stateless, but she was soon issued passports by Algeria,[62] Guinea, Belgium and Ghana.[43] Throughout her lifetime she held nine passports[49] and was granted honorary citizenship in ten countries.[52]

Soon after her testimony, Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, invited her to sing at the inauguration of the Organisation of African Unity; she was the only performer asked to participate.[11] As word spread about her ban from South Africa, she became a cause célèbre for Western liberals, and her presence in the civil rights movement linked it with the anti-apartheid struggle.[63] In 1964 she was taught the song "Malaika" by a Kenyan student while backstage at a performance in San Francisco; the song later became a staple of her performances.[11]

    Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights in your own country because the color of your skin is different to that of the rulers and if you were punished for even asking for equality?

—Miriam Makeba[64]

Throughout the 1960s, Makeba strengthened her involvement with a range of black-centred political movements, including the civil rights, anti-apartheid, Black Consciousness, and Black Power movements.[11] She briefly met the Trinidadian-American activist Stokely Carmichael—the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a prominent figure in the Black Panther Party—after Belafonte invited him to one of Makeba's concerts; they met again in Conakry six years later.[65] They entered a relationship, initially kept secret from all but their closest friends and family.[66] Makeba participated in fundraising activities for various civil rights groups, including a benefit concert for the 1962 Southern Christian Leadership Conference that civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as the "event of the year".[67] Following a concert and rally in Atlanta in support of King, Makeba and others were denied entrance to a restaurant as a result of Jim Crow laws, leading to a televised protest in front of the establishment.[68][69] She also criticised King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference for its investment in South African companies, informing press that "Now my friend of long standing supports the country's persecution of my people and I must find a new idol".[70] Her identity as an African woman in the civil rights movement helped create "an emerging liberal consensus" that extreme racial discrimination, whether domestically or internationally, was harmful.[71] In 1964 she testified at the UN for a second time, quoting a song by Vanessa Redgrave in calling for quick action against the South African government.[72]

Makeba and Belafonte received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording for An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba on 15 March 1966.[73][74] The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid, including several songs critical of the South African government, such as "Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd" ("Watch our Verwoerd", a reference to Hendrik Verwoerd, one of the architects of apartheid).[43][75][76] It sold widely and raised Makeba's profile in the US; Belafonte and Makeba's concert tour following its release was often sold out, and the album has been described as the best they made together.[77] Makeba's use of lyrics in Swahili, Xhosa, and Sotho led to her being seen as a representation of an "authentic" Africa by American audiences.[78] In 1967, more than ten years after she first recorded the song, the single "Pata Pata" was released in the US on an album of the same title, and became a worldwide hit.[79][80] During its recording, she and Belafonte had a disagreement, after which they stopped recording together.[26]
Guinea
Makeba seated at a counter
Makeba in 1969

Makeba married Carmichael in March 1968; this caused her popularity in the US to decline markedly.[81] Conservatives came to regard her as a militant and an extremist, an image that alienated much of her fanbase.[82] Her performances were cancelled and her coverage in the press declined despite her efforts to portray her marriage as apolitical.[83] White American audiences stopped supporting her, and the US government took an interest in her activities. The Central Intelligence Agency began following her, and placed hidden microphones in her apartment;[75] the Federal Bureau of Investigation also placed her under surveillance.[12][84] While she and her husband were travelling in the Bahamas, she was banned from returning to the US, and was refused a visa. As a result, the couple moved to Guinea, where Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Touré.[26] Makeba did not return to the US until 1987.[85]

Guinea remained Makeba's home for the next 15 years. She and her husband became close to President Ahmed Sékou Touré and his wife, Andrée,[15][49] as well as with Kwame Nkrumah, the deposed president of Ghana.[86] Touré wanted to create a new style of African music, creating his own record label Syliphone for this purpose, and all musicians received a minimum wage if they practised for several hours every day.[52][87] Makeba recorded for this label,[86] and later stated that "I've never seen a country that did what Sékou Touré did for artists."[52] After her rejection from the US she began to write music more directly critical of the US government's racial policies, recording and singing songs such as "Lumumba" in 1970 (referring to Patrice Lumumba, the assassinated Prime Minister of the Congo), and "Malcolm X" in 1974.[88]

    I'd already lived in exile for 10 years, and the world is free, even if some of the countries in it aren't, so I packed my bags and left.

—Miriam Makeba[89]

Makeba performed more frequently in African countries, and as countries became independent of European colonial powers, was invited to sing at independence ceremonies, including in Kenya, Angola, Zambia, Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania), and Mozambique.[88][90] In September 1974 she performed alongside a multitude of well-known African and American musicians at the Zaire 74 festival in Kinshasa, Zaire (formerly the Congo).[91] She also became a diplomat for Ghana,[88] and was appointed Guinea's official delegate to the UN in 1975;[26] that year, she addressed the United Nations General Assembly,[49] where she advocated for South Africa's liberation from apartheid. Also in 1975, she visited Mozambique as part of a Guinean delegation to mark Mozambique's independence from Portugal. To celebrate the moment, Makeba commissioned the song "Aluta Continua" (The Struggle Continues) from her daughter Bongi and Bill Salter.[92]

She continued to perform in Europe and Asia, along with her African concerts, but not in the US, where a de facto boycott was in effect.[89] Her performances in Africa were immensely popular: she was described as the highlight of FESTAC 77, a Pan-African arts festival in Nigeria in 1977, and during a Liberian performance of "Pata Pata", the stadium proved so loud that she was unable to complete the song.[88] "Pata Pata", like her other songs, had been banned in South Africa.[88] Another song she sang frequently in this period was "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", though she never recorded it.[93] Makeba later stated that it was during this period that she accepted the label "Mama Africa":[88] scholar Omotayo Jolaosho writes that the epithet, by which she came to be widely known, was first given her by her daughter Bongi in an interview.[46]

In 1976, the South African government replaced English and native South African languages with Afrikaans as the medium of instruction for many subjects in black schools, setting off the Soweto uprising.[94] Between 15,000 and 20,000 students took part; caught unprepared, the police opened fire on the protesting children,[95][96] killing hundreds and injuring more than a thousand.[96] Hugh Masekela wrote "Soweto Blues" in response to the massacre, and the song was performed by Makeba, becoming a staple of her live performances for many years.[97] A review in the magazine Musician said that the song had "searingly righteous lyrics" about the uprising that "cut to the bone".[33] She had separated from Carmichael in 1973;[11] in 1978 they divorced and in 1981 she married Bageot Bah, an airline executive.[4][11][98] Makeba's daughter Bongi, and her three children, lived with Makeba for a period. Bongi, who was a singer in her own right, often accompanied her mother on stage, and contributed to her reputation. However, the relationship between the two grew strained after the death of Bongi's youngest child.[46]
Belgium

    I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit. I look at a bird and I see myself: a native South African, soaring above the injustices of apartheid on wings of pride, the pride of a beautiful people.

—Miriam Makeba[99]

Makeba's daughter Bongi died in childbirth in 1985. Makeba was left responsible for her two surviving grandchildren, and decided to move out of Guinea,[26] which had become less hospitable to her after Touré's death the previous year and the military coup that followed.[46] She settled in the Woluwe-Saint-Lambert district of the Belgian capital Brussels.[26][100] In the following year, Masekela introduced Makeba to Paul Simon, and a few months later she embarked on Simon's very successful Graceland Tour.[89][101][102] The tour concluded with two concerts held in Harare, Zimbabwe,[103] which were filmed in 1987 for release as Graceland: The African Concert.[26][89] Makeba fractured her leg while on tour, but continued to perform from a wheelchair.[44] Her involvement with Simon caused controversy: Graceland had been recorded in South Africa, breaking the cultural boycott of the country, and thus Makeba's participation in the tour was regarded as contravening the boycott (which Makeba herself endorsed).[11] After touring the world with Simon, Warner Bros. Records signed Makeba and she released Sangoma ("Healer"), an album of healing chants named in honour of her sangoma mother.[26][89]

In preparation for the Graceland tour, she worked with journalist James Hall to write an autobiography titled Makeba: My Story. The book contained descriptions of her experience with apartheid, and was also critical of the commodification and consumerism she experienced in the US.[104] The book was translated into five languages.[105] She took part in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute, a popular-music concert staged on 11 June 1988 at London's Wembley Stadium, and broadcast to an audience of 600 million across 67 countries.[106][107][108] Political aspects of the concert were heavily censored in the US by the Fox television network.[109] The use of music to raise awareness of apartheid paid off: a survey after the concert found that among people aged between 16 and 24, three-quarters knew of Mandela, and supported his release from prison.[108]
Return to South Africa, final years and death

Following growing pressure from the anti-apartheid movement both domestically and internationally, in 1990 State President Frederik Willem de Klerk reversed the ban on the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid organisations, and announced that Mandela would shortly be released from prison.[110][111] Mandela was released in February 1990.[112] He persuaded Makeba to try to return to South Africa; she obtained a six-day visa after months of effort,[44] and entered South Africa using her French passport on 10 June 1990.[49][113] Her arrival was a considerable event, featuring meetings, interviews, and singing by Brenda Fassie.[44]
Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie on a stage
Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie in Calvados, France, 1991

Makeba, Gillespie, Simone, and Masekela recorded and released her studio album, Eyes on Tomorrow, in 1991. It combined jazz, R&B, pop, and traditional African music, and was a hit across Africa. Makeba and Gillespie then toured the world together to promote it.[89] In November she made a guest appearance on a US sitcom, The Cosby Show.[26][114] In April 1992, she performed two concerts in Johannesburg, her first in South Africa since her exile in 1960.[44] In the same year she starred in the film Sarafina! which centred on students involved in the 1976 Soweto uprising.[12] Makeba portrayed the title character's mother, Angelina, a role which The New York Times described as having been performed with "immense dignity".[115]

On 16 October 1999, Makeba was named a Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.[116] In January 2000, her album, Homeland, produced by the New York City based record label Putumayo World Music, was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best World Music Album category.[12][117][118] She worked closely with Graça Machel-Mandela, the South African first lady, advocating for children suffering from HIV/AIDS, child soldiers, and the physically handicapped.[49][119] She established the Makeba Centre for Girls, a home for orphans, described in an obituary as her most personal project.[105][119] She also took part in the 2002 documentary Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, which examined the struggles of black South Africans against apartheid through the music of the period.[120] Makeba's second autobiography, Makeba: The Miriam Makeba Story, was published in 2004.[4][105] In 2005 she announced that she would retire and began a farewell tour, but despite having osteoarthritis,[121] continued to perform until her death.[26][52] During this period, her grandchildren Nelson Lumumba Lee and Zenzi Lee, and her great-grandchild Lindelani, occasionally joined her performances.[26]

On 9 November 2008, Makeba fell ill during a concert in Castel Volturno, Caserta, Italy. The concert had been organised to support the writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a criminal organisation active in the region.[26] She suffered a heart attack after singing her hit song "Pata Pata", and was taken to the Pineta Grande clinic, where doctors were unable to revive her.[e][122][123]
Music and image
Musical style

The groups with which Makeba began her career performed mbube, a style of vocal harmony which drew on American jazz, ragtime, and Anglican church hymns, as well as indigenous styles of music.[11] Johannesburg musician Dolly Rathebe was an early influence on Makeba's music,[11][52] as were female jazz singers from the US.[124] Historian David Coplan writes that the "African jazz" made popular by Makeba and others was "inherently hybridized" rather than derivative of any particular genre, blending as it did marabi and jazz, and was "Americanized African music, not Africanized American music".[125] The music that she performed was described by British writer Robin Denselow as a "unique blend of rousing township styles and jazz-influenced balladry".[52]

Makeba released more than 30 albums during her career. The dominant styles of these shifted over time, moving from African jazz to recordings influenced by Belafonte's "crooning" to music drawing from traditional South African musical forms.[17] She has been associated with the genres of world music[12] and Afropop. She also incorporated Latin American musical styles into her performances.[33] Historian Ruth Feldstein described her music as "[crossing] the borders between what many people associated with avant-garde and 'quality' culture and the commercial mainstream"; the latter aspect often drew criticism.[126] She was able to appeal to audiences from many political, racial, and national backgrounds.[79]

She was known for having a dynamic vocal range, and was described as having an emotional awareness during her performances.[11] She occasionally danced during her shows,[15] and was described as having a sensuous presence on stage.[127] She was able to vary her voice considerably: an obituary remarked that she "could soar like an opera singer, but she could also whisper, roar, hiss, growl and shout. She could sing while making the epiglottal clicks of the Xhosa language."[15] She sang in English and several African languages, but never in Afrikaans, the language of the apartheid government in South Africa. She once stated "When Afrikaaners sing in my language, then I will sing theirs."[128] English was seen as the language of political resistance by black South Africans due to the educational barriers they faced under apartheid; the Manhattan Brothers, with whom Makeba had sung in Sophiatown, had been prohibited from recording in English.[128] Her songs in African languages have been described as reaffirming black pride.[71]
Politics and perception

Makeba said that she did not perform political music, but music about her personal life in South Africa, which included describing the pain she felt living under apartheid.[15][52] She once stated "people say I sing politics, but what I sing is not politics, it is the truth", an example of the mixing of personal and political issues for musicians living during apartheid.[129] When she first entered the US, she avoided discussing apartheid explicitly, partly out of concern for her family still in South Africa.[45] Nonetheless, she is known for using her voice to convey the political message of opposition to apartheid,[130] performing widely and frequently for civil rights and anti-apartheid organisations. Even songs that did not carry an explicitly political message were seen as subversive, due to their being banned in South Africa.[71] Makeba saw her music as a tool of activism, saying "In our struggle, songs are not simply entertainment for us. They are the way we communicate."[131] She expressed her political views, and criticism of apartheid in particular, more frequently in later years; her exile, and the death of her daughter, have both been identified as making her more vocal.[132]

Makeba's use of the clicks common in languages such as Xhosa and Zulu (as in "Qongqothwane", "The Click Song") was frequently remarked upon by Western audiences. It contributed to her popularity and her exotic image, which scholars have described as a kind of othering, exacerbated by the fact that Western audiences often could not understand her lyrics.[34][133] Critics in the US described her as the "African tribeswoman" and as an "import from South Africa", often depicting her in condescending terms as a product of a more primitive society.[134][135] In seeing her as an embodiment of Africa, Western audiences tended to ignore her cosmopolitan background.[132] Conversely, she is also described as shaping Pan-African identity during the decline of colonialism.[136] Commentators also frequently described her in terms of the prominent men she was associated with, despite her own prominence.[134][132] During her early career in South Africa she had been seen as a sex symbol, an image that received considerably less attention in the US.[134]

Makeba was described as a style icon, both in her home country and the US.[18] She wore no makeup and refused to straighten her hair for shows, thus helping establish a style that came to be known internationally as the "Afro look".[24][137] According to music scholar Tanisha Ford, her hairstyle represented a "liberated African beauty aesthetic".[138] She was seen as a beauty icon by South African schoolgirls, who were compelled to shorten their hair by the apartheid government.[139] Makeba stuck to wearing African jewellery; she disapproved of the skin-lighteners commonly used by South African women at the time, and refused to appear in advertisements for them.[140][141] Her self-presentation has been characterised by scholars as a rejection of the predominantly white standards of beauty that women in the US were held to, which allowed Makeba to partially escape the sexualisation directed at women performers during this period.[142] Nonetheless, the terms used to describe her in the US media have been identified by scholars as frequently used to "sexualize, infantalize, and animalize" people of African heritage.[34]
Legacy
Musical influence
Five-image collage depicting Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita, Angélique Kidjo, Ali Farka Touré, and Baaba Maal, clockwise from the top left
Makeba has been credited with popularising world music, along with artists such as Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita, Angélique Kidjo, Ali Farka Touré, and Baaba Maal (pictured clockwise from top left).

Makeba was among the most visible Africans in the US; as a result, she was often emblematic of the continent of Africa for Americans.[77] Her music earned her the moniker "Mama Africa",[15] and she was variously described as the "Empress of African Song",[11][121] the "Queen of South African music",[143] and Africa's "first superstar".[52] Music scholar J. U. Jacobs said that Makeba's music had "both been shaped by and given shape to black South African and American music".[144] The jazz musician Abbey Lincoln is among those identified as being influenced by Makeba.[145] Makeba and Simone were among a group of artists who helped shape soul music.[146] Longtime collaborator Belafonte called her "the most revolutionary new talent to appear in any medium in the last decade".[39] Speaking after her death, Mandela called her "South Africa's first lady of song", and said that "her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us."[121][147]

Outside her home country Makeba was credited with bringing African music to a Western audience. She is credited, along with artists such as Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita, Ali Farka Touré, Baaba Maal and Angélique Kidjo, with popularising the genre of world music.[12][84][148] She disliked this label, however, believing it marginalized music from the "third world".[148] Her work with Belafonte in the 1960s has been described as creating the genre of world music before the concept entered the popular imagination, and also as highlighting the diversity and cultural pluralism within African music.[79] Within South Africa, Makeba has been described as influencing artists such as kwaito musician Thandiswa Mazwai and her band Bongo Maffin,[149] whose track "De Makeba" was a modified version of Makeba's "Pata Pata", and one of several tribute recordings released after her return to South Africa.[105] South African jazz musician Simphiwe Dana has been described as "the new Miriam Makeba".[150] South African singer Lira has frequently been compared with Makeba, particularly for her performance of "Pata Pata" during the opening ceremony of the 2010 Football World Cup.[151] A year later, Kidjo dedicated her concert in New York to Makeba, as a musician who had "paved the way for her success".[151] In an obituary, scholar Lara Allen referred to Makeba as "arguably South Africa's most famous musical export".[17]
Activism

Makeba was among the most visible people campaigning against the apartheid system in South Africa,[15][123] and was responsible for popularising several anti-apartheid songs, including "Meadowlands" by Strike Vilakezi and "Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd" (Watch out, Verwoerd) by Vuyisile Mini.[120] Due to her high profile, she became a spokesperson of sorts for Africans living under oppressive governments, and in particular for black South Africans living under apartheid.[152] When the South African government prevented her from entering her home country, she became a symbol of "apartheid's cruelty",[128] and she used her position as a celebrity by testifying against apartheid before the UN in 1962 and 1964.[72] Many of her songs were banned within South Africa, leading to Makeba's records being distributed underground, and even her apolitical songs being seen as subversive. She thus became a symbol of resistance to the white-minority government both within and outside South Africa.[12] In an interview in 2000, Masekela said that "there [was] nobody in Africa who made the world more aware of what was happening in South Africa than Miriam Makeba."[153]

Makeba has also been associated with the movement against colonialism, with the civil rights and black power movements in the US, and with the Pan-African movement.[12] She called for unity between black people of African descent across the world: "Africans who live everywhere should fight everywhere. The struggle is no different in South Africa, the streets of Chicago, Trinidad or Canada. The Black people are the victims of capitalism, racism and oppression, period".[154] After marrying Carmichael she often appeared with him during his speeches; Carmichael later described her presence at these events as an asset, and Feldstein wrote that Makeba enhanced Carmichael's message that "black is beautiful".[83] Along with performers such as Simone, Lena Horne, and Abbey Lincoln, she used her position as a prominent musician to advocate for civil rights.[155] Their activism has been described as simultaneously calling attention to racial and gender disparities, and highlighting "that the liberation they desired could not separate race from sex".[155] Makeba's critique of second-wave feminism as being the product of luxury led to observers being unwilling to call her a feminist.[156] Scholar Ruth Feldstein stated that Makeba and others influenced both black feminism and second-wave feminism through their advocacy,[155] and the historian Jacqueline Castledine referred to her as one of the "most steadfast voices for social justice".[157]
Awards and recognition

Makeba's 1965 collaboration with Harry Belafonte won a Grammy Award, making her the first African recording artist to win this award.[12][84] She was named the Best Female Artist of Africa and honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the 1996 Kora Awards.[158][159] At the South African Music Awards (SAMAs), she received five awards: Best Female Artist and Best adult contemporary african album for her 2000 album Homeland at the eighth ceremony in 2001, along with awards for Best adult contemporary album and Best Jazz Vocal album for her 2003 album Reflections, as well as Best DVD for her live album Live at Bern's Salonger, Stockholm, Sweden, 1966, at the tenth ceremony in 2004.[158][160][161] Makeba shared the 2001 Polar Music Prize with Sofia Gubaidulina.[162] They received their prize from Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden, during a nationally televised ceremony at Berwaldhallen, Stockholm, on 27 May 2002.[163] Rolling Stone placed her 53rd in its list of "The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time" in 2023.[164]

Makeba won the Dag Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986,[12] and in 2001 was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold by the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin, "for outstanding services to peace and international understanding".[165] She also received several honorary doctorates.[105] In 2003, she was awarded South Africa's Order for Meritorious Service,[166] and in the next year, she was voted 38th in a poll ranking 100 Great South Africans.[52]

The University of Fort Hare's Miriam Makeba Centre of Performing Arts, which was established around 2003, was named in her honour.[167] From 25 to 27 September 2009, a tribute television show to Makeba, entitled Hommage à Miriam Makeba and curated by Beninoise singer-songwriter and activist Angélique Kidjo, was held at the Cirque d'hiver in Paris.[168] The show was presented as Mama Africa: Celebrating Miriam Makeba at the Barbican in London on 21 November 2009.[169] A documentary film titled Mama Africa, about Makeba's life, co-written and directed by Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki, was released in 2011.[170] On 4 March 2013, and again on International Women's Day in 2017, Google honoured her with a Google Doodle on their homepage.[171][172] In 2014 she was honoured (along with Nelson Mandela, Albertina Sisulu and Steve Biko) in the Belgian city of Ghent, which named a square after her, the "Miriam Makebaplein".[173] Makeba was named 1967's "woman of the year" by Time magazine in 2020, as one of a list of 100 "women of the year" for the years 1920–2019.[174]

In 2015 the French singer Jain released "Makeba", a tribute.[175] Mama Africa, a musical about Makeba, was produced in South Africa by Niyi Coker. Originally titled Zenzi!, the musical premiered to a sold-out crowd in Cape Town on 26 May 2016. It was performed in the US in St. Louis, Missouri and at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City between October and December 2016. The musical returned to South Africa in February 2017 for what would have been Makeba's 85th birthday.[176][177][178][179] American-born African jazz singer Somi wrote a play about Makeba, Dreaming Zenzile, which premiered in 2021, and released a tribute album dedicated to her, Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba (2022).[180] In June 2023, "Makeba" received a resurgence in popularity due to the virality it achieved on TikTok.[181]
Notable songs and albums
Main article: Miriam Makeba discography

This is a list of albums and songs, including covers, by Miriam Makeba that have received significant mention in commentary about her or about the musical and political movements she participated in.

Albums

    Miriam Makeba (1960)[43]
    The Many Voices of Miriam Makeba (1962)[182]
    An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba (1965)[73]
    Comme une symphonie d'amour (1979)
    The Queen of African Music (1987)
    Sangoma (1988)[19]
    Welela (1989)[33]
    Eyes on Tomorrow (1991)[89]
    Homeland (2000)[12]

Songs

    "Lakutshn, Ilanga/Lovely Lies" (1956)[183]
    "Sophiatown is Gone"[184]
    "The Click Song" / "Mbube" (1963)[63]
    "Pata Pata" (1967)[63]
    "Lumumba" (1970)[75]
    "Malcolm X" (1974)[75]
    "Soweto Blues" (1977)
    "Thula Sizwe/I Shall Be Released" (1991)[185][186]
    "Malaika"[15]



Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state.

Civil rights generally include ensuring peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety, protection from discrimination, the right to privacy, the freedom of thought, speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement.

Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote. These rights also must follow the legal norm as in they must have the force of law and fit into the system of administrative justice. A key feature in modern society is that the more a state can guarantee political rights of citizens the better the states relations are with its citizens.[1]

Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international human rights.[2] They comprise the first portion of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, social, and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be "first-generation rights", and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights.
History

The phrase "civil rights" is a translation of Latin jus civis (right of the citizen). Roman citizens could be either free (libertas) or servile (servitus), but they all had rights in law.[3] After the Edict of Milan in 313, these rights included the freedom of religion; however, in 380, the Edict of Thessalonica required all subjects of the Roman Empire to profess Nicene Christianity.[4] Roman legal doctrine was lost during the Middle Ages, but claims of universal rights could still be made based on Christian doctrine. According to the leaders of Kett's Rebellion (1549), "all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his precious blood-shedding."[5]

In the 17th century, English common law judge Sir Edward Coke revived the idea of rights based on citizenship by arguing that Englishmen had historically enjoyed such rights. The Parliament of England adopted the English Bill of Rights in 1689. It was one of the influences drawn on by George Mason and James Madison when drafting the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776. The Virginia declaration heavily influenced the U.S. Bill of Rights (1789).[6]

The removal by legislation of a civil right constitutes a "civil disability". In early 19th century Britain, the phrase "civil rights" most commonly referred to the issue of such legal discrimination against Catholics. In the House of Commons, support for civil rights was divided, with many politicians agreeing with the existing civil disabilities of Catholics. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 restored their civil rights.[7]

In the United States, the term civil rights has been associated with the civil rights movement (1954–1968), which fought against racism.[8] The movement also fought segregation and Jim Crow laws and this fight took place in the streets, in public places, in government, and in the courts including the Supreme Court.[9] The civil rights movement was also not the only movement fighting for civil rights as The Black Panthers were also a group focused on fighting racism and Jim Crow.

Other things that civil rights have been associated with are not just race but also rights of Transgender and other LGBTQ individuals. These have been fights over sexuality instead of race and focused around whether these individuals may access certain spaces like bathrooms according to their sexual identity or biological sex. Gavin Grimm's fight in Virginia over whether he could use the bathroom of his choice is a well known case in these civil right fights.[10]

Another issue in civil rights has been the issue with police brutality in certain communities especially minority communities. This has been seen as another way for minority groups to be oppressed and their rights infringed upon. Outrage has also been a massive result of incidents caught on tape of police abusing and in some cases causing the deaths of people from minority groups such as African Americans. That is why to address the issue has been accountability to police engaging in such conduct as a way to deter other officers from committing similar actions.[11]
Protection of rights

T. H. Marshall notes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights and still later by social rights. In many countries, they are constitutional rights and are included in a bill of rights or similar document. They are also defined in international human rights instruments, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected. However, most democracies worldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil and political rights. Civil rights are considered to be natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that "a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

The question of to whom civil and political rights apply is a subject of controversy. Although in many countries citizens are considered to have greater protections against infringement of rights than non-citizens, civil and political rights are generally considered to be universal rights that apply to all persons. One thing to mention is that if individuals have fewer political rights than are they more likely to commit political violence such as in countries where individual rights are highly restricted.[12] That is why it is important for countries to protect the political rights of all citizens including minority groups. This extends to racial, ethnic, tribal, and religious groups. By granting them the same rights it helps reduce the risk of political violence breaking out.[13]

According to political scientist Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr., analyzing the causes of and lack of protection from human rights abuses in the Global South should be focusing on the interactions of domestic and international factors—an important perspective that has usually been systematically neglected in the social science literature.[14]
Other rights

Custom also plays a role. Implied or unenumerated rights are rights that courts may find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom; one example is the right to privacy in the United States, and the Ninth Amendment explicitly shows that other rights are also protected.

The United States Declaration of Independence states that people have unalienable rights including "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". It is considered by some that the sole purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.[15]

Some thinkers have argued that the concepts of self-ownership and cognitive liberty affirm rights to choose the food one eats,[16][17] the medicine one takes,[18][19][20] and the habit one indulges.[21][22][23]
Social movements for civil rights
Main article: Civil rights movements
Savka Dabčević-Kučar, Croatian Spring participant; Europe's first female prime minister

Civil rights guarantee equal protection under the law. When civil and political rights are not guaranteed to all as part of equal protection of laws, or when such guarantees exist on paper but are not respected in practice, opposition, legal action and even social unrest may ensue.

Civil rights movements in the United States gathered steam by 1848 with such documents as the Declaration of Sentiment.[24][full citation needed] Consciously modeled after the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments became the founding document of the American women's movement, and it was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, July 19 and 20, 1848.[25][full citation needed]

Worldwide, several political movements for equality before the law occurred between approximately 1950 and 1980. These movements had a legal and constitutional aspect, and resulted in much law-making at both national and international levels. They also had an activist side, particularly in situations where violations of rights were widespread. Movements with the proclaimed aim of securing observance of civil and political rights included:

    the civil rights movement in the United States, where rights of black citizens had been violated;
    the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, formed in 1967 following failures in this province of the United Kingdom to respect the Roman Catholic minority's rights; and
    movements in many Communist countries, such as the Prague Spring and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and the uprisings in Hungary.

Most civil rights movements relied on the technique of civil resistance, using nonviolent methods to achieve their aims.[26] In some countries, struggles for civil rights were accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest and even armed rebellion. While civil rights movements over the last sixty years have resulted in an extension of civil and political rights, the process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their objectives.
Problems and analysis
    
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Questions about civil and political rights have frequently emerged. For example, to what extent should the government intervene to protect individuals from infringement on their rights by other individuals, or from corporations—e.g., in what way should employment discrimination in the private sector be dealt with?

Political theory deals with civil and political rights. Robert Nozick and John Rawls expressed competing visions in Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia and Rawls' A Theory of Justice. Other influential authors in the area include Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, and Jean Edward Smith.
First-generation rights

First-generation rights, often called "blue" rights,[citation needed] deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in nature, as well as strongly individualistic: They serve negatively to protect the individual from excesses of the state. First-generation rights include, among other things, freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, (in some countries) the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination, and voting rights. They were pioneered in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century during the Age of Enlightenment. Political theories associated with the English, American, and French revolutions were codified in the English Bill of Rights in 1689 (a restatement of Rights of Englishmen, some dating back to Magna Carta in 1215) and more fully in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 and the United States Bill of Rights in 1791.[27][28]

They were enshrined at the global level and given status in international law first by Articles 3 to 21 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In Europe, they were enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights in 1953.
Civil and political rights organizations
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There are current organizations that exist to protect people's civil and political rights in case they are infringed upon. The ACLU, founded in 1920, is a well-known non-profit organization that helps to preserve freedom of speech and works to change policy.[29] Another organization is the NAACP, founded in 1909, which focuses on protecting the civil rights of minorities. The NRA is a civil rights group founded in 1871 that primarily focuses on protecting the right to be

African popular music (also styled Afropop, Afro-pop, Afro pop or African pop)[1] can be defined as any African music, regardless of genre, that uses Western pop musical instruments, such as the guitar, piano, trumpet, etc.[2] Afropop is a genre of music that combines elements from both African traditional music with Western pop music, characterized by the use of African rhythms and melodies, as well as western instrumentation and production techniques.[2] Like African traditional music, Afropop is vast and varied.[1] Most contemporary genres of western popular music build on cross-pollination with traditional African American and African popular music. Many genres in popular music of rock, metal, pop, blues, jazz, salsa, zouk, and rumba derive, of varying degrees, musical traditions from Africa cultured to the Americas, by enslaved Africans. These rhythms and sounds have subsequently been adapted by newer genres like hip-hop, and R&B. Likewise, African popular music have adopted Western music industry recording studio techniques. The term does not refer to a specific style or sound but is used as a general term for African popular music.[3][4][5]
Influence of Afro-Cuban music
Orchestra Baobab
See also: Afro (genre)

Cuban music has been popular in Sub-Saharan Africa since the mid-twentieth century. It was Cuban music, more than any other, that provided the initial template for Afropop. To the Africans, clave-based Cuban popular music sounded both familiar and exotic.[6] The Encyclopedia of Africa v. 1. states:

    "Beginning in the 1940s, Afro-Cuban [son] groups such as Septeto Habanero and Trio Matamoros gained widespread popularity in the Congo region as a result of airplay over Radio Congo Belge, a powerful radio station based in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa DRC). A proliferation of music clubs, recording studios, and concert appearances of Cuban bands in Léopoldville spurred on the Cuban music trend during the late 1940s and 1950s."[7]

Congolese bands started doing Cuban covers and singing the lyrics phonetically. Soon, they were creating their own original Cuban-like compositions, with French lyrics. The Congolese called this new music rumba, although it was really based on the son.[clarification needed] The Africans adapted guajeos to electric guitars, and gave them their own regional flavor. The guitar-based music gradually spread out from the Congo, increasingly taking on local sensibilities. This process eventually resulted in the establishment of several different distinct regional genres, such as soukous.[8]
A Congolese rumba group performing in Léopoldville

Cuban popular music played a major role in the development of many contemporary genres of African popular music. John Storm Roberts states: "It was the Cuban connection, but increasingly also New York salsa, that provided the major and enduring influences—the ones that went deeper than earlier imitation or passing fashion. The Cuban connection began very early and was to last at least twenty years, being gradually absorbed and re-Africanized."[9] The re-working of Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns by Africans brings the rhythms full circle.

The re-working of the harmonic patterns reveals a striking difference in perception. The I, IV, V, IV, harmonic progression, commonly used in Cuban music, is heard in pop music all across the African continent, thanks to the influence of Cuban music. Those chords move in accordance with the basic tenets of Western music theory. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, performers of African popular music do not necessarily perceive these progressions in the same way: "The harmonic cycle of C-F-G-F [I-IV-V-IV] prominent in Congo/Zaire popular music simply cannot be defined as a progression from tonic to subdominant to dominant and back to subdominant (on which it ends) because in the performer's appreciation they are of equal status, and not in any hierarchical order as in Western music."[10]
Abeti Masikini is one of the African female artists who revolutionized African music with her unique blend of rhythms.[11]

The largest wave of Cuban-based music to hit Africa was in the form of salsa. In 1974 the Fania All Stars performed in Zaire (known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Africa, at the 80,000-seat Stadu du Hai in Kinshasa. This was captured on film and released as Live In Africa (Salsa Madness in the UK). The Zairean appearance occurred at a music festival held in conjunction with the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman heavyweight title fight. Local genres were already well established by this time. Even so, salsa caught on in many African countries, especially in the Senegambia and Mali. Cuban music had been the favorite of Senegal's nightspot in the 1950s to 1960s.[12] The Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab plays in a basic salsa style with congas and timbales, but with the addition of Wolof and Mandinka instruments and lyrics.

According to Lise Waxer: "African salsa points not so much to a return of salsa to African soil (Steward 1999: 157) but to a complex process of cultural appropriation between two regions of the so-called Third World."[13] Since the mid-1990s African artists have also been very active through the super-group Africando, where African and New York musicians mix with leading African singers such as Bambino Diabate, Ricardo Lemvo, Ismael Lo and Salif Keita. It is still common today for an African artist to record a salsa tune, and add their own particular regional touch to it.
Afropop's Global Influence
The African Diaspora

African popular music spans beyond borders and traditional African music, and it has been shaping music around the world for centuries. This influence began with the dispersion of millions of Africans around the world during the slave trade and continues today as people travel to and from Africa.[14]

The connection between Africa and the wider diaspora was reinforced as African artists toured around the world. In the period of the late 60s to early 70s, there was a number of visits from artists such as "James Brown, who toured Nigeria in 1968, and the legendary Soul-to-Soul concert held in Accra in 1971 — which saw musical powerhouses in Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, and Roberta Flack."[15] In the late 90s to the early 2000s the Black African population within England and Wales grew higher than their Caribbean counterparts for the first time. This growing population would soon plant the seeds for an influential rave scene at key universities throughout the UK.[15]
African Rhythms and Melodies

African popular music has contributed distinct rhythms, melodies, and vocal styles that have deeply influenced various global genres. Many global styles incorporate African call-and-response patterns, improvisation, and polyrhythms. "Jazz music, blues music, and gospel music all grew from African roots. Spirituals, work calls, and chants coupled with makeshift instruments morphed into blues rhythms and ragtime. Ragtime paved the way for jazz, and elements from all these styles influenced rock and roll and hip hop music."[14] The percussion elements of Nigerian jùjú and the grooves of Congolese ndombolo can be recognized in electronic and pop music across the world.[14]
Rise of Global Festivals

Major music festivals, such as Coachella, Glastonbury, and Afropunk, increasingly feature African artists, bringing African music to new audiences worldwide. Music festivals have grown into a global phenomenon, and they have become "international celebrations of culture, art, and, of course, music," serving as platforms for African artists to showcase their talents and reach a global audience.[16]

Musical festivals have featured many African artists like Wizkid, Burna Boy, Mr. Eazi, Rema, and Asake.[16] Femi Kuti was also able to perform at Glastonbury, expanding the reach of Afrobeats.[17] Participation in international music festivals has increased the global recognition of Afropop music, establishing a mainstream appeal in Western markets and allowing artists to network globally.[16] This exposure to international audiences has led to global fanbases and diverse listeners, working to expand Afropop's influence across the world.[16]
Afrobeats Beyond Africa

Fela Kuti's Afrobeats has had a particularly significant impact on music worldwide. Fela Kuti has been credited with the early development of Afrobeats.[17] Kuti blended "traditional Yoruba music with Western jazz and funk to create a unique and rich sound" that would become to be known as Afrobeats.[17] Kuti's 1977 album, Zombie, was a major break for Afrobeats on a global scale.[2] Afrobeats soon began to gain international recognition, and in the mid-2010s, artists such as Wizkid, Davido, and Burna Boy began to collaborate with global artists, propelling Afrobeats into the global mainstream.[17] Now, major international artists, such as "Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, and Major Lazer have collaborated with Afrobeats stars, blending their sounds to create hit songs that resonate with global audiences."[17]
The Role of Technology

Afropop's influence across the globe has been amplified by social media, streaming services, and digital music platforms, such as YouTube, Spotify, and TikTok, making it easier for fans around the world to access and discover Afropop.[17]

Davin Phillips, the executive director at Celebrity Services Africa (CSA), believes that social media has amplified the reach of African artists, saying, "I think social media, maybe more technology, has allowed us to actually go into other regions across the continent that previously didn’t have access to certain streaming or publishing. We’ve been able to identify the continent a lot more and bring it together. Also, another thing, as we know, in any emerging market, sometimes we only give our own artists the recognition, but we are seeing the international community recognize them."[18]

Data shows that TikTok has over 1.677 billion users globally, and South Africa makes up about 11.83 million of those users.[18] Similarly, Instagram's data also shows that, out of its 2.35 billion users, 14.9 million of those users are from West Africa.[18] Phillips finishes, "This has allowed young artists like eSwatini-born DJ, Uncle Waffles, Nigeria’s Rema, and even South Africa’s Musa Keys to take the world by storm in what feels like the blink of an eye."[18]
Genres

Genres of African popular music include:

    African heavy metal
    African hip hop
    African trap music (aka ATM)[19]
    Afro house
    Afro fusion
    Afrobeat
    Afro jazz[20]
    Alté
    Afrobeats
    Afro tech
    Afro trap[21]
    Afro rave[22]
    Afro rock
    Afro-soul
    Amapiano
    Apala
    Azonto
    Balwo
    Batuque
    Benga
    Bikutsi
    Jazz
    Bongo Flava
    Boomba (aka Kapuka)
    Cape Jazz
    Chimurenga
    Coladeira
    Congolese rumba
    Coupé-Décalé
    Ethio-jazz
    Fuji music
    Funaná
    Gnawa music
    Genge
    Gengeton
    Gqom
    Highlife
    Hipco
    Hiplife
    Igbo highlife
    Isicathamiya
    Jit
    Jùjú
    Kalindula
    Kilalaky[23]
    Kizomba
    Kuduro
    Kwaito
    Kwela
    Makossa
    Malipenga
    Maloya
    Marrabenta
    Mbalax
    Mbaqanga
    Mbube
    Morna
    Motswako
    Museve
    Pandza
    Sudanese popular music
    Ndombolo
    Ogene
    Palm-wine (aka Maringa)
    Raï
    Sakara
    Salegy
    Sega
    Semba
    Shangaan electro
    Soukous (aka Congo, Lingala or African rumba)
    Street pop[24]
    Sungura
    Taarab
    Tsapiky
    Wassoulou music
    Zimbabwean jazz
    Zouglou
    Zouk

Apartheid (/əˈpɑːrt(h)aɪt/ ə-PART-(h)yte, especially South African English: /əˈpɑːrt(h)eɪt/ ə-PART-(h)ayt, Afrikaans: [aˈpart(ɦ)əit] ⓘ; transl. "separateness", lit. 'aparthood') was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa[a] (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s.[note 1] It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap (lit. 'boss-ship' or 'boss-hood'), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population.[4] Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indians, Coloureds and black Africans, in that order.[4] The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.[5][6][7][8]

Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into petty apartheid, which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and grand apartheid, which strictly separated housing and employment opportunities by race.[9] The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, followed closely by the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which made it illegal for most South African citizens to marry or pursue sexual relationships across racial lines.[10] The Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status, and cultural lifestyle: "Black", "White", "Coloured", and "Indian", the last two of which included several sub-classifications.[11] Places of residence were determined by racial classification.[10] Between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million black Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods as a result of apartheid legislation, in some of the largest mass evictions in modern history.[12] Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the black population to ten designated "tribal homelands", also known as bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states.[10] The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans.[9]

Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the 20th century.[13] It was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations and brought about extensive international sanctions, including arms embargoes and economic sanctions on South Africa.[14] During the 1970s and 1980s, internal resistance to apartheid became increasingly militant, prompting brutal crackdowns by the National Party ruling government and protracted sectarian violence that left thousands dead or in detention.[15] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that there were 21,000 deaths from political violence, with 7,000 deaths between 1948 and 1989, and 14,000 deaths and 22,000 injuries in the transition period between 1990 and 1994.[16][17] Some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and Coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed to appease most activist groups.[18]

Between 1987 and 1993, the National Party entered into bilateral negotiations with the African National Congress (ANC), the leading anti-apartheid political movement, for ending segregation and introducing majority rule.[18][19] In 1990, prominent ANC figures, such as Nelson Mandela, were released from prison.[20] Apartheid legislation was repealed on 17 June 1991,[2] leading to non-racial elections in April 1994.[21] Since the end of apartheid, elections have been open and competitive.[22]
Precursors
Main articles: History of South Africa (1815–1910) and History of South Africa (1910–1948)

Apartheid is an Afrikaans[23] word meaning "separateness", or "the state of being apart", literally "apart-ness" or apart-hood" (from the Afrikaans suffix -heid).[24][25] Its first recorded use was in 1929.[10]

Racial discrimination against Black people in South Africa dates to the beginning of large-scale European colonisation of South Africa with the Dutch East India Company's establishment of a trading post in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, which eventually expanded into the Dutch Cape Colony. The company began the Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars in which it displaced the local Khoikhoi people, replaced them with farms worked by White settlers, and imported Black slaves from across the Dutch Empire.[26] In the days of slavery, slaves required passes to travel away from their owners.

In 1797, the Landdrost and Heemraden, local officials, of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet extended pass laws beyond slaves and decreed that all Khoikhoi (designated as Hottentots) moving about the country for any purpose should carry passes.[27] This was confirmed by the British Colonial government in 1809 by the Hottentot Proclamation, which decreed that if a Khoikhoi were to move they would need a pass from their owner or a local official.[27] Ordinance No. 49 of 1828 decreed that prospective Black immigrants were to be granted passes for the sole purpose of seeking work.[27] These passes were to be issued for Coloureds and Khoikhoi but not for other Africans, who were nonetheless forced to carry passes.

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire captured and annexed the Dutch Cape Colony.[28] Under the 1806 Cape Articles of Capitulation the new British colonial rulers were required to respect previous legislation enacted under Roman-Dutch law,[29] and this led to a separation of the law in South Africa from English Common Law and a high degree of legislative autonomy. The governors and assemblies that governed the legal process in the various colonies of South Africa launched on an independent legislative path different from the rest of the British Empire.

The United Kingdom's Slavery Abolition Act 1833 provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. The trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire by 1837, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery.[30][31][32][33] The act overrode the Cape Articles of Capitulation. To comply with the act, the South African legislation was expanded to include Ordinance 1 in 1835, which effectively changed the status of slaves to indentured labourers. This was followed by Ordinance 3 in 1848, which introduced an indenture system for Xhosa that was little different from slavery.

The various South African colonies passed legislation throughout the rest of the 19th century to limit the freedom of unskilled workers, to increase the restrictions on indentured workers and to regulate the relations between the races. The discoveries of diamonds and gold in South Africa also raised racial inequality between White people and Black people.[34] Some scholars have argued that Apartheid's ideology can be reflected in Afrikaner Calvinism, with its parallel traditions of racialism;[35] for example, as early as 1933; the executive council of the Broederbond formulated a recommendation for mass segregation.[35]

In the Cape Colony, which previously had a liberal and multi-racial constitution and a system of Cape Qualified Franchise open to men of all races, the Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 raised the property franchise qualification and added an educational element, disenfranchising a disproportionate number of the Cape's non-White voters,[36] and the Glen Grey Act of 1894 instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes limited the amount of land Africans could hold. Similarly, in Natal, the Natal Legislative Assembly Bill of 1894 deprived Indians of the right to vote.[37] In 1896 the South African Republic brought in two pass laws requiring Africans to carry a badge. Only those employed by a master were permitted to remain on the Rand, and those entering a "labour district" needed a special pass.[38] During the Second Boer War, the British Empire cited racial exploitation of Blacks as a cause for its war against the Boer republics. However, the peace negotiations for the Treaty of Vereeniging demanded "the just predominance of the white race" in South Africa as a precondition for the Boer republics unifying with the British Empire.[39]

In 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied Black people the vote and limited them to fixed areas,[40] and in 1906 the Asiatic Registration Act of the Transvaal Colony required all Indians to register and carry passes.[41] Beginning in 1906 the South African Native Affairs Commission under Godfrey Lagden began implementing a more openly segregationist policy towards non-Whites.[42] The latter was repealed by the British government but re-enacted in 1908. In 1910, the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion, which continued the legislative program: the South Africa Act (1910) enfranchised White people, giving them complete political control over all other racial groups while removing the right of Black people to sit in parliament;[43] the Native Land Act (1913) prevented Black people, except those in the Cape, from buying land outside "reserves";[43] the Natives in Urban Areas Bill (1918) was designed to force Black people into "locations";[44] the Urban Areas Act (1923) introduced residential segregation and provided cheap labour for industry led by White people; the Colour Bar Act (1926) prevented Black mine workers from practising skilled trades; the Native Administration Act (1927) made the British Crown rather than paramount chiefs the supreme head over all African affairs;[45][better source needed] the Native Land and Trust Act (1936) complemented the 1913 Native Land Act and, in the same year, the Representation of Natives Act removed previous Black voters from the Cape voters' roll and allowed them to elect three Whites to Parliament.[46][better source needed]

The United Party government of Jan Smuts began to move away from the rigid enforcement of segregationist laws during World War II, but faced growing opposition from Afrikaner nationalists who wanted stricter segregation.[47][48] Post-war, one of the first pieces of segregating legislation enacted by Smuts' government was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill (1946), which banned land sales to Indians and Indian descendant South Africans.[49] The same year, the government established the Fagan Commission. Amid fears that integration would eventually lead to racial assimilation, the Opposition Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP) established the Sauer Commission to investigate the effects of the United Party's policies. The commission concluded that integration would bring about a "loss of personality" for all racial groups. The HNP incorporated the commission's findings into its campaign platform for the 1948 South African general election, which it won.[citation needed]
Institution and development

Apartheid developed from the racism of colonial factions and due to South Africa's "unique industrialisation".[50] The policies of industrialisation led to the segregation and classing of people, which was "specifically developed to nurture early industry such as mining".[50] Cheap labour was the basis of the economy and this was taken from what the state classed as peasant groups and the migrants.[51] To a large extent, the political ideology of apartheid had emerged from the colonisation of Africa by European powers which institutionalised racial discrimination and exercised a paternal philosophy of "civilising inferior natives".[52]
1948 election
Main article: South African general election, 1948
    
This article is part of
a series about
Daniël François Malan
Political career

    Prime Minister (1948–1954) Leader of the Opposition (1935–1948) Minister of the Interior, Education and Public Health (1924–1933) Member of the House of Assembly (1919–1954)

Early career

    Dutch Reformed Church minister Die Burger Purified National Party Reunited National Party

Premiership

    Cabinets
        I II Apartheid

Elections

    1919 by 1920 1921 1924 1929 1933 1938 1943 1948 1953

    vte

South Africa had allowed social custom and law to govern the consideration of multiracial affairs and of the allocation, in racial terms, of access to economic, social, and political status.[53] Nevertheless, by 1948 it remained apparent that there were gaps in the social structure, whether legislated or otherwise, concerning the rights and opportunities of non-whites. The rapid economic development of World War II attracted black migrant workers in large numbers to chief industrial centres, where they compensated for the wartime shortage of white labour. However, this escalated rate of black urbanisation went unrecognised by the South African government, which failed to accommodate the influx with parallel expansion in housing or social services.[53] Overcrowding, increasing crime rates, and disillusionment resulted; urban blacks came to support a new generation of leaders influenced by the principles of self-determination and popular freedoms enshrined in such statements as the Atlantic Charter. Black political organisations and leaders such as Alfred Xuma, James Mpanza, the African National Congress, and the Council of Non-European Trade Unions began demanding political rights, land reform, and the right to unionise.[54]

Whites reacted negatively to the changes, allowing the Herenigde Nasionale Party (or simply the National Party) to convince a large segment of the voting bloc that the impotence of the United Party in curtailing the evolving position of nonwhites indicated that the organisation had fallen under the influence of Western liberals.[53] Many Afrikaners resented what they perceived as disempowerment by an underpaid black workforce and the superior economic power and prosperity of white English speakers.[55] Smuts, as a strong advocate of the United Nations, lost domestic support when South Africa was criticised for its colour bar and the continued mandate of South West Africa by other UN member states.[56]

Afrikaner nationalists proclaimed that they offered the voters a new policy to ensure continued white domination.[57] This policy was initially expounded from a theory drafted by Hendrik Verwoerd and was presented to the National Party by the Sauer Commission.[53] It called for a systematic effort to organise the relations, rights, and privileges of the races as officially defined through a series of parliamentary acts and administrative decrees. Segregation had thus far been pursued only in major matters, such as separate schools, and local society rather than law had been depended upon to enforce most separation; it should now be extended to everything.[53] The commission's goal was to completely remove blacks from areas designated for whites, including cities, with the exception of temporary migrant labour. Blacks would then be encouraged to create their own political units in land reserved for them.[58] The party gave this policy a name – apartheid. Apartheid was to be the basic ideological and practical foundation of Afrikaner politics for the next quarter of a century.[57]

The National Party's election platform stressed that apartheid would preserve a market for white employment in which non-whites could not compete. On the issues of black urbanisation, the regulation of non-white labour, "influx control," social security, farm tariffs and non-white taxation, the United Party's policy remained contradictory and confused.[56] Its traditional bases of support not only took mutually exclusive positions, but found themselves increasingly at odds with each other. Smuts' reluctance to consider South African foreign policy against the mounting tensions of the Cold War also stirred up discontent, while the nationalists promised to purge the state and public service of communist sympathisers.[56]

First to desert the United Party were Afrikaner farmers, who wished to see a change in influx control due to problems with squatters, as well as higher prices for their maize and other produce in the face of the mineowners' demand for cheap food policies. Always identified with the affluent and capitalist, the party also failed to appeal to its working class constituents.[56]

Populist rhetoric allowed the National Party to sweep eight constituencies in the mining and industrial centres of the Witwatersrand and five more in Pretoria. Barring the predominantly English-speaking landowner electorate of the Natal, the United Party was defeated in almost every rural district. Its urban losses in the nation's most populous province, the Transvaal, proved equally devastating.[56] As the voting system was disproportionately weighted in favour of rural constituencies and the Transvaal in particular, the 1948 election catapulted the Herenigde Nasionale Party from a small minority party to a commanding position with an eight-vote parliamentary lead.[59][60] Daniel François Malan became the first nationalist prime minister, with the aim of implementing the apartheid philosophy and silencing liberal opposition.[53]

When the National Party came to power in 1948, there were factional differences in the party about the implementation of systemic racial segregation. The "baasskap" (white domination or supremacist) faction, which was the dominant faction in the NP and state institutions, favoured systematic segregation, but also favoured the participation of black Africans in the economy, with black labour controlled to advance the economic gains of Afrikaners. A second faction were the "purists", who believed in "vertical segregation", in which blacks and whites would be entirely separated, with blacks living in native reserves, with separate political and economic structures, which, they believed, would entail severe short-term pain, but would also lead to independence of white South Africa from black labour in the long term. A third faction, which included Hendrik Verwoerd, sympathised with the purists, but allowed for the use of black labour, while implementing the purist goal of vertical separation.[61] Verwoerd would refer to this policy as a policy of "good neighbourliness" as a means of justifying such segregation.[62]
Legislation
Apartheid legislation
in South Africa
Precursors (before 1948)
















Malan to Verwoerd (1948–66)






























Vorster to Botha (1966–90)











Abolishment (1990–96)




† No new legislation introduced, rather
the existing legislation named was amended.

    vte

Main article: Apartheid legislation
Hendrik Verwoerd, minister of native affairs (1950–1958) and prime minister (1958–1966), earned the nickname 'Architect of Apartheid' from his large role in creating legislation.

NP leaders argued that South Africa did not comprise a single nation, but was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, Coloured and Indian. Such groups were split into 13 nations or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and Afrikaans language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups.

The state passed laws that paved the way for "grand apartheid", which was centred on separating races on a large scale, by compelling people to live in separate places defined by race. This strategy was in part adopted from "left-over" British rule that separated different racial groups after they took control of the Boer republics in the Anglo-Boer war. This created the black-only "townships" or "locations", where blacks were relocated to their own towns. As the NP government's minister of native affairs from 1950, Hendrik Verwoerd had a significant role in crafting such laws, which led to him being regarded as the 'Architect of Apartheid'.[63][62][64] In addition, "petty apartheid" laws were passed.

The first grand apartheid law was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of 18, specifying their racial group.[65] Official teams or boards were established to come to a conclusion on those people whose race was unclear.[66] This caused difficulty, especially for Coloured people, separating families when members were assigned to different races.[67]

The second pillar of grand apartheid was the Group Areas Act of 1950.[68] Until then, most settlements had people of different races living side by side. This Act put an end to diverse areas and determined where one lived according to race. Each race was allotted its own area, which was used in later years as a basis of forced removal.[69] The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951 allowed the government to demolish black shanty town slums and forced white employers to pay for the construction of housing for those black workers who were permitted to reside in cities otherwise reserved for whites.[70] The Native Laws Amendment Act, 1952 centralised and tightened pass laws so that blacks could not stay in urban areas for longer than 72 hours without a permit.[71]

The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races, and the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations between whites and other races a criminal offence.

Under the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953, municipal grounds could be reserved for a particular race, creating, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. Signboards such as "whites only" applied to public areas, even including park benches.[72] Black South Africans were provided with services greatly inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indian and Coloured people.[73]

Further laws had the aim of suppressing resistance, especially armed resistance, to apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the Communist Party of South Africa and any party subscribing to Communism. The act defined Communism and its aims so sweepingly that anyone who opposed government policy risked being labelled as a Communist. Since the law specifically stated that Communism aimed to disrupt racial harmony, it was frequently used to gag opposition to apartheid. Disorderly gatherings were banned, as were certain organisations that were deemed threatening to the government. It also empowered the Ministry of Justice to impose banning orders.[74]

After the Defiance Campaign, the government used the act for the mass arrests and banning of leaders of dissident groups such as the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). After the release of the Freedom Charter, 156 leaders of these groups were charged in the 1956 Treason Trial. It established censorship of film, literature, and the media under the Customs and Excise Act 1955 and the Official Secrets Act 1956. The same year, the Native Administration Act 1956 allowed the government to banish blacks.[74]

The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks and whites and was the first piece of legislation to support the government's plan of separate development in the bantustans. The Bantu Education Act, 1953 established a separate education system for blacks emphasizing African culture and vocational training under the Ministry of Native Affairs and defunded most mission schools.[75] The Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1959 entrenched the NP policy of nominally independent "homelands" for blacks. So-called "self–governing Bantu units" were proposed, which would have devolved administrative powers, with the promise later of autonomy and self-government. It also abolished the seats of white representatives of black South Africans and removed from the rolls the few blacks still qualified to vote. The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands to create employment there. Legislation of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in "white" cities and redirect such development to the "homelands". The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 marked a new phase in the Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of blacks to citizens of one of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure a demographic majority of white people within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans achieve full independence.

Inter-racial contact in sport was frowned upon, but there were no segregatory sports laws.

The government tightened pass laws compelling blacks to carry identity documents, to prevent the immigration of blacks from other countries. To reside in a city, blacks had to be in employment there. Until 1956 women were for the most part excluded from these pass requirements, as attempts to introduce pass laws for women were met with fierce resistance.[76]
Disenfranchisement of Coloured voters
Main article: Coloured vote constitutional crisis
Cape Coloured children in Bonteheuwel
Annual per capita personal income by race group in South Africa relative to white levels

In 1950, D. F. Malan announced the NP's intention to create a Coloured Affairs Department.[77] J.G. Strijdom, Malan's successor as prime minister, moved to strip voting rights from black and Coloured residents of the Cape Province. The previous government had introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill into Parliament in 1951, turning it into an Act on 18 June 1951; however, four voters, G Harris, W D Franklin, W D Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party.[78] The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but was reversed by the Appeal Court, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament was needed to change the entrenched clauses of the Constitution.[79] The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill (1952), which gave Parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court.[80] The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too.[81]

In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to 11, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places.[82] In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the Senate from 49 seats to 89.[83] Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats.[84] The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the Separate Representation of Voters Act in 1956, which transferred Coloured voters from the common voters' roll in the Cape to a new Coloured voters' roll.[85] Immediately after the vote, the Senate was restored to its original size. The Senate Act was contested in the Supreme Court, but the recently enlarged Appeal Court, packed with government-supporting judges, upheld the act, and also the Act to remove Coloured voters.[86]

The 1956 law allowed Coloureds to elect four people to Parliament, but a 1969 law abolished those seats and stripped Coloureds of their right to vote. Since Indians had never been allowed to vote, this resulted in whites being the sole enfranchised group.[citation needed]

Separate representatives for coloured voters were first elected in the general election of 1958. Even this limited representation did not last, being ended from 1970 by the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act, 1968. Instead, all coloured adults were given the right to vote for the Coloured Persons Representative Council, which had limited legislative powers. The council was in turn dissolved in 1980. In 1984 a new constitution introduced the Tricameral Parliament in which coloured voters elected the House of Representatives.

A 2016 study in The Journal of Politics suggests that disenfranchisement in South Africa had a significant negative effect on basic service delivery to the disenfranchised.[87]
Division among whites

Before South Africa became a republic in 1961, politics among white South Africans was typified by the division between the mainly Afrikaner pro-republic conservative and the largely English anti-republican liberal sentiments,[88] with the legacy of the Boer War still a factor for some people. Once South Africa became a republic, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd called for improved relations and greater accord between people of British descent and the Afrikaners.[89] He claimed that the only difference was between those in favour of apartheid and those against it. The ethnic division would no longer be between Afrikaans and English speakers, but between blacks and whites.[citation needed]

Most Afrikaners supported the notion of unanimity of white people to ensure their safety. White voters of British descent were divided. Many had opposed a republic, leading to a majority "no" vote in Natal.[90] Later, some of them recognised the perceived need for white unity, convinced by the growing trend of decolonisation elsewhere in Africa, which concerned them. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's "Wind of Change" speech left the British faction feeling that the United Kingdom had abandoned them.[91] The more conservative English speakers supported Verwoerd;[92] others were troubled by the severing of ties with the UK and remained loyal to the Crown.[93] They were displeased by having to choose between British and South African nationalities. Although Verwoerd tried to bond these different blocs, the subsequent voting illustrated only a minor swell of support,[94] indicating that a great many English speakers remained apathetic and that Verwoerd had not succeeded in uniting the white population.
Homeland system
Main article: Bantustan
Map of the 20 bantustans in South Africa and South West Africa

Under the homeland system, the government attempted to divide South Africa and South West Africa into a number of separate states, each of which was supposed to develop into a separate nation-state for a different ethnic group.[95]

Territorial separation was hardly a new institution. There were, for example, the "reserves" created under the British government in the nineteenth century. Under apartheid, 13 percent of the land was reserved for black homelands, a small amount relative to its total population, and generally in economically unproductive areas of the country. The Tomlinson Commission of 1954 justified apartheid and the homeland system, but stated that additional land ought to be given to the homelands, a recommendation that was not carried out.[96]

When Verwoerd became prime minister in 1958, the policy of "separate development" came into being, with the homeland structure as one of its cornerstones. Verwoerd came to believe in the granting of independence to these homelands. The government justified its plans on the ostensible basis that the "government's policy is, therefore, not a policy of discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, but a policy of differentiation on the ground of nationhood, of different nations, granting to each self-determination within the borders of their homelands – hence this policy of separate development".[97] Under the homelands system, blacks would no longer be citizens of South Africa, becoming citizens of the independent homelands who worked in South Africa as foreign migrant labourers on temporary work permits. In 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act was passed, and border industries and the Bantu Investment Corporation were established to promote economic development and the provision of employment in or near the homelands. Many black South Africans who had never resided in their identified homeland were forcibly removed from the cities to the homelands.

The vision of a South Africa divided into multiple ethnostates appealed to the reform-minded Afrikaner intelligentsia, and it provided a more coherent philosophical and moral framework for the National Party's policies, while also providing a veneer of intellectual respectability to the controversial policy of so-called baasskap.[98][99][100]
Rural area in Ciskei, one of the four nominally independent homelands

In total, 20 homelands were allocated to ethnic groups, ten in South Africa proper and ten in South West Africa. Of these 20 homelands, 19 were classified as black, while one, Basterland, was set aside for a sub-group of Coloureds known as Basters, who are closely related to Afrikaners. Four of the homelands were declared independent by the South African government: Transkei in 1976, Bophuthatswana in 1977, Venda in 1979, and Ciskei in 1981 (known as the TBVC states). Once a homeland was granted its nominal independence, its designated citizens had their South African citizenship revoked and replaced with citizenship in their homeland. These people were then issued passports instead of passbooks. Citizens of the nominally autonomous homelands also had their South African citizenship circumscribed, meaning they were no longer legally considered South African.[101] The South African government attempted to draw an equivalence between their view of black citizens of the homelands and the problems which other countries faced through entry of illegal immigrants.
International recognition of the Bantustans

Bantustans within the borders of South Africa and South West Africa were classified by degree of nominal self-rule: 6 were "non-self-governing", 10 were "self-governing", and 4 were "independent". In theory, self-governing Bantustans had control over many aspects of their internal functioning but were not yet sovereign nations. Independent Bantustans (Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda and Ciskei; also known as the TBVC states) were intended to be fully sovereign. In reality, they had no significant economic infrastructure and with few exceptions encompassed swaths of disconnected territory. This meant all the Bantustans were little more than puppet states controlled by South Africa.

Throughout the existence of the independent Bantustans, South Africa remained the only country to recognise their independence. Nevertheless, internal organisations of many countries, as well as the South African government, lobbied for their recognition. For example, upon the foundation of Transkei, the Swiss-South African Association encouraged the Swiss government to recognise the new state. In 1976, leading up to a United States House of Representatives resolution urging the President to not recognise Transkei, the South African government intensely lobbied lawmakers to oppose the bill.[102] Each TBVC state extended recognition to the other independent Bantustans while South Africa showed its commitment to the notion of TBVC sovereignty by building embassies in the TBVC capitals.
Forced removals
Man subject to forced removal in Mogopa, Western Transvaal, February 1984
See also: Group Areas Act and Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act, 1991

During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of "resettlement", to force people to move to their designated "group areas". Millions of people were forced to relocate. These removals included people relocated due to slum clearance programmes, labour tenants on white-owned farms, the inhabitants of the so-called "black spots" (black-owned land surrounded by white farms), the families of workers living in townships close to the homelands, and "surplus people" from urban areas, including thousands of people from the Western Cape (which was declared a "Coloured Labour Preference Area")[103] who were moved to the Transkei and Ciskei homelands. The best-publicised forced removals of the 1950s occurred in Johannesburg, when 60,000 people were moved to the new township of Soweto (an abbreviation for South Western Townships).[104][105]

Until 1955, Sophiatown had been one of the few urban areas where black people were allowed to own land, and was slowly developing into a multiracial slum. As industry in Johannesburg grew, Sophiatown became the home of a rapidly expanding black workforce, as it was convenient and close to town. It had the only swimming pool for black children in Johannesburg.[106] As one of the oldest black settlements in Johannesburg, it held an almost symbolic importance for the 50,000 black people it contained. Despite a vigorous ANC protest campaign and worldwide publicity, the removal of Sophiatown began on 9 February 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme. In the early hours, heavily armed police forced residents out of their homes and loaded their belongings onto government trucks. The residents were taken to a large tract of land 19 kilometres (12 mi) from the city centre, known as Meadowlands, which the government had purchased in 1953. Meadowlands became part of a new planned black city called Soweto. Sophiatown was destroyed by bulldozers, and a new white suburb named Triomf (Triumph) was built in its place. This pattern of forced removal and destruction was to repeat itself over the next few years, and was not limited to black South Africans alone. Forced removals from areas like Cato Manor (Mkhumbane) in Durban, and District Six in Cape Town, where 55,000 Coloured and Indian people were forced to move to new townships on the Cape Flats, were carried out under the Group Areas Act of 1950. Nearly 600,000 Coloured, Indian and Chinese people were moved under the Group Areas Act. Some 40,000 whites were also forced to move when land was transferred from "white South Africa" into the black homelands.[107] In South-West Africa, the apartheid plan that instituted Bantustans was as a result of the so-called Odendaal Plan, a set of proposals from the Odendaal Commission of 1962–1964.[108]
Society during apartheid
    
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Workers at a pineapple stall between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, December 1962

The NP passed a string of legislation that became known as petty apartheid. The first of these was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 55 of 1949, prohibiting marriage between whites and people of other races. The Immorality Amendment Act 21 of 1950 (as amended in 1957 by Act 23) forbade "unlawful racial intercourse" and "any immoral or indecent act" between a white and a black, Indian or Coloured person.

Black people were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in areas designated as "white South Africa" unless they had a permit – such being granted only exceptionally. Without a permit, they were required to move to the black "homelands" and set up businesses and practices there. Trains, hospitals and ambulances were segregated.[109] Because of the smaller numbers of white patients and the fact that white doctors preferred to work in white hospitals, conditions in white hospitals were much better than those in often overcrowded and understaffed, significantly underfunded black hospitals.[110] Residential areas were segregated and blacks were allowed to live in white areas only if employed as a servant and even then only in servants' quarters. Black people were excluded from working in white areas, unless they had a pass, nicknamed the dompas, also spelt dompass or dom pass. The most likely origin of this name is from the Afrikaans "verdomde pas" (meaning accursed pass).[111] Only black people with "Section 10" rights (those who had migrated to the cities before World War II) were excluded from this provision. A pass was issued only to a black person with approved work. Spouses and children had to be left behind in black homelands. A pass was issued for one magisterial district (usually one town) confining the holder to that area only. Being without a valid pass made a person subject to arrest and trial for being an illegal migrant. This was often followed by deportation to the person's homeland and prosecution of the employer for employing an illegal migrant. Police vans patrolled white areas to round up blacks without passes. Black people were not allowed to employ whites in white South Africa.[112]

This legally enforced segregation was reinforced through deliberate town planning measures, such as introducing natural, industrial and infrastructural buffer zones.[113] The legacy of this town planning element still hinders economic integration of urban economies in the twenty-first century, physically separating semi-formal township economies from industrial and corporate clusters in cities.[114]

Although trade unions for black and Coloured workers had existed since the early 20th century, it was not until the 1980s reforms that a mass black trade union movement developed. Trade unions under apartheid were racially segregated, with 54 unions being white only, 38 for Indian and Coloured and 19 for black people. The Industrial Conciliation Act (1956) legislated against the creation of multi-racial trade unions and attempted to split existing multi-racial unions into separate branches or organisations along racial lines.[115]

Each black homeland controlled its own education, health and police systems. Blacks were not allowed to buy hard liquor. They were able to buy only state-produced poor quality beer (although this law was relaxed later). Public beaches, swimming pools, some pedestrian bridges, drive-in cinema parking spaces, graveyards, parks, and public toilets were segregated. Cinemas and theatres in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks. There were practically no cinemas in black areas. Most restaurants and hotels in white areas were not allowed to admit blacks except as staff. Blacks were prohibited from attending white churches under the Churches Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957, but this was never rigidly enforced, and churches were one of the few places where races could mix without the interference of the law. Blacks earning 360 rand a year or more had to pay taxes while the white threshold was more than twice as high, at 750 rand a year. On the other hand, the taxation rate for whites was considerably higher than that for blacks.[citation needed]

Blacks could not acquire land in white areas. In the homelands, much of the land belonged to a "tribe", where the local chieftain would decide how the land had to be used. This resulted in whites owning almost all the industrial and agricultural lands and much of the prized residential land. Most blacks were stripped of their South African citizenship when the "homelands" became "independent", and they were no longer able to apply for South African passports. Eligibility requirements for a passport had been difficult for blacks to meet, the government contending that a passport was a privilege, not a right, and the government did not grant many passports to blacks. Apartheid pervaded culture as well as the law, and was entrenched by most of the mainstream media.
Coloured classification
Main article: Coloureds

The population was classified into four groups: African, White, Indian, and Coloured (capitalised to denote their legal definitions in South African law). The Coloured group included people regarded as being of mixed descent, including of Bantu, Khoisan, European and Malay ancestry. Many were descended from slaves, or indentured workers, who had been brought to South Africa from India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and China.[116]

The Population Registration Act, (Act 30 of 1950), defined South Africans as belonging to one of three races: White, Black or Coloured. People of Indian ancestry were considered Coloured under this act. Appearance, social acceptance and descent were used to determine the qualification of an individual into one of the three categories. A white person was described by the act as one whose parents were both white and possessed the "habits, speech, education, deportment and demeanour" of a white person. Blacks were defined by the act as belonging to an African race or tribe. Lastly, Coloureds were those who could not be classified as black or white.[117]

The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria at the time that the Population Registration Act was implemented to determine who was Coloured. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorised either Coloured or White, or if another person should be categorised either Coloured or Black. The tests included the pencil test, in which a pencil was shoved into the subjects' curly hair and the subjects made to shake their head. If the pencil stuck they were deemed to be Black; if dislodged they were pronounced Coloured. Other tests involved examining the shapes of jaw lines and buttocks and pinching people to see what language they would say "Ouch" in.[118] As a result of these tests, different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloureds.

Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloureds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships, as defined in the Group Areas Act (1950),[119] in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations, and received an inferior education, though better than that provided to Africans. They played an important role in the anti-apartheid movement: for example the African Political Organization established in 1902 had an exclusively Coloured membership.

Voting rights were denied to Coloureds in the same way that they were denied to Blacks from 1950 to 1983. However, in 1977 the NP caucus approved proposals to bring Coloureds and Indians into central government. In 1982, final constitutional proposals produced a referendum among Whites, and the Tricameral Parliament was approved. The Constitution was reformed the following year to allow the Coloured and Indian minorities participation in separate Houses in a Tricameral Parliament, and Botha became the first Executive State President. The idea was that the Coloured minority could be granted voting rights, but the Black majority were to become citizens of independent homelands.[117][119] These separate arrangements continued until the abolition of apartheid. The Tricameral reforms led to the formation of the (anti-apartheid) United Democratic Front as a vehicle to try to prevent the co-option of Coloureds and Indians into an alliance with Whites. The battles between the UDF and the NP government from 1983 to 1989 were to become the most intense period of struggle between left-wing and right-wing South Africans.
Education

Education was segregated by the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which crafted a separate system of education for black South African students and was designed to prepare black people for lives as a labouring class.[120] In 1959 separate universities were created for black, Coloured and Indian people. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans and English on an equal basis in high schools outside the homelands.[121]

In the 1970s, the state spent ten times more per child on the education of white children than on black children within the Bantu Education system (the education system in black schools within white South Africa). Higher education was provided in separate universities and colleges after 1959. Eight black universities were created in the homelands. Fort Hare University in the Ciskei (now Eastern Cape) was to register only Xhosa-speaking students. Sotho, Tswana, Pedi and Venda speakers were placed at the newly founded University College of the North at Turfloop, while the University College of Zululand was launched to serve Zulu students. Coloureds and Indians were to have their own establishments in the Cape and Natal respectively.[122]

Each black homeland controlled its own education, health and police systems.

By 1948, before formal Apartheid, 10 universities existed in South Africa: four were Afrikaans, four for English, one for Blacks and a Correspondence University open to all ethnic groups. By 1981, under apartheid government, 11 new universities were built: seven for Blacks, one for Coloureds, one for Indians, one for Afrikaans and one dual-language medium Afrikaans and English.
Women under apartheid
Black women demonstrate against pass laws, 1956.

Apartheid had a major effect on Black and Coloured women, who suffered due to both racial and gender discrimination while being politically pushed to the margins.[123][124] Scholar Judith Nolde has argued that, in general, the discriminatory system set up a "triple yoke of oppression: gender, race, and class" such that South African women became "deprive[d]" of their fundamental "human rights as individuals."[125] Jobs were often hard to find. Many Black and Coloured women worked as agricultural employees or as domestic workers, but wages were extremely low, if existent at all.[126]

In terms of mothers and their families, many South African children developed diseases caused by malnutrition and sanitation problems given the oppressive public policies, and mortality rates were therefore high. The controlled movement of black and Coloured workers within the country caused by the Natives Urban Areas Act of 1923 and restrictive 'pass laws' separated family members from one another. This occurred because the apartheid system perceived that men could prove their employment in urban centres while most women were merely dependents; consequently, they risked being deported to rural areas.[127] Even in rural areas, there were legal hurdles for women to own land, and jobs outside cities were even more scarce.[128]
Sport under apartheid
See also: Rugby union and apartheid

By the 1930s, association football was divided into numerous institutions based on race: the (White) South African Football Association, the South African Indian Football Association (SAIFA), the South African African Football Association (SAAFA) and its rival the South African Bantu Football Association, and the South African Coloured Football Association (SACFA). Lack of funds to provide proper equipment would be noticeable in regards to black amateur football matches, reflecting economic inequality in society at large.[129] Apartheid's social engineering made it more difficult to compete across racial lines. Thus, in an effort to centralise finances, the federations merged in 1951, creating the South African Soccer Federation (SASF), which brought Black, Indian, and Coloured national associations into one body that opposed apartheid. This was generally opposed more and more by the growing apartheid government, and – with urban segregation being reinforced with ongoing racist policies – it was harder to play football along these racial lines. In 1956, the Pretoria regime – the administrative capital of South Africa – passed the first apartheid sports policy; by doing so, it emphasised the White-led government's opposition to inter-racialism.

While football was plagued by racism, it also played a role in protesting apartheid and its policies. With the international bans from FIFA and other major sporting events, South Africa would be in the spotlight internationally. In a 1977 survey, white South Africans ranked the lack of international sport as one of the three most damaging consequences of apartheid.[130] By the mid-1950s, Black South Africans would also use media to challenge the "racialisation" of sports in South Africa; anti-apartheid forces had begun to pinpoint sport as the "weakness" of white national morale. Black journalists for the Johannesburg Drum magazine were the first to give the issue public exposure, with an intrepid special issue in 1955 that asked, "Why shouldn't our blacks be allowed in the SA team?"[130] As time progressed, South Africa's international standing would continue to be strained. In the 1980s, as the oppressive system was slowly collapsing and the ANC and National Party started negotiations on the end of apartheid, football associations also discussed the formation of a single, non-racial controlling body. This unity process accelerated in the late 1980s and led to the creation, in December 1991, of an incorporated South African Football Association. On 3 July 1992, FIFA finally welcomed South Africa back into international football.

Sport has long been an important part of life in South Africa, and the boycotting of games by international teams had a profound effect on the white population, perhaps more than the trade embargoes did. After the re-acceptance of South Africa's sports teams by the international community, sport played a major unifying role between the country's diverse ethnic groups. Mandela's support of the predominantly white rugby fraternity during the 1995 Rugby World Cup was considered instrumental in bringing together South African sports fans of all races.[131]

Activities in the sport of professional boxing were also affected, as there were 44 recorded professional boxing fights for national titles deemed "for Whites only" between 1955 and 1979,[132] and 397 fights as deemed "for non-Whites" between 1901 and 1978.[133]
Asians during apartheid
Further information: Indian South Africans, Chinese South Africans, and Honorary whites
Indian South Africans in Durban, 1963

Defining its Asian population, a minority that did not appear to belong to any of the initial three designated non-white groups, was a constant dilemma for the apartheid government.

The classification of "honorary white" (a term which would be ambiguously used throughout apartheid) was granted to immigrants from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – countries with which South Africa maintained diplomatic and economic relations[134] – and to their descendants.

Indian South Africans during apartheid were assigned to many ranges of categories from "Asian" to "black"[clarification needed] to "Coloured"[clarification needed] and even the mono-ethnic category of "Indian", but never as white, having been considered "nonwhite" throughout South Africa's history. The group faced severe discrimination during the apartheid regime and were subject to numerous racialist policies.

In 2005, a retrospective study was done by Josephine C. Naidoo and Devi Moodley Rajab, where they interviewed a series of Indian South Africans about their experience living through apartheid; their study highlighted education, the workplace, and general day to day living. One participant who was a doctor said that it was considered the norm for Non-White and White doctors to mingle while working at the hospital but when there was any down time or breaks, they were to go back to their segregated quarters. Indians were paid three to four times less than their white counterparts. Another finding of this study was the psychological harm suffered by Indians living in South Africa during apartheid. There was a strong degree of alienation that left a strong feeling of inferiority.[135]

Chinese South Africans –  descendend from migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late 19th century – were initially either classified as "Coloured" or "Other Asian" and were subject to numerous forms of discrimination and restriction.[136] It was not until 1984 that South African Chinese, then numbering about 10,000, were given the same official rights as the Japanese, to be treated as whites in terms of the Group Areas Act, although they still faced discrimination and did not receive all the benefits of their newly obtained honorary white status, such as voting.[citation needed][137]

Indonesians arrived at the Cape of Good Hope as slaves until the abolishment of slavery during the 19th century. They were predominantly Muslim, were allowed religious freedom and formed their own ethnic community known as Cape Malays. They were classified as part of the Coloured racial group.[138] This was the same for South Africans of Malaysian descent.[116] South Africans of Filipino descent were classified as "black" due to the historical outlook on Filipinos by White South Africans, and many of them lived in Bantustans.[116]

The Lebanese population were somewhat of an anomaly during the apartheid era. Lebanese immigration to South Africa was chiefly Christian, and the group was originally classified as non-white; however, a court case in 1913 ruled that because Lebanese and Syrians originated from the Canaan region (the birthplace of Christianity and Judaism), they could not be discriminated against by race laws which targeted non-believers, and thus, were classified as white. The Lebanese community maintained their white status after the Population Registration Act came into effect; however, further immigration from the Middle East was restricted.[139]
Conservatism and social policies

Alongside apartheid, the National Party implemented a programme of social conservatism. Pornography,[140] gambling[141] and works from Marx, Lenin and other socialist thinkers[142] were banned. Cinemas, shops selling alcohol and most other businesses were forbidden from opening on Sundays.[143] Abortion,[144] homosexuality[145] and sex education were also restricted; abortion was legal only in cases of rape or if the mother's life was threatened.[144]

Television was not introduced until 1976 because the government viewed English programming as a threat to the Afrikaans language.[146] Television was run on apartheid lines – TV1 broadcast in Afrikaans and English (geared to a White audience), TV2 in Zulu and Xhosa, TV3 in Sotho, Tswana and Pedi (both geared to a Black audience), and TV4 mostly showed programmes for an urban Black audience.
Internal resistance
    
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Main article: Internal resistance to apartheid
Demonstrators at the funeral for victims of the 1985 Queenstown Massacre

Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance.[14] The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which in turn increased local support for the armed resistance struggle.[147] Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protests, passive resistance and armed insurrection.

In 1949, the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) took control of the organisation and started advocating a radical African nationalist programme. The new young leaders proposed that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns. In 1950 that philosophy saw the launch of the Programme of Action, a series of strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience actions that led to occasional violent clashes with the authorities.

In 1959, a group of disenchanted ANC members formed the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), which organised a demonstration against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of those protests was held in the township of Sharpeville, where 69 people were killed by police in the Sharpeville massacre.

In the wake of Sharpeville, the government declared a state of emergency. More than 18,000 people were arrested, including leaders of the ANC and PAC, and both organisations were banned. The resistance went underground, with some leaders in exile abroad and others engaged in campaigns of domestic sabotage and terrorism.

In May 1961, before the declaration of South Africa as a Republic, an assembly representing the banned ANC called for negotiations between the members of the different ethnic groupings, threatening demonstrations and strikes during the inauguration of the Republic if their calls were ignored.

When the government overlooked them, the strikers (among the main organisers was a 42-year-old, Thembu-origin Nelson Mandela) carried out their threats. The government countered swiftly by giving police the authority to arrest people for up to twelve days and detaining many strike leaders amid numerous cases of police brutality.[148] Defeated, the protesters called off their strike. The ANC then chose to launch an armed struggle through a newly formed military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which would perform acts of sabotage on tactical state structures. Its first sabotage plans were carried out on 16 December 1961, the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River.

In the 1970s, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was created by tertiary students influenced by the Black Power movement in the US. BCM endorsed black pride and African customs and did much to alter the feelings of inadequacy instilled among black people by the apartheid system. The leader of the movement, Steve Biko, was taken into custody on 18 August 1977 and was beaten to death in detention.

In 1976, secondary students in Soweto took to the streets in the Soweto uprising to protest against the imposition of Afrikaans as the only language of instruction. On 16 June, police opened fire on students protesting peacefully. According to official reports 23 people were killed, but the number of people who died is usually given as 176, with estimates of up to 700.[149][150][151] In the following years several student organisations were formed to protest against apartheid, and these organisations were central to urban school boycotts in 1980 and 1983 and rural boycotts in 1985 and 1986.
List of attacks attributed to MK and compiled by the Committee for South African War Resistance (COSAWR) between 1980 and 1983

In parallel with student protests, labour unions started protest action in 1973 and 1974. After 1976 unions and workers are considered to have played an important role in the struggle against apartheid, filling the gap left by the banning of political parties. In 1979 black trade unions were legalised and could engage in collective bargaining, although strikes were still illegal. Economist Thomas Sowell wrote that basic supply and demand led to violations of Apartheid "on a massive scale" throughout the nation, simply because there were not enough white South African business owners to meet the demand for various goods and services. Large portions of the garment industry and construction of new homes, for example, were effectively owned and operated by blacks, who either worked surreptitiously or who circumvented the law with a white person as a nominal, figurehead manager.[152]

In 1983, anti-apartheid leaders determined to resist the tricameral parliament assembled to form the United Democratic Front (UDF) in order to coordinate anti-apartheid activism inside South Africa. The first presidents of the UDF were Archie Gumede, Oscar Mpetha and Albertina Sisulu; patrons were Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr Allan Boesak, Helen Joseph, and Nelson Mandela. Basing its platform on abolishing apartheid and creating a nonracial democratic South Africa, the UDF provided a legal way for domestic human rights groups and individuals of all races to organise demonstrations and campaign against apartheid inside the country. Churches and church groups also emerged as pivotal points of resistance. Church leaders were not immune to prosecution, and certain faith-based organisations were banned, but the clergy generally had more freedom to criticise the government than militant groups did. The UDF, coupled with the protection of the church, accordingly permitted a major role for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who served both as a prominent domestic voice and international spokesperson denouncing apartheid and urging the creation of a shared nonracial state.[153]

Although the majority of whites supported apartheid, some 20 percent did not.[when?] Parliamentary opposition was galvanised by Helen Suzman, Colin Eglin and Harry Schwarz, who formed the Progressive Federal Party. Extra-parliamentary resistance was largely centred in the South African Communist Party and women's organisation the Black Sash. Women were also notable in their involvement in trade union organisations and banned political parties. Public intellectuals like the author Nadine Gordimer also played a role in the anti-apartheid movement.
International relations during apartheid
    
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International opposition to
apartheid in South Africa
Anti-apartheid protest in Amsterdam, 1988
Campaigns

Instruments and legislation

Organisations

Conferences

UN Security Council Resolutions

Other aspects

    vte

Main article: Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid
Commonwealth

South Africa's policies were subject to international scrutiny in 1960, when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan criticised them during his Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville massacre, resulting in more international condemnation. Soon afterwards, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should become a republic. The referendum on 5 October that year asked Whites; "Are you in favour of a Republic for the Union?", and 52% voted "Yes".[154]

As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. India had become a republic within the Commonwealth in 1950, but it became clear that African and South and Southeast Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to its apartheid policies. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.

During the 1980s, the Commonwealth advocated for economic sanctions to accelerate the dismantling of apartheid, and in 1986 during a mini-summit which involved seven different countries, including the United Kingdom, a tough programme of sanctions was agreed.[155]
United Nations and other sanctions

The apartheid system as an issue was first formally brought to United Nations attention in order to advocate for the Indians residing in South Africa. On 22 June 1946, the Indian government requested that the discriminatory treatment of Indians living in South Africa be included on the agenda of the first General Assembly session.[156] In 1952, apartheid was again discussed in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign, and the UN set up a task team to keep watch on the progress of apartheid and the racial state of affairs in South Africa. Although South Africa's racial policies were a cause for concern, most countries in the UN agreed that this was a domestic affair, which fell outside the UN's jurisdiction.[157]

In April 1960, the UN's conservative stance on apartheid changed following the Sharpeville massacre, and the Security Council for the first time agreed on concerted action against the apartheid regime. Resolution 134 called upon the nation of South Africa to abandon its policies implementing racial discrimination. The newly founded United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid scripted and passed Resolution 181 on 7 August 1963, calling upon all states to cease the sale and shipment of all ammunition and military vehicles to South Africa. From 1964 onwards, the US and the UK discontinued their arms trade with South Africa. The Security Council also condemned the Soweto massacre in Resolution 392. In 1977, the voluntary UN arms embargo became mandatory with the passing of Resolution 418. In addition to isolating South Africa militarily, the United Nations General Assembly encouraged the boycotting of oil sales to South Africa.[156] Other actions taken by the United Nations General Assembly included the request for all nations and organisations "to suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practise apartheid".[156]

After much debate, by the late-1980s, the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws placing various trade sanctions on South Africa. A disinvestment from South Africa movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.[158]
Organisation for African Unity
See also: Lusaka Manifesto

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was created in 1963. Its primary objectives were to eradicate colonialism and improve social, political and economic conditions in Africa. It censured apartheid and demanded sanctions against South Africa. African states agreed to aid the liberation movements in their fight against apartheid.[159] In 1969, 14 nations from Central and East Africa gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, and formulated the Lusaka Manifesto, which was signed on 13 April by all of the countries in attendance except Malawi.[160] This manifesto was later taken on by both the OAU and the United Nations.[159]

The Lusaka Manifesto summarised the political situations of self-governing African countries, condemning racism and inequity, and calling for Black majority rule in all African nations.[161] Regarding South Africa, the manifesto said that the countries supported peaceful change "if it were possible", and made clear that they would support guerrilla liberation movements if necessary.[162]

South Africa's negative response to the Lusaka Manifesto and rejection of a change to its policies brought about another OAU announcement in October 1971. The Mogadishu Declaration stated that South Africa's rebuffing of negotiations meant that its Black people could only be freed through military means, and that no African state should converse with the apartheid government.[163]
Outward-looking policy

In 1966, B. J. Vorster became prime minister. He was not prepared to dismantle apartheid, but he did try to redress South Africa's isolation and to revitalise the country's global reputation, even with other African states. This he called his "Outward-Looking" policy.[164][165][166]

Vorster's willingness to talk to African leaders stood in contrast to Verwoerd's refusal to engage with them. In 1966, he met the heads of the neighbouring states of Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. In 1967, he offered technological and financial aid to any African state prepared to receive it, asserting that no political strings were attached, aware that many African states needed financial aid despite their opposition to South Africa's racial policies. Many were also tied to South Africa economically because of their migrant labour population working down the South African mines. Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland remained outspoken critics of apartheid, but were dependent on South African economic assistance.

Malawi was the first non-neighbouring country to accept South African aid. In 1967, the two states set out their political and economic relations. In 1969, Malawi was the only country at the assembly which did not sign the Lusaka Manifesto condemning South Africa's apartheid policy. In 1970, Malawian president Hastings Banda made his first official stopover in South Africa.

Associations with Mozambique followed suit and were sustained after that country won its sovereignty in 1975. Angola was also granted South African loans. Other countries which formed relationships with South Africa included Liberia, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritius, Gabon, Zaire (now DR Congo) and the Central African Republic. Although these states condemned apartheid (more than ever after South Africa's denunciation of the Lusaka Manifesto), South Africa's economic and military dominance meant that they remained dependent on South Africa to varying degrees.[clarification needed]
Sports and culture
Main articles: Sporting boycott of South Africa and Rugby union and apartheid
Beginning

South Africa's isolation in sport began in the mid-1950s and increased throughout the 1960s. Apartheid forbade multiracial sport, which meant that overseas teams, by virtue of them having players of different races, could not play in South Africa. In 1956, the International Table Tennis Federation severed its ties with the all-White South African Table Tennis Union, preferring the non-racial South African Table Tennis Board. The apartheid government responded by confiscating the passports of the Board's players so that they were unable to attend international games.
Isolation
Verwoerd years

In 1959, the non-racial South African Sports Association (SASA) was formed to secure the rights of all players on the global field. After meeting with no success in its endeavours to attain credit by collaborating with White establishments, SASA approached the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1962, calling for South Africa's expulsion from the Olympic Games. The IOC sent South Africa a caution to the effect that, if there were no changes, they would be barred from competing at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. The changes were initiated, and in January 1963, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) was set up. The Anti-Apartheid Movement persisted in its campaign for South Africa's exclusion, and the IOC acceded in barring the country from the 1964 Olympic Games. South Africa selected a multi-racial team for the next Olympic Games, and the IOC opted for incorporation in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. Because of protests from AAMs and African nations, however, the IOC was forced to retract the invitation.
Protests against the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand

Foreign complaints about South Africa's bigoted sports brought more isolation. Racially selected New Zealand sports teams toured South Africa until the 1970 All Blacks rugby tour, when Maori were allowed to enter the country under the status of "honorary Whites". Huge and widespread protests occurred in New Zealand in 1981 against the Springbok tour – the government spent $8,000,000 protecting games using the army and police force. A planned All Black tour to South Africa in 1985 remobilised the New Zealand protesters and it was cancelled. A "rebel tour" – not government sanctioned – went ahead in 1986, but after that sporting ties were cut, and New Zealand made a decision not to convey an authorised rugby team to South Africa until the end of apartheid.[167]
Vorster years

On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was fatally stabbed at Parliament House by parliamentary messenger Dimitri Tsafendas. John Vorster took office shortly after, and announced that South Africa would no longer dictate to the international community what their teams should look like. Although this reopened the gate for international sporting meets, it did not signal the end of South Africa's racist sporting policies. In 1968, Vorster went against his policy by refusing to permit Basil D'Oliveira, a Coloured South African-born cricketer, to join the English cricket team on its tour to South Africa. Vorster said that the side had been chosen only to prove a point, and not on merit. D'Oliveira was eventually included in the team as the first substitute, but the tour was cancelled. Protests against certain tours brought about the cancellation of a number of other visits, including that of an England rugby team touring South Africa in 1969–70.

The first of the "White Bans" occurred in 1971 when the Chairman of the Australian Cricketing Association – Sir Don Bradman – flew to South Africa to meet Vorster. Vorster had expected Bradman to allow the tour of the Australian cricket team to go ahead, but things became heated after Bradman asked why Black sportsmen were not allowed to play cricket. Vorster stated that Blacks were intellectually inferior and had no finesse for the game. Bradman, thinking this ignorant and repugnant, asked Vorster if he had heard of a man named Garry Sobers. On his return to Australia, Bradman released a short statement: "We will not play them until they choose a team on a non-racist basis."[b][170]

In South Africa, Vorster vented his anger publicly against Bradman, while the African National Congress rejoiced. This was the first time a predominantly White nation had taken the side of multiracial sport, producing an unsettling resonance that more "White" boycotts were coming.[171]

In 1971, Vorster altered his policies even further by distinguishing multiracial from multinational sport. Multiracial sport, between teams with players of different races, remained outlawed; multinational sport, however, was now acceptable: international sides would not be subject to South Africa's racial stipulations.

In 1978, Nigeria boycotted the Commonwealth Games because New Zealand's sporting contacts with the South African government were not considered to be in accordance with the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement. Nigeria also led the 32-nation boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games because of UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's ambivalent attitude towards sporting links with South Africa, significantly affecting the quality and profitability of the Games and thus thrusting apartheid into the international spotlight.[172]
Cultural boycott

In the 1960s, the Anti-Apartheid Movements began to campaign for cultural boycotts of apartheid South Africa. Artists were requested not to present or let their works be hosted in South Africa. In 1963, 45 British writers put their signatures to an affirmation approving of the boycott, and, in 1964, American actor Marlon Brando called for a similar affirmation for films. In 1965, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain called for a proscription on the sending of films to South Africa. Over sixty American artists signed a statement against apartheid and against professional links with the state. The presentation of some South African plays in the United Kingdom and the United States was also vetoed.[by whom?][citation needed] After the arrival of television in South Africa in 1975, the British Actors Union, Equity, boycotted the service, and no British programme concerning its associates could be sold to South Africa. Similarly, when home video grew popular in the 1980s, the Australian arm of CBS/Fox Video (now 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) placed stickers on their VHS and Betamax cassettes which labelled exporting such cassettes to South Africa as "an infringement of copyright".[173] Sporting and cultural boycotts did not have the same effect as economic sanctions, but they did much to lift consciousness amongst normal South Africans of the global condemnation of apartheid.[citation needed]
Western influence
See also: International sanctions during apartheid
London bus in 1989 carrying the "Boycott Apartheid" message

While international opposition to apartheid grew, the Nordic countries – and Sweden in particular – provided both moral and financial support for the ANC.[174] On 21 February 1986 – a week before he was assassinated – Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm.[175] In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathisers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared: "Apartheid cannot be reformed; it has to be eliminated."[176]

Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. In Switzerland, the Swiss-South African Association lobbied on behalf of the South African government. The Nixon administration implemented a policy known as the Tar Baby Option, pursuant to which the US maintained close relations with the Apartheid South African government.[177] The Reagan administration evaded international sanctions and provided diplomatic support in international forums for the South African government. The United States also increased trade with the Apartheid regime, while describing the ANC as "a terrorist organisation."[178] Like the Reagan administration, the government of Margaret Thatcher pursued a policy of "constructive engagement" with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions. Public U.S. government justifications for supporting the Apartheid regime included a belief in "free trade" and the perception of the anti-communist South African government as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa, for example, by the military intervention of South Africa in the Angolan Civil War in support of right-wing insurgents fighting to topple the government. The U.K. government also declared the ANC a terrorist organisation.[179][180]
Anti-apartheid protest in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 11 June 1988

By the late-1980s, with no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions (realised as the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986), the release of Nelson Mandela, and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line, but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle.[181]

The UK's significant economic involvement in South Africa may have provided some leverage with the South African government, with both the UK and the US applying pressure and pushing for negotiations. However, neither the UK nor the US was willing to apply economic pressure upon their multinational interests in South Africa, such as the mining company Anglo American. Although a high-profile compensation claim against these companies was thrown out of court in 2004,[182] the US Supreme Court in May 2008 upheld an appeals court ruling allowing another lawsuit that sought damages of more than US$400 billion from major international companies accused of aiding South Africa's apartheid system.[183][needs update]
Effect of the Cold War
"Total Onslaught"
Apartheid-era propaganda leaflet issued to South African military personnel in the 1980s. The pamphlet decries "Russian colonialism and oppression" in English, Afrikaans and Portuguese.

During the 1950s, South African military strategy was decisively shaped by fears of communist espionage and a conventional Soviet threat to the strategic Cape trade route between the south Atlantic and Indian Oceans.[184] The apartheid government supported the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as its policy of regional containment against Soviet-backed regimes and insurgencies worldwide.[185] By the late-1960s, the rise of Soviet client states on the African continent, as well as Soviet aid for militant anti-apartheid movements, was considered one of the primary external threats to the apartheid system.[186] South African officials frequently accused domestic opposition groups of being communist proxies.[187] For its part, the Soviet Union viewed South Africa as a bastion of neocolonialism and a regional Western ally, which helped fuel its support for various anti-apartheid causes.[188]

From 1973 onwards, much of South Africa's white population increasingly looked upon their country as a bastion of the free world besieged militarily, politically, and culturally by Communism and radical black nationalism.[189] The apartheid government perceived itself as being locked in a proxy struggle with the Warsaw Pact and by implication, armed wings of black nationalist forces such as Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), which often received arms and training in Warsaw Pact member states.[188] This was described as "Total Onslaught".[189][190]
Militarization of society

Soviet support for militant anti-apartheid movements worked in the government's favour, as its claim to be reacting in opposition to aggressive communist expansion gained greater plausibility, and helped it justify its own domestic militarisation methods, known as "Total Strategy".[189] Total Strategy involved building up a formidable conventional military and counter-intelligence capability.[189] It was formulated on counter-revolutionary tactics as espoused by noted French tactician André Beaufre.[190] Considerable effort was devoted towards circumventing international arms sanctions, and the government even went so far as to develop nuclear weapons,[191] allegedly with covert assistance from Israel.[192]

As a result of "Total Strategy", South African society became increasingly militarised. Many domestic civil organisations were modelled upon military structures, and military virtues such as discipline, patriotism and loyalty were highly regarded.[193] In 1968, national service for White South African men lasted nine months at minimum, and they could be called up for reserve duty into their late-middle age if necessary.[194] The length of national service was gradually extended to 12 months in 1972 and 24 months in 1978.[194] At state schools, white male students were organised into paramilitary formations and drilled as cadets or as participants in a civil defence or "Youth Preparedness" curriculum.[193] Compulsory military education and in some cases, paramilitary training was introduced for all older white male students at state schools in three South African provinces.[193] These programmes presided over the construction of bomb shelters at schools and drills aimed at simulating mock insurgent raids.[193]

From the late 1970s to the late 1980s, defence budgets in South Africa were raised exponentially.[190] In 1975, Israeli defence minister Shimon Peres signed a security pact with South African defence minister P.W. Botha that led to $200 million in arms deals. In 1988, Israeli arm sales to South Africa totalled over $1.4 billion.[195] Covert operations focused on espionage and domestic counter-subversion became common, the number of special forces units swelled, and the South African Defence Force (SADF) had amassed enough sophisticated conventional weaponry to pose a serious threat to the "front-line states", a regional alliance of neighbouring countries opposed to apartheid.[190]
Foreign military operations
See also: South African Border War, Raid on Gaborone, Operation Skerwe, and Operation Beanbag
South African paratroops on a raid in Angola, 1980s

Total Strategy was advanced in the context of MK, PLAN, and Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) guerrilla raids into South Africa or against South African targets in South West Africa; frequent South African reprisal attacks on these movements' external bases in Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, often involving collateral damage to foreign infrastructure and civilian populations; and periodic complaints brought before the international community about South African violations of its neighbours' sovereignty.[196]

The apartheid government made judicious use of extraterritorial operations to eliminate its military and political opponents, arguing that neighbouring states, including their civilian populations, which hosted, tolerated on their soil, or otherwise sheltered anti-apartheid insurgent groups could not evade responsibility for provoking retaliatory strikes.[196] While it did focus on militarising the borders and sealing up its domestic territory against insurgent raids, it also relied heavily on an aggressive preemptive and counter-strike strategy, which fulfilled a preventive and deterrent purpose.[197] The reprisals which occurred beyond South Africa's borders involved not only hostile states, but neutral and sympathetic governments as well, often forcing them to react against their will and interests.[198]

External South African military operations were aimed at eliminating the training facilities, safehouses, infrastructure, equipment, and manpower of the insurgents.[197] However, their secondary objective was to dissuade neighbouring states from offering sanctuary to MK, PLAN, APLA, and similar organisations.[197] This was accomplished by deterring the supportive foreign population from cooperating with infiltration and thus undermining the insurgents' external sanctuary areas.[199] It would also send a clear message to the host government that collaborating with insurgent forces involved potentially high costs.[199]

The scale and intensity of foreign operations varied, and ranged from small special forces units carrying out raids on locations across the border which served as bases for insurgent infiltration to major conventional offensives involving armour, artillery, and aircraft.[197] Actions such as Operation Protea in 1981 and Operation Askari in 1983 involved both full scale conventional warfare and a counter-insurgency reprisal operation.[200][201] The insurgent bases were usually situated near military installations of the host government, so that SADF retaliatory strikes hit those facilities as well and attracted international attention and condemnation of what was perceived as aggression against the armed forces of another sovereign state.[202] This would inevitably result in major engagements, in which the SADF's expeditionary units would have to contend with the firepower of the host government's forces.[202] Intensive conventional warfare of this nature carried the risk of severe casualties among white soldiers, which had to be kept to a minimum for political reasons.[197] There were also high economic and diplomatic costs associated with openly deploying large numbers of South African troops into another country.[197] Furthermore, military involvement on that scale had the potential to evolve into wider conflict situations, in which South Africa became entangled.[197] For example, South Africa's activities in Angola, initially limited to containing PLAN, later escalated to direct involvement in the Angolan Civil War.[197]

As it became clearer that full-scale conventional operations could not effectively fulfil the requirements of a regional counter-insurgency effort, South Africa turned to a number of alternative methods. Retributive artillery bombardments were the least sophisticated means of reprisal against insurgent attacks. Between 1978 and 1979 the SADF directed artillery fire against locations in Angola and Zambia from which insurgent rockets were suspected to have been launched.[203][204] This precipitated several artillery duels with the Zambian Army.[204] Special forces raids were launched to harass PLAN and MK by killing prominent members of those movements, destroying their offices and safehouses, and seizing valuable records stored at these sites.[205] One example was the Gaborone Raid, carried out in 1985, during which a South African special forces team crossed the border into Botswana and demolished four suspected MK safe houses, severely damaging another four.[205] The SADF also sabotaged infrastructure being used for the insurgents' war effort; for example, port facilities in southern Angola's Moçâmedes District, where Soviet arms were frequently offloaded for PLAN, as well as the railway line which facilitated their transport to PLAN headquarters in Lubango, were common targets.[206] Sabotage was also used as a pressure tactic when South Africa was negotiating with a host government to cease providing sanctuary to insurgent forces, as in the case of Operation Argon.[207] Successful sabotage actions of high-profile economic targets undermined a country's ability to negotiate from a position of strength, and made it likelier to accede to South African demands rather than risk the expense of further destruction and war.[207]

Also noteworthy were South African transnational espionage efforts, which included covert assassinations, kidnappings, and attempts to disrupt the overseas influence of anti-apartheid organisations. South African military intelligence agents were known to have abducted and killed anti-apartheid activists and others suspected of having ties to MK in London and Brussels.[208][209]
State security
8 South African Infantry Battalion operatives in northern KwaZulu-Natal, 1993

During the 1980s the government, led by P.W. Botha, became increasingly preoccupied with security. It set up a powerful state security apparatus to "protect" the state against an anticipated upsurge in political violence that the reforms were expected to trigger. The 1980s became a period of considerable political unrest, with the government becoming increasingly dominated by Botha's circle of generals and police chiefs (known as securocrats), who managed the various States of Emergencies.[210]

Botha's years in power were marked also by numerous military interventions in the states bordering South Africa, as well as an extensive military and political campaign to eliminate SWAPO in Namibia. Within South Africa, meanwhile, vigorous police action and strict enforcement of security legislation resulted in hundreds of arrests and bans, and an effective end to the African National Congress' sabotage campaign.

The government punished political offenders brutally. 40,000 people annually were subjected to whipping as a form of punishment.[211] The vast majority had committed political offences and were lashed ten times for their crime.[212] If convicted of treason, a person could be hanged, and the government executed numerous political offenders in this way.[213]

As the 1980s progressed, more and more anti-apartheid organisations were formed and affiliated with the UDF. Led by the Reverend Allan Boesak and Albertina Sisulu, the UDF called for the government to abandon its reforms and instead abolish the apartheid system and eliminate the homelands completely.
State of emergency
A little white girl in front of a parade of the South African Police in Pietermaritzburg (Natal), 1987

Serious political violence was a prominent feature from 1985 to 1989, as Black townships became the focus of the struggle between anti-apartheid organisations and the Botha government. Throughout the 1980s, township people resisted apartheid by acting against the local issues that faced their particular communities. The focus of much of this resistance was against the local authorities and their leaders, who were seen to be supporting the government. By 1985, it had become the ANC's aim to make Black townships "ungovernable" (a term later replaced by "people's power") by means of rent boycotts and other militant action. Numerous township councils were overthrown or collapsed, to be replaced by unofficial popular organisations, often led by militant youth. People's courts were set up, and residents accused of being government agents were dealt extreme and occasionally lethal punishments. Black town councillors and policemen, and sometimes their families, were attacked with petrol bombs, beaten, and murdered by necklacing, where a burning tyre was placed around the victim's neck, after they were restrained by wrapping their wrists with barbed wire.

On 20 July 1985, Botha declared a State of Emergency in 36 magisterial districts. Areas affected were the Eastern Cape, and the PWV region ("Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Vereeniging").[214] Three months later, the Western Cape was included. An increasing number of organisations were banned or listed (restricted in some way); many individuals had restrictions such as house arrest imposed on them. During this state of emergency, about 2,436 people were detained under the Internal Security Act.[215] This act gave police and the military sweeping powers. The government could implement curfews controlling the movement of people. The president could rule by decree without referring to the constitution or to parliament. It became a criminal offence to threaten someone verbally or possess documents that the government perceived to be threatening, to advise anyone to stay away from work or to oppose the government, and to disclose the name of anyone arrested under the State of Emergency until the government released that name, with up to ten years' imprisonment for these offences. Detention without trial became a common feature of the government's reaction to growing civil unrest and by 1988, 30,000 people had been detained.[216] The media was censored, thousands were arrested and many were interrogated and tortured.[217]

On 12 June 1986, four days before the tenth anniversary of the Soweto uprising, the state of emergency was extended to cover the whole country. The government amended the Public Security Act, including the right to declare "unrest" areas, allowing extraordinary measures to crush protests in these areas. Severe censorship of the press became a dominant tactic in the government's strategy and television cameras were banned from entering such areas. The state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), provided propaganda in support of the government. Media opposition to the system increased, supported by the growth of a pro-ANC underground press within South Africa.

In 1987, the State of Emergency was extended for another two years. Meanwhile, about 200,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers commenced the longest strike (three weeks) in South African history. The year 1988 saw the banning of the activities of the UDF and other anti-apartheid organisations.

Much of the violence in the late-1980s and early-1990s was directed at the government, but a substantial amount was between the residents themselves. Many died in violence between members of Inkatha and the UDF-ANC faction. It was later proven that the government manipulated the situation by supporting one side or the other whenever it suited them. Government agents assassinated opponents within South Africa and abroad; they undertook cross-border army and air-force attacks on suspected ANC and PAC bases. The ANC and the PAC in return detonated bombs at restaurants, shopping centres and government buildings such as magistrates courts. Between 1960 and 1994, according to statistics from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Inkatha Freedom Party was responsible for 4,500 deaths, South African security forces were responsible for 2,700 deaths and the ANC was responsible for 1,300 deaths.[218]

The state of emergency continued until 1990 when it was lifted by State President F. W. de Klerk.
Final years of apartheid
Main article: Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa
Causes

Philip Bonner highlights the "contradictory economic effects" of South Africa's industrialisation as the economy did not have a manufacturing sector, therefore promoting short term profitability but limiting labour productivity and the size of local markets. This also led to its collapse, as Clarkes "emphasises the economy could not provide and compete with foreign rivals as they failed to master cheap labour and complex chemistry".[219] The contradictions in the traditionally capitalist economy of the apartheid state led to considerable debate about racial policy, and division and conflicts in the central state.[52]
Anti-apartheid protest at South Africa House in London, 1989

In 1974, resistance to apartheid was encouraged by Portuguese withdrawal from Mozambique and Angola, after the 1974 Carnation Revolution. South African troops withdrew from Angola early in 1976, failing to prevent the MPLA from gaining power there, causing celebrations among Black students in South Africa.

The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, enshrined the principles of peaceful transition of power and equality for all. Its purpose was to provide a blueprint for South Africa by consent and racial peace in a multi-racial society, stressing opportunity for all, consultation, the federal concept, and a Bill of Rights. It caused a split in the United Party that ultimately realigned oppositional politics in South Africa with the formation of the Progressive Federal Party in 1977. The Declaration was the first of several such joint agreements by acknowledged Black and White political leaders in South Africa.

In 1978, the National Party Defence Minister, Pieter Willem Botha, became prime minister. His white minority regime worried about Soviet aid to revolutionaries in South Africa at the same time that South African economic growth had slowed. The South African Government noted that it was spending too much money to maintain segregated homelands created for Blacks, and the homelands were proving to be uneconomical.[220] Nor was maintaining Blacks as third-class citizens working well. Black labour remained vital to the economy, and illegal Black labour unions were flourishing. Many Blacks remained too poor to contribute significantly to the economy through their purchasing power – although they composed more than 70% of the population. Botha's regime feared that an antidote was needed to prevent the Blacks being attracted to communism.[221]
Tricameral parliament
Main article: Tricameral Parliament

In the early-1980s, Botha's National Party government started to recognise the inevitability of the need to reform the apartheid system.[222] Early reforms were driven by a combination of internal violence, international condemnation, changes within the National Party's constituency, and changing demographics – whites constituted only 16% of the total population, in comparison to 20% fifty years earlier.[223]

In 1983, a new constitution was passed implementing what was called the Tricameral Parliament, giving Coloureds and Indians voting rights and parliamentary representation in separate houses – the House of Assembly (178 members) for Whites, the House of Representatives (85 members) for Coloureds and the House of Delegates (45 members) for Indians.[224] Each House handled laws pertaining to its racial group's "own affairs", including health, education and other community issues.[225] All laws relating to "general affairs" (matters such as defence, industry, taxation and Black affairs) were handled by a Cabinet made up of representatives from all three houses. However, the White chamber had a large majority on this Cabinet, ensuring that effective control of the country remained in the hands of the White minority.[226][227] Blacks, although making up the majority of the population, were excluded from representation; they remained nominal citizens of their homelands.[228] The first Tricameral elections were largely boycotted by Coloured and Indian voters, amid widespread rioting.[229]
Reforms and contact with the ANC under Botha

Concerned over the popularity of Mandela, Botha denounced him as an arch-Marxist committed to violent revolution, but to appease Black opinion and nurture Mandela as a benevolent leader of Blacks,[220] the government transferred him from the maximum security Robben Island to the lower security Pollsmoor Prison just outside Cape Town, where prison life was more comfortable for him. The government allowed Mandela more visitors, including visits and interviews by foreigners, to let the world know that he was being treated well.[220]

Black homelands were declared nation-states and pass laws were abolished. Black labour unions were legitimised, the government recognised the right of Blacks to live in urban areas permanently and gave Blacks property rights there. Interest was expressed in rescinding the law against interracial marriage and also rescinding the law against sexual relations between different races, which was under ridicule abroad. The spending for Black schools increased, to one-seventh of what was spent per white child, up from one-sixteenth in 1968. At the same time, attention was given to strengthening the effectiveness of the police apparatus.

In January 1985, Botha addressed the government's House of Assembly and stated that the government was willing to release Mandela on condition that he pledge opposition to acts of violence to further political objectives. Mandela's reply was read in public by his daughter Zinzi – his first words distributed publicly since his sentence to prison 21 years earlier. Mandela described violence as the responsibility of the apartheid regime and said that with democracy there would be no need for violence. The crowd listening to the reading of his speech erupted in cheers and chants. This response helped to further elevate Mandela's status in the eyes of those, both internationally and domestically, who opposed apartheid.

Between 1986 and 1988, some petty apartheid laws were repealed, along with the pass laws.[230] Botha told White South Africans to "adapt or die"[231] and twice he wavered on the eve of what were billed as "rubicon" announcements of substantial reforms, although on both occasions he backed away from substantial changes. Ironically, these reforms served only to trigger intensified political violence through the remainder of the 1980s as more communities and political groups across the country joined the resistance movement. Botha's government stopped short of substantial reforms, such as lifting the ban on the ANC, PAC and SACP and other liberation organisations, releasing political prisoners, or repealing the foundation laws of grand apartheid. The government's stance was that they would not contemplate negotiating until those organisations "renounced violence".

By 1987, South Africa's economy was growing at one of the lowest rates in the world, and the ban on South African participation in international sporting events was frustrating many whites in South Africa. Examples of African states with Black leaders and White minorities existed in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Whispers of South Africa one day having a Black President sent more hardline whites into supporting right-wing political parties. Mandela was moved to a four-bedroom house of his own, with a swimming pool and shaded by fir trees, on a prison farm just outside of Cape Town. He had an unpublicised meeting with Botha. Botha impressed Mandela by walking forward, extending his hand and pouring Mandela's tea. The two had a friendly discussion, with Mandela comparing the African National Congress' rebellion with that of the Afrikaner rebellion and talking about everyone being brothers.

A number of clandestine meetings were held between the ANC-in-exile and various sectors of the internal struggle, such as women and educationalists. More overtly, a group of White intellectuals met the ANC in Senegal for talks known as the Dakar Conference.[232]
Presidency of F. W. de Klerk
de Klerk and Mandela in Davos, 1992

Early in 1989, Botha had a stroke; he was prevailed upon to resign in February 1989.[233] He was succeeded as president later that year by F. W. de Klerk. Despite his initial reputation as a conservative, de Klerk moved decisively towards negotiations to end the political stalemate in the country. Prior to his term in office, F. W. de Klerk had already experienced political success as a result of the power base he had built in the Transvaal. During this time, F. W. de Klerk served as chairman to the provincial National Party, which was in favour of the Apartheid regime. The transition of de Klerk's ideology regarding apartheid is seen clearly in his opening address to parliament on 2 February 1990. F. W. de Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws and lift the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the United Democratic Front. The Land Act was brought to an end. F. W. de Klerk also made his first public commitment to release Nelson Mandela, to return to press freedom and to suspend the death penalty. Media restrictions were lifted and political prisoners not guilty of common law crimes were released.

On 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison after more than 27 years behind bars.[234]

Having been instructed by the UN Security Council to end its long-standing involvement in South West Africa/Namibia, and in the face of military stalemate in Southern Angola, and an escalation in the size and cost of the combat with the Cubans, the Angolans, and SWAPO forces and the growing cost of the border war, South Africa negotiated a change of control; Namibia became independent on 21 March 1990.[235]
Negotiations
Main article: Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa

Apartheid was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1991, culminating in a transitional period which resulted in the country's 1994 general election, the first in South Africa held with universal suffrage.

In 1990, negotiations were earnestly begun, with two meetings between the government and the ANC. The purpose of the negotiations was to pave the way for talks towards a peaceful transition towards majority rule. These meetings were successful in laying down the preconditions for negotiations, despite the considerable tensions still abounding within the country. Apartheid legislation was abolished in 1991.[2]

At the first meeting, the NP and ANC discussed the conditions for negotiations to begin. The meeting was held at Groote Schuur, the President's official residence. They released the Groote Schuur Minute, which said that before negotiations commenced political prisoners would be freed and all exiles allowed to return.

There were fears that the change of power would be violent. To avoid this, it was essential that a peaceful resolution between all parties be reached. In December 1991, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) began negotiations on the formation of a multiracial transitional government and a new constitution extending political rights to all groups. CODESA adopted a Declaration of Intent and committed itself to an "undivided South Africa".

Reforms and negotiations to end apartheid led to a backlash among the right-wing White opposition, leading to the Conservative Party winning a number of by-elections against NP candidates. De Klerk responded by calling a Whites-only referendum in March 1992 to decide whether negotiations should continue. 69% voted in favour, and the victory instilled in de Klerk and the government a lot more confidence, giving the NP a stronger position in negotiations.

When negotiations resumed in May 1992, under the tag of CODESA II, stronger demands were made. The ANC and the government could not reach a compromise on how power should be shared during the transition to democracy. The NP wanted to retain a strong position in a transitional government, and the power to change decisions made by parliament.

Persistent violence added to the tension during the negotiations. This was due mostly to the intense rivalry between the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the ANC and the eruption of some traditional tribal and local rivalries between the Zulu and Xhosa historical tribal affinities, especially in the Southern Natal provinces. Although Mandela and Buthelezi met to settle their differences, they could not stem the violence. One of the worst cases of ANC-IFP violence was the Boipatong massacre of 17 June 1992, when 200 IFP militants attacked the Gauteng township of Boipatong, killing 45. Witnesses said that the men had arrived in police vehicles, supporting claims that elements within the police and army contributed to the ongoing violence. Subsequent judicial inquiries found the evidence of the witnesses to be unreliable or discredited, and that there was no evidence of National Party or police involvement in the massacre. When de Klerk visited the scene of the incident he was initially warmly welcomed, but he was suddenly confronted by a crowd of protesters brandishing stones and placards. The motorcade sped from the scene as police tried to hold back the crowd. Shots were fired by the police, and the PAC stated that three of its supporters had been gunned down.[236] Nonetheless, the Boipatong massacre offered the ANC a pretext to engage in brinkmanship. Mandela argued that de Klerk, as head of state, was responsible for bringing an end to the bloodshed. He also accused the South African police of inciting the ANC-IFP violence. This formed the basis for ANC's withdrawal from the negotiations, and the CODESA forum broke down completely at this stage.

The Bisho massacre on 7 September 1992 brought matters to a head. The Ciskei Defence Force killed 29 people and injured 200 when they opened fire on ANC marchers demanding the reincorporation of the Ciskei homeland into South Africa. In the aftermath, Mandela and de Klerk agreed to meet to find ways to end the spiralling violence. This led to a resumption of negotiations.

Right-wing violence also added to the hostilities of this period. The assassination of Chris Hani on 10 April 1993 threatened to plunge the country into chaos. Hani, the popular General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), was assassinated in 1993 in Dawn Park in Johannesburg by Janusz Waluś, an anti-Communist Polish refugee who had close links to the White nationalist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). Hani enjoyed widespread support beyond his constituency in the SACP and ANC and had been recognised as a potential successor to Mandela; his death brought forth protests throughout the country and across the international community, but ultimately proved a turning point, after which the main parties pushed for a settlement with increased determination.[237] On 25 June 1993, the AWB used an armoured vehicle to crash through the doors of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre where talks were still going ahead under the Negotiating Council, though this did not derail the process.

In addition to the continuing "black-on-black" violence, there were a number of attacks on white civilians by the PAC's military wing, the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). The PAC was hoping to strengthen their standing by attracting the support of the angry, impatient youth. In the St James Church massacre on 25 July 1993, members of the APLA opened fire in a church in Cape Town, killing 11 members of the congregation and wounding 58.

In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa".[238]

Violence persisted right up to the 1994 general election. Lucas Mangope, leader of the Bophuthatswana homeland, declared that it would not take part in the elections. It had been decided that, once the temporary constitution had come into effect, the homelands would be incorporated into South Africa, but Mangope did not want this to happen. There were strong protests against his decision, leading to a coup d'état in Bophuthatswana carried out by the SDF on 10 March that deposed Mangope. AWB militants attempted to intervene in hopes of maintaining Mangope in power. Fighting alongside black paramilitaries loyal to Mangope they were unsuccessful, with 3 AWB militants being killed during this intervention, and harrowing images of the bloodshed shown on national television and in newspapers across the world.

Two days before the election, a car bomb exploded in Johannesburg, killing nine people.[239][240] The day before the elections, another one went off, injuring 13. At midnight on 26–27 April 1994 the previous "orange white blue" flag adopted in 1928 was lowered, and the old (now co-official) national anthem Die Stem ("The Call") was sung, followed by the raising of the new Y shaped flag and singing of the other co-official anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika ("God Bless Africa").
1994 election
The new multicoloured flag of South Africa adopted in 1994 to mark the end of Apartheid
Main article: 1994 South African general election

The election was held on 27 April 1994 and went off peacefully throughout the country as 20 million South Africans cast their votes. There was some difficulty in organising the voting in rural areas, but people waited patiently for many hours to vote amidst a palpable feeling of goodwill. An extra day was added to give everyone the chance. International observers agreed that the elections were free and fair.[241] The European Union's report on the election compiled at the end of May 1994, published two years after the election, criticised the Independent Electoral Commission's lack of preparedness for the polls, the shortages of voting materials at many voting stations, and the absence of effective safeguards against fraud in the counting process. In particular, it expressed disquiet that "no international observers had been allowed to be present at the crucial stage of the count when party representatives negotiated over disputed ballots." This meant that both the electorate and the world were "simply left to guess at the way the final result was achieved."[242]

The ANC won 62.65% of the vote,[243][244] less than the 66.7 percent that would have allowed it to rewrite the constitution. 252 of the 400 seats went to members of the African National Congress. The NP captured most of the White and Coloured votes and became the official opposition party. As well as deciding the national government, the election decided the provincial governments, and the ANC won in seven of the nine provinces, with the NP winning in the Western Cape and the IFP in KwaZulu-Natal. On 10 May 1994, Mandela was sworn in as the new President of South Africa. The Government of National Unity was established, its cabinet made up of 12 ANC representatives, six from the NP, and three from the IFP. Thabo Mbeki and de Klerk were made deputy presidents.

The anniversary of the elections, 27 April, is celebrated as a public holiday known as Freedom Day.
Legacy
Bust of Nelson Mandela erected on London's South Bank. Mandela is widely considered a global hero for his role in opposing the apartheid system and inaugurating a multiracial democracy.[245][246][247]
Inequality
Further information: Inequality in post-apartheid South Africa and Wealth inequality in South Africa

Post-apartheid South Africa has struggled to correct the social inequalities created by decades of apartheid.[248] White nepotism remains a considerable obstacle to economic gain and political influence for Black South Africans.[249][250] Despite a growing gross domestic product, indices for poverty, unemployment, income inequality, life expectancy and land ownership, have declined.[251][252] No industry in the economy has over 50% ownership by Black individuals in terms of their share even though 81.4% of the South African population is Black.[249][252] The end of the apartheid system in South Africa has largely not changed the socioeconomic stratification by race.[250] While a small subset of the Black population have been able to create a Black middle class that did not exist during apartheid, the large majority of Black people in South Africa have yet to experience a difference in economic class since apartheid was abolished.[251][249] According to the World Bank, South Africa is the most economically unequal country in the world.[253]
Contrition

Since 2019, publicly displaying the 1928–1994 flag in South Africa is banned and it is classified as hate speech.[254] The following individuals, who had previously supported apartheid, have made public apologies:

    F. W. de Klerk in 1997 stated: "I apologise in my capacity as leader of the NP to the millions who suffered wrenching disruption of forced removals; who suffered the shame of being arrested for pass law offences; who over the decades suffered the indignities and humiliation of racial discrimination."[255] In a video released after his death in 2021, he apologised one last time for apartheid, both on a personal level and in his capacity as former president.[256]
    Marthinus van Schalkwyk: "The National Party brought development to a section of South Africa, but also brought suffering through a system grounded on injustice", in a statement shortly after the National Party voted to disband in 2005.[257][258]
    In 2006 Adriaan Vlok washed the feet of apartheid victim Frank Chikane in an act of apology for the wrongs of the Apartheid regime.[259]
    Leon Wessels: "I am now more convinced than ever that apartheid was a terrible mistake that blighted our land. South Africans did not listen to the laughing and the crying of each other. I am sorry that I had been so hard of hearing for so long".[260]

Other applications of the term
See also: Allegations of apartheid by country

The South African experience has given rise to the term "apartheid" being used in a number of contexts other than the South African system of racial segregation. For example: The "crime of apartheid" is defined in international law, including in the 2007 law that created the International Criminal Court (ICC), which names it as a crime against humanity. Even before the creation of the ICC, the UN International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which came into force in 1976, enshrined into law the "crime of apartheid."[261]

The term apartheid has been adopted by Palestinian rights advocates and by leading Israeli and other human rights organizations, referring to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, legal treatment of illegal settlements and the West Bank barrier.[262][263][264][265] Within the pre-1967 Israeli borders, Palestinian rights advocates have raised concern over discriminatory housing planning against Palestinian citizens of Israel, likening it to racial segregation.[266] Others argue that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians does not fit the definition of apartheid as it is motivated by security considerations and has nothing to do with race.[267]

Social apartheid is segregation on the basis of class or economic status. For example, social apartheid in Brazil refers to the various aspects of economic inequality in Brazil. Social apartheid may fall into various categories. Economic and social discrimination because of gender is sometimes referred to as gender apartheid. Separation of people according to their religion, whether pursuant to official laws or pursuant to social expectations, is sometimes referred to as religious apartheid. Communities in northern Ireland for example, are often housed based on religion in a situation which has been described as "self-imposed apartheid".[268]

The concept in occupational therapy that individuals, groups and communities can be deprived of meaningful and purposeful activity through segregation due to social, political, economic factors and for social status reasons, such as race, disability, age, gender, sexuality, religious preference, political preference, or creed, or due to war conditions, is sometimes known as occupational apartheid.

The disproportionate management and control of the world's economy and resources by countries and companies of the Global North has been referred to as global apartheid. A related phenomenon is technological apartheid, a term used to describe the denial of modern technologies to Third World or developing nations. The last two examples use the term "apartheid" less literally since they are centred on relations between countries, not on disparate treatment of social populations within a country or political jurisdiction.