article on Apartheid struggle
Answers
The Union of 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.[41] Most white South Africans, regardless of their own differences, accepted the prevailing pattern. Nevertheless, by 1948 it remained apparent that there were gaps in the social structure, whether legislated or otherwise, concerning the rights and opportunities of nonwhites. 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.[41] Overcrowding, spiking 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. Whites reacted negatively to the changes, allowing the Herenigde Nasionale Party (or simply 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.[41] Many Afrikaners, whites chiefly of Dutch descent but with early infusions of Germans and French Huguenots who were soon assimilated, also resented what they perceived as disempowerment by an underpaid black workforce and the superior economic power and prosperity of white English speakers.[42] In addition, Jan 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.[43]
Afrikaner nationalists proclaimed that they offered the voters a new policy to ensure continued white domination.[44] This policy was initially expounded from a theory drafted by Hendrik Verwoerd and was presented to the National Party by the Sauer Commission.[41] 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 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.[41] The party gave this policy a name – apartheid (apartness). Apartheid was to be the basic ideological and practical foundation of Afrikaner politics for the next quarter of a century.[44]
The National Party's election platform stressed that apartheid would preserve a market for white employment in which nonwhites could not compete. On the issues of black urbanisation, the regulation of nonwhite labour, influx control, social security, farm tariffs, and nonwhite taxation the United Party's policy remained contradictory and confused.[43] 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.[
Answer:
Apartheid (“apartness” in the language of Afrikaans) was a system of legislation that upheld segregationist policies against non-white citizens of South Africa. After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) would be forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities. Contact between the two groups would be limited. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its laws remained in effect for the better part of 50 years. In 1991, the government of President F.W. de Klerk began to repeal most of the legislation that provided the basis for apartheid. President de Klerk and activist Nelson Mandela would later win the Nobel Peace Prize for their work creating a new constitution for South Africa.