1991: The End of Apartheid
South Africa's brutal system of racial segregation was
abolished 20 years ago, making way for democratic rule
By Michael Wines, The New York Times Upfront, Vol. 143, April 4, 2011
When hundreds of thousands of tourists poured into
South Africa last summer to watch the World Cup for
soccer, the entire nation basked in its moment of
international glory.
Hosting an event watched by 260 million people around
the world marked an important milestone for a nation
that just two decades ago was an international pariah
(outsider): For years, South Africa was cut off from
international trade, sanctioned (penalized) by the
United Nations, and excluded from global sporting
events like the Olympics and the World Cup because of apartheid, a brutal system of
racial segregation that was abolished 20 years ago this June.
The roots of apartheidwhich means "separateness" in Afrikaans, a Dutch-based
languagego back to the late 1600s and 1700s, when first Dutch, then British, settlers
arrived and began dominating and segregating South Africa's native black population.
Beginning in the 18th century, a system of "pass laws" segregated and strictly limited
the movement of nonwhites, who had to carry passes to enter white areas.
Prisoners in Their Own Land
But apartheid began to take on an especially pernicious (evil) form in 1950, when the
ruling Afrikaners, descendants of the original Dutch settlers, began enacting laws that
forced blacks, Indians, and "coloreds" (people of mixed race) to live and work in
restricted areas and barred them from owning land outside those areas.
Nonwhites soon found themselves prisoners in their own land. They were educated only
enough to perform basic labor in white-run industries (businesses). They could not
socialize with whites, have a voice in government, or even travel outside their
designated areas without government permission. All blackswho made up 70 percent
of the populationhad to carry pass books that recorded their movements, and they
could be arrested for inviting whites to their homes without approval.
Secret police spied on black activists, and arrests, beatings, and even murders of
activists were commonplace. Nelson Mandela, who led the military wing of the leading
anti-apartheid group, the African National Congress (A.N.C.), was arrested and sent to jail
with a life sentence in 1964. Stephen Biko, the 30-year-old leader of the South African
Students' Organization, was beaten to death by government agents in 1977.
Riots began to break out in the 1970s due to unfair apartheid laws and by the end of the
year, police had killed more than 500 protestors and injured thousands.
Against this backdrop, apartheid's foundation began to crack. Unable to contain the
rioting, the government slowly began to look for ways to diminish black anger. It drew up
a new constitution that gave some nonwhites a voice (but still excluded blacks); it tried
to give all blacks citizenship in separate semi-independent "homelands" within whitecontrolled South Africa.
Mounting Pressures
None of it worked. And South Africa's relations with the rest of the world became
increasingly strained. In 1977, the United Nations imposed an arms (weapons) embargo
on South Africa. International sports groups banned South African teams from
competitions, and many companies boycotted South African goods and services. The
demand for Nelson Mandela's release from prison grew into a global campaign, and a
leading critic of apartheid, the Anglican Bishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu, was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
U.S. State Department official, Chester Crocker, said that the most
important push for change in South Africa came not from outsiders but
from within. "You need leaders to make peace," he says. "It takes
guts." Those leaders were South Africa's last President under
apartheid, F. W. de Klerk, and Mandela (they shared the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1993.) Seeing that apartheid was not only isolating his
nation but robbing it of the talents of its black workers, de Klerk
released all political prisoners, including Mandela, from jail in 1990,
ended restrictions on black political groups, and began negotiations
toward democracy.
de Klerk &
Mandela
Healing Old Wounds
On June 17, 1991, South Africa's Parliament voted to repeal the legal framework for
apartheid. Three years later, Mandela was elected President.
Though South Africa has made the transition to democracy and equal rights for people of
color, it hasn't always been a smooth ride. The government, now led by President Jacob
Zuma, has been battered by charges that it tolerates corruption and has been slow to
address the needs of millions of its poorest black citizens. And with Mandela now 93 and
increasingly frail*, many South Africans fear that the country may never live up to the
ideals of the modern nation's father figure.
"The country's very nervous about whether they can continue to be 'the good South
Africa'" without Mandela, says Cook, the policy adviser. "They're going through a lot of
separation anxiety."
Yet despite those uncertainties and the work that lies ahead for South Africa, hosting the
World Cup gave the country a renewed sense of hope and a self-confidence it had never
known. "And South Africa needs a lot of that," Cook says, "just to heal its own wounds."
*Mandela passed away in December of 2013 at the age of 95.
