Name: Kassandra Acuna

Topic: Apartheid Date: 12-15-12

Questions/Main Ideas: Notes:

Apartheid Apartheid is an Afrikaans word that means 'separation', and is the
name given to the particular racial-social ideology developed in South
Africa during the twentieth century. Apartheid was all about racial
segregation, and about political and economic discrimination which
separated Black (or Bantu), Coloured, Indian, and White South
Africans.

Segregation In the first two decades of the union, segregation became a distinctive
feature of South African political, social, and economic life as whites
addressed the “native question.” Blacks were “retribalized” and their
ethnic differences highlighted. New statutes provided for racial
separation in industrial, territorial, administrative, and residential
spheres. This barrage of legislation was partly the product of
reactionary attitudes inherited from the past and partly an effort to
regulate class and race relations during a period of rapid
industrialization when the black population was growing steadily.

1989: when apartheid

The apartheid system began to fall apart in the 1980s. Two million
ended
unemployed blacks, a shrinking white minority, continued black

resistance, and an economy suffering from international sanctions

finally convinced many South Africans that something had to change.

F.W. De Klerk was elected in 1989 and promised to seek a compromise

between the majority and the minority.

Further, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 removed the

specter of an ANC supported by the Soviets, which had to many
justified the government's oppressive policies. The time was right for
change.

1964: Nelson Nelson Mandela, a leader of the ANC, had been arrested in 1964 and
Mandela was arrested sentenced to life imprisonment. Behind bars on Robben Island he
 became the symbol of the resistance to apartheid. Free Mandela was a
familiar cry worldwide.

Questions/Main Ideas: Notes:

Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela is a South African politician who served as President
of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully
representative democratic election. Before being elected President,
Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-
founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African
National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of
sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these
years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11
February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the
establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave
priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at
combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.

Summary:
The final stage of apartheid's demise happened so quickly as to have taken many people in South
Africa and throughout the world by surprise. The release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 and the
lifting of the ban of the African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation movements led to a
protracted series of negotiations out of which emerged a democratic constitution and the first free
election in the country's history. Democracy did not emerge spontaneously; it had to be built
laboriously, brick by brick. This was a complex process, following years of multifaceted struggle and
accompanied in the 1990-1994 period by convulsive violence as vested interests resisted change.
Probably unique in the history of colonialism, white settlers voluntarily gave up their monopoly of
political power. The final transfer of power was remarkably peaceful; it is often is described as a
"miracle" because many thought that South Africa would erupt into violent civil war.