Apartheid

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“	We don't want Apartheid liberalised. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil.	„
	~ Desmond Tutu, 1985

Apartheid was the racial segregation system in South Africa and Namibia in force from 1948 until 1994. Basically, this racial segregation system consisted of the creation of separate places, both residential and study or recreational, for different racial groups, in the exclusive power of the white race to exercise the vote and in the prohibition of marriages or even sexual relations between blacks and whites.

The system was effectively practiced in South Africa for centuries by white settlers of Dutch origin (the Afrikaners) against the black population of this territory, but with the establishment of the Cape Colony, they did not have the legal backing of the British, since the British did not share the thinking of extremist racial segregation of Afrikaners. Later, Afrikaners nationalists, taking advantage of British weakening in the area, began introducing laws to weaken the political and economic development of the black population.

However, explicit Apartheid would not be practiced until the victory of the National Party in the 1947 elections, led by Daniel François Malan, beginning to introduce a series of laws that segregated black-skinned people, starting Apartheid.

During Apartheid, the government would begin to create exclusive places for whites and exclusive for blacks, where whites commonly had comfortable and luxurious places, while blacks had deplorable and poor quality places. Also things like marriage or sexual relations between blacks and whites were prohibited, as well as the right to vote of blacks, the right to education, and they were not allowed access to places such as beaches, buses, hospitals or schools, or in case they were allowed, they were of deplorable quality. Advocates of Apartheid argue that non-white citizens were not South African citizens but citizens of other independent states, called Bantustans, which were semi-autonomous states that served as reserves for non-white people. Black citizens were relocated to these Bantustans in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The Apartheid government had many difficulties in maintaining itself, first of all, in the international arena, there was a great rejection by many countries towards racial segregation in South Africa, only with the support of few countries such as Rhodesia, Malawi, Israel, Chile , Brazil and Portugal, apart from the support of the United States, which saw the South African government as a defender in the fight against communism. The black opposition was also a problem for Apartheid, being represented by the African National Congress (or ANC), which began a series of non-violent protests in South Africa, to which the government responded with violence and massacres, apart from imprisonment. to its main leaders (they include the famous Nelson Mandela). Also, the Apartheid government experienced a severe setback during the South African Border War, where the SWAPO guerrilla group supported by Angola would fight against South Africa for the independence of Namibia (former German colony that was annexed by South Africa in after the World War I), which would end with the independence of Namibia.

Finally, the Apartheid regime in 1989 until 1994, when President Frederik Willem de Klerk would begin to eliminate segregationist laws and a referendum on the end of Apartheid, where he won the option of YES, Apartheid would end, and in 1994, Nelson Mandela is elected president, being the first black president.

Crime of apartheid

A crime of Apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".

Leaders of South Africa during Apartheid

• Daniel François Malan (1948 - 1954)
• Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom (1954 - 1958)
• Hendrik Verwoerd (1958 - 1966)
• John Vorster (1966 - 1978)
• P.W Botha (1978 - 1989)
• F.W. de Klerk (1989 - 1994)

Trivia

• The Apartheid era has drawn many comparisons to Holocaust-era Germany as well as to the Jim Crow-era United States.
  • Ironically, Hendrik Verwoerd, one of South Africa's Apartheid-era leaders, reportedly had great admiration for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
• Although in the Rhodesia of Ian Smith the Apartheid was not practiced officially, if it is true that a practically equal system was practiced.
• The Apartheid government supported the guerrilla groups of RENAMO and UNITA.
• The Alt-Right has consistently praised Apartheid.
• Mass shooter Dylann Roof made numerous references to Apartheid on his website The Last Rhodesian including pictures showing him with an old South African flag.
• The overall system of apartheid was inspired by laws in Canada against it's indigenous population.