Apartheid in South Africa

Apartheid in South Africa
Name
Institution
Apartheid in South Africa
Racial discrimination dominated South Africa in 1948, and this was further witnessed when the ruling party made the discriminatory apartheid policy into law, in the same year (Pfister, 2005). The Afrikaans word, which literally translates to racial discrimination ‘apartheid’, was legislated and it started with the Dutch and the British rulers. The initiators of apartheid applied it to all social nature of the South African people. For instance, the majority of the population who were Africans was barred from mingling with the whites. Further discrimination was witnessed in 1950, when the policy of registration of population came into place (Sonneborn, 2010). The policy provided that, South African citizen be categorized as Whites, Africans and mixed decent. The mixed groups were the Indians and Asians. The Ministry for Internal Affairs was charged with the mandate of categorizing citizens based on race and color. The apartheid policy of 1948 had huge impact in the South African society for many years until the country’s independence in 1994 (Allen, 2005).
In 1951, an improvement of the apartheid policy was legislated, which outlined where each race was to occupy. For instance, the whites occupied vast acres of land. The Black Africans occupied smaller acres of land (Pfister, 2005). The Bantu Homelands Act, for instance, made the land occupied by the Blacks independent states. This move saw the Africans revoked off their citizenship and became aliens in White dominated areas. Africans could only enter such areas using their passports, to do odd jobs as house helping. Although the Africans resisted the situation, the Whites reacted on equal measure by arresting the Africans. In 1952, another law that required the carrying of identification cards among the Blacks came into place. This was harassing since one needed to produce it at every checkpoint. Those who did not produce it were arrested (Allen, 2005).
In 1953, an act came into place that created separation of public places like post office, beaches among other things (Allen, 2005). This, however, did not happen on equal measures for the Whites, Colored, and Africans. In the same year, the education act came into controlling education for the Blacks. In 1960, the government announced a state of emergency since the blacks declined to carry their passports (Pfister, 2005). The political parties of the Africans were also banned. This action also resulted into deaths of the Africans and several w...