Sociology in the Global South - An Analysis of a Primary Source of Asia, Latin America, and/or the Caribbean

Apartheid in South Africa
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Introduction
South Africa is believed to be the most developed nation in Africa. It is a nation rich in arable farmlands, natural resources including being the world-leading excavator of diamonds and gold. Just like other African countries, South Africa went through severe colonial times under the Boers and the British. The South African nation is among the last to have chosen a native president, towards the end of the twentieth centenary. It is also amongst the most open countries in Africa due to its proper and highly refined infrastructure, giving it global renown. However, the history of South Africa is unfinished without mentioning their method of colonization known as apartheid. The subject of apartheid is a delicate one as it deals with a superior mode of racism. Inarguably, apartheid system gave South Africa its status, but how did it impact the lives of the citizens and how did it contribute to economic growth and development? Researchers argue that without that type of colonial system, the country could not be the same; its discrete ideologies, way of politics, and its overall uniqueness make it a one of a kind civilization in Africa. The apartheid system reshaped South Africa in all circles of influence from the economic, political to sociocultural perspectives.
Theory Section
The word 'Apartheid' is an Afrikaans word denoting 'apartness'. It was a method that was used by the National Party in South Africa, overseeing relations between the white minority and non-white majority. The Apartheid system endorsed racial dissociation in the social strata of South Africa's society, intensifying economic and political prejudice among the whites, natives, and the coloreds. A policy that ensured torder of the citizens into Bantu (native blacks), colored (mixed race), and white (the British, Boers, Jews, Swiss among other Europeans). The fourth division of Asians was later incorporated (Beinart & Dubow, 1995; n.p.).
The Pan-African Theory
The Pan-African theories compel the ideology that people of African lineage have a shared concern and should be united. Pan-Africanists played a great role in their quest for ending the apartheid practice in South Africa. Various literatures portray the prospects of Pan Africanists and how they thought about colonialism. These theories will help probe the given narratives which contain cases of racism and apartheid, as witnessed in firsthand accounts of the victims.
Aime Cesaire has exposed the irony of colonialism in the book Discourse on Colonialism. He defines colonization as a bridgehead in a drive to spearhead civilization. In his works, Cesaire predicates on the reasons the Europeans gave in the pretext for colonization. A Reverend Muller alleged that humanity would not tolerate the ineptitude and negligence of barbarian people to leave idle the resources God has consigned them. In his justification of colonialism, he claims that the Europeans were just doing God's work by exploiting that which the owners have been unable to exploit (Cesaire, 1972; 39).
Franz Fanon echoes Cesaire's sentiments by separating the colonist and the natives in the view of Europeans. Fanon delineates colonial rule into two compartments: the colonist and the natives. The government, made up of the colonist, used a sheer language of oppression and violence. They inseminated functions using the police and soldiers. From Aristotelian philosophy, they furthered the use of mutual isolation (Fanon, 2004; 4). The colonist's world is by far an antithesis of spectacle and excess whereas the native's world is characterized by wretchedness and destitution. The colonial master cannot be reached, touched, or neither seen, as where to see them is a prohibited zone for the native oppressed colonized quarter (Fanon, 2004; 3).
Many colonialism proponents claim that colonization improved Africa by injecting features of capitalism. In the real sense, colonization was a system utilized to under-develop Africa and on the other hand extend the egotistical interests of the masters. Every resource availed by the colonists was to serve their kin, to the detriment of the natives, to intensify slavery. Even education was an establishment designed to form an enlightened servitude according to a statement by Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) (Rodney, 1982; 1). As colonization came under heavy objection in the post-war, a lot of public relations propaganda meant to varnish and disguise it came up. The Europeans employed colonialism since it was more beneficial to them. In the post-world war II, Western European laissez-faire began to fall back to their colonies to assist them against Russian communism and the USA competition since these two superpowers also had tremendous resources (Rodney, 1982; 15).
Object
The artifacts to be scrutinized entail three historical narratives from the Apartheid Archives Project (University of the Witwatersrand). The accounts are from three individuals in their thirties who grew up in apartheid South Africa; people from diverse origins namely whites, Africans, and coloreds. The mentioned narratives are part of a collection of historical papers containing experiences by different people during apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. For this study, three different accounts were chosen from three different people of diverse backgrounds with ages 30yrs. These descriptions give us erudition on the view of apartheid from the eye of the whites as the promoter of apartheid and the coloreds and Africans as the oppressed. In these narratives, apartheid is exposed as the easy way the whites used to rule South Africans, refusing them their democratic rights (University of the Witwatersrand).
1 I Remember: A narrative account of...