APARTHEID

legalized racial “separateness”

General Information

• Apartheid, meaning separateness, was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.

• Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times, but apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948.

• New legislation classified inhabitants people into racial groups (black, white, colored, and Indian), and residential areas were segregated by means of forced removals. Blacks were stripped of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services greatly inferior to those of whites.

does this remind you of anything that happened in the United States?

Color Classification• All South Africans were divided into three racial categories: Bantu (black

African), white, or Colored (of mixed race). A fourth category, Asian (Indians and Pakistanis), was added later.

• The Apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria to determine who was Colored. Minor officials would administer tests to determine if someone should be categorized either Colored or Black, or if another person should be categorized either Colored or White. Different members of the same family found themselves in different race groups. Further tests determined membership of the various sub-racial groups of the Coloreds.

• Discriminated against by apartheid, Coloreds were as a matter of state policy forced to live in separate townships—in some cases leaving homes their families had occupied for generations.

• In addition, other laws prohibited most social contacts between the races; enforced the segregation of public facilities and the separation of educational standards; created race-specific job categories; restricted the powers of nonwhite unions; and curbed nonwhite participation in government.

The Homeland System

• South African blacks were stripped of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based and nominally self-governing tribal homelands.

• The homelands occupied relatively small and economically unproductive areas of the country.

• During the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the government implemented a policy of 'resettlement,' to force people to move to their designated "group areas." Some argue that over three and a half million people were forced to resettle during this period.

The “Pass”

Here Nelson Mandela is pictured burning his "pass" which was required for blacks to carry with them to identify their race and area of the country. They were not permitted to leave to travel to another region without a passport.

Cry, the Beloved Country Although apartheid was not instituted until after the novel's publication, the

South Africa of Cry, the Beloved Country was nevertheless suffering from the effects of racial segregation, enforced inequality, and prejudice. The crime rate was high, and attacks on whites by black agitators caused panic among the country's white citizens. Black South Africans found themselves adrift as the traditional tribal cultures gave way to the lure of the cities, and many South Africans were left without any moral or social organization to turn to. Whites held a monopoly on political power, and they did nothing to alleviate the extreme poverty among black South Africans, which in turn led many young black men to crime. The gold mines, which were so vital to South Africa's economy, depended on cheap black labor to remain profitable, and as a result, the workers were paid barely enough to survive. But those in power inevitably broke up attempts to strike or seek a better wage.

Cry, the Beloved Country is set in this tense and fragile society, where the breathtaking beauty of the nation's natural landscape is tainted by the fears of its people. And yet, the message of the novel is one of hope. Characters such as Stephen Kumalo, James Jarvis, and Theophilus Msimangu reveal a potential for goodness in humankind, and are able to defuse hatred, overcome fear, and take the first steps necessary for mending a broken nation.