From the colonization of South Africa by the British Empire in the early 1800’s to its gain of independence in 1910 , the country has continuously faced clashes of culture, violent territorial disputes between European settlers and indigenous people, dispossession and repression of natives, along with constant racial and political tensions. This paper will analyze the effect colonization has had on the development of South Africa’s economic, political, and social sectors.
Colonialism forever impacted African modes of thought, cultural development, and ways of life by changing local social structures. Prior to the “Scramble for Africa”, African economies were advancing in every area, especially in trade (Settles, 1996, p. 3). Grier (1999, p. 320) states that “the aim of colonialism [was] to exploit the physical, human, and economic resources of an area to benefit the colonizing nation”. European countries achieved this though encouraging the development of single commodity based trading networks that would link the economic production from colonies to the demands of the colonizing power. By doing so, Europeans undermined the existing economic power structure and made Africa solely reliant upon Europe (Settles, p. 9). After extracting the necessary resources and exporting them to the home countries, colonial powers would then import the finished products back to their colonies and force natives into purchasing their products over ones produced by other natives. This widened the technology gap between Europe and Africa resulting in a lack of progression in African infrastructure leading to unbalanced trade. Due to the spread and development of colonialism in Africa, colonial powers permanently altered the natural development of the African economic system that can still be seen today.
The Union of South Africa became a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth in May of 1910 after British Parliament passed the South Africa Act in 1909 merging four British dependencies into one country (Byrnes, 1996, p. 178). This act failed to include the back majority from political participation which fueled discontent and foreshadowed the future of South African politics throughout the coming twentieth century. South Africa officially became the Republic of South Africa in 1961 after a national referendum amongst white constituents voted in favor of severing ties with the British Empire. This led to the creation of a constitution that maintained white political domination through an electoral system that denied blacks, coloreds, and Asians the right to vote (Byrnes, p. 249). Since 1951, the Bantu Authorities Act has restricted black political participation solely to the homelands set aside for native Africans since the Land Act of 1913, passed by British Colonial government, which established living spaces for natives who make up 75% of the population (Seidman, 1999, p. 422). It wasn’t until 1994 that South Africa had its first nonracial election which marked the official end of the apartheid regime.
Since the 1994 election the reconstruction of South African state institutions have involved open and public debates on how the new government should go about fixing the inherited inequalities of power left by the apartheid regime. Past policies from the regime are well and thoroughly integrated within the society. Since 1948 all South Africans were assigned to racial categories at birth. This caused issues as most legal and political rights were ted to racial status (Seidman, p. 421). Desegregation of social spheres remained a challenging tasks for post-apartheid governments.
Previously black South Africans were forced to carry passes that showed they had permission to travel between their designated “homelands” and “white” areas. This apartheid policy of “separate development”, according to McKeever (2008, p. 463), treated working Africans as temporary sojourners stuck in a circulatory migrant labor system that denied workers citizenship in the land of their birth while providing cheap labor to white-ruled South Africa. This resulted in a vast differences in development between these areas which continues even today to be immense. While the designated white areas were full of technological advances and successful infrastructure, the “homelands” of natives were left without the support of the government. With the majority of the population working outside of the reserves, there was little time or money being put into building up public works within these areas.
Since the first democratic elections in 1994, the European Union’s council of ministers agreed to promote a ‘package of immediate measures’ designed to support South Africa’s transition to democracy and its Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) (Gibb, 2003, p. 887). It prioritized trade as a tool in assisting the reintegration of South Africa into the Global Economy. Up until 1994, South Africa’s access to the Union market was deterred due to its position being at the very bottom of the EU’s privilege pyramid (Gibb, p. 887). This had also effected South Africa’s ability to trade with other economic powerhouses at the time, including the United States, Canada, and Japan. There was also another dramatic shift in South Africa’s economic relationship with the global economy.
By the 1990’s gold was no longer the backbone of the international financial system which resulted in South Africa, who was a large producer of the mineral, no longer being a wealthy state (Seidman, p. 431). South Africa’s economy had been shaped over the centuries by its abundant natural resources and by the attempt of immigrant populations to try and dominates these resources for their own profit (Byrnes, p. 182). The country’s mining industry provided the foundation for the evolution of one of the strongest economies on the African contentment. But by the mid twentieth century, changes in the international prices of gold revealed one of the lasting legacies of the apartheid, underdevelopment. Government policies that were intended to boost the economic and political power of the white minority excluded a majority of South Africa’s citizens and distorted the economy (Cooper, 1996, p. 324).
Basic needs were unmet, resulting in hunger, malnutrition, and undereducation, especially in rural areas. Industrial development could not be sustained through domestic resources, and there was stagnation in some areas when foreign capital was reduced in the face of strong international pressures for political reform. Because the mining industry continued to dominate the economy, wide fluctuations–especially in the price of gold–eroded currency values and reduced the country's ability to import goods. At the same time, keeping black wages low, which was crucial to profits in all areas of the economy, perpetuated the discrimination that provoked widespread protests and condemnation.
By the early 1990s, the weaknesses in the economy were increasingly evident despite the country's dazzling mineral wealth. Some segments of the population were poorer, and living in more difficult circumstances, than many people in far less developed African countries. Moreover, a poorly educated, impoverished majority of the population could not provide the skills and the resources that the country's infrastructure and labor market required. The government cast off the constraints of apartheid (see Glossary) in the early 1990s, in part to confront the serious economic problems caused by that system. The new government in the mid-1990s faces the enormous challenges of improving living standards and managing the country's resources profitably.