South Africa is a nation with an extremely complex history. Up until recently, this country has faced many obstacles in establishing themselves. There have been severe equality issues since the fourteenth century and the early settlements. For most of history, there has been tension between the native people and the people who happened to land on the tip of Africa in their attempt to find trading routes. This is truly where South Africa’s problems were established. It took hundreds of years for these tensions to ease and it will likely be many more years until South Africa achieves the unity they are seeking. It took many strong and brave people to get South Africa to where it is today. The main figure in the unification of South Africa was Nelson Mandela and his group of young freedom fighters. Mandela inspired change in his nation that he loved deeply and also inspired the world with his actions.
In this paper, I am going to give a synopsis on how South Africa was ruled prior to the Apartheid system as well as afterwards. Although South Africa has ended the legal segregation that was in effect for roughly fifty years, they are still struggling with the ripple effect of the policies. South Africa is currently going through a tough time economically. It is very clear that this is a direct effect of the Apartheid system. Essentially, given that the Apartheid system only ended about 20 years ago, South Africa and their newly founded democracy are still struggling to establish themselves as an equal and prosperous nation to the rest of the world.
To understand the complex nature of South Africa, it is important to understand the basics of this country today. South Africa is located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa. This is a relatively large country as it is almost twice the size of Texas. The population is concentrated along the southern and south eastern coast. The country has three capitals that each have different governmental roles. One capital is Bloemfontein which is located in the center of the country and is responsible for judicial system of the country. Pretoria is another capital and is located in the north east region of South Africa. This capital is the administrative capital. The final capital is Cape Town and is located at the southern tip of the country. Cape Town is the legislative capital. South Africa is only one of a handful of countries with several capitals.
The total population of South Africa is just above fifty-five million as of July 2018. The population is made up of about eighty-one percent black African, about nine percent colored African (which is the term that South Africa uses for persons of mixed-race ancestry), about eight percent white and about two and a half percent Indian/Asian. While the majority of the population is black African, there are many different cultural groups with different languages. There are tribal groups that have their own languages and it causes some difficulty in communicating across the entire country. South Africa has named eleven different official languages in order to try and accommodate for as much of the country as possible.
The government structure of South Africa had gone under serious changes during the late nineteen-eighties and the early nineteen-nineties. Prior to nineteen ninety-four, there was an authoritarian culture in place. In nineteen ninety-four, Nelson Mandela was elected the head of the new democratic parliamentary republic. This government structure had proven successful and represented the people of South Africa the best. The people are able to pick their leaders based on the things that they deem the most important. This structure also makes it so that no part of the government becomes too large and powerful. That aspect was extremely important to the “new” South Africa because the authoritarian establishment was what allowed there to be the apartheid system.
South Africa is now broken into three inter-connected branches that each serves an important role. The legislative branch consists of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces. Following the new constitution in nineteen ninety-seven the National Council of Provinces replaces the former senate with essentially no changes in membership or party affiliations. However, the responsibilities of this Council had changed to be more of a protector of ethnic minorities. In ordinary legislation, there is a coordinate power system, but in this case, all proposals for appropriating revenue or imposing taxes must be introduced in the National Assembly.
The executive branch is made up of the president, deputy president and the ministers. The President is elected by parliament from its members. The ministers individually, and the Cabinet Collectively, are accountable to Parliament for their actions.
The judicial system is the final branch. It is an independent judiciary that is based off of Roman-Dutch law and English Common Law. The bill of rights in South Africa’s current constitution gives the right to a fair, public trial. The American judiciary system and the South African judiciary system are very similar as far as contract law, common law, and civil proceedings. Unlike the United States, in accordance with South Africa’s mission of being a nation for all South Africans, sexual orientation discrimination is strictly forbidden. Also, there is no death penalty in the South African judicial system.
The part of South Africa that is struggling the most right now is their economy. They have a serious problem with unemployment. It is at a staggering twenty-seven and a half percent. Only a handful of nations have a higher rate. This issue is a direct effect of the Apartheid on the black and colored South Africans. Education was extremely sparse for non-white people in South Africa between nineteen forty-eight and nineteen ninety-four. Since most of the population grew up during the Apartheid system, most non-whites are still uneducated. They were so down economically that once the Apartheid ended, they still could not afford higher education. Although there is now technically economic mobility to them under the law, they are still unable to get professional jobs. At the end of the day, most career jobs are looking for educated people with hirable skills. The non-white South Africans who grew up during the end of Apartheid were able to receive education and are now in position to get professional jobs. Considering that only about eight percent of the population was never affected by the Apartheid system, the majority of the population has been set up to fail even after the Apartheid laws were thrown away. This still leaves most of the population without the ability to get jobs that can sustain them. Around fifty percent of the population lives under the poverty line.
The economic struggles of South Africa can be seen in their biggest cities, all the way to the small remote villages. South Africa’s wealth is in the hands of a few people at the top. The wealthy are very wealthy, and their middle class is small. This has led to such a large amount of people living under the poverty line. There is an enormous wealth distribution issue throughout the country. Most of the wealth has remained within the white South Africans hands with no way to fix it in sight.
The apartheid in South Africa was the institutional segregation against the colored and black South Africans. Apartheid when translated from the Afrikaans literally means “apartness”. South Africa’s National Party government supported the ideology of apartheid and introduced it to the nation in nineteen forty-eight. At its core, apartheid was the separate development of the different ethnic groups in South Africa. It was presented publicly that it would support equal development and cultural freedom for all. However, that was not the case. It actually caused racial groups to live differently and develop differently. Naturally, that also meant it was extremely unequal. Social integration between racial groups was not allowed and if you were in correspondence with someone of another race, there was suspicion brought on you. The majority of the South African population was at an extreme disadvantage because they did not share the same race as the people who were ruling the country. Prior to the implementation of apartheid in nineteen forty-eight, segregation was an issue in South Africa. However, it was never enforced and backed by the law.
The apartheid came during a troubling time in world history as it was at the back end of World War Two. The world saw the atrocities of what discrimination and hate were capable of. As the world was beginning to move away from being tolerant of discrimination, South Africa was moving much more aggressively towards discrimination. Several laws were passed by the National Party to ensure that their ideas of apartheid would work. The basis of apartheid was the Population Registration Act of nineteen fifty. This law required all people to register to the Department of Home Affairs whether they were white, colored, black, or Indian/Asian. This allowed the government to have a record of each person and then treat them differently based on their racial group.
Another essential law to the apartheid was Group Areas Act of nineteen fifty. This law was put into place to establish separate physical areas for each race. Urban areas were the places where this law was mostly made for. It forced groups out of areas and into different areas designated for them. This forced allowed of non-white people to commute extreme distances in order to get to their jobs in cities. This act later co-existed with the Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act of 1959. This act required that different groups had to live together in their designated areas. This meant that non-white South Africans were left a small percentage of the country to live in. The white minority was given the most amount of land and the non-white majority was left with not much land to all live in. Non-whites were not allowed to live in the cities and had to rent places to live from the white people in outside townships.