A Brief History of South Africa

         I'm trying to keep up with the blog poss every Sunday, but it's tough! Even though things have been getting very routine, and I have now begun to refer to Langerry Holiday Flats as "home," time has seemed to escape me more and more-- especially with school on top of everything.

          As I've been writing about my time in South Africa, I realized that I may have been referring to some things that everyone back home may not understand. I figure I should give a quick timeline of South Africa up until modern day.

Southern Africa

          South Africa has a very rich and complex history. Some of the oldest remains of human evolutionary ancestors have been discovered in its deserts. Several thousand years ago, South Africa was occupied by several groups of people. The San (Bushmen), who were only 4-5 feet tall, lived in central and southern South Africa. In the western and southern coast were the KhoiKhoi, a rival tribe of the San. In the East and eastern coast were the Bantu people (Zulu and Xhosa). The San eventually came in contact with the Khoi in the West, and have been sometimes referred collectively as the Khoi-San people. The Khoi-San people have left many cave paintings behind. Many of these cave paintings in the Eastern Cape and the Karoo desert depict the Khoi and San paintings painting their small bodies trying to fight off the intimidatingly tall and dark-skinned Bantu people of the East. In time as the groups mixed and mingled, language and culture was exchanged. Xhosa, for example is very prominent in the area where I am living now in the Eastern cape. Many of the black Africans still speak it.
        Xhosa is famous for being a "click language." It has three different clicks: 'X' is a click made from the inner cheek and tongue. 'C' is a sound you make from the back of your front teeth and tongue, and 'Q' is a loud click off the top of ones pallet. It's very cool to hear people speak it so fluently, especially the children.

Afrikaner Commandos during the Second Boer War.

          The colonization history of South Africa has many parallels to the United States. The first major arrival of Europeans was the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) in 1652. The company settled in what is now the Cape of Good Hope in current-day Cape Town. The DEIC built a trading post and port for ships passing by the cape. In about 1795, the British began their take over of the Cape of Good Hope as the DEIC went bankrupt. This take over caused some unrest between the "Boers" (the  Dutch and German settlers) and the British. The conflict was also over mineral wealth in South Africa. The Boers grew tired of the British control in Cape Town, and about 12,000 began a trek across central South Africa to find their own place to live as farmer They settled in central South Africa and fought the British in several wars that are referred to as the Anglican-Boer wars, or the now politically correct, South African Wars. Today, the name Boer has a negative connotation and is avoided.   The British were also at war with the natives as they pushed further inland trying to colonize the land. Forts still remain all over South Africa from the Frontier Wars with the natives. Many cave paintings of the Khoi-San and Bantu people can be found depicting British soldiers standing straight and tall holding their muskets. During this time, Africans and mixed/colored people were subjected to slavery, subservience to whites, and servitude. This was especially prevalent in the densely populated areas such as Cape Town. The overpowering technological superiority and knowledge of the white settlers put the native Africans at a disadvantage and made them out to be inferior. The racial separation (physically, socially, and economically) was already beginning to show. For example,  mixed descendants of the Holland and Germany, or Boers, eventually became known as the Afrikaaners, who speak a mix of German and Dutch referred to as Afrikaans. In the mid 1800s, the racial groups were Africans, Coloreds, Whites (British), and Afrikaaner. After the end of the second Boer war in 1910, the Afrikaaners and British eventually settled their differences and created the South African Union.

          Nelson Mandela was born in 1918, eight years after the creation of the Union. With the election of the National Party in 1948, came the oppression of Africans and colored people in South Africa with the employment of the racial segregation system: apartheid. Before this time, social and economic disparity was already present, and the British were looked up to as educationally and socially superior to Africans. For many non-whites at this time, it was an accepted reality that the whites were superior to themselves. Soon, the oppression of non-whites would become law. With the election of 1948, came oppression of the non-whites through legistlation. One of the most famous Acts was the Group Areas Act, which forcibly moved all non-whites out of the developed areas in South Africa, which were meant to be 'reserved for whites.' The government's reason for the act was 'good neighborliness,' since people meant to be separated into their respective groups where they could develop independently of each other and be 'with their own kind.' (If anyone reading this has seen "District 9, the movie is an allegory to the destruction of a township called District 6 as a result of the Group Areas act, which displaced thousands of people--in fact the entire movie is an allegory to the oppression of non-whites under apartheid). The  forced movement in 1949 left people unemployed since they were unable to afford transport into town where the majority of jobs were. In addition to transportation issues many homes were destroyed, families were separated, and township culture was destroyed. The act only gave non-whites (90% of South Africa) only 13% of the land, while the whites (10% of South Africa)  87% of the land. Without their old homes, shacks were erected in compact neighborhoods, and the non-whites became more and more impoverished without their ability to find work. These became the townships that are still around today. With activists like Mandela, and the creation of the African National Congress and other political parties, human rights movements became more and more prominent. The South African Security Force became violent against the protesters during their protests, boycotts, and peaceful demonstrations. They imprisoned thousands and killed hundreds of people (even more went missing). Even black on black violence became the main source of deaths, resulting in over 20,000 between 1990 and 1994. Eventually after enough conflict and demonstration, an agreement was reached in 1990. The government lifted the ban on political parties such as the ANC. After 27 years in prison as a 'political criminal' and a few years after his release, Mandela was elected president of the new South Africa.

          Granted, this is the whole history of South Africa in a page, there are some other major details missing, but in a nutshell, it helps to get a timeline together. I could have written pages about the last fifty years, but it would just be too much. But today, eighteen years later, South Africa still struggles with the socioeconomic disparities between the whites and non-whites and the after effects of the Group Areas Act. Even so, several of us have run into some pretty racist and bitter Afrikaners that have been open about expressing how they feel about non-whites. The other disparities I can see everyday for myself, especially when volunteering in Missionvale on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Well, in the next few days I will be putting up my Jeffrey's Bay and Hogsback trip blog. Keep an eye out.

Until next post,
Isaak