20 questions · History
„Apartheid“ is simply Afrikaans for „separateness“, and as an election slogan it won the National Party the vote in 1948. Racial segregation was nothing new in South Africa; what was new was that it would now be planned to the last detail and written into hundreds of statutes. Every person was assigned a racial classification. Where you could live, work, go to school, whom you could marry: all of it followed from that. Black South Africans had to carry a pass book, the „dompas“; being caught without one meant prison. More than ten million arrests were made under those laws. Resistance gathered around the African National Congress, founded as early as 1912. In 1960 police at the township of Sharpeville shot 69 unarmed people protesting against the pass laws, many of them in the back. The ANC was banned and went underground; its armed wing was formed, and with it a young lawyer named Nelson Mandela came into view. At the Rivonia Trial in 1964 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent eighteen of his twenty-seven years on Robben Island, in a cell of four square metres, breaking limestone whose dust damaged his eyes for good. The government went further. In the so-called homelands, thirteen per cent of the land was meant to hold eighty per cent of the population, who would lose their South African citizenship in the process. Millions were forcibly moved. In 1976 schoolchildren in Soweto marched because they were to be taught in Afrikaans; the police opened fire, and the photograph of the dying Hector Pieterson travelled around the world. A year later Steve Biko, the mind behind the Black Consciousness movement, died of injuries inflicted in police custody. Outside pressure mounted: a sporting boycott, expulsion from the Olympics, a mandatory UN arms embargo in 1977, the Nobel Peace Prize for Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1984. The end came faster than almost anyone expected. In 1990 President de Klerk used a single speech to parliament to unban the ANC; on 11 February Mandela walked free after twenty-seven years with his fist raised. In 1993 the two men shared the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1994 every South African voted for the first time, in queues that ran for kilometres. Instead of revenge the new country chose the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: full confession in exchange for amnesty, in public and on television. A model half the world has copied and people still argue about.
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Separateness
It was an election slogan: the National Party won the 1948 vote with it and turned separation into a body of law.
💡 Did you know? Racial segregation existed in South Africa long before. What was new after 1948 was that it was planned to the last detail and written into hundreds of statutes.
A pass book
It recorded where you were allowed to work and live. Being caught without one meant prison.
💡 Did you know? More than ten million people were arrested under these laws; the pass book was the most hated symbol of the system.
Sharpeville
The crowd was unarmed and had come to be arrested deliberately without passes; many of the dead were shot in the back.
💡 Did you know? 21 March has been the International Day against Racism ever since. In South Africa it is a public holiday called Human Rights Day.
The ANC
Founded in 1912 and banned in 1960 after Sharpeville, the ANC then worked underground and from exile for 30 years.
💡 Did you know? When it was legalised again in 1990 it was the oldest liberation movement in Africa. It has governed South Africa since 1994.
Nelson Mandela
A lawyer, he helped found the ANC's armed wing and spent 27 years in prison.
💡 Did you know? A teacher gave him his English first name. At home he was Rolihlahla, which in isiXhosa means roughly „pulling a branch“: in other words, troublemaker.
The Rivonia Trial
Named after the Johannesburg suburb where police had raided the ANC leadership's hideout.
💡 Did you know? Mandela's statement from the dock ended by calling a free South Africa an ideal for which he was prepared to die. It lasted three hours and travelled the world.
Robben Island
He spent 18 of his 27 years there, in a cell of about four square metres, breaking limestone in the quarry.
💡 Did you know? The lime dust damaged his eyes permanently: in later years he asked photographers not to use flash. The island is now a World Heritage Site.
Homelands
Thirteen per cent of the land was meant to hold eighty per cent of the population; millions were forcibly resettled.
💡 Did you know? Not one country in the world recognised these „independent“ homelands. That was never the point: their purpose was to strip Black South Africans of citizenship.
Soweto
The trigger was an order to teach lessons in Afrikaans: the language of the people enforcing the system.
💡 Did you know? The photograph of twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson, dying in a classmate's arms, made Soweto impossible to ignore anywhere in the world.
Steve Biko
His Black Consciousness movement was built on self-respect rather than pleas for equal treatment: „The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.“
💡 Did you know? He died of head injuries after interrogation, having been driven 1,100 kilometres naked and shackled. The government claimed a hunger strike; nobody believed it.
The Olympic Games
Barred from 1964 and expelled from the IOC altogether in 1970: South Africa only returned in 1992.
💡 Did you know? The sporting boycott hurt more than some trade embargoes: rugby and cricket were part of the national identity, and suddenly nobody would play them.
An arms embargo
It was the first time the Security Council had ever imposed such enforcement measures on a member state.
💡 Did you know? South Africa responded by building its own arms industry and, in secret, nuclear weapons. Six warheads were dismantled again in the early 1990s.
Desmond Tutu
He called for sanctions when saying so counted as treason at home, and insisted throughout on non-violence.
💡 Did you know? The image of the „rainbow nation“ for the new South Africa is his: many colours, but one arc.
1990
Millions watched live as he walked out of Victor Verster Prison with his fist raised.
💡 Did you know? Hardly anyone knew what he looked like by then: publishing photographs of him had been illegal in South Africa for 27 years.
Frederik Willem de Klerk
In a single speech to parliament he unbanned the ANC and other organisations and announced Mandela's release.
💡 Did you know? In 1993 the two shared the Nobel Peace Prize: one had helped run the system, the other had spent 27 years inside it.
1994
The queues outside polling stations ran for kilometres; many people stood all day to vote for the first time in their lives.
💡 Did you know? 27 April is now a national holiday called Freedom Day. Mandela was sworn in as the first Black president on 10 May.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Anyone who confessed fully and could show a political motive could apply for amnesty: perpetrators and resistance fighters alike.
💡 Did you know? More than 21,000 people testified, many of them publicly and on television. The model was copied worldwide but stayed contested: forgiveness without punishment was too little for many victims.
The Rugby World Cup
Rugby was the sport of the white minority; to many Black South Africans the Springboks had been a symbol of oppression.
💡 Did you know? Mandela wore their green number 6 jersey at the final and a largely white stadium chanted his name. Few gestures have ever carried so much reconciliation.
Eleven
Alongside English and Afrikaans, nine African languages were given equal standing, among them isiZulu, isiXhosa and Sesotho.
💡 Did you know? A twelfth, South African Sign Language, was added in 2023. The national anthem is sung in five languages: it switches mid-song.
The rainbow nation
Mandela took up the phrase in his inaugural address: one people of many colours, meant to be at peace with itself.
💡 Did you know? The new flag of 1994 took it literally: six colours, more than any other national flag in the world.
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