South Africa: The Republic of South Africa and Racial Strife

The Republic of South Africa and Racial Strife

In 1961, South Africa left the Commonwealth of Nations (whose members were strongly critical of South Africa's apartheid policies) and became a republic. The first president of the new republic was C. R. Swart; he was succeeded by T. E. Donges and J. J. Fouché. In the 1960s there were international attempts to wrest South West Africa from South Africa's control, but South Africa tenaciously maintained its hold on the territory. In 1966, Prime Minister Verwoerd was assassinated by a discontented white government employee. From the late 1960s, the Vorster government began to try to start a dialogue on racial and other matters with independent African nations; these attempts met with little success, except for the establishment of diplomatic relations with Malawi and the adjacent nations of Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland, all of which were economically dependent on South Africa.

South Africa was strongly opposed to the establishment of black rule in the white-dominated countries of Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia, and gave military assistance to the whites there. However, by late 1974, with independence for Angola and Mozambique under majority rule imminent, South Africa, as one of the few remaining white-ruled nations of Africa, faced the prospect of further isolation from the international community. In the early 1970s increasing numbers of whites (especially students) protested apartheid, and the National party itself was divided, largely on questions of race relations, into the somewhat liberal verligte [Afrikaans,=enlightened] faction and the conservative verkrampte [Afrikaans,=narrow-minded] group.

In the early 1970s, black workers staged strikes and violently revolted against their inferior conditions. South Africa invaded Angola in 1975 in an attempt to crush mounting opposition in exile, but the action was a complete failure. In 1976, open rebellion erupted in the black township of Soweto near Johannesburg as a protest against the requirement of the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in black schools. Over the next months rioting spread to other large cities of South Africa, resulting in the deaths of more than 600 blacks. In 1977, the death of black leader Steve Biko in police custody (and under suspicious circumstances) prompted protests and sanctions.

After Botha became prime minister in 1978, he pledged to uphold apartheid as well as improve race relations. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the government granted “independence” to four homelands: Transkei (1976), Bophuthatswana (1977), Venda (1979), and Ciskei (1981). In the early 1980s, as the regime hotly debated the extent of reforms, it launched military strikes on the exiled ANC and other insurgent groups in neighboring countries, including Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

In 1984, a new constitution was enacted which provided for a tricameral parliament. The new Parliament included the House of Representatives, comprised of Coloureds; the House of Delegates, comprised of Indians; and the House of Assembly, comprised of whites. This system left the whites with more seats in the Parliament than the Indians and Coloureds combined. Blacks violently protested being shut out of the system, and the ANC, which had traditionally used nonviolent means to protest inequality, began to advocate more extreme measures as well.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
The New South Africa
A Regime Unravels
The Republic of South Africa and Racial Strife
National Party Ascendancy and Apartheid
The Union of South Africa
Natural Riches and British Victory
The British and the Boers
Colonialism and African-European Relations
Early History
Government
Economy
People
Political Geography
Physical Geography
Bibliography

See more Encyclopedia articles on: South African Political Geography