Discuss the implications Apartheid had on South Africa.

Apartheid is a term that is generally thought about when asked to discuss South African history. This

political system became one of the main characteristics of South African history both on a national

and international scale. This assignment will define Apartheid and further explore the political and

social implications that Apartheid had on South Africa (SA) by focussing on aspects such as political

isolation and social unrest, such as the Sharpeville Massacre.

However, before the implications are highlighted it is important to understand what is meant by the

term Apartheid. Apartheid is a policy of segregation that was legalised and placed in South African

society by the then leading political party, the National Party (NP).1 This level of segregation was

enforced in various sectors through laws such as the Group Areas Act of 1950 which ensured people

from different racial groups lived in specifically allocated areas. These laws were created to protect

the state from external factors that could have been interpreted as a threat to the government.

One factor in particular that threatened the government was increasingly widespread protests that

took place within the country. Although South African media restricted and censored these protests,

the international community had access to this information which understandably raised concerns of

the development of the country and wider region. Being part of the Commonwealth, the UK felt

responsible to try settle the internal disputes and find a solutions, which was further emphasized by

the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan’s ‘Winds of Change’ speech2. However this speech had

little effect as a year later, SA still hadn’t changed their Apartheid policies and decided to leave the

Commonwealth as a result.

Despite international countries putting pressure on SA to change their Apartheid policies, protests

happening within the country were becoming more popular as they were larger and well supported

by opposition political parties and trade unions. One protest in particular that caused international

outcry was the Sharpeville Massacre which started as a peaceful protest against carrying identity

passes and resulted in innocent people being killed by the police.3 The significance of this event

illustrated that the Apartheid laws were not only socially segregating South Africans but were

politically violating human rights as innocent people were getting killed for expressing themselves.

As a result, the international community took action and banned South Africa from participating in

international sporting events such as the Olympic Games.

1 Beinart, W., Twentieth Century South Africa, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p.95.

2 Lodge, T., South African Politics since 1994, (USA: Palgrave. 1999), p. 28.

3 Frankel, P., ‘An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and its Massacre’, Foreign Press, accessed on 26 July 2011,

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136576/tom-lodge/sharpeville-a-massacre-and-its-consequences

Comment [B1]: Great to include evidence in order to support what was discussed in the paragraph. This makes your structure stronger as it illustrates reasoning.

Comment [B2]: The number for your footnotes needs to appear after the full stop.

Comment [B3]: Take out all contractions to make your work more academic in nature. Therefore, hadn’t will become had not.

Comment [B4]: This sentence links what was just said in the previous paragraph to the next paragraph. This makes your work more structured and it flows better as well.

In conclusion, Apartheid was a dark part of South Africa’s history which claimed the lives of many

innocent people because of an ideology that was deemed as being appropriate by the leading

political party. However the decision to enforce such harsh policies in a country does not come

without criticism and implications, especially when innocent civilians are killed in protests such as

the Sharpeville Massacre.

Comment [B5]: Sign posting has been used in this paragraph to indicate that an alternative view will be included in the paragraph/ argument.

Bibliography

Beinart, W., Twentieth Century South Africa, Oxford University Press: UK. 1994.

Frankel, P., An ordinary atrocity: Sharpeville and its Massacre. London: Routledge. 2001

Lodge, T., ‘Sharpeville: A Massacre and its Consequences’, Foreign Affairs, accessed 26 July 2011

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136576/tom-lodge/sharpeville-a-massacre-and-its-

consequences

Lodge, T., South African Politics since 1994, USA: Palgrave. 1999.