Mandela was born into a time where South Africa was ruled by a white-only government. Blacks were not allowed to vote. The government had introduced a series of laws that increasingly dispossessed the Black and Coloured population. Over a period of time, this led to laws ranging from possession, such as forceable removal of land owned by non-whites, to living conditions, such as prohibition from using white-only buses and requirement to carry identity cards at all times.\n
\nIn 1948, one of the more extremist parties, the National Party, ran for election on a platform of legal racial segregation, a system that would become known as Apartheid (separation). The National Party won convincingly.\n
\nThe government moved quickly to define people into racial groups (black, white, coloured and Asian). It formalised existing racist practice and extended them through the introduction of laws that provided increasing rights to whites and increasing restrictions on everyone else. Blacks were stripped of their citizenships and \"allocated\" to Bantustans.\n
\nBantustans were land parcelled out by the South African regime to Black Africans. The Bantustans were land in the East of the country, split into ten reasonably arbitrary areas, and allocated to each of the ten ethnically segregated African tribes. This system helped underpin Apartheid by dividing Black Africans, encouraging each to protect their own identity and interests against those of the others. Blacks were directed to the Bantustans based on their racial origins. The land allocated to Bantustans was 13% of South Africa to house the 91% of the population that was black. The remaining 87% of land was allocated to the white population representing just 9% of the total. In practice, only around 55% of black Africans ended up on the Bantustans, with the remaining population living in townships, or slums on the outskirts of white towns. One reason the laws were not enforced was the need for whites' access to low paid black workers. The Bantustans were governed by corrupt rulers, which allowed white businesses to carry out activities such as gambling and nude review bars that were prohibited in white South Africa. Very little of the wealth generated from the Bantustans trickled down to its inhabitants.\n
\nApartheid laws were pervasive. They restricted the possessions of Blacks and others, such as land, and their rights, such as where and how they could travel. Access to jobs was restricted, which had the effect that non-white wages became negligible. Blacks were not allowed to vote. They were not allowed to marry whites. There was precious little social security for those without work or who were ill. State education for Blacks was almost non-existent. \n
\nThere were a great many laws, all of which were enforced brutally. Breach of the laws exposed blacks to violent and disproportionate punishment. Protest against the laws was also banned with equally brutal repression for those who sought to protest.\n
", "slide": "Mandela was black, born into a country ruled by a racist white-only government.\n
\nIn 1948, laws were introduced that segregated Blacks from Whites and Blacks of property, rights and citizenship, through a system that would become known as Apartheid (separation).\n
\nThe regime was rigidly enforced, at times brutally, resulting in abject poverty for the majority of Blacks and, for those who opposed the regime, in imprisonment, torture and/or death.\n
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Teachers Notes
Apartheid was based on colonial practices dating back to the times when the country was first colonised by the British and Dutch through force.\n