By Remote Writer for the Saker Blog
Whose Apartheid is/was the worst? This analysis will focus on the severity of South Africa’s Apartheid and will touch on other forms of Apartheid too. This article is motivated by The Saker’s call for action in seeking out the Truth, in his recent article: “Woke insanity: why is there so little pushback?!”
Before we proceed to South Africa, the following question is posed: What is/was the level of “Apartheid” (if any) in the following states/countries? Israel and Palestine (current/ongoing conflict); Ireland (Catholic and Protestant divisions in Northern Ireland); India (caste system); China (problems with ethnic minorities); Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador (Quality of life and education for indigenous peoples versus that for Europeans), Middle East (Sunni and Shia divisions); the formation and breakup of Yugoslavia; “Safe Spaces” for Woke?
Bearing that in mind, we now turn our attention to the Apartheid of South Africa (then and now).
The claim is often made that South Africa’s Apartheid was uniquely evil under the Afrikaners/Boers and that nobody could hold a candle to them (except perhaps Israel). First, we need to look at the definition of Apartheid. There are two definitions for it. When people refer to Apartheid, the first definition [below] is the one they usually refer to:
1. The term “Apartheid” was officially named a crime against humanity in 1966 by the United Nations General Assembly. The U.N. defined Apartheid as “inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over persons of another racial group and systematically oppressing them.” The National Security Council adopted a stance against Apartheid in 1984 as a criminal act (Resource 1).
2. The Afrikaner government who were the originators of the term “Apartheid”, defined it differently. For them it was based on the parallel (separate) development of the different nations within South Africa:
“My point is this that, if mixed development is to be the policy of the future of South Africa, it will lead to the most terrific clash of interests imaginable. The endeavors and desires of the Bantu and the endeavors and objectives of all Europeans will be antagonistic. Such a clash can only bring unhappiness and misery to both. Both Bantu and European must, therefore, consider in good time how this misery can be averted from themselves and from their descendants.
They must find a plan to provide the two population groups with opportunities for the full development of their respective powers and ambitions without coming into conflict. The only possible way out is the second alternative, namely, that both adopt a development divorced from each other. That is all that the word apartheid means.”
– Speech of the Minister of Native Affairs, 5 December 1950, South Africa
It is often stated that Afrikaner leaders were the architects of Apartheid, but about 80% of the segregation laws for the Apartheid policy were already in place (in some form or another) before Apartheid was created (Resource 2). Those foundational segregation laws were promulgated by the Dutch and British colonial powers prior to the Afrikaners coming into power in 1948 (Resource 14).
The Apartheid policy (its reasons and objectives), as it developed, was openly and transparently communicated to local and international audiences by way of press releases, newsreels (Resource 3), and documents made available by South African foreign missions abroad. Here is an excerpt from one such document, a booklet titled, ‘Progress Through Separate Development – South Africa in Peaceful Transition’:
“Cannot you understand us fighting to death for our existence? And yet we do not only seek and fight for a solution which will mean our survival but seek one which will grant survival and full development, politically and economically to each of the other racial groups as well, and we are even prepared to pay a high price out of our earnings for their future.” “We prefer each of our population groups to be controlled and governed by themselves, as nations are. Then they can cooperate as in a commonwealth or in an economic association of nations where necessary. Where is the evil in this?” (Resource 4)
Two sentences in the above statement stand out, namely (1) “… us fighting to death for our existence” and (2) “…we are even prepared to pay a high price out of our earnings for their future.” For context both of these need to be interrogated:
1. “Cannot you understand us fighting to death for our existence?”
This sentence stands out because South Africa was not at war at that time, so it must have meant something else:
The Afrikaners/Boers were drastically seeking a solution that would guarantee and secure their survival as a nation at the foot of the African continent – for several reasons:
- During the Anglo-Boer War (1899 – 1902) just 46 years prior to them getting into power in 1948, the Boers had lost virtually everything through a scorched earth policy enacted by the British. Their farms (30,000 were burned down), and their independence was lost, and very many of their women and children (26,000) died in concentration camps (22,000 were children under the age of 16). (Resource 5).
- The Boers had lost their internationally recognized Boer Republics as a result of the Anglo-Boer War, so they couldn’t draw borders around themselves for protection. Post-war they were incorporated into a union of nations (the Union of South Africa) by the Imperial British government in 1910. In 1948 the Afrikaners came into power and inherited this Union of South Africa, along with responsibility for all the nations within the Union.
- Demographic growth: The Afrikaners/Boers’ numbers and birthrates would have been much higher had they not lost so many females during the Anglo-Boer War. Moreover, their birthrates have always been much lower than African groups within South Africa (Resource 6).
- The European colonies in other African countries were systematically being disbanded through a process of decolonization which was fully supported (and initiated in some case) by European countries. At the same time Western and Eastern nations were vying with each other, and among themselves, for favor (access to resources) among newly decolonized and decolonizing African leaderships by supporting Pan-Africanism against the local whites in Africa (Resource 7).
- Afrikaners/Boers had no right of return to Europe, whereas whites in the other African nations did have that right (mainly British, French, Dutch, Belgian, Portuguese and German passport holders). Afrikaners held only South African passports. As a side-note, there were no Boer Republic passports, because the Boer Republics didn’t exist anymore after the Anglo-Boer War.
A common misconception is that Afrikaners/Boers are Dutch and can/should “go back to Europe”. Afrikaners are genetically, according to 2020 research, 34% to 37% Dutch, 27% to 34% German, 13% to 26% French and 6% to 12% non-European (mainly Asian and Khoisan). (Resource 8).
- The Afrikaners have no right of return to the Netherlands because in 1814 the Netherlands sold its temporary Dutch colony at the Cape (including all the Afrikaners/Boers) to the British for 3 million pounds sterling, with no right for them to return to the Netherlands. In other words, the Afrikaners were “sold lock stock and barrel”. To this day the Dutch do not recognize Afrikaners as Dutch, or that they have a right of return (Resource 9).
- The Afrikaners have no right of return to Germany, because the Germans who went to South Africa were single men, tradesmen, and artisans who migrated to South Africa for work and assimilated into the Afrikaner nation.
- The Afrikaners have no right of return to France because the French immigrants that went to South Africa were Protestant refugees escaping religious persecution in France after Protestantism was outlawed in the 1680’s. No right of return to France exists for Huguenots to this day.
The ‘no right of return’ concept is not something that is so out-of-the-ordinary. The same would apply for many/most Chileans, Argentinians and Uruguayans because they are descendants from several European nations with a blended heritage, for example from Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Poland.
Where would/could the Afrikaners go/have gone to? In their minds, they were/are already home (they consider/ed themselves to be White Africans), but after they gained power in 1948 they were also between a rock and hard place (no more Boer Republics). They decided to continue on with the segregation policies already put in place. At that time forms of segregation were also still in place in several other nations, such as USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The new objective with segregation (now called Apartheid) was for the devolution of the already existing traditional ethnic tribal Homelands into autonomous self-ruling ‘state-lets’ within greater South Africa. This devolution and self-rule would then pave the way for complete independence for each of the Homelands. In the interim, and even after independence, economic support would be available from the Apartheid state (Resource 4),
What was the reasoning behind that approach? The lack of industrialization in the Homelands caused an influx of migrant workers out of the Homelands to cities and towns in wider South Africa. This created the formation of townships (‘shantytowns’) on the outskirts of cities and towns by migrant workers (with resulting social issues). It has often been claimed that the Apartheid state “created” such townships, but they formed naturally because of that economic migration from the underdeveloped Homelands.
The populations of the tribal Homelands were becoming increasingly dependent on jobs far away, while not much modern development was happening naturally inside of them. The Apartheid state’s solution was to finance Homeland development (with state finances, i.e. white tax payers money, because black South Africans were exempted from taxes), so that there would be sufficient job creation and infrastructure development within the Homelands and their border areas, to reduce the economic migration. It was hoped such an aproach would result in reducing the informal settlement/squatter camp (and related) issues and would be the impetus for the long-term natural development of the Homelands.
2. “…we are even prepared to pay a high price out of our earnings for their future.”
- Between 1964 and 1973 the Homeland of Transkei alone had already received $152-million (USD) from the Apartheid government (Resource 10).
- By 1966 the equivalent of more or less (at the exhange rate at the time) $420-million (USD) had been invested in the development of border area industries neat to the Homelands and by that time 100,000 jobs had been created. (Resource 11).
- Between 1962 and 1972 the UN paid out $298 Million USD to underdeveloped countries. In that same period it is estimated that South Africa (the Apartheid government) spent $558 Million USD on the development of the traditional tribal homelands for Self Rule (Resource 12).
The above figures are rather significant, even by today’s standards. Should the be adjusted for inflation to the equivalent in today’s terms these sums become even more impressive. Could it be that the white Apartheid government invested more in the development of indigenous peoples’ regions, within a short period of time than any other Western nation in history? This would have to be verified through research, but that seems to be a distinct possibility.
It has frequently been stated by activists that the Apartheid government created the Bantustans (Homelands) and dumped black South Africans in them against their will and that these areas were the least habitable and least desirable parts of the country – that they are desolate places resembling the Gaza strip … But, what are the facts?
- The Homeland areas were originally inhabited by the Bantu African tribes during their migration into Southern Africa from the Great Lakes/Central and West Africa region (Resource 13). Clearly, Bantustans/Homelands were not created by the Apartheid government. Moreover, the outlines of the Homelands had already been confirmed by colonial administrations prior to Afrikaners coming into power in 1948 (Resource 14).
- The Eastern part of South Africa, where the Homelands are situated, is actually the most fertile part of the country with the best agricultural potential, not the worst, and this can easily be observed and verified by looking at maps and also by looking at rainfall figures and soil quality (Resource 15).
Were human rights abuses committed in the process of implementing Separate Development, which was one of the components of Apartheid? Was this policy implemented explicitly “… for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over persons of another racial group and systematically oppressing them”?
Separate development for Self Rule, which was the original South African meaning of Apartheid, does not seem to fit very well into the U.N.’s definition of Apartheid. That said, Apartheid had other components to it. In the rest of South Africa, outside of the Homelands, there were various segregation laws already in place that were inherited by the Afrikaners when they came into power. Those laws resembled the Jim Crow laws of the United States.
After 1948, the state increased the levels of segregation through Apartheid policies and in some cases removed some rights that had already been in place, like the voting rights for Brown people in the Cape Provence for example. Worse than that, it mandated that in some cases families had to be separated from each other when their members were of mixed ethnicity. Those were clearly human rights abuses and some of the most shameful excesses of the Apartheid regime.
If the worst excesses of South African Apartheid are considered as a benchmark for some of the worst human rights abuses of the nineteenth century, as has been claimed (Resource 16), then where would, for example, the caste system in India fall within the spectrum of worst human rights abuses? Or, for example, the forceful removal of aboriginal children from their families in Australia (the Stolen Generations) for assimilation into white families:
“Official government estimates are that in certain regions between one in ten and one in three Indigenous Australian children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970” (Resource 17)
Further on this subject, how were indigenous peoples treated in South America and Central America during the Spanish conquest and Portuguese colonialism, and how would that compare to the policy of separate development and/or Apartheid in general, in South Africa? The same questions could be posed about North American countries’ treatment of the indigenous peoples.
The point of the examples above is not to “embarrass anyone”, it is to make the point that the severity of South African Apartheid should be evaluated alongside all past and present segregation policies around the world where similar circumstances applied. Only through side-by-side analysis can an objective analysis be made. That’s the scientific method. Such a study has to date never been done. That’s perhaps for obvious reasons because the vast majority of people in the anti-Apartheid movements were/are from nations that would not escape scrutiny, should such an analysis ever be done honestly.
Why is such an analysis important? Because of the level of disinformation about what really happened during Apartheid. For example, in the document titled ‘Comparing South African Apartheid to Israeli Apartheid’ (Resource 1) the following claims are made about South African Apartheid:
- Claim: The Apartheid regime created the Bantustans. (Incorrect: They already existed in some form).
- Claim: Black citizens were made involuntary citizens of those Homelands. (Incorrect: Homelands were settled by Bantu tribes when they migrated into South Africa, although it’s true that not all people originally from Homelands wanted to return there against their will. There was strong support for Self-Rule among the leaders of the Homelands (sources available).
- Claim: The objective of the “creation” of the Homelands was for the demographic majority of whites in South Africa to be preserved. (Incorrect: The objective of industrializing and developing the Homelands and border areas was to draw Homeland inhabitants back to the Homelands in order to reduce the problems associated with migrant labor, such as informal settlements. In addition, much higher birth rates among African demographic groups presented numerous future challenges related to infrastructure development (carrying capacity) and water resources as well as the future of social and cultural cohesion. The separate development project of the Apartheid government was meant to deal with some of those problems in advance, while – as stated before – the policy would also preserve the survival of Afrikaners/Whites in South Africa. That objective was honestly stated in communiques by the Apartheid government.
- Claim: Apartheid was about keeping the best parts of the country for the whites and sending the black population to the least habitable, least desirable parts of the country. (Incorrect: The Homelands were and are the most fertile regions of the country).
- Claim: Blacks were forcibly removed and relocated to black homelands and much of their land seized during Apartheid. (Facts: It is true that many blacks were forcibly removed and relocated to Homelands, but in the majority of cases compensation was involved (Resource 18). White people were also forcefully removed – the Apartheid government forced whites out of the Homelands back into greater South Africa).
A common claim that is made about Apartheid (and/or Afrikaners/Boers) is that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of black people were killed during Apartheid. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report spearheaded by Rev Desmond Tutu (among other prominent black human rights activists), concluded that around 700 such deaths occurred in 46 years:
“Then there are people who argue that apartheid was a policy in terms of which huge numbers of black people were killed by the apartheid government. It is indeed true that black people were killed by the apartheid government, but the correct figures will come as a surprise to many people. The Human Rights Committee and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that roughly 21 000 people died in political violence between 1948 and 1994. Of those 21 000 people, roughly 100 were killed by white rightists and roughly 600 by members of the security forces. Roughly 19 000 people died following the ANC’s launch of the people’s war against competing black [black against black] institutions and organizations.” (Resource 19)
Finally, it would only be fair to evaluate what’s happening in South Africa today, as opposed to South Africa under Apartheid. How do South Africa’s racial policies in 2021 compare to the original Apartheid policies?
- By the year 2017, there had been no less than 1700 farm murders (many seem to be politically motivated) and 12 245 farm attacks according to the statistics of the South African police. Only a small number of farmers murdered are black farmers (Resource 20)
- Today there are more race-based laws in South Africa that discriminate against white people after 27 years of democracy than there were under 48 years of Apartheid and 38 years of British colonialism combined:
“The real problem, inadvertently highlighted by the controversy, is that such a large part of the media, civil society, and the DA do not see the ANC’s race laws as a problem. In fact, they are barely conscious that they exist at all. And yet it is simply impossible to understand South Africa’s predicament without reference to the ANC’s racial project, the plunder that this enabled, and the institutional and economic destruction that resulted.” (Resource 21).
For a few precious years in the early to mid-1990s South Africa was, for the first and last time, a country without operative racial laws. Over the past 26 years the ANC has put in place a web of binding racial requirements through constitutional provisions, legislation, white papers, regulations, charters, and party resolutions; as it has sought to advance through the different stages of the revolution, towards the goal of pure racial proportionality, everywhere. This article has documented some eighty of these, but this is not a complete list. It lists only a handful of regulations. By one count the ANC has incorporated racial requirements into ninety acts of parliament, excluding the Constitution, though many of these relate to the application of the “representivity” principle to the boards of statutory bodies. In addition, there are a number of judgments issued by the Constitutional Court, bending the interpretation of the Constitution in favor of the national revolution. ” (Resource 21).
Somehow the BDS movement has not picked up on these developments, but the question must be posed: “Does South Africa in 2021 (with its multitude of race laws, more than under the old Apartheid) qualify as “an Apartheid state” according to the U.N.’s definition of Apartheid?
The U.N. defined Apartheid as “inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over persons of another racial group and systematically oppressing them”.
When they came into power in 1948 the Afrikaner government wanted to secure a future for the Afrikaners/Boers within South Africa, because they had lost their Homelands (the Boer Republics), which were their cultural heartlands. They, therefore, assumed that the policy of separate development (self-determination through self-rule for everyone) would be welcomed.
They also believed that the only way to secure a future for themselves would be to at the same time also secure a future for all the other nations within the artificially created country known as South Africa. They believed that if they did not do that, their future within South Africa would not be guaranteed. In other words, they acted from a position of self-preservation, which is the most basic human instinct.
Were they just being paranoid?
The following policies among others are currently in development in South Africa, or are already being implemented:
- A land confiscation policy known as “Expropriation without compensation” is on the cards in South Africa. If this is passed it would be much worse than the Apartheid government’s forced removals to the Homelands and its resettlement policy in general because there will be no compensation. In other words, Afrikaners/Boers stand to lose everything, notwithstanding their historical developmental, economic, or financial contributions to the country or to black people in particular. (Resource 22).
- The Afrikaans language, the language of the Afrikaners and also the first language of many Brown people in the Western Cape, has been deemed “non-indigenous” to South Africa in a new language policy by the current South African government. Universities in South Africa are already implementing this new policy and the Afrikaans language has been removed as a main form of instruction. English has been installed in its place. (Resource 23).
- Affirmative action policies are in place that are formulated according to racial demographics. Higher birth rates for African groups mean higher growth numbers for them, meaning that whites are increasingly squeezed out of the economy for access to jobs, access to education, and access to government services. To an extent also applies to the private sector. (Resource 21).
- Covid relief funds in some sectors have been made available only to Black Empowerment beneficiaries, while white people did not qualify for financial relief. (Resource 24).
- Radical politicians in South Africa regularly call on their members to commit acts of violence with regards to farmers, with devastating consequences. Such actions (or worse) hardly ever make it into mainstream media coverage. (Resource 25).
The roots of all the current “wokeness” in the world are to be found in the selective blindness of the anti-Apartheid movements. Wokeness equals selective outrage and double standards with the objective to scapegoat. Most people have supported anti-Apartheid movements, but few are prepared to publicly denounce glaringly obvious discriminatory race policies against white people in South Africa in the present day.
Closing comments:
Some “experts in metaphysics” have claimed that Afrikaners/Boers “deserve” their current circumstances, because of “bad karma”. Apparently, according to them, it’s “just desserts” for their implementation of Apartheid policies in the past. If that is how Karma works (As ye sow, so ye shall reap), it would be interesting to see what the future holds for groups/individuals that have done or are doing, much worse things than were done by/under apartheid. How Karma really works is more likely based upon not bringing bad Karma upon oneself by wishing bad Karma upon others. Today we can see that a lot of South Africa’s problems regarding race issues have arrived in Western Nations too, while “the woke” are demanding their own apartheid: “safe spaces”.
…………
Resource 1:
Article/Report: Comparing South African Apartheid to Israeli Apartheid. itisapartheid.org. http://www.itisapartheid.org/Documents_pdf_etc/outlineapartheidproofedbyc8.15.12-old.pdf
Rescource 2:
Book: South Africa’s Greatest Prime Minister by Stephen Mitford Goodson (2016).P22. ISBN: 978-0-620-68123-0
Resource 3:
News Reel: Creation of the first Bantu state (1962). Pathé.
https://archive.org/details/creation-of-first-bantu-state-transkei-1962
Resource 4:
Booklet: Progress Through Separate Development – South Africa in Peaceful Transition (1963 – First Edition), P4.
https://archive.org/details/ProgressThroughSeparateDevelopmentSouthAfricaInPeacefulTransition
Resource 5:
Book: Apartheid, Britain’s B-Child by Hélène Opperman Lewis (2016).ISBN: 978-0-620-70223-2.
Resource 6:
South Africa population – 1910 to 2016:
(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/84g1vt/south_africa_population_1910_to_2016/
(2) https://maroelamedia.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SA-bevolking.jpg
Resource 7:
Book: Segregeer of Sterf (‘Segregate or Die)’ ) by HJJM van der Merwe (1961).
Resource 8:
Book: Huguenots at the Cape by Philippa van Aardt & Elaine Ridge (2020), P247. ISBN 978-0-620-85911-0.
Resource 9:
Book: AmaBhulu – The Birth and Death of the Second America by Harry Booyens (2014).P99. ISBN 978-0-9921590-1-6.
Resource 10:
Book: Progress Through Separate Development – South Africa in Peaceful Transition (1963 – Fourth Edition), P68.
Resource 11:
Book: Apartheid en Partnership by N.J. Rhoodie (1968/1971). P337.
Resource 12:
“… it is estimated that South Africa (the Apartheid government) spent $558 Million USD on the development of the traditional tribal homelands for Self Rule”.
Resource 13:
Video: How the Bantus Permanently Changed the Face of Africa 2,000 Years Ago (History of the Bantu Peoples)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2CkqHdkUcI
Resource 14
Booklet: Progress Through Separate Development – South Africa in Peaceful Transition (1963 – First Edition), Pages 59,61,63,64,65.
https://archive.org/details/ProgressThroughSeparateDevelopmentSouthAfricaInPeacefulTransition
Resource 15:
Video: South Africa – The Truth About Land:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3DnChEJpRU
Resource 16:
“If the worst excesses of South African Apartheid are considered as a benchmark for some of the worst human rights abuses of the nineteenth century – as has been claimed on occasion”:
https://www.countercurrents.org/chengu200415.htm
Resource 17:
Australia’s Stolen Generations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
Resource 18:
Video: Disrupted Land Documentary:
https://www.disruptedland.co.za/en/
Resource 19:
Article: Apartheid Deaths:
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/what-afriforum-did-and-did-not-say-about-apartheid
Resource 20:
Statistics: Farm Murders Racial Breakdown 1991 – 2018:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4428330-Farm-Murders-Racial-Breakdown-1990-2018.html
Resource 21:
Article: The many many race laws of the ANC:
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/the-many-many-race-laws-of-the-anc
Resource 22:
Campaign: Enormous Ramifications of Expropriation without Compensation:
https://irr.org.za/campaigns/kill-the-bill-stop-ewc
Resource 23:
Article [translated]: Politics is behind ANC, SU’s definition of Afrikaans as ‘foreign’:
Resource 24:
Article: ANC abuses COVID-19 to push racist agenda against SMME’s:
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/anc-abuses-covid19-to-push-racist-agenda-against-s
Resource 25:
Video: Arson targeting farmers all over South Africa (Oct 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqi6wUnXb4I
Warm wishes from early-winter South Africa,
Remote Writer
As an ex-SouthAfrican who left for Britain in 1956, eventually cheered Mandela’s Rainbow government, and has always been against Apart-Hate I have only one thing to add to the author’s able defense of DeKlerk’s Apartheid government. In condemning the Afrikaaners from the safety of England we did not understand that we were being played by the handful of Anglo Zio Capitalists who owned South Africa and very much wanted to go on owning it. The greatest threat to Anglo-American ownership of South Africa was the growing power of Afrikaaner businessmen, Afrikaaner bankers and the Afrikaaner Government. I think Anglo Zio Capitalists made a secret deal with the ANC: the AZC would give up Apartheid if the ANC would give up Communism. The result we see today: Less Colour Bar and even Less Financial Equality. I would say that the AZC has its financial grip even more tightly on Rainbow South Africa than in the 80-odd years of racially segregated governments from Smuts to DeKlerk.
In the heady 1960s-1980s I used to protests against Apartheid, and was pleased to see many Anti-Apartheid articles in main stream Anglo-American media. A Jewish businessman told me years later that a financial Run on the Rand brought down the last Afrikaaner government.
Looking back I can see that main stream support for our anti-Apartheid efforts was the first example of today’s well known AZC strategy of Attack from the Left: support Leftwing causes i that will help the AZC to bring down some Nationalist government that will not hand over its resources to Anglo Zio Capitalism. If you do not believe me, just try joining anti-Israel protests or the BDS movement, and see how much support you get from main stream Anglo America.
As for financial pressure I remember the Run on the Rand which brought down the Afrikaaner govt. Israel is a notorious Apart-Hate country. But whoever heard of financiers organizing a Run on the Shekel?
Interesting comment – I read something some time ago in a comment on The Conversation, that the Apartheid government was not brought down by left-activists, BDS, or even the Soviet Union or Cuba, but by a decision to revoke its loans by USA banks – a conservative government was in charge at the time. I’m posting the relevant parts of the comment – see link at the bottom for full comment:
“The International banking sanctions campaign launched by Archbishop Tutu and Beyers Naude at the United Nations in October 1985. President Mandela subsequently acknowledged that the New York banking sanctions campaign was the single-most effective initiative against apartheid. Because of the role of the US dollar as settlement currency in foreign exchange markets, access to the major seven New York banks was vital. Tutu and Allan Boesak mobilised the American churches to tell their New York bankers to make a choice between the banking business of apartheid South Africa and their pension fund business. David Dinkins, later mayor of New York City, told the banks to make a choice between apartheid South Africa and the payroll accounts of the City of New York. Following the Cape Town March for Peace on 13 September 1989, Tutu met high-ranking members of the Bush (senior) administration in Washington in early October.
… the Americans issued an ultimatum to the apartheid government to meet the first three demands when Parliament reconvened in February 1990, and the fourth and fifth by June 1990. Or else the Bush administration would support closure of loopholes in the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, and would prohibit any SA financial transactions in the US. Because of the role of the dollar, that would have effectively also blocked trading with the rest of the world.
President de Klerk saw “the writing on the wall” when he made that speech on 2 February 1990. There was certainly no “Damascus Experience”. The NY banking sanctions campaign continued until 1993 when Mandela decided that constitutional negotiations had finally reached the point where the transition to constitutional democracy was irreversible. Maggie Thatcher claimed the credit; in reality she was part of the problem. Two weeks after that meeting in Washington, she tried during the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Malaya to save the apartheid system when she announced that she Maggie, in conjunction with SARB, had extended SA’s foreign loans for another three years. By then she had already been outmaneuvered in New York and Washington.”
https://theconversation.com/fw-de-klerk-made-a-speech-30-years-ago-that-ended-apartheid-why-he-did-it-130803
Great comment Doctor!
As for “bringing down some Nationalist government that will not hand over its resources to Anglo Zio Capitalism”, I think that became clear when Saint Nelson became a poster boy for De Beers and Anglo American…
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/mining-giant-co-opting-nelson-mandelas-memory-33392
https://newrepublic.com/article/65032/mandela-diamond-shill
” support Leftwing causes i that will help the AZC”
The present phoney wokeness of Joe Biden et. al. is of course an example of this. But in as much as this suposed ‘left wing’ assists the bourgoeisie why are they called ‘left wing’.
Thank you Remote Writer. About time to cross the t’s and dot the i’s on this subject.
This documentary Disrupted Land gives a fine insight on the situation in rural South Africa.
Here is the link, hope it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhMqc7exTus
Anyone who judged South Africa’s Apartheid through what they observed in intl. MSM was totally deceived.
Yes, as almost in every case msm is filled with ignorance, incompetence, pure ideology, half-truths, misrepresentations, manipulations, fabrications and a pack of lies.
The most disheartening thing is, that many people still pay attention to these “papers” despite knowing they were consistently lied to.
It’s hard not to view msm journalist / orgs / funders as personal enemies. In the most benign case they have a different viewpoint, which they can openly and freely disseminate while being generously funded. All the while being openly against you and your interest, destroying all the social fabric that made up your former country – notwithstanding another “social” configuration, which is obviously much worse than the original.
Thank you for this report.
One understands the logic of Apartheid, but the project was doomed from the word go: the native, Africans were always going to consider the whites as intruders and colonists – and thus snatchers of their native land.
And of course, no one now mentions the fact that the Bantu were themselves migrants who settled on Khoisan’s and other “true” natives’ land. For the obvious reason that the latter people are a minority, and in situations of competition, the minority loses out, unless a wise leadership purposely enacts minority-protection laws.
This is not happening in South Africa, and won’t happen in the near future: there is no wise leadership now, and the level of anti-Boer ill-feelings and outright hatred among the black South-African is shockingly high, and can be expected to grow, and these murders and thefts will only increase…
And they will be less and less reported on in the prevalent “woke” craze gripping Western leaders and their media: no one will stand for, or even just report on, a while population oppressed by their black fellow countrymen – with de facto blessing from the black government.
The situation of the Afrikaners is therefore extremely sad, as no one will help them.
A solution would be Russia, as one of the few countries with large tracts of fertile but under-farmed land, to settle them in parts of Siberia and the Far-East, where they could farm quietly with no persecution… They are only 2.7 million, and they could be settled in different areas where space can still be found. (An “Africaner Raion” would perhaps be out of order…)
Superficially, this seems to be a good solution, but:
1. The Afrikaner/Boer population doesn’t seem very intend on leaving their homeland and identity behind. This means that –
2. They won’t be compatible with the Orthodox Russian culture. It’s an open secret nobody likes to talk about, but no Russian wants to have a thriving and growing population in their backyard, which is incompatible to the Orthodox way of life. I think this viewpoint is correct, because Protestantism is a very distinct cultural-religious phenomenon, which directly contradicts Orthodox Christianity. E.g. all sects of Christianity are under well deserved scrutiny in Russia right now. Which leads to
3. Either Boers/Afrikaner assimilate to Orthodox culture, if they want to live there or face extinction if they do not emigrate to another place. Sadly, this is the truth. Most emigrate to Anglo countries. I met some of them in Germany.
Even if you have distinct religious minorities living in Russia, in their historic region like Muslims in the Caucasus, the problem with Christian sects is fundamentally different. It’s possible to live with other nationalities with different religions in defined boundaries than trying to in-cooperate a similar people with different moral and ethical principles. This is why “brotherly” conflicts can be the most devastating, because it’s a question of who decides the civilizational vector of your people. Look at Ukraine, look at Belarus, both are Russian peoples, but for the well known historical reasons have become broken into parts.
If Russian leadership is smart they won’t let their civilization be broken into parts again – quite the opposite, finally smash the enemies at the border and within. Unification is the only way, that any people will survive the 21. century.
Good point. From any basic chemistry course we all know that “like dissolves like”.
Even if the cultural distinctions were to be overcome, Russia has a completely different climate to South Africa, and northern hemisphere seasonality. Perhaps Australia or NZ would be more natural choices…
What is DA and BDS?
Interesting information, but the apartheid quotient of various states/civilizations has not been undertaken.
The definition of woke leaves something to be desired.
Woke people see something upon waking up.
So what do they see. Well, they see the dynamics that critical theory informs them of.
And what does critical theory inform?
Well, revelations such as how your motivation to publish a book is a sublimation of unconscious libido (Freud).
Or you statements about economics are determined by your class background (Marx).
It is this secret insight which disqualifies anything people themselves say (determined by social/economic/psychological forces), and renders dialogue and discussion moot.
Of course the people doing the deconstruction are themselves subject to critical examination (how all their ‘insight’ itself is determined by ‘forces’ beyond their ego) in an infinite mirror style of recursions, but most are not critical/woke enough to realize that.
D.A. stands for Democratic Alliance – it’s the liberal (predominantly English) party in South Africa and the official main opposition party to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The D.A. are partially woke while claiming to be classical liberals at the same time, which is why they are accused in that article of failing to see the ANC’s race laws as a problem. It is the same D.A. that somehow failed to notice that the Afrikaans language was systematically being sidelined over time, yet failed to take a position against that until the language got “cancelled” (in woke-speak) from universities. After that (the horse had already bolted) they all of a sudden became the motivated cheerleaders for restoring the Afrikaans language in those universities. Liberals play a double-game (revolving door between being liberal and being woke), which is why the D.A. has lost a lot of support during the last couple of years, especially among Afrikaners.
BDS Movement: One of the main activist movements that campaigned against Apartheid in South Africa. Also the most prominent activist group campaigning against Apartheid in Israel.
Good article. Comparing the Wikipedia article on “plaasmoorde” with the Wikipedia on “Black Lives Matter” has struck me as a good example of disinformation:
If you’re against white-on-black violence you’re a “political and social movement”; if you’re against black-on-white violence it’s a “heavily disputed claim”.
Very interesting article. Thank you for your work. Some very interesting people lurking in the shadows of the vineyard.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127890/gini-coefficient-in-south-africa-by-area/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20governmental,of%20income%20in%20a%20country.
“According to the latest governmental data from 2019, the Gini coefficient in South Africa was 0.65 points in 2015, with lesser inequality in income within the rural areas of the most southern country of Africa. The Gini index gives information on the distribution of income in a country. In an ideal situation in which incomes are perfectly distributed, the coefficient is equal to zero, whereas one represents the highest inequality situation.
South Africa had the world’s highest inequality in income distribution.”
I highly recommend watching this very recent discussion at the Black Management Forum where it is explained why BEE (Affirmative Action) has failed and is failing in South Africa.
‘Ernst Roets at Black Management Forum on the failure of BEE’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezqJFfUW64s
The main point: The more income is distributed to black South Africans through extreme policies that favor them and give them easy access to everything (government and private sector jobs, contracts, handouts, funding, support, etc) the more dependent they get on the easy access and the less entrepreneurial they are.
For the whites in South Africa it’s the reverse. The more they are blocked, limited, restricted and pushed out of all of the above, the more entrepreneurial they become, because they have no other choice – and this had caused them to generally thrive and even become more successful (and affluent in some cases) than before.
This has predictably (as always) lead to blaming white people’s continued ability to thrive even under difficult circumstances, as evidence that they are still “exploiting and discriminating against black people”. The objectives of BEE/Affirmative action was actually to impoverish whites in South Africa, and to enrich blacks, but has had the opposite effect and that’s also considered the fault of the whites (obviously…).
Nevertheless, in this debate in the link you will see Afrikaners are still reaching out to debate these issues with their black countrymen and working on fostering cooperation and collaboration among the races.
Interesting article as being dispassionate rather than PC, it seems that while white racism is rightly wrong, absurdly black racism gets a free pass. And as we are seeing in the US black racism can be very nasty, although I see now there are the rational blacks now saying the whole woke thing is getting out of hand and in reality helps no one and solves nothing.
As to Karma (as mentioned) it exists in both personal, racial and national levels, being that we create our own circumstances and act as a group in the formulation of others. And of course wishing ill Karma on others is indeed just creating negative Karma for your self, both actions and thoughts create influence. For those that subscribe to karmas twin reincarnation, this occurs over quite long periods of time, the original Afrikaans have not had time to return as the current, we are born into suitable circumstances where ever that might be and pass through all races and sexes.
Everything Jesus said is correct, turn the other cheek and love your neighbor. Revenge and anger do us no personal good, don’t wish ill on others, their are mechanisms that hold everyone to account, there is no escaping these, regardless what you call them.
“their are mechanisms that hold everyone to account, there is no escaping these, regardless what you call them.”
Indeed, Gravel Rash, yes indeed!!
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. Rev. 22:12
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Romans 12:20
“In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the Lord will reward you.” Proverbs 25:21-22
Thanks
The Afrikaner sold out to the Anglo Zionists. They could have easily made SA a white only state but they chose to keep the tribesman around for cheap labour. Cheap labour to get all those resources for their Anglo Zionist masters. Who do you think was the architect of apartheid? Without capital and technology from the west the regime would have collapsed.
So the Afrikaner can bitch and moan all they want about the current genocide against them but they truly were the architects of their own future extinction. From Piet Retief to idiot FW De Klerk the expectation that God would magically appear to save them from a species that holds different or no values is insane.
The Anglo Zionists got their gold from the apartheid regime and now they get it from the ANC regime. South Africa, her Majesty’s 6th eye.
“… but they chose to keep the tribesman around for cheap labor.”
– And how do you propose they should have “gotten rid of the tribesman”? What the Spanish colonists did in parts of South America? In some of those countries virtually no indigenous peoples left, mostly (e.g. Argentina, Uruguay). Boers are judged while others get a pass – wokeness in play.
“Cheap labor”
– There’s not a country in the world that doesn’t make use of cheap labor. If the Afrikaners didn’t provide jobs for the unskilled laborers they would have been accused of depriving blacks from jobs and discriminating against them. When they do provide jobs for them they are accused of “exploiting blacks for cheap labor”. Your comments perfectly exemplify (the roots of) woke thought.
“Who do you think was the architect of apartheid?”
– Yes, it’s obvious isn’t it? It wasn’t the Afrikaners – they just refined it.
“The Anglo Zionists got their gold from the apartheid regime …”
– Yes, that’s what the Anglo-Boer war was about, who doesn’t know that, but blame it on the Boers (boring).
Your points about ANC correct.
My wife is Uruguayan, and, yes, there are no Guarani in Uruguay. The last one died as an ‘exhibit’ in a freak-show in France. Paraguay is something like 75% Guarani; I don’t have an explanation for this discrepancy. The uncle of my wife’s cousin was President Lugo of Paraguay; he is maybe half Guarani. Lugo’s brother, my wife’s cousin’s father was politically active and eventually attained refuge in Sweden (one story: when cousin Carlos was visiting family in Paraguay, and complained about all the hardship caused by their political motivations, they ignored him and switched the conversation from Spanish to Guarani).
My paternal grandfather was a Lithuanian jew who moved to South Africa with his sister. He ended up in the U.S., but she stayed. All her descendants have left for Australia and New Zealand. Not mentioned in the article are the nukes. Wasn’t there a big clandestine israeli-South African cooperation, the result of which were several nuclear bombs?
It’s surprising that your wife is Uruguayan, but she doesn’t know that the indigenous people of Uruguay were the Charrúa people (Guarani are, so I’m told, specific to Paraguay in that region). Apparently pure Charrúa now basically non-existent – you can ask her about that. A Uruguayan confidante told me once that the few remaining Charrúa people ran away to Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, but they mixed and assimilated with those peoples. He also said that to this day the Charrúa people who have returned to Uruguay are not allowed to register their children names as Charrúa names – only Spanish names allowed – in case that they they try to claim land that were lost when they were forced off the land. He said that in Uruguay there have been some activist and rights groups that have been fighting for that, but with limited success (and that Uruguayans generally avoid talking about what happened there). The only reason why this – and other similar issues – are so unknown is because everybody has been using Apartheid in South Africa to avoid some attention to their own internal historical affairs …
As for the development of Nuclear weapons in South Africa, apparently they procured know-how from several states, including Israel (unofficially). Just like other states (e.g. Pakistan, Iran) that developed such capabilities clandestinely, the real variety of sources of such development remain unknown.
Unlike all the other states, the Afrikaner government decommissioned those weapons voluntarily when they exited their seat of power when the country transitioned to democracy – probably the only nation/state in the world to have willingly given up such weaponry once developing them.
“If the Afrikaners didn’t provide jobs for the unskilled laborers they would have been accused of depriving blacks from jobs and discriminating against them.”
Only if they are in the same country. In a seperate country where only Boers lived the cheap labour would be Boer labour. This is what seperate development would mean and it obviously requires physical seperation. Anything else is called ‘having your cake and eating it’.
Johnny, I guess the next thing you are going to tell us is that all those Anglo and American owned gold & diamond mines in South Africa have only employed white English people …
Worrying about South Africa while losing Europe to Sharia Law, that makes perfect sense.
“He who defends everything defends nothing” Frederick the Great, Prussia, but that is the plan.
He who doesn’t pay attention to what’s happening in other places will have no idea what’s coming to him next. You must be naive to think that Expropriation Without Compensation will be limited to South Africa if it succeeds there.
“Worrying about South Africa while losing Europe to Sharia Law, that makes perfect sense.”
ad hominem removed … mod
Before this ongoing demonization campaign following 9/11, Muslim immigrants lived in European countries in peace and harmony, and were treated fairly, and they in turn respected the laws of Europe and were eager to assimilate and become Europeans themselves.
Now the ziomedia tells Europeans that the Muslims are taking over their countries, and provokes them to hate and mistreat the Muslims, like this gT creature is doing.
Muslim refugees without a penny to their name are not taking over Europe.
Jewish trillionaires already did that ages ago, and nobody in Europe did anything to stop them.
If the European “freedom-lovers” think they are tough, reclaim your countries from Global Zionism! Leave the poor war-torn homeless oppressed Muslims alone.
What an informative article.
I remember when they kept telling us that the Hague tribunal for my ex-country (Yugoslavia) was going to give us “truth and reconciliation” just like in South Africa…
It looks like neither of us got truth nor reconciliation…
As for those who commit terrible acts in the name of “Karma” (eye roll) : God knows the score and there will be justice, this side or the other.
I sympathize with the Afrikaaner, but there was and is no good solution to this classical problem of Man as presented in the land of South Africa. Apartheid, like Marxism, Liberalism, Capitalism etc. are all modern heretical inventions that may look good on paper sat at the end of the day are exposed for their lies.
A rich and prosperous (White) society living alongside a poor (Black) society is always a recipe for failure. Such a situation amplifies pride, greed, envy, jealousy, anger, bearing grudges, and a host of other illnesses / sins. Neither Apartheid nor any political system can remove these from the heart of Man, so the system collapses. But South Africa is no better off.
In the ancient world God gave us via the Jews the annual Sabbath, Year of Jubilee, where debt was forgive and land returned to original owners, and other mechanisms to reduce greed and inequality and to help reduce our exposure to the resulting passions.
Complaining about “Wokeness” is now a favorite past-time of snowflakes in White colonial settlers nations, first and foremost, the United States–and apparently, refugees of apartheid South Africa.
It is another bogus “cultural war” issue that Conservatives are pushing in order to absurdly present themselves as “victims” and to whip up their political base with a grievance mentality.
In short, these anti-Wokeness people are the mirror image of the minority Woke people that they deride: Both groups are wallowing in Victimhood politics and having a Pity Party for themselves.
Poor soul, you missed the point completely.
On the first level It’s about logical structure of the theory, which is inconsistent and contradictory – full of double standards and hypocrisy.
On the second level this is about modernity and it’s bastard child liberalism materially realised in its human incarnations like Foucault, Derrida… .
On the third level it’s about how “wokeness” is a tool of the power elite. Instead of racism against a minority to insure supremacy of the elites, it’s racism against the majority to break it into pieces and insure continued liberalism (as in total renunciation of any collective identity: First God, 2nd. belonging to a people, 3rd. nation/country, 4th gender, next your human identity).
You can roughly distinguish it through the categories of traditionalism and modernism. Traditionalism is not to be confused with, let’s put in your terms, political “right” victimhood policies.
A good and precise description of the current situation.
Wow! This really cought my attention. Amazed and in a state of disbelief, I forwarded this to my step father who is a leading historian of South African history. Also discussed this with other family who were activists and it seems that this revision of history is largely skewed.
Perhaps read his co authored book, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/People-of-the-Dew-%3A-a-history-of-the-Bafokeng-of-to-Mbenga-Manson/dd46ea3090ae1512b35906e09a44388729697b42
Perhaps ask him for a counter article to add balance to this one.
I am quite sure that he will be ok with not being a “Remote Writer for the Saker Blog” without taking responsibility for his word.
As a follower of the Saker for so long this one really is a disappointment to stumble over:(
“… it seems that this revision of history is largely skewed.”
Why not rather ask him to comment here and refute the points in the article one by one. As you can see all points in the article are referenced.
To date the history of South Africa, but especially Apartheid, has been grossly skewed by activists in particular. See for example the part in the article about the skewed claims made between South African Apartheid and Israeli Apartheid. That would be a good starting point for your father’s counter-article. Ask him to prove those claims correct, as opposed to incorrect, and also ask him to write about who were the countries that brought the resolution to the UN that Apartheid is a crime against humanity and what were their human rights track records at the time? Also ask him whether South Africa today qualifies as an Apartheid state by the UN definition, considering all it’s current race-based laws that explicitly exclude white people from equality.
” that both adopt a development divorced from each other. That is all that the word apartheid means.”
It would have worked if they had actually done that.
Actually doing that would involve all the Afrikaaners moving to the same place and effectively declaring themselves independent from the Union of South Africa, i.e. their own bantustan. Then they could have hewn their own wood and drawn their own water, with every job description performed by afrikaaners. Class strugle would have taken place between people of the same race and language.
Seperate development means physical seperation.
Most seemed to have mistaken the status quo for something which would last forever, the way people do. Plus there was so much to give up in the here and now.
After Apartheid is abolished in a country allway comes reverse apartheid, like on SA, then its followed by reverse apartheid.
There is no such thing as “reverse-Apartheid”, there is only Apartheid – or not.
This comment is in relation to an article that appeared on Groundup.org.za titled:
“It’s apartheid, say Israeli ambassadors to South Africa”
https://www.groundup.org.za/article/israeli-ambassadors-compare-israel-south-africa/
It’s not clear whether the writers know the true facts, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that they simply accepted (like most people did), the anti-apartheid activists’ version of the facts regarding Bantustans, and point out errors in the article – sources can be found in the main article at the top of this page:
First of all, South African Apartheid was never an occupation of South Africa or an occupation of Bantustans, neither were Bantustans created by the Apartheid state – the formed naturally (see Resource 13). The sizes of the Bantustans were never reduced either, they were in fact enlarged by the Apartheid state – land was added to them (well recorded sources in South Africa exist).
White people during Apartheid did not create white settlements within Bantustans while pushing the black people out of them, rather it removed white people out of the Bantustans so that Bantustans could be culturally self-determining and self-ruling without undue white influence from within them – this was part of the Separate Development policy of the South African state (see Resource 4).
In the case of South Africa the infrastructure development was specifically for the black citizens of the Bantustans, not for white settlement enclaves within them. The Bantustans were formed naturally and separately from each other, because that’s where different black tribal groups (linguistically and culturally) settled when migrating into the region from Central Africa (Resource 13) – it was not the Apartheid state that separated the Bantustans from each other (or created them in the first place).
Any expropriation that happened in South Africa of black owned land were compensated and in many cases more than once – financially and in land/property (see Resource 18) – as the Apartheid state in many cases built whole new neighborhoods that they moved people into (one example is when people were moved out of District Six into the newly created Mitchell’s Plain).
The whole objective of separate development was to give the already existing Bantustans more autonomy, not less – that was the policy of Separate Development (made very clear to the international community – see Resource 4).
The statement below (taken from the article linked) with regards to the Bantustans in South Africa is in light of the notes above almost completely counter-factual:
“The bantustans of South Africa under the apartheid regime and the map of the
occupied Palestinian territories today are predicated on the same idea of
concentrating the “undesirable” population in as small an area as possible, in a series
of non-contiguous enclaves. By gradually driving these populations from their land
and concentrating them into dense and fractured pockets, both South Africa then and
Israel today worked to thwart political autonomy and true democracy.”
The black South Africans inside South Africa all originated from within the Bantustans and migrated out of them into greater South Africa where many of them settled over time. They did not originate from within greater South Africa and pushed into artificially created Bantustans. The reverse is true – greater South Africa was artificially created by the British in 1910, but the Bantustans already existed long before that.
Bantu African tribes were historically never found in the South Western parts of greater South Africa as it was Khoi-Khoi/San territory. Then came the Dutch and French and after them the English, so in other words if we put the arrival of peoples into the greater South Africa region into the proper chronological order, then white people arrived before Bantu Africans in the South West part of South Africa (before “South Africa” was created as one country in 1910).
After some years of trying very hard to make the Separate Development policy for autonomous Bantustans work in South Africa, with enormous financial investments into the project (see Resources 10, 11, 12), the Apartheid government scaled back as it had no choice but to admit that due to lack of will for self-determination and autonomy (among black people locally) and due to outright resistance internationally to the idea of autonomous Separate Development, the project had failed. They then also scaled back and abandoned general Apartheid policies in the rest of South Africa too. This happened already 30 years ago by now when most Apartheid laws had already been discontinued.
The article linked continues to make incorrect equivalences between Israeli and South African Apartheid, but there were in fact huge differences between them. South Africa is still (once more) under Apartheid (many old Apartheid laws were retained and just adjusted for the current version), but this time under Black-rule Apartheid. The more things change the more they stay the same, but the double standards of old and new “wokeness” is one thing that will probably never change.
Further on the above: Although the Bantustans/Homelands existed long before 1910 when the Union of South Africa was created by the British, those territories were demarcated officially by the British after the Union of South Africa was created.
One person’s dismissive Bantustan is another person’s native reserve, homeland, kingdom, or crown lands also described as “lands set aside for the occupation of natives” with largely their own government structures by the British South Africa Act, 1909.
Few scholars are apparently aware that these so-called “Bantustans” were identified by the British South African Native Affairs Commission, 1903-1905 and consequently gained constitutional protection from 1910 – see sections 122, 147, 155 and par 14 of the Schedule of the (British) Union of South Africa South Africa Act, 1909.
The Apartheid government after 1948 then proceeded toward creating further autonomy for the Bantustans through the policy of Separate Development, which ultimately failed (as mentioned above).
Today these Bantustans are classified as 10 monarchies (12 when including the Lesotho and Swaziland kingdoms which already had complete sovereignty, even though land-locked within South Africa – the idea was to give the other Bantustans the same sovereignty) are protected and advanced by among others sections 143(1)(b), 211, 212, 219(1)(a) and 235 of the new South African Constitution of 1996.
These tribal kingdoms had always been African monarchies (they were not ‘declared’ to be monarchies in 1994-1996 during the transition to democracy), but for political purposes their status has been misconstrued as ‘enclaves created by Apartheid’. To this day, even within the new South Africa, they have special autonomy, but are also still supported by the South African state, so the previous setup hasn’t changed much.
Dear Readers of The Saker’s Blog
Many thanks for your comments and inputs on the article and for your keen interest in the real history, background and facts about Apartheid in South Africa. In summary, and as a complement to the discussion so far, I am posting two (rather frank) comments for further context by one of the most informed, political commentator’s in South Africa, who regularly comments under the name Jack Klock in commentary sections:
1: “The apartheid policy was based on the recognition that many different nations live in a centrally governed unitary state created by British Empire building. In that process all indigenous nations, including Afrikaners, were subjugated. It took Afrikaners 46 years years to regain political power and they knew how irksome it was to be ruled over by strangers. They did not want to rule over other nations (Zulu, Xhoza, etc) but lead them to self rule and eventual independence in their own countries.
When this policy was fought by the leftist establishments locally and abroad, especially the ANC influenced ANC, first via propaganda and eventually with armed insurrection and international sanctions, it foundered. Any attempts by the Nats to find alternatives were blocked by the demand by the ANC for a hand over of power unconditionally.
Ironically the western powers tried blocking communist expansion all over the world – Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe etc, but they supported the SACP dominated ANC’s objectives in South Africa. The local opposition press also did so in a big way.
Attempts by the former government at maintaining law and order and rounding up the saboteurs and suitcase bomb planters were presented as oppression. These people hid among the local population and sniffing them out and arresting was portrayed as persecution. Many black leaders did go along with the self rule and independence offers. They were also sabotaged and even persecuted by the ANC.”
**
2: “The history of South Africa did not start in 1948. The Nats were not dealt a clean sheet of paper when they came to power, they inherited a system where non-whites had no political power anyway. They also inherited a situation not of their own making namely a centrally governed unitary state with a population make-up which was the result of imperial conquest.
They further had to contend with the fact that for 46 years after Afrikaners lost their Boer Republic independence the British dominated Union of SA did not in the meantime take any steps to plan or regulate how the country would be governed far into the future, with the exception of the 1913 Land Act and the 1936 Act on the consolidation of tribal land.
The whole idea behind apartheid was that white South Africans should never again be governed by another nation. The Nats acknowledged that there are ten black nations within the borders of South Affrica as well as other minority groups and were prepared to lead these nations and groups towards firstly self rule and eventually independence. They were also prepared to make the necessary sacrifices in order to achieve this in the form of investing in upliftment of these nations as well as infrastructure in the tribal areas.
How would you go about achieving this? Especially as the former colonial powers made a 180 degree turn around after WW2, suddenly proclaiming colonialism to be a bad thing and that universal franchise, which invariably would mean black rule, had become the in-thing? The Nats devised a policy that would shield South Africa from this disastrous new world mindset. And disastrous it was as can be seen in all the failed states it created across the whole African continent.
All over Africa in colonies like Kenya, Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique, Morocco etc it was openly stated that white rule was wrong and majority rule had to prevail. The local white communities resisted but because their number were too small, eventually capitulated and left their homes and properties as refugees
In South Africa itself this tactic did not work.
The stubborn Boers refused to acknowledge that they were colonial expats. Their forebears landed as far back as 1652 and most Afrikaners could trace their lineage back for many generations. In addition whites settled in the Cape 118 years before their descendants met up with black 600 miles east of Cape Town. So the colonial argument did not carry much weight and apartheid became the next best target because it stood in the way of the post WW2 western mindset.
We must also not ignore the huge role played by the decade long struggle between the western capitalist economies and the communist ideology of the USSR. Africa became the battle field and South Africa was pivotal in the struggle for the minds and hearts of black Africa. Both used apartheid as the scapegoat and were prepared to sacrifice white rule for black support in the UN.
The irony is that apartheid was practiced in all former colonies, even in Europe, the USA up to the 1960s and today certain countries would not exist and live in peace with their neighbors were it not for apartheid e.g. in the Balkans. The partitioning of the former unitary state of India into India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, was that not apartheid? When Australia and New Zealand only accepted white immigrants, was that not apartheid? There are so many examples.
The question now is why did apartheid not succeed to lead the various black nations to independence. There are many factors but the huge success of the Nats’ economic policies must carry part of the blame. However, it is not quite politically correct to mention the other major factor but I will do it anyway. The various black nations have difficulty in handling independence and managing their own affairs, which leads to limited development and growth.
Therefore individual nation independence [self-rule of Bantustans/Homelands] had to be sacrificed for majoritarian rule in a unified South Africa and whites are expected to carry the burden of always uplifting and financing blacks. The fact that there are not enough of us to be able to do this has resulted in the situation we are in today. The present socialistic set-up has bankrupted the economy and brought economic growth to a halt. The population grows at 3% but the economy at less than one.
I can understand why the ANC hates apartheid. It effectively thwarted their aspirations to institute a black ruled socialist state for more that 50 years. Having apartheid labeled as a crime against humanity legitimizes their struggle against a legitimately elected government and all the crimes they committed in the process, not only against whites but also against blacks. It is also a wonderful excuse for their own failures. But I fail to understand why all right minded people willingly accept the extremely one sided narrative of the ANC and its facilitators.”
All the best and thanks again for your interest,
Remote Writer