History
The earliest recorded inhabitants of this area of Africa were the San (Bushmen) and the closely related Khoikhoi (Hottentots). The next arrivals were Bantu-speaking tribes who, by the 11th century, had settled the northeast and the east coast and, by the 15th century, most of the eastern half of South Africa. These tribes were pastoral but had trade links throughout the region. They were Iron Age peoples, and the smelting techniques of some tribes were not surpassed in Europe until the Industrial Revolution.
The Dutch East India Company established the first European settlement in South Africa at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. The settlers developed a close-knit community with their own dialect (Afrikaans) and Calvinist sect (the Dutch Reformed Church). Slaves were imported from other parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.
Over the next 150 years, the colonists spread east, coming into violent contact with Bantu tribes. In 1779 the eastward expansion of the Boers (Dutch-Afrikaner farmers) was temporarily halted by the Xhosa in the first Bantu War.
Further Boer expansion was hastened after the British annexed the Cape in 1806. The abolition of slavery in 1834 was regarded by the Boers as an intolerable interference in their affairs, and led to migration across the Orange River two years later. This became known as the Great Trek.
Pressure on the Bantu from both the Boers and the British caused political and social changes among the tribes of the Natal area, resulting in the rise of the Zulu king, Shaka, in the early 19th century. His policy of total war on neighbouring tribes caused immense suffering and mass migration in a period known as the difaqane (the scattering).
The Boers came into this chaos in search of new lands, and the British were not far behind them. The Zulu were eventually defeated, but relations between the Boers and the British remained tense – particularly after the formation of the Boer republics of the Free State and the Transvaal.
Diamonds were discovered in 1867 at Kimberley, followed by the discovery of gold in 1886 on the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (Jo’burg). The Boer republics were flooded with British capital and immigrants, which created resentment among Boer farmers.
The British imperialist Cecil Rhodes encouraged a rebellion among the heavily taxed – but nonvoting – English-speaking miners in the Transvaal, with a view to destabilising the Boer republics and encouraging British intervention. The resulting tensions led to the 1899–1902 Anglo-Boer War.
The war ended with the defeat of the Boer republics and the imposition of British rule over the whole country. Britain had pursued a scorched-earth policy to combat Boer guerrillas, destroying homes, crops and livestock. During this time more than 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died in the world’s first concentration camps.
Independence & apartheid
In 1910 the Union of South Africa was created, which gave political control to the whites. Inevitably, this prompted black resistance in the form of strikes, and political organisations were formed. Despite the moderate tone of these early resistance groups, the government reacted by intensifying repression.
The Afrikaner National Party won the election in 1948. It went even further in excluding nonwhites from having any political or economic power, and the security forces brutally enforced its laws. Violence was a routine method of reaction to any opposition or protest. The suppression of black resistance ranged from the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the shooting of school children in Soweto in 1976, to the forcible evacuation and bulldozing of squatter settlements and the systematic torture – even murder – of political activists, such as Steve Biko.
One of the most important organisations to oppose the racist legislation was the African National Congress (ANC). As it became obvious that the white rulers were unwilling to undertake even the most cosmetic reforms, guerrilla warfare became the preferred option for the ANC. In the early 1960s, many ANC leaders were arrested, charged with treason and imprisoned for long periods; the most famous of those was Nelson Mandela.
The system of apartheid was entrenched even further in the early 1970s by the creation of the so-called Black homelands of Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana and Venda. These were, in theory, ‘independent’ countries. By creating the homelands, all blacks within white-designated South Africa were deemed foreign guest-workers and as such were without political rights. Any black person without a residence pass could be ‘deported’ to a homeland.
Meanwhile, South Africa was becoming an isolated case in the face of successful liberation struggles in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, which brought Marxist-leaning governments into power. As a result, a war psychosis came to dominate government thinking, and resulted in the invasion of southern Angola by South African armed forces. The South African Government also gave encouragement to counter-revolutionary guerrilla groups in both Mozambique and Angola, and refused to enter into genuine negotiations for the independence of Namibia.
The international community finally began to oppose the apartheid regime, and the UN imposed economic and political sanctions. The government made some concessions, including the establishment of a farcical new parliament of whites, coloureds (people of mixed race) and Indians – but no blacks.
The ‘reforms’ did nothing to ease sanctions. After the 1989 elections the new president, FW de Klerk, instituted a program that was aimed not only at dismantling the apartheid system, but also at introducing democracy. The release of political prisoners on 11 February 1990 (including Nelson Mandela), the repeal of the Group Areas Act (which set up the homelands), and the signing of a peace accord with the ANC and other opposition groups all opened the way for hard-fought negotiations on the path to majority rule.
The post-apartheid era
The country’s first democratic elections took place in 1994, and across the country at midnight on 26–27 April, Die Stem (the old national anthem) was sung and the old flag was lowered. A new rainbow flag was raised and the new anthem, Nkosi Sikelele Afrika (God Bless Africa), was sung. In the past people had been jailed for singing this beautiful anthem.
In the first democratic election in the country’s history, the ANC won 62.7% of the vote; 66.7% would have enabled it to overrule the interim constitution. The National Party won 20.4% of the vote, enough to guarantee it representation in cabinet. Nelson Mandela was made president of the ‘new’ South Africa.
In 1999, after five years of learning about democracy, the country voted in a more ‘normal’ election. Issues such as economics and competence were raised and debated.
There was some speculation that the ANC vote might drop with the retirement of Nelson Mandela. However, the ANC’s vote increased to the point where the party came within one seat of the two-thirds majority that would allow it to alter the constitution. The National Party lost two-thirds of its seats, losing its official opposition status to the Democratic Party. Thabo Mbeki, who took over leadership of the ANC from Nelson Mandela, became president in the 1999 elections.
While Mbeki is viewed with far less affection by the ANC grass-roots than the beloved ‘Madiba’ (Mandela), he has proven himself a shrewd politician, maintaining his political pre-eminence by isolating or co-opting opposition parties. The 2004 national elections were won decisively by the ANC with 70% of the votes, with Mbeki at the helm, and today continues its dominance in daily political life.
Yet it has not been all clear sailing. In the early days of his presidency, Mbeki’s effective denial of the AIDS crisis invited global criticism, and his conspicuous failure to condemn the forced reclamation of white-owned farms in neighbouring Zimbabwe unnerved both South African landowners and foreign investors.
South Africa today
In the coming years – in addition to choosing a successor for Mbeki, who has announced that he will step down in 2009 – attention is likely to focus overwhelmingly on crime, economic inequality, overhauling the education system and, especially, AIDS. With an estimated 4.5 million South Africans affected – more than in any other country in the world – this scourge threatens to eclipse all of South Africa’s other problems.
In many ways the real work of nation building is only now beginning. While the political violence that was threatening to engulf the country in the early 1990s has for the most part disappeared, racial and cultural divisions remain entrenched. Monuments, museums and other cultural heritage sites giving tribute to black South Africans and other previously excluded groups have been springing up across the country and filling a long vacant gap. Yet many have served to re-spark old tensions, and debate continues on all sides about which version of history is the ‘real’ one.
Perhaps the biggest attention grabber in South Africa’s ongoing struggle to define itself as a nation has been Freedom Park – a multimillion dollar venture on the outskirts of Pretoria that is intended to give a sweeping overview of South African history. When finished, it will span the millennia from humankind’s earliest beginnings up to the present, including a memorial to apartheid-era freedom fighters. The park, which has been lauded by President Mbeki as the country’s most important national monument, is set directly opposite the Voortrekker Monument –for years an icon for most Afrikaners and a despised symbol of colonial-era injustices for many other South Africans.
What’s the next step? While almost all South Africans agree that things are better than before, no-one has quite been able to agree on which way forward will best balance out the diversity that is the country’s greatest asset, as well as its biggest challenge. There has been talk of building a road joining Freedom Park and the Voortrekker Monument. If this road ultimately comes to be seen by those on all sides as a symbol of a united path into the future, then it will have truly captured the emerging spirit of the new South Africa and the country will be well on its way to rebuilding itself as a ‘rainbow nation’.
