Apartheid in South Africa 1960–1994

Apartheid in South Africa 1960–1994 is one of six Change in the Modern World options in Section IV. Unlike the essay sections (II and III), this section has one question in three or four parts (no choice of alternatives), and one part is worth 10–15 marks. Smaller parts usually ask you to outline, describe or explain, often using a source; the big part asks for a judgement. The syllabus key features are differing visions of democracy, the nature of apartheid, state terror and repression, resistance, social change, the collapse of apartheid and international responses.

• Survey: South Africa in 1960; apartheid ideology, policy and practice; its impact on rural and urban communities.
• Resistance: the ANC and PAC; the Sharpeville Massacre; Mandela and Umkhonto we Sizwe; the Rivonia Trial and Robben Island; Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement.
• Repression: the tactics of the government and the security forces; the Bantustans; relations with neighbouring states; international responses.
• The end of apartheid: political, economic, social and international factors; the problems of transition for the National Party and the ANC, to the 1994 election.

A note on language

Apartheid law classified people as ‘White’, ‘Coloured’, ‘Indian’ (or ‘Asian’) and ‘Black’ (officially ‘Bantu’ or ‘Native’). When you use these categories, make clear they were imposed by the apartheid state. The Black Consciousness Movement used ‘Black’ for everyone oppressed by apartheid. Avoid offensive historical terms except in quotation, and then only if needed.

• Population (roughly, 1960): about 68% Black African, 19% white, 9% Coloured, 3% Indian. White South Africans, about 60% of them Afrikaans-speaking, held political power.
• The National Party won the 1948 election; Hendrik Verwoerd (Prime Minister 1958–66) developed ‘separate development’. South Africa became a republic on 31 May 1961 and left the Commonwealth.
• Visions of democracy: a white-ruled state with separate ‘nations’ (the government); a non-racial democracy (the ANC's Freedom Charter, 1955); Africanism (the PAC); later Black Consciousness.

Impact on communities: in rural areas, overcrowded and eroded homelands on about 13% of the land, poverty and migrant labour; in cities, townships such as Soweto, hostels for migrant workers, pass raids and forced removals. The Surplus People Project estimated about 3.5 million forced removals between 1960 and 1983.

• Sharpeville (21 March 1960): police killed 69 people protesting against the pass laws (a PAC campaign led by Robert Sobukwe). State of emergency; the ANC and PAC banned (April 1960).
• The turn to armed struggle: Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), founded 16 December 1961 by Mandela and others; sabotage aimed at property. The PAC's armed wing, Poqo, was more willing to take lives.
• The Rivonia Trial (1963–64): eight accused, including Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki, sentenced to life imprisonment (June 1964); Robben Island. Oliver Tambo led the ANC in exile.
• The 1960s: a period of quiet in which the state appeared to have crushed resistance; detention without trial; the Security Branch.
• Black Consciousness: Steve Biko and the South African Students' Organisation (1968–69): psychological liberation, Black pride and self-reliance. Biko was banned (1973) and died in police custody on 12 September 1977.
• The Durban strikes (1973): the revival of Black trade unionism.
• The Soweto uprising (16 June 1976): students protested against compulsory teaching in Afrikaans; police opened fire; Hector Pieterson (12) was among the first killed; hundreds died as protests spread. Thousands of young people left to join MK in exile.

• P. W. Botha (Prime Minister 1978; executive State President 1984): ‘total onslaught’ and ‘total strategy’; the State Security Council.
• Reform: legal Black trade unions (1979, after the Wiehahn Commission); the Tricameral Parliament (1983–84) for white, Coloured and Indian South Africans but not Black Africans; the pass laws abolished (1986).
• Repression: states of emergency (1985, 1986); tens of thousands detained without trial; troops in the townships; censorship; deaths in detention; police hit squads (Vlakplaas).
• Neighbouring states: raids on ANC bases (e.g. Maseru 1982, Gaborone 1985); support for UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique; the war in Angola and Cuito Cuanavale (1987–88); Namibian independence (1990).
• The Rubicon speech (15 August 1985): expected reforms did not come; the rand collapsed; the debt crisis.

• The United Democratic Front (UDF, August 1983): hundreds of organisations; non-racial; opposed the Tricameral Parliament.
• The township revolt from 1984 (the Vaal uprising): boycotts, strikes, attacks on councillors; the ANC's call to make the townships ‘ungovernable’. Violence on all sides, including killings of suspected collaborators.
• COSATU (1985); church leaders such as Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize 1984); the Kairos Document (1985); the Mass Democratic Movement (1989).

• The UN: condemnation after Sharpeville; a voluntary arms embargo (1963), made mandatory in 1977; the 1973 convention declaring apartheid a crime against humanity; the Special Committee against Apartheid.
• Sport and culture: excluded from the Olympics from 1964, expelled from the Olympic movement in 1970; protests against the 1971 Springbok tour of Australia; the Gleneagles Agreement (1977); cultural boycotts.
• Economic pressure: the 1985 debt crisis; disinvestment campaigns; the US Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (1986, passed over Reagan's veto); European and Commonwealth sanctions. Britain under Thatcher and the USA under Reagan long preferred ‘constructive engagement’.
• Australia: governments under Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke supported sanctions; Fraser co-chaired the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (1986).
• The Free Mandela campaign: worldwide by the 1980s (the 1988 Wembley concert for his 70th birthday).

Problems of transition

• Political violence: about 14,000 deaths (1990–94), especially between ANC and Inkatha supporters; evidence of a ‘third force’ in the security forces.
• For the National Party: keeping white support (the 1992 referendum); protecting minority rights and jobs (the ‘sunset clauses’); the threat from the white right (the AWB).
• For the ANC: controlling its supporters, suspending the armed struggle, compromise with the government; tension with Inkatha and homeland leaders.

Worked example (not a bank question).

• _(a) Outline the aims of the Freedom Charter (1955). (4 marks)_ — ‘The people shall govern’; equal rights for all; sharing of the country's wealth and land; a non-racial South Africa ‘belongs to all who live in it’.
• _(b) Using a source, explain the impact of forced removals on communities. (6 marks)_ — Use the source's details; add own knowledge (Sophiatown, District Six, removals to the homelands, loss of homes and livelihoods, broken communities).
• _(c) Evaluate the effectiveness of the government's repression between 1960 and 1976. (15 marks)_ — Successes (the quiet of the 1960s after Rivonia, bannings, detention) and limits (Black Consciousness, the Durban strikes, Soweto).

The three parts total 25 marks, the value of Section IV. Spend your time in proportion to the marks: the paper gives 180 minutes for 100 marks, so roughly 1.8 minutes per mark (about 45 minutes for this section).

• Confusing Sharpeville (1960) and Soweto (1976).
• Saying apartheid ended in 1990; the transition ran to April 1994.
• Treating resistance as only the ANC; include the PAC, Black Consciousness, the UDF, unions and churches.
• Ignoring the violence of the transition, or blaming it on one side only.
• Forgetting international responses, which are a key feature.

• Use precise terms: apartheid, separate development, grand and petty apartheid, Bantustan, pass laws, banning, detention without trial, total strategy, sanctions, disinvestment, negotiated settlement.
• Show change over time: non-violent protest (to 1960) → armed struggle and repression (1960s) → Black Consciousness and Soweto (1970s) → mass resistance and total strategy (1980s) → negotiations (1990–94).
• In source parts, quote briefly, explain, and add your own knowledge.
• In the 10–15 mark part, make a judgement in your first sentence and return to it at the end of every paragraph.

• Civil Rights in the USA 1945–1968 offers comparisons of non-violent protest, mass movements and the role of leaders.
• The Changing World Order 1945–2011 covers the end of the Cold War, which removed one of the government's main arguments.
• The Pro-democracy Movement in Burma 1945–2010 and The Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square 1966–1989: other struggles against authoritarian rule, which ended very differently.