South Africa: Apartheid and its opponents (1948-1975)

Updated February 2011

When, to its surprise, the National Party (NP, as the Reunited National Party was renamed after its absorption of its coalition partner, the Afrikaaner Party) came to power in May 1948 it had no clear policies formulated, for apartheid was no more than a slogan (Bienart 2001, 145, 145; du Toit, BM 1970, 542, 543). The focus of its legislative programme in the 1950s was to segregate Whites from people of colour in all aspects of social life: sex and marriages between Whites and other race groups was outlawed, the population was classified into rigid "race groups", suburbs were segregated and Blacks were moved to the periphery of the cities, day to day interactions between races were minimised through the segregation of public amenities, the machinery of bureaucratic control over African, especially in the urban areas, was expanded and the carrying of passes was extended to African women for the first time in 1956 (Beinart 2001, 147, 151-153, 158; Malkin 2008, 143, 144). Measures were taken to undercut the bargaining power of Black labour and advance the position of White labour through expanding the range of jobs reserved for Whites, African were prohibited from striking and were forced to form their own trade unions and in 1950 the Communist Party of South Africa was banned (Lewis 1990, 14, 15; Beinart 2001, 147, 155-153). The party was re-established as an underground organisation in 1953 as South African Communist Party or SACP). The government took control of education for Africans and dismantled what little provision had been made in the past for higher education, while secondary education was allowed to deteriorate so as to reduce the ability of Africans to compete with Whites on the labour market; as a result Whites born in 1940 had on average 11 years of schooling to eight years for Indians, six years for Coloureds and four years for Africans (Lewis 1990, 35; Beinart 2001,159-161; Fedderke & Simkins 2006,33).

In 1956, after bitter constitutional struggle waged from 1951 onwards, the Coloureds in the Cape were removed from the common voters' roll and instead elected four White representatives to Parliament (Beinart 2001, 149-151; Malkin 2008, 143, 144). In the late 1950s the homeland policy was adopted, which proposed the balkanisation of South Africa into ethnic "homelands" for Africans that were intended to eventually to become independent states (Malkin 2008, 143; Beinart 2001, 162-164). The consequences of these measures were devastating for Blacks, for they were stripped of their remaining political rights, vibrant urban communities were destroyed, large scale social dislocation took place (about 60 000 people were expelled from "White suburbs" in Johannesburg in February 1955 alone), economic hardship was created and the human dignity of people of colour was assailed on a daily basis (Malkin 2008, 143, 144; Beinart 2001,152-154, 158; South African History Online 2006). For Africans in particular, rural men were forced to choose between migrant labour or an illegal life in the cities, either of which separated many husbands and wives, and Africans were subordinated to the control of White bureaucrats in the urban areas and to councils controlled by traditional authorities in the homelands (Beinart 2001, 161).

The measures provoked opposition from South Africans of all races. As early as 1949 the African National Congress (ANC), under the radical youthful leadership of Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, adopted its militant Programme of Action that called for mass action through strikes, boycotts, mass protests and civil disobedience (South African History Online Undateda; Beinart 2001, 150, 154). A number of organisations mobilised liberal Whites and Coloureds to protest and boycotts, while spontaneous protests erupted in the rural areas, culminating in the Pondaland uprising of 1960 (Beinart 2001, 164, 165). Black Communists joined the ANC, the Natal Indian Congress or the Coloured People's Congress, while Whites founded the Congress of Democrats, and these four groups, together with the small South African Congress of Trade unions, coalesced into the Congress movement that cordinated mass mobilisation (Beinart 2001, 154, 165, 166; Williams 2006, 8, 9). In 1952 the movement launched the Defiance Campaign against unjust laws by breaching them, over 8 000 people were arrest and membership of the ANC soared from less than 5 000 people in 1949 to about 100 000 (Beinart 2001, 155; South African History Online Undateda). The government banned ANC president Chief Albert Luthuli in 1952 and bannings and imprisonments of opposition leaders became commonplace (Beinart 2001, 155, 166; South African History Online Undateda). The Congress of the People was held in 1955 at which the Freedom Charter was adopted by delegates from the movement calling for the implementation of a social democracy in South Africa (Beinart 2001, 155, 166; South African History Online Undateda). Bannings, police raids and arrests were intensified, culminating in the arrest of 156 Congress leaders in December 1956, but all were either released or found not guilty of treason (Beinart 2001, 155, 166; South African History Online Undateda).

The lack of progress in reversing or even halting the implementation of apartheid, combined with concern about the role that Whites and Communists played in the Congress movement, led to the formation of the more militant Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) under Robert Sobukwe in 1959 (Beinart 2001, 166). The PAC led an anti pass law campaign in 1960 and in March the police opened fire on a crowd of PAC supporters gathered around a police station in Sharpeville, killing 69 people (Beinart 2001, 166). In response to the public and international outcry, and the imminence of intensified mass action, the government declared a state of emergency, deployed troops, undertook mass arrests of ANC and PAC activists (by May 18 000 people had been arrested and in August 10 500 were still in detention) and banned both organisations (Beinart 2001, 166; South African History Online Undatedb).

Laws were passed from 1960 onwards that strengthened the powers of the government to ban organisations, to permit searches without warrants, to allow for detention in solitary confinement without trial for 90 days (renewable at the pleasure of the Minister of Justice), to shift the burden of proof to the accused, to make bannings of people more restrictive, to increase the number of offenses for which the death penalty can be sought, to detain released prisoners indefinitely and various measures to reduce the powers of the courts to exercise oversight or review of executive actions (South African History Online Undatedb). In 1961 the ANC and the SACP to set up an armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), while the PAC set up Poqo, and MK and Poqo engaged in acts of sabotage on public installations, but while MK was careful to avoid civilian casualties Poqo was less restrained (Beinart 2001, 168; Williams 2006, 9, 18, 19). Over the course of the next few years the leaders and active members of the ANC, SACP and the PAC were tried and imprisoned, or banned and placed under house arrest, or driven into exile, so that by the mid-1960s their structures inside South Africa had been destroyed (Beinart 2001, 168; Williams 2006, 19-22).

The events of 1960, and those that followed, galvanised international opposition to apartheid and Security Council resolutions were adopted calling for a voluntary arms embargo in 1963 and mandatory diplomatic, trade and transport isolation in 1967, while South Africa's mandate over South West Africa was revoked in 1966 (South African History Online 2006). In 1963 Egypt banned South African ships from the Suez Canal and South African Airways was excluded from flying over independent African states (South African History Online 2006). South Africa was expelled from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, was forced to withdraw from the International Labour Organisation, walked out of the World Health Organization and was expelled from the Universal Postal Union (South African History Online 2006). Sport isolation loomed with South Africa's suspension from FIFA and its eventual expulsion in 1976; South Africa was expelled from the International Olympic Movement and banned from competing in the Davis Cup in 1970 (South African History Online 2006). Prime Minister Dr Hendrik Verwoerd's response was dismissive, for the NP had won an absolute majority of the vote for the first time in 1958 (55.7% of the vote), had suppressed internal dissent and then narrowly won a referendum on South Africa becoming as republic in May 1960; Verwoerd was confident of his grip on power and certain of the correctness of his government's course of action (Beinart 2001, 168). South Africa became a republic in May 1961 and was forced out of the Commonwealth later that year (South African History Online 2006).

After 1945 population growth accelerated, reaching 3% per year on average in 1970s and while the White population declined as a proportion of the population from 20.8% in 1946 to 15.7% in 1980, over the same time period the African population increased from 68.6% to 72.4% (Lewis 1990, 22; Beinart 2001, 353). This was despite the immigration of over 1 million whites between 1947 and 1985 (Lewis 1990, 22). Urbanisation increased steadily from 38% in 1946 to 54% in 1980 while the African ratio rose from 23% in 1946 to 49% in 1980, but all these figures are understated for they undercounted Africans who were "illegal migrants" and exclude Africans who commuted from homeland to work in the cities (Beinart 2001, 355).

Average annual GDP growth, at 4.4% between 1950 and1960, accelerated to 6.0% in 1960-1965, remained a high 5.4% in 1965-1970 before declining to 4.0% in 1970-1975 (Lewis 1990, 24). The impressive growth rates of the 1960s were fuelled by a high gold price, import substitution behind high tariff barriers and the development of mining outside the Witwatersrand, but the they subsequently declined as the economic inefficiencies generated by the implementation of apartheid became increasingly manifest (Lewis 1990, 16, 17; Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 34). Foreign investment, attracted by high returns, too played a significant part in accelerating growth, especially in the late 1960s, increasing by 70% between 1965 and 1970 (Sakarai 1976, 1630; Morrison1970, 339-341). South Africa also became and increasingly important market for the export of goods from the UK, Europe and the USA and by 1975, West Germany, France and Britain were competing with each other for larger shares of the market, making them loath to apply economic sanctions to South Africa (Sakarai 1976, 1630). Agriculture declined as share of national income from 17.8% to 7.0% between 1950 and 1980 and while mining fluctuated (11.9% in 1946, 13.7% in 1960, 10% in 1970 and 22.0% in 1980) that of industry rose from 22.9% in 1950 to 28.7% in 1980 (Lewis 1990, 25).

Between 1946 and 1970 Whites were able to maintain the proportion of national income they received (73.6% in 1946 and 71.9% in 1970), despite the fact that their share of the population was declining, so that their share of per capita income rose from R12 earned to every R1 earned by Africans in 1946 to R14.90 to every R1 earned by Africans in 1970 (Lewis 1990, 39). After 1970, as mine wages rose and unionization amongst Africans escalated, Whites share of national income fell to 60.8% in 1980 while the share of Africans rose from around 20% between 1946 and 1970 to 28.9% in 1980 and the gap in earnings between Whites and Africans began to decline (Lewis 1990, 39; Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 34; Lipton 1986, 122, 123, 130, 131). Nevertheless, South Africa had one of the worlds highest levels of inequality in the world, with a gini coefficient of 0.68 in 1975 (Lewis 1990, 39).

High economic growth, the inadequacies of the Bantu education system, the extension of the colour bar and the massive expansion of the state bureaucracy to implement and enforce apartheid measures led to shortages of skilled labour that in turn accelerated inflation rates so that in the early 1970s they presented serious difficulties for the economy (Lewis 1990, 16; Savage 1987, 603; Sakarai 1976, 1630, 1634). The economic suppression of Blacks in general and Africans in particular constrained consumer spending power and the growth of the domestic market so reducing the rate of industrial growth (Lewis 1990, 16). The oil price shock of 1973 and growing international isolation South Africa led to large investments in the development of key industries to produce products like oil and military hardware locally and in expanding the country's military capacity to meet the growing military threat (Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 34; Lewis 1990, 16). In the 1970s government budget deficits rose, manufacturing growth began to falter and after the massive Durban strike in 1973 the country was increasingly subject to militant strike action by African workers (Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 34).

The policy of "grand apartheid", the transformation of the reserves into economically viable independent ethnic states for Africans was vigorously pursued in the 1960s and 1970s, for it provided the justification for Whites to withhold political rights from Africans (Malkin 2008, 143). By 1963 the Transkei had been given self-government and elections were held there, and by 1974 eight others had followed (South African History Online 2006). In 1959 African representation in Parliament was abolished and all Africans were assigned one or other ethnic identity, every ethnicity was linked with a homeland and the government set about creating governments for each of these homelands, culminating in legislation in 1970 which made all Africans in the republic citizens of one or another of the reserves (Lewis 1990, 14, 15). Since large numbers of Africans did not in fact live in these impoverished and economically backward areas, the government forcibly removed millions of Africans over three decades from "White areas" and resettled them in homelands where they had access neither to land nor to employment (Lewis 1990, 14, 15). Since large numbers of Africans did not in fact live in these impoverished and economically backward areas, the government forcibly removed millions of Africans over three decades from "White areas" and resettled them in homelands where they had access neither to land nor to employment (Lewis 1990, 15; Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 33). In 1960 39.2% of Africans lived in the homelands, by 1970 this had risen to 47.4% (Savage 1987, 606). For those who did have access to land, population growth alone ensured falling per capita income, overgrazing by live stock and degeneration in the productive capacity of the land (Lundahl 1982, 1171).

An increasing proportion of state budget was allocated for the purchase of land to consolidate the geographically fragments reserves into larger units, for financial transfers to homeland governments so that they could create "national' administrative structures, for the removal of "surplus" Africans from White farms and cities, to dispossessing Africans who owned land in White rural areas and moving them to the homelands and to policing and enforcing control over African movements to the cities (Lewis 1990, 15; Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 33). The tightening up of the pass laws and the elaboration of the machinery of control reduced the rate of African urbanisation from 1955 to 1975, but the African urban population continued to grow, for the economy was not generating sufficient jobs to absorb migrants and commuters from the homelands and the homelands themselves were, as a result of the governments dumping of surplus Africans there, becoming less rather than more economically viable (Lewis 1990, 17; Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 33). Moreover, such suppression of African urbanization as was achieved was by confinement of African women, children and the aged to the homelands, so tearing families apart and robbing those rusticated of any possibility of gainful employment (in 1960 5% the population in the reserves lived in households that had no income at all and were wholly dependent on remittances from migrant workers, but by 1980 this had grown to 13%); the costs transferred to poor Africans translated into savings for wealthy Whites who did not have to provide for their water, housing, sanitation, health, education or welfare (Lundahl 1982, 1178; Savage, 1987, 304). This led to the adoption of an industrial decentralisation programme aimed at moving jobs closer to the reserves by paying firms costly government incentives to relocate to their borders (Lewis 1990, 17).

Despite all the extreme and brutal measures taken to ensure that it would not be so, it became increasingly evident to the government that it would have to accept the permanence of at least some Africans in the urban areas, and while it insisted that their citizenship and political rights could only be exercised in the homelands, it began to make some concessions; in the early 1971 it began to provide for self-government for African urban communities and in 1975 disclosed plans to extend them home ownership and commercial rights as well as free compulsory education and increased technical training (Fedderke & Simkins 2006, 33; South African History Online 2006). The government eventually came to terms with their inability to repatriate South African Indians back to India and established a nominated Indian Council in 1968 with only advisory rights, in 1974 made half of its members elective and in 1975 repealed restrictions on their movement with the exception of the Free State where the ban on residence was maintained (South African History Online 2006). In 1968 also, the Coloured Representive Council (CRC) was established, with two-thirds of its members elected and the rest nominated by the government, and the election of White representatives to Parliament by Coloureds was terminated (South African History Online 2006). The CRC had limited legislative powers over a narrow range community matters and even these were constrained by a government right of veto; the elected members of the CRC were in conflict with the government from the first and by late 1975 the impasse that developed between the two sides had rendered it moribund (South African History Online 2006).

With its internal structures destroyed, the ANC was forced to reconstitute itself in exile under the leadership of Oliver Tambo and by 1964 it had constituted a force of hundreds of trained soldiers, but was prevented from deploying them in South Africa by the barrier of settler territories that surrounded South Africa (Williams 2006, 23; Beinart 2001, 230). To overcome its difficulties it formed an alliance with the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in 1967 and attempted to infiltrate into Rhodesia with ZAPU's armed wing (ZIPRA) and penetrate into South Africa from the north, but, with the support of police detachments from South Africa the Rhodesian security forces repelled the invasion. The ANC then focused instead on isolating South Africa internationally, in which it made considerable progress, and consolidating its military potential (Williams 2006, 23, 24; Beinart 2001, 230). To overcome its difficulties it formed an alliance with the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in 1967 and attempted to infiltrate into Rhodesia with ZAPU's armed wing (ZIPRA) and penetrate into South Africa from the north, but, with the support of police detachments from South Africa the Rhodesian security forces repelled the invasion (Williams 2006, 23, 24; Beinart 2001, 230). The ANC focused instead on isolating South Africa internationally, in which it made considerable progress, and consolidating its military potential (Williams 2006, 23, 24; Beinart 2001, 230). The ANC gained recognition from the UN and other international actors, military training and resources from the Warsaw Pact countries and funding from Scandinavian governments (Beinart 2001, 230). Anti-apartheid movements were formed in the western world, boycott campaigns of South African products launched and the movement to exclude South Africa from international sport continued to gain ground (Beinart 2001, 230).

The Verwoerd government reacted to the instability of the early 1960s and the call in 1963 by the UN Security Council for voluntary arms embargo on South Africa by increasing its military readiness, rearming itself and initiating the development of a local armanents industry; by 1975 only 7.6% of the military budget was spent on arms imports (Terrill 1984, 4; Walters 1976, 31, 33). Military conscription of White males was introduced in 1967 and was extended to a year in 1972, the first locally produced fighter jets were manufactured with French aid in 1974 and in 1975 a 36% rise in military spending was budgeted for (South African History Online 2006). To improve internal security the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) was created in 1969 with vast powers of detention free from judicial scrutiny or supervision; BOSS quickly became notorious for torture and deaths in detention and the assassination of opponents of the government both at home and abroad (Beinart 2001, 229). In 1975, with promises of assistance from the United States, South Africa launched a full scale invasion of Angola in support of its hard pressed ally, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) (Meijer & Birmingham 2004). However, the promised US support did not materialise and, with Cuban assistance, the Angolan government launched a counter-offensive in January 1976, driving back the South African and UNITA forces and UNITA was forced to resume a guerrilla struggle with South African support (Accord 2004).

In terms of the development of Black opposition to apartheid internally two important new developments occured. The first of these was the emergence of the Black Consciousness Movement from among African students in 1969, led by Steven Biko, and popularised through the churches, that sought to recover Black dignity and pride ravaged by apartheid through self-affirmation and unity amongst all oppressed people in South Africa regardless of their racial classification or racial classification or ethnicity (Beinart 2001, 232-234). From the initial South African Students Organisation emerged a number of groups that established the Black people's Convention as an umbrella body in 1972 and the Black Allied Worker's Union in 1973; it come under BOSS scrutiny and from 1973 leaders became increasingly subject to bans, detentions, interrogations, imprisonment and assassination (Beinart 2001, 235, 236). The second was the re-emergence of African trade unions from spontaneous strikes by dock workers in Durban and Cape Town in 1972 that inspired similar industrial action at 150 factories involving over 100 000 workers in Durban in 1973 and 135 strikes throughout the country in 1974 (Sakarai 1976, 1634, 1635; Beinart 2001, 239, 240). With the assistance intellectuals, well organised democratic trade unions emerged in the major cities providing Africans with a new locus of power that could neither be suppressed by the state nor ignored by big business (Beinart 2001, 241, 242).

References

ACCORD 2004 "Chronology" Accord 15, [www] http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/angola/chronology.php [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

BEINART, W 2001Twentieth-century South Africa, Oxfrord University Press.

DU TOIT, BM 1970 "Afrikaners, Nationalists, and Apartheid", Journal of Modern African Studies, 8(4), December, 531-551, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/159088 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

FEDDERKE, J & SIMKINS, C 2006 "Economic Growth in South Africa since the Late Nineteenth Century", Working Paper.

LEWIS, SR 1990 The economics of apartheid, Council on Foreign Relations.

LIPTON, M 1986 Capitalism and apartheid, Rowman and Allanheld.

LUNDAHL, M 1982 "The Rationale of Apartheid", American Economic Review, 72(5), December,1169-1179, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/1812032 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

MALKIN, E 2008 Imperialism, White Nationalism, and Race: South Africa, 1902-1914, BA(Hons) Thesis, Wesleyan University Connecticut, http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=etd_hon_theses [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

MEIJER, G & BIRMINGHAM, D 2004, "Angola from past to present" Accord 15 [www] http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/angola/past-present.php [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

MORRISON, RJ 1970 "Apartheid and International Monetary Reform", Review of Politics, 32(3), July, 338-346, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405915 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

NOHLEN, D, THIBAUT, B & KRENNERICH, M 1999 Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, Oxford University Press.

SAVAGE, M 1987 "The Cost of Apartheid", Third World Quarterly, 9(2), April, 601-621, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/3991899 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

SAKARAI, LJM 1976 "Apartheid Ideology and Capitalist Growth in South Africa", Economic and Political Weekly, 11(41), October, 1627-1636, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/4364997 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY ONLINE UNDATEDa "The SANNC and the South Africa Act: ANC: Founding Members", http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/organisations/anc-history/origins.htm [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY ONLINE Undateda "1948-1950s: The ANC and the early development of apartheid", [www] http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/organisations/anc-history/48-50s.htm [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY ONLINE Undatedb "1960s: A change to armed struggle and the state's intensified repression", [www] http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/organisations/anc-history/60s.htm [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

TERRILL, WA 1984 "South African Arms Sales and the Strengthening of Apartheid", Africa Today, 31(2), 3-13, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/4186221 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

WALTERS, RE 1976 "Apartheid and the Atom: The United States and South Africa's Military Potential", Africa Today, 23(3), 25-35, [www] http://www.jstor.org/stable/4185615 [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

WILLIAMS, RM 2006 "The Impact of Guerrilla Armies on the Creation of South Africa's Armed Forces", Institute for Security Studies Monograph No 127, November.