News World cup - A Brief History of Apartheid (1948-1991) and South Africa (1652-present)

Although apartheid was ended only in South Africa 15 years ago, the roots of the system date back several centuries.

The country we know as South Africa was originally the home of the Saint, who had emigrated to the territory huntergatherers next game. The archaeological data on their ancestors date back 10,000 years. Subsequently, reports from the Bantu tribes living 1500 years ago. The Bantu migrated south from central Africa, their skills as new environment-iron merchants, ranchers and farmers to produce. By the mid 17th century there were large tribes spread throughout South Africa, with different languages and cultures. That's when the country was first inhabited by the white man, in 1652, after the Dutch East India Company ships sailed to the Eastern Cape of Good Hope to a relay.

Waves of immigrants from the Netherlands, France, Germany and England arrived in the next two centuries.

In the early 19th century the Cape was a British colony, a fact deeply resented by the descendants of early Dutch settlers, the Afrikaners, who had become a separate tribe with their own language and religion. Fiercely independent and deeply religious, they were angry against British attempts to end slavery. In 1834, a community of Afrikaners set out on an epic journey to the interior of the country to free itself from British rule. Known as the Great Trek, the journey took the Afrikaners in conflict with the black tribes to oppose their advance. One of the decisive battles with the Afrikaners Zulu army at a place now known as Blood River. A stunning victory - not an Afrikaner life was lost, while the Zulus were over 3,000 people - has contributed to the Afrikaners' belief that they were chosen by God to civilize what they considered "barbarian" races .

In 1910, South Africa four provinces combined into one national entity, putting millions of blacks under white rule. The central objective of government was immediately how to deal with so-called "the original problem." The Native Lands Act of 1913 caused 87% of land set aside for whites, blacks, depriving them of million from their homes and farms. blacks' resistance to the expropriation became the driving dynamics of politics in the country for the next 80 years.

Afrikaner identity has long been characterized by the frontier pioneer spirit / tractors and their Large - mainly agriculture - descendants who have been abused and oppressed by the British during the war, the Boer War. By the mid 20th century, however, that identity has hardened in the belief that their survival depends on self-sufficiency and isolation. It was expressed in a form of nationalism that has been active on the defensive, and deeply conservative. At the heart of the fear that their survival in South Africa is still precarious, given the fact that blacks outnumbered whites dramatically.

Thank you to a campaign that white fears of "danger Swart exploited" black danger "right wing Afrikaner National Party to power in 1948. The agenda party consolidated and greatly expanded existing racial segregation in a system ideological and legal framework that governs all aspects of life in South Africa, from birth to death, by race. This system was known as apartheid. The goal was to protect the Afrikaner race mixing white power and anchor force blacks into wage labor. As a direct result, hundreds of black communities uprooted and thrown into the tribal areas, increasingly poor. Blacks have been subjected to the infamous Pass Laws, forced to a document that must be produced on demand under threat of imprisonment, and that the authorities may further restrict their freedom to wear.

Loud black resistance to apartheid reached a peak 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville, a small town south of Johannesburg. Police fired on demonstrators protest against pass laws, killing 69 people and wounding 180, all the demonstrators were unarmed, and most shot in the back. The government established a state of emergency in response to the outcry that followed. The African National Congress (ANC) and other left political associations were banned. In recent years, most black leaders were in exile or in prison, including anti-apartheid activists Nelson Mandela. The United Nations declared apartheid a crime against humanity.

A new generation was radicalized during the student demonstrations in Soweto in 1976 led to more deaths. As a direct result, many young people joined the ANC military wing.

In the year 1980, South Africa was in a state of virtual civil war. The army occupied the townships. Any protest was met with maximum force, which causes thousands of deaths. The whole country has been almost totally isolated from the world. South Africa have been expelled from all international sports organizations, consumer goods were boycotted and its divestment and sanctions have destroyed the international oil economy.

With daily reports of atrocities in the world fuel pressure on South Africa, President FW de Klerk bowed to the inevitable. In February 1990, he lifted the ban on the ANC and other political parties. Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years. The Exiles were finally able to return home. Apartheid has been dismantled.

In 1994, the first free elections in South Africa the ANC to power with Nelson Mandela as president, and marked the end of the Afrikaner regime in the country