Apartheid in South Africa

1
Apartheid in South Africa

• The Historical Backdrop of
• The Power of One

2
South Africa

• Languages
• IsiZulu 23.8
• IsiXhosa 17.6
• Afrikaans 13.3
• Sepedi 9.4
• English 8.2
• Setswana 8.2
• Sesotho 7.9
• Xitsonga 4.4
• other 7.2 (2001)

3
South Africa

• Ethnicity/race black African 79, white 9.6,
  colored 8.9, Indian/Asian 2.5 (2001)
• Religions Zion Christian 11, Pentecostal/
  Charismatic 8, Catholic 7, Methodist 7, Dutch
  Reformed 7, Anglican 4, other Christian 36,
  Islam 2, none 15 (2001)

4
Early South Africa

• San and Hottentot/ Bushmen were inhabitants
  thousands of years before European settlers
  arrived

5
European Settlement

• European settlement in South Africa started in
  Cape Town, which is why it is still called the
  Mother City to this day.

6
European Settlement

• The British decided against establishment of a
  colony at the Cape of Good Hope
• The Dutch, who realized the strategic and
  economic importance of the Cape, sent Jan van
  Riebeeck, on a commission for the Dutch-East
  India Trading Company

7
European Settlement

• Jan van Riebeeck anchored in the picturesque bay
  at the foot of the Table Mountain on April 6,
  1652.
• He was accompanied by 82 men and 8 women, his own
  wife amongst them.

8
European Settlement

• After some setbacks, the settlement flourished
• More Dutch settlers, seeking religious freedom,
  arrived and more land was needed
• African inhabitants were pushed back as the
  Boers, the Dutch farmers, took their land

9
The First Boer War

• In 1795, British ships landed in Cape Hope
• The British wanted control over the gold and
  diamonds in South Africa

10
The First Boer War

• The British declared freedom for the African
  slaves the Boers held on their farms
• The Boers, who believed strongly in racial
  separation and white predominance revolted they
  were victorious and maintained their freedom

11
The Second Boer War

• War broke out again eight years later in 1899
• The Boers, now also know as Afrikaners, fought
  against British Imperialism for three years
• The British placed captured Boers in
  concentration camps where it is estimated that
  almost 28,000 Boers, most of them children under
  the age of sixteen, and nearly 15,000 blacks died
  from starvation and disease in the camps.

12
Concentration Camps

• Lizzie van Zyl is one of the thousands of
  Afrikaner childrenwho died in British
  concentration camps.

13
The Second Boer War

• The British are victorious
• There is long-term hostility between the two
  white races and the native Africans

14
Apartheid

• Throughout The Power of One, readers are witness
  to a degree of racism against non-whites that is
  shocking in its casual brutality.
• It is obvious that for the majority of Boers and
  British alike, blacks and coloreds, as the
  non-white populations of South Africa were
  classi?ed, are viewed as little more than
  animals, to be discriminated against, beaten, or
  even killed with impunity.

15
Apartheid

• Ideas of white superiority and race separation
  were key components of Afrikaner religious
  beliefs.
• The British, though responsible for abolishing
  slavery in 1833, did not consider African blacks
  to be their equals.

16
Apartheid

• Apartheid was a system of legalized racial
  segregation enforced by the National Party (NP)
  South African government between 1948 and 1994.

17
Apartheid

• National Party politicians like F.W. de Klerk
  were able to keep apartheid in place by playing
  to the fear of white South Africans of a loss of
  power and control

18
Apartheid

• Apartheid was successfully defeated in 1994, but
  the legacy of apartheid continues.

19
The Legacy of Apartheid

• The country has one of the most unequal income
  distribution patterns in the world approximately
  60 of the population earns less than R42,000 per
  annum (about US7,000), whereas 2.2 of the
  population has an income exceeding R360,000 per
  annum (about US50,000).

20
The Legacy of Apartheid

• Poverty in South Africa is still largely defined
  by skin color, with black people constituting the
  poorest layer.
• Despite the government having implemented a
  policy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE),
  blacks make up over 90 of the country's poor but
  only 79.5 of the population.

21
Modern South Africa

• Nelson Mandela was inaugurated on the 10th of May
  1994 as the first black African President of the
  New South Africa.

22
Modern South Africa

• As President from May 1994 until June 1999,
  Mandela presided over the transition from
  minority rule and apartheid.

23
Modern South Africa

• Thabo Mbeki took office after Nelson Mandela
  retired in 1999 and remains the president of
  South Africa

24
The Power of One

• This novel takes place in the 1930s and 1940
• The book was published in 1989

25
The Power of One

• Bryce Courtenay was born and raised in South
  Africa and although The Power of One is
  fictional, it is loosely based on Courtenays life

26
The Power of One

• It is apparent that the prejudices in South
  Africa had a astonishing affect on Courtenay,
  especially with the hatred between the Boers,
  Blacks, and the British.

27
Totalitarian State

• Totalitarianism is the total control of a country
  in the governments hands
• It subjugates individual rights.
• It demonstrates a policy of aggression.

28
Totalitarian State

• In a totalitarian state, paranoia and fear
  dominate.
• The government maintains total control over the
  culture.
• The government is capable of indiscriminate
  killing.
• During this time in Germany, the Nazis passed
  laws which restricted the rights of Jews
  including the Nuremberg Laws.

29
Totalitarian State

• The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German
  citizenship. They were prohibited from marrying
  or having sexual relations with persons of
  German or related blood.

30
Totalitarian State
Jews, like all other German citizens, were
required to carry identity cards, but their cards
were stamped with a red J. This allowed police
to easily identify them.
31
Totalitarian State

• The Nazis used propaganda to promote their
  anti-Semitic ideas.
• One such book was the childrens book, The
  Poisonous Mushroom.

32
Persecution

• The Nazi plan for dealing with the Jewish
• Question evolved in three steps
• 1. Expulsion Get them out of Germany
• 2. Containment Put them all together in one
  place namely ghettos
• 3. Final Solution annihilation

33
Persecution

• Nazis targeted other individuals and groups in
  addition to the Jews

• Gypsies (Sinti and Roma)
• Homosexual men
• Jehovahs Witness
• Handicapped Germans
• Poles
• Political dissidents

34
Final Solution
Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads made up
of Nazi (SS) units and police. They killed Jews
in mass shooting actions throughout eastern
Poland and the western Soviet Union.
35
Final Solution

• On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi
  officials met at the Wannsee Conference to learn
  about how the Jewish Question would be solved.
• The Final Solution was outlined by Reinhard
  Heydrich who detailed the plan to establish death
  camps with gas chambers.

36
Final Solution

• Death camps were the means the Nazis used to
  achieve the final solution.
• There were six death camps Auschwitz-Birkenau,
  Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek, and
  Belzec.
• Each used gas chambers to murder the Jews. At
  Auschwitz prisoners were told the gas chambers
  were showers.

37
Final Solution

• Most of the gas chambers used carbon monoxide
  from diesel engines.
• In Auschwitz and Majdanek Zyklon B pellets,
  which were a highly poisonous insecticide,
  supplied the gas.
• After the gassings, prisoners removed hair, gold
  teeth and fillings from the Jews before the
  bodies were burned in the crematoria or buried in
  mass graves.

38
Final Solution
There were many concentration and labor camps
where many people died from exposure, lack of
food, extreme working conditions, torture, and
executions.
39
Life in the Concentration Camps
40
Resistance

• Despite the high risk, some individuals attempted
  to resist Nazism.
• The White Rose movement protested Nazism,
  though not Jewish policy, in Germany.

41
Rescue

• Less than one percent of the non-Jewish European
  population helped any Jew in some form of rescue.
• Denmark and Bulgaria were the most successful
  national resistance movements against the Nazis
  attempt to deport their Jews.

42
Aftermath

• Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate camp
  prisoners on July 23, 1944, at Maidanek in
  Poland.
• British, Canadian, American, and French troops
  also liberated camp prisoners.
• Troops were shocked at what they saw.

43
Aftermath

• Most prisoners were emaciated to the point of
  being skeletal.
• Many camps had dead bodies lying in piles like
  cordwood.
• Many prisoners died even after liberation.

44
Aftermath

• The Nuremberg Trials brought some of those
  responsible for the atrocities of the war to
  justice.
• There were 22 Nazi criminals tried by the Allies
  in the International Military Tribunal.
• Twelve subsequent trials followed as well as
  national trials throughout formerly occupied
  Europe.

45
Aftermath

• The International Military Tribunal took place in
  Nuremberg, Germany in 1945 and 1946.
• 12 prominent Nazis were sentenced to death.
• Most claimed that they were only following
  orders, which was judged to be an invalid defense.