The compulsion of the apartheid regime, its demise and the advent of a new political dispensation in South Africa, 1948-1996
type: CreativeWork
description: The word apartheid refers to the racist belief that certain people are less human than others. In South Africa, the system technically began with the 1913 Land Act which set aside eighty-seven per cent (87%) of the most fertile land for white South Africans, leaving behind only thirteen per cent (13%) to be shared by the majority black Africans. This unequivocally generated a socio-political crisis in the country. Despite a plethora of literature on apartheid as such, there seems to have been some paucity of empirical studies on apartheid’s compulsion, its demise and the rise of a new political era during the period from 1948 to 1994. Puzzlement and curiosity within the public mind in South Africa and the world, about the gross violation of civil liberties perpetrated by the apartheid regime, prompted a scientific study of this nature. This study does not argue that the year 1948 marked the beginning of compulsive policies in South Africa On the contrary; there were various forms of compulsions that existed in South Africa prior to the period in question. The year 1948, however, serves as the point of departure for the study. The year 1948 ushered in the adoption and implementation of apartheid’s -social engineering by the ruling National Party- as an official State ideology. Between 1948 and 1988, a series of compulsive racial laws, which violated fundamental civil liberties, were passed by the South African parliament. Compulsive structures and strategies were devised and refined by the apartheid regime on the assumption of power in 1948 to safeguard and perpetuate the power in the face of a hostile and non-compliant majority. This led to a gradual, peaceful protest which later metamorphosed into various forms of political struggle. It was these forms of struggle that ensured the demise of apartheid and witnessed the advent of a new political dispensation in South Africa. From 1988 various political prisoners embarked on a hunger strike as a form of resistance to …
abstract: The word apartheid refers to the racist belief that certain people are less human than others. In South Africa, the system technically began with the 1913 Land Act which set aside eighty-seven per cent (87%) of the most fertile land for white South Africans, leaving behind only thirteen per cent (13%) to be shared by the majority black Africans. This unequivocally generated a socio-political crisis in the country. Despite a plethora of literature on apartheid as such, there seems to have been some paucity of empirical studies on apartheid’s compulsion, its demise and the rise of a new political era during the period from 1948 to 1994. Puzzlement and curiosity within the public mind in South Africa and the world, about the gross violation of civil liberties perpetrated by the apartheid regime, prompted a scientific study of this nature. This study does not argue that the year 1948 marked the beginning of compulsive policies in South Africa On the contrary; there were various forms of compulsions that existed in South Africa prior to the period in question. The year 1948, however, serves as the point of departure for the study. The year 1948 ushered in the adoption and implementation of apartheid’s -social engineering by the ruling National Party- as an official State ideology. Between 1948 and 1988, a series of compulsive racial laws, which violated fundamental civil liberties, were passed by the South African parliament. Compulsive structures and strategies were devised and refined by the apartheid regime on the assumption of power in 1948 to safeguard and perpetuate the power in the face of a hostile and non-compliant majority. This led to a gradual, peaceful protest which later metamorphosed into various forms of political struggle. It was these forms of struggle that ensured the demise of apartheid and witnessed the advent of a new political dispensation in South Africa. From 1988 various political prisoners embarked on a hunger strike as a form of resistance to …
author: Jibril, Musa Ahmed
keywords: Apartheid regime -- South Africa
license: https://devspace.unizulu.ac.za/bitstreams/27006e81-50e2-4320-8e38-67d4142fcdc8/download
date published: 2015
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:17:25Z
provider: University of Zululand
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Zululand