How the ideology and policy of Apartheid in South Africa began

1. Apartheid
Ideology, Policy and Practice
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-

2. •Since the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, South African
•Governments have tried to enforce a series of policies aimed to segregate
•People. These policies were the basis for the beginning of apartheid after the elections in
1948.

3. •Let’s examine what these points mean.
• The Intensification of Afrikaner Nationalism
•During the 1930’s, people who identified as
“Afrikaner” ( Descendants of Dutch people. They
also called themselves “Boers”) began to feel
more nationalistic. They also developed the idea
that they were a unique people that had been
chosen by God to rule the land of South Africa.
Always going to end well, those sort of ideas.
Anyrate, this went well with the common European
idea of white superiority. Nothing new there.
Basically, the Afrikaner was special, South Africa
was a white man’s land, and so it was their duty to
protect the Afrikaner identity and keep the blacks
in their place. This was going to require some
work.

4. •What got them all fired up?
• The Broederbond. This secret (but not reall
very secret) group was formed to promote pride
in Afrikaner language, culture and history.
• The Broederbond then set up FAK – short for
Afrikaner Cultural organization – to promote art,
music and poetry. Exciting stuff.
• They also organized “Great Trek”
celebrations in 1938. This “great trek” was
all about their ancestors who went in wagon
trains from the Cape to other areas of South
Africa in rebellion against the policies of the
British government. They were also looking
for good places to make new farms. They
did it tough. They also felt they had God
behind them, especially when they defeated
the Zulus in 1838. So 100 years later it
looked like a good idea to give the
voortrekkers a gong.
• They went rogue political too. When the
Prime Minister, Hertzog combined with the
delightfully named Jan Smuts to form the
United Party, Daniel Malan formed the
Purified National Party. Their bottom line
was not being nice to the British.
Unsurprisingly, they thought Hitler was
awesome and copied his anti communist

5. African
Urbanisation
•The growth of Afrikaner nationalist feeling was occurring at a time
when there was drought in Africa. Coupled with the Great Depression,
blacks were looking for work in towns. Many had already moved there in
the 1920’s as factories were built. They made up 50% of this industrial
workforce. Many other worked in mining.
•By 1940, Johannesburg (a big city) had 8 large black urban townships.
They were overcrowded, many people were homeless, and they lacked
basic facilities.

6. •James Mpanza was a polular black African
leader. He tried to improve black’s lives by
building a squatter camp called “Shanty Town”
or Sofasonke Village. Others called it Masekeng.
Mpanza organized collective buying of food &
coal. He had guards patrol the place, and he ran
it sort of like their mayor. Had an interesting past
– he killed an Indian shopkeeper and stole the
money. Was banged up in prison for life but got
a pardon when the Prince of Wales visited in
1925. He also was keen on the African National
Congress.

7. •African National Congress (ANC), South
African political party and Black nationalist
organization. Founded in 1912 as the South
African Native National Congress, it had as its
main goal the maintenance of voting rights for
Coloureds (persons of mixed race) and Black
Africans in Cape Province. It was renamed the
African National Congress in 1923. From the
1940s it spearheaded the fight to
eliminate apartheid, the official South African
policy of racial separation and discrimination.

8. Afrikaner Perceptions
of the Smuts
Government
•Jan Smuts was seen as pro-British by the Afrikaners
during WW2. They also thought he was weak in
contolling the number of blacks who were looking for
life in the townships. Whites were worried that the
blacks were outnumbering them in “their” towns.
•Smuts believed that segregation was failing. In
1942, he said that it was impossible to stop blacks
coming to cities.
•So the Afrikaners decided to find their own solutions
to the “race issue”
•The opposition, the Herenigde National Party (HNP)
under Daniel Malan did agree with Smuts that they
needed African labour. But there it ended.

9. This is what they came up with when Smuts established the Fagan Committee - the HNP established the
Saur Committee- just before the 1948 election. Not much in common.

10. Your Turn!
Find out about the 1948 elections.
Write a couple of paragraphs on who won, why they won, and the implications this had
in terms of setting up apartheid.
Then:
Research what the new Aparthied legislation would be. What new policies were brought
in between 1949 and 1953?
Upload your answers on a word doc! Happy researching!