South Africa Apartheid History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

South Africa Apartheid History - Essay Example Apartheid (1948-1994) cannot be considered as ‘the best solution’ for the country because it violated human rights and freedoms of black populations and caused separation between white minority and black majority. Primarily, apartheid was one of the main forms of racial discrimination, separation of white minority and black majority. Social divisions in this colonial society increasingly took on a rigid racial character1. Between 1950s – 1970s white power was used to forge one of the most extreme forms of racial discrimination in the twentieth-century world. For instance, whereas the strength and size of the settler population in the United States or Australia meant that race relations were for many years relegated to the peripheries of national historiography, race was an abiding concern even in the most inward-looking settler histories of South Africa2. Apartheid cannot be the best solution for South African because this term coincides with the concepts of racism, segregation and oppression of black population. Segregation in South Africa encompassed many different social relationships. It is often discussed as a series of legislative Acts which removed and restricted the rights of ‘non-whites’ in every possible sphere. Segregation was more than a set of restrictive legislation: it refers as well to a composite ideology and set of practices seeking to legitimize social difference and economic inequality in every aspect of life3. For instance, "Coloured" was the official apartheid designation for persons of mixed raceâ€Å"4. Many of the spatial and social elements of segregation, such as the division of churches on the basis of color, were initially governed by convention rather than law. It is important to mention the exclusion of blacks from skilled work, and especially from the exercise of supervisory functions ove r whites, was determined by custom as well as legislative