Apartheid

Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into petty apartheid, which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and grand apartheid, which strictly separated housing and employment opportunities by race.^[9] The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, followed closely by the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which made it illegal for most South African citizens to marry or pursue sexual relationships across racial lines.^[10] The Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status, and cultural lifestyle: "Black", "White", "Coloured", and "Indian", the last two of which included several sub-classifications.^[11] Places of residence were determined by racial classification.^[10] Between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million black Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods as a result of apartheid legislation, in some of the largest mass evictions in modern history.^[12] Most of these targeted removals were intended to restrict the black population to ten designated "tribal homelands", also known as bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states.^[10] The government announced that relocated persons would lose their South African citizenship as they were absorbed into the bantustans.^[9]


Apartheid sparked significant international and domestic opposition, resulting in some of the most influential global social movements of the 20th century.^[13] It was the target of frequent condemnation in the United Nations and brought about extensive international sanctions, including arms embargoes and economic sanctions on South Africa.^[14] During the 1970s and 1980s, internal resistance to apartheid became increasingly militant, prompting brutal crackdowns by the National Party ruling government and protracted sectarian violence that left thousands dead or in detention.^[15] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that there were 21,000 deaths from political violence, with 7,000 deaths between 1948 and 1989, and 14,000 deaths and 22,000 injuries in the transition period between 1990 and 1994.^[16][17] Some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and Coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed to appease most activist groups.^[18]


Between 1987 and 1993, the National Party entered into bilateral negotiations with the African National Congress (ANC), the leading anti-apartheid political movement, for ending segregation and introducing majority rule.^[18][19] In 1990, prominent ANC figures such as Nelson Mandela were released from prison.^[20] Apartheid legislation was repealed on 17 June 1991,^[2] leading to multiracial elections in April 1994.^[21]

The following individuals, who had previously supported apartheid, made public apologies:

International legal, political, and social uses of the term[edit]

The South African experience has given rise to the term "apartheid" being used in a number of contexts other than the South African system of racial segregation. For example: The "crime of apartheid" is defined in international law, including in the 2007 law that created the International Criminal Court (ICC), which names it as a crime against humanity. Even before the creation of the ICC, the UN International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which came into force in 1976, enshrined into law the "crime of apartheid."^[263]


The term apartheid has been adopted by Palestinian rights advocates and by leading Israeli and other human rights organizations, referring to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, legal treatment of illegal settlements and the West Bank barrier.^{[264][265][266][267]} Within the pre-1967 Israeli borders, Palestinian rights advocates have raised concern over discriminatory housing planning against Palestinian citizens of Israel, likening it to racial segregation.^[268] Others argue that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians does not fit the definition of apartheid as it is motivated by security considerations and has nothing to do with race.^[269]


Social apartheid is segregation on the basis of class or economic status. For example, social apartheid in Brazil refers to the various aspects of economic inequality in Brazil. Social apartheid may fall into various categories. Economic and social discrimination because of gender is sometimes referred to as gender apartheid. Separation of people according to their religion, whether pursuant to official laws or pursuant to social expectations, is sometimes referred to as religious apartheid. Communities in northern Ireland for example, are often housed based on religion in a situation which has been described as "self-imposed apartheid".^[270]


The concept in occupational therapy that individuals, groups and communities can be deprived of meaningful and purposeful activity through segregation due to social, political, economic factors and for social status reasons, such as race, disability, age, gender, sexuality, religious preference, political preference, or creed, or due to war conditions, is sometimes known as occupational apartheid.


A 2007 book by Harriet A. Washington on the history of medical experimentation on African Americans is entitled Medical Apartheid.


The disproportionate management and control of the world's economy and resources by countries and companies of the Global North has been referred to as global apartheid. A related phenomenon is technological apartheid, a term used to describe the denial of modern technologies to Third World or developing nations. The last two examples use the term "apartheid" less literally since they are centred on relations between countries, not on disparate treatment of social populations within a country or political jurisdiction.