Segregation during apartheid in South Africa.

The significance of race and ethnicity in the separation amongst individuals during the years of apartheid.

Posted by Sikhanyisiwe Mkhonto

Race and Ethnicity are terms that are used interchangeably by the society. Studies have been conducted in trying to find ways to define these terms. Race is a term that has a variety of meanings attached to it. However, the main idea of it all is that this word categorises people into groups that share a historical origin, characteristics and physical traits (MacEachern, 2012: 34-35). Ethnicity means collective identity. This implies that individuals share a tradition that help shape their culture, plays a role in identifying themselves and distinguishes them from other ethnic groups. For example, an ethnic group have the same language in which they communicate in, they share similar ways of dressing, eating and even celebrating. One could be of the same ethnic group; however, their skin colours differ (Antweiler, 2015: 26). In this essay I will be discussing the key issues of race and ethnicity and how this has been instrumental in the legitimisation of othering, difference, inequality and segregation during apartheid in South Africa. I will also focus on how race and ethnicity is constructed in the movie Skin.

Race key issues

Race is a word used every day by people to distinguish or highlight the physical difference that exist among us. It was a term that apartheid government took advantage of in trying to separate people of South Africa into categories that can clearly define the difference that exist amongst us. This led to inequality in terms of allocating jobs, houses, education and even whom one can fall in love with
(Erasmus, 2008: 172). Judgement was passed on the group that was deemed to be lower because they were black. They often suffered the burden of inequality and othering based on what the apartheid government believed was the right way to treat another human who is not white (Erasmus, 2008: 172). A case was seen were a young lady named Sandra Laing in the movie skin (which was based on a true story) that she had a slightly different skin colour compared to her parents. This resulted in a huge debate in trying to categorise her into white or coloured.

 

Bantustan was a way of highlighting the differences that were seen amongst individuals

Nyambi & Makombe (2019: 3) stated that, ‘Bantustan are products of colonially informed and guided sites and senses of place that were meant to produce perception of space that naturalised human difference.’ The separation of blacks into different areas according to their ethnic groups was to create separation between white, blacks and within black people in terms of which ethnic group is more superior than the other. This was to create conflict within their own spaces are promote separation. In the movie skin we see how the white people forcefully removed the group in which Petrus was living in, this started to create anger within Petrus thinking his wife had given him bad luck, he later starts blaming her for the destruction he experiences in his life. If we were to look at this at a wider context, we would note that this was the aim of the apartheid government for the minority to hate themselves and cause rebellion within each other because we are different due to the lifestyles we lived. It also highlighted that the white people were fortunate because they owned shops, were teachers. while the minority worked as domestic workers, gardeners and had unequal opportunity in terms of the type of education they would receive. The designation of homelands was a way of emphasizing the differences that existed in our physical appearances. It was a way of not wanting to have unity amongst the people because they knew how powerful they could be if they would unite against them, in case there is rejection towards the laws that have been set by the apartheid laws.

Love cannot be separated by racial boundaries

Love has no boundaries. It cannot be categorised according to race. Erasmus (2008: 172) noted that ‘Apartheid system made race become so real that it led to the defining of whom one could love.’ Abraham Laing was forcing Sandra Laing to find an Afrikaner man in which she could date and hopefully one day marry and build a family with. It is evident that love cannot be defined by laws, because Sandra went against that and fell in love with Petrus who is a black man and started to build a family with him. This comes to show that love has got nothing to do with race but with how one feels towards another individual. The racial categorising of love made it impossible for people of different races to feel empathy towards one another, it created division to treat other individuals with no love if they are not from the same racial group as them. Black people were looked upon as dirt that could not experience love from a white person. If we look at South Africa post-apartheid, mixed race marriages are now allowed, although there is still a lot of argument around interracial marriages, it still emphasises how people can be united regardless of their skin colour (Jaynes, 2007: 1),therefore when one falls in love, the colour of their skin should not be the stumbling block of why two people cannot be together because love has nothing to do with race.

Ethnicity key issues

Ethnicity can be seen in two levels. The first level is where education, socialisation and even ethnogenesis is seen. This is said to be the part in which an individual is born into, it is passed down from one generations to the next, it is taught and learnt by the individual and usually stands out when one identifies themselves it has specific customs and norms followed by the individual (Bekker,1993: 12). The second level is one where there is an overall understanding within the community of the ethnic group, they have a ‘shared history, collective cultural units claiming common ancestry, shared memories and symbols …’ (Bekker,1993: 12).

Ethnicity is not fixed

Ethnicity should not be seen as primordial or fixed (Bekker, 1993: 13). Just like Sandra who is born into an Afrikaans family, according to the laws of apartheid at that time Sandra was not allowed to feel like she belonged to another ethnic group either than the one she was born into however it is evident that she was more comfortable in conforming to  the ethnic norms that black people followed and was engaging and trying to understand their ways of living, despite being born into an Afrikaans family.

Ethnicity is something in which one can learn and share without being judgemental towards other people’s ways of living. It is something that an individual identifies themselves as, where they feel they belong. The separation of individuals according to race during apartheid years made it difficult for individuals to learn customs and norms of other ethnic groups. It created boundaries and made people identify themselves as us or them. It made it impossible for people of different race to have a decent conversation in trying to understand one another. Instead this created stereotype, hate, violence and unfair treatment towards the minority group which was black people.

Conclusions

Race was a term used to deliberately separate people of South Africa into groups based on their phenotypic features it played a critical role in the unequal treatment towards black people. Ethnic groups are where people share a common way of life. It does not have to be fixed and can result in the state where one feels like they belong. The lack of understanding different ethnic groups during the times of apartheid resulted in the othering of individuals who are not from the same ethnic group and caused division amongst people of South Africa.

 

Reference:
Antweiler, C. (2015). Ethnicity from an anthropological perspective.  In Ethnicity as a       political resource. 26.

Bekker, S. (1993). Ethnicity in focus, The South African Case.  Centre for social and             developmental studies/Indicator for South Africa. University of Natal.

Erasmus, Z. (2008). Race. In new South African Key words. Sheperd, N & Roberts,        S (eds). Johannesburg: Jacana. 172.

Jaynes, C.L. (2007). Interracial Intimate Relationships in Post-Apartheid South Africa.     Available at: http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/4905 (Accessed: 12    March 2020).

Kumsakul, S. (2016). Movie Skin 2008. Available at:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHM19L0cwm4&t=3518s (Accessed: 06        March 2020).

MacEachern, S. (2012). The concept of race in Anthropology.  In Race and Ethnicity.      Edited by R, Scupin.

Nyambi, O & Makombe, R. (2019). Beyond Seeing QwaQwa, “Homelands,” and              “Black States”: Visual Onomastic Constructions of Bantustans in Apartheid South Africa. African Studies Quarterly. Vol 18(4): 3.