Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
movement of Africans and coloureds in the urban areas was highly regulated, prevent-
ing their entry into designated “white” spaces.
At the same time, however, conflict within the white community intensified. Com-
pared to the Afrikaners, many of whom were unskilled and poor, the British were pros-
perous, and an emerging middle class soon developed which scorned its neighbors,
whilst the Afrikaners in turn still resented the outcome of the Boer War which had been
unfavourable to them. In the 1930's, an Afrikaner National Party emerged which deve-
loped ideologies of racial purity and even more racial segregation. These ideas became
increasingly popular amongst the white population, which associated black urbaniza-
tionwithfearsofbeing“swamped”(Butler2009).In1948,theAfrikanerNationalParty
(NP) won an election victory under the mandate of apartheid, a system of governance
that remained in place until the first universally democratic elections of 1994.
Whilst the NP immediately introduced the Population Registration Act, which en-
forced the classification of people into four strict racial categories: White, Coloured, In-
dian/Asiatic, and Native (later Bantu or African), it wasn't until the 1960s that apartheid
really reached its zenith. The 1950s were marked by a series of acts which consolidated
the ways in which space was drawn upon to underpin the apartheid regime. The Group
AreasActof1950enforcedresidentialsegregationbyraceacrossthecountry,whilstthe
Registration of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 segregated transport, cinemas, restaur-
ants, sporting facilities, and, later, all educational institutions. In the “European” cities
such as Johannesburg, black squatter camps were destroyed and replaced by segregated
satellite“townships”adjacenttothemainurbanconurbations.TheNativeLawsAmend-
ment Act of 1952 limited permanent residency in urban areas to blacks who had lived
there for fifteen years and who had worked for the same employer for ten years (Sparks
1997). Residential details like these were stamped into a pass book which black people
had to carry with them at all times on pain of instant arrest. It was through such ratchet-
ingupofthepasslawsystemthatwhiteareaswereincreasingly“purified.”Thiswasnot
without substantial costs, however, as within a few years pass law arrests were amount-
ing to two thousand a day (Sparks 1997).
Up until the 1960s, however, the racial segregation in South Africa was not so dif-
clareditselfaRepublicin1961,apartheidenteredasecondphase,andaperiodbeganin
whichspacewasdrawnuponstillmoreinvidiouslyasafundamentalresourceforracism
and discrimination. The new policy of “separate development,” engineered system of
“retribalization” under which black people were forcibly removed from “incorrect loca-
tions” to the ethnic-based developments of newly created Homelands or Bantustans.
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