White Supremacy

In: Itinerario: international journal on the history of European expansion and global interaction, Band 6, Heft 1, S. 150-156

Abstract

The system of apartheid in modern South Africa is in large measure camouflage for the maintainance of white supremacy. In the first place it entails the division of the South African population into what are euphemistically known as 'national groups', which.in practice come down to racial segments: white, the so-called 'coloured' - those of mixed race, and the descendants of the Cape colony's slaves - Indians and the Blacks. The last group, the indigeneous inhabitants of most of the land area of South Africa, form a vast majority of the country's population, but, with the so-called 'coloureds' and the Indians, have been systematically excluded from any real share in political and economic power. The official policy has stressed that what is intended is the creation of separate zuiien, or pillars of society. According to the ideology, South Africa is now a plural society, to such an extent that the title of the ministry formerly known as 'Bantu Affairs' is now 'Plural Affairs'. In hard reality, there is geen spraak - no question - of equality between the various groups, but rather a rigourously maintained hierarchy. The whites are vastly more prosperous and control almost all sectors of the economy, through their exclusion of other races from the processes of political decision making.