Apartheid En Afrique Du Sud (document en anglais)

First of all, we mustn’t forget that the situation in South Africa was not easy in the 19th century.

In fact, Blacks were dominated by Whites, and they couldn’t do what they wanted, they were not free.

In reality, these two races couldn’t live together, it was impossible. This idea is represented on the

picture of Georg Gerster, entitled Separating whites and blacks on the beach, in 1970. Indeed, we can

see two persons who are setting on a bench, on the beach, but they aren’t together. There is a side for

Blacks and an other side for Whites. In fact, the government decided legally to make a difference

between the two racial groups : it is the apartheid. This word means separateness, and it was between

1948 and 1991. Moreover, black people and white people were separate in all the public places that

could exist. For example, they had not the same buses, churches, schools, and even hospitals: they were

always separated. And even worse, they couldn’t have relationships, they couldn’t marry because they

were separate all the time. It was a real segregation. Furthermore, the document shows that the bench

divides the photo in two parts, which symbolizes the separation, and not the harmony, between black

and white people in South Africa in those days.

In addition, Blacks were discriminated against. Indeed, they were treated as a second-class

citizen : they were scorned and cut off the white community. Indeed, I studied an extract from the text

of Leonard Thompson in 2001, entitled A History of South Africa. In this passage, he says that the

population is separate in different groups called Whites, Indian, African, and coloured, and that each

group has its own culture. Here we can see that people who have different cultures can’t, or rather

couldn’t live together in harmony, with the example of the apartheid. Likewise, this document shows

that there was a real violence and a real oppression during this period. The author says that Whites were

considered the civilized race whereas Blacks were considered inhuman and uneducated. Then, this

extract is a good illustration of reality because it highlights the situation : the interest of Whites

dominated the interest of Blacks, and the state was not obliged to take care of them. In fact, Whites had

the control over the state and Blacks couldn’t defend themselves because they were loathed by the

power. As a result, many people were prejudiced against Blacks. The black population was forced to have

passbooks to be able to work in “white areas”.

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