Tables

The sources of information used in the tables are given in the relevant parts of the References (indicated below in the case of each table).

APPENDIX

An Explanation of Key Terms and Institutions of Apartheid

This is an explanation, for those unfamiliar with the apartheid system, of its key institutions and the words associated with them. A fuller explanation can be found in Apartheid: The Facts, published by IDAF in 1983.

The need for explanation arises from the uniqueness of the apartheid system in certain important respects and the consequent fact that many of the words which make up the language of apartheid will either be unfamiliar or have meanings different from their more usual meanings.

The language of apartheid reflects the division of the land and the division of the people of South Africa into segregated groups under white domination, even while it helps obscure the real nature of social and economic relations. Where possible the language of apartheid is avoided in this book, but it is necessary to make some use of the official terminology to describe the apartheid system and its effects. The regime has the power to create and maintain institutions and impose laws. Those institutions and laws are part of the reality which does in fact divide the population into separate groups whose lives are regulated and constrained in different ways.

Naturally the power of the regime to impose its own terms and its own ideas is limited in the same ways as its power to prevent resistance, as a reading of this book will make clear. This limitation is also manifested in the constant alteration of words for key relationships and practices. For example, the majority of the black section of the population has been successively called Native, Bantu and now Black by the government, while the name for the basic policies of the system has shifted from apartheid to separate development to plural relations to co-operation.

The explanation below is set out under three headings, corresponding to three basic aspects of apartheid. The terms of apartheid are printed in bold type.

Dividing the Land and the People

Most of the population of South Africa, estimated in 1983 to be just over 31 million, is black (85 per cent). A fundamental division of apartheid is that of land. Whites, only 15 per cent of the population, are allocated most of the land (87 per cent).

The words used to label people take on special meanings under apartheid. The principal terms are Asian, Black, Coloured and White.

The black majority is split by apartheid into three main population groups. The largest of these groups is today officially, and confusingly, labelled Black and comprises most of those more usually referred to as African (signifying their descent from those who inhabited the area before the colonial period). Previous terms used for this group by the rulers of South Africa were Native and Bantu. The term Coloured is used to refer to several groups of people including descendants of those who originally lived in the areas in the Cape where Europeans first settled and most people whose descent is traced from members of more than one 'population group', as well as descendants of Malay slaves brought in the early days of the Cape Colony. The small group called Asian consists mainly of descendants of workers brought from India during the nineteenth century.

The people in all these groups reject apartheid labels, choosing rather to call themselves all 'black'.

The section of the population classified White is treated as a single privileged group even though its members speak different languages and have different cultural and historical backgrounds.

A basic aspect of apartheid is the exclusion of the African majority of the population from participation in central government. They are expected instead to meet their political aspirations in subordinate political structures based on the smaller part of the country to which they are assigned. This consists of numerous scattered, poverty - stricken and fragmented areas. Previously called Reserves they are now grouped into ten units officially called Homelands, reflecting the attempt of the government to suggest that they are the homes of those assigned to them. They are presented as the territories of separate National States. In this book as is common amongst opponents of apartheid, they are referred to as bantustans. Every African is assigned to a Bantustan, irrespective of whether they were born there or have ever lived there. When the regime declares a Bantustan Independent, all those who have been allocated to it lose their South African nationality.

The regime tries to present its policies regarding the bantustans as aimed at promoting the development of those areas, and used the term Separate Development to describe it. In reality apartheid has promoted underdevelopment and poverty has grown.

Outside the bantustans, Africans are required to live in restricted residential areas called Townships (formerly Locations), or in the case of many migrant workers (see below) in Hostels or Compounds at mines or large industrial concerns. The Group Areas Policy is used to divide towns and cities into segregated zones (Group Areas) set aside for residence, commercial activities and industry for members of the White, Coloured and Asian groups (each in separate zones). Based on these group areas are segregated local government structures, and a segregated tricameral parliament with separate White, Coloured and Indian chambers, designed to preserve white political power while extending limited participation in central government to small sections of the Indian and Coloured communities.

The majority of the population in South Africa is united in rejecting the segregated political structures of apartheid.

Forced Removal of Population

The apartheid regime has sought to enforce strict territorial segregation of the different 'population groups'. People are forcibly evicted from their homes if they are in a zone which the government has assigned to another group. The government speaks, not of forced removal or eviction, but of Relocation and Resettlement. The evictions take place in many different kinds of areas and under different laws.

In rural areas people are moved on a number of different pretexts. The places in which they live may be designated Black Spots - these are areas of land occupied and owned by Africans which the government has designated for another group, usually white. The occupiers are moved to a Bantustan. Others are moved in the course of Consolidation of the bantustans, as the regime attempts to reduce the number of fragments of land which make up the bantustans. Over a million black tenants have been evicted from white owned farms since the 1960s. Tenants who paid cash rent to the farms were called Squatters, implying they had no right to be on the land. In the process of removal most of those affected lose access to land for cultivation, and most are put into Resettlement Camps, some of which are called Closer Settlements (urban - type settlements in remote rural areas, most of whose residents have no access to agricultural land).

The term Squatters is also applied to people who occupy land for residence in or near urban areas without official permission. Because of the shortage of housing created by policies designed to back up influx control (see below), vast squatter communities have grown up in major urban areas.

Where the communities lie outside bantustans, the government constantly tries to evict the residents and destroy their accommodation.

Another process of removal in urban areas has taken the form of the concentration of black people into larger and more sharply segregated regional townships, usually situated further away from city centres. As applied to the Indian and Coloured communities this has involved the Group Areas Act. If a Bantustan is situated close enough, Africans have been moved into new townships within their boundaries, to become Commuters, travelling each day or week to work in the 'white' areas. This process has also involved an attempt to locate industries close to or inside bantustans, the so - called Border Industry policy, which is now part of a policy described as Decentralisation.

Control of Movement

For the majority of people in South Africa there is no freedom of movement in their own country. Their movement is controlled by a system of regulations known as Pass Laws, which apply only to Africans, and which form part of the policy and practice of Influx control. Every African over 16 years of age must carry a set of identity documents known as a Pass. The government now calls the pass a Reference Book or, in the case of people from the so called 'independent' bantustans, a Passport. They may be renamed yet again and called Identity Documents.

The country outside the bantustans is divided for the purpose of influx control into Prescribed Areas (which include all cities and most industrial and commercial areas, where most employment opportunities exist) and Non - prescribed Areas (largely farm land and mines). The right of Africans to remain in such areas is linked to employment and housing. The implementation of the pass laws outside the bantustans is carried out largely by what were until recently called Administration Boards and are now called Development Boards. They work closely with the police and labour bureaux.

Africans may live on white - owned farmland if permitted to do so by the farmer who employs them. If ordered off the land they must go to a Bantustan and can only move to the towns through the Migrant labour system operated through the Labour Bureaux. All African men of working age (15 - 65 years old) must register with the labour bureau in their area, unless they are self - employed. All women who are seeking employment must register. On registration a worker is classified for a particular category of work. No one may leave an area to seek work without permission from the bureau. To obtain employment a worker must be requisitioned through the labour bureau system and become a Contract Worker: a contract of employment is attested by the labour bureau. Contracts are normally for a maximum of a year, and must be renewed at the same labour bureau. A worker cannot be employed in any other category of work other than that for which he or she has been registered, without the agreement of the labour office.

Those who avoid the system and go to the towns or cities to find work on their own are described as Illegals.

The presence and movement of Africans in the prescribed areas are regulated by various pass laws. Those whose passes are not in order may be Endorsed Out, that is to say, an endorsement is put in their pass book and they are sent to a Bantustan or a farming area. Many others are fined or imprisoned. The conditions under which Africans may remain in prescribed areas are set out in Section 10 of the (Blacks) Urban Areas Act. It stipulates that no one may remain in an urban area longer than 72 hours unless he or she: (a) has lived there continuously in the area since birth or (b) has worked continuously for a single employer for 10 years or for different employers for 15 years; or (c) is the wife or dependent child of someone who has rights (a) or (b); or (d) has permission from the manager of the local labour bureau to be there for more than 72 hours. This last category consists mainly of migrant, or contract labourers.

The government has repeatedly said that the pass laws would be scrapped. Some of the changes which have occurred are only in the words used (the legislation used to extend passes to women in the 1950s was called the 'Abolition of Passes and Co - ordination of Documents Act', because the passes were renamed as 'reference books'). Real changes which have occurred have benefited only a small minority. As far as the majority are concerned, the system of pass laws, influx control and labour bureaux has become steadily more effective in restricting their movement and in maintaining a supply of cheap labour for the white - owned economy.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used:

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