1 Despite the successful transition into a democracy, a country that poorly manages conflicts is what haunts South Africa to date. It continues to defy the promotion of good governance. Often times finding difficulty for the citizens of South Africa to meaningfully express their demands and concerns without violence as a means to get attention. Violence seems to be a legacy long left behind from a country torn by apartheid. A country where violence seems to be a first resort rather than a last. To understand the structure of South Africa today one must recognize the function of it’s past. The identification of society and its conflicts must be understood to help with the development of conflict resolution.
1 Peacebuilding is about finding the root causes of conflicts and formulating strategies to stop the reformation of said conflicts. 22 years after apartheid, the effects still linger on in South Africa as peacebuilding and a reconciliation process is still incomplete. Examples of the incomplete peacebuilding and reconciliation process can be attributed to the recent xenophobic violence plaguing South Africa to date. Xenophobia is the dislike or fear of people from foreign countries. The heart of South Africa’s conflict is it’s debate with the meaning of the word “foreigner”. It is usually recognized as someone who is a non national from Africa and Asia in South Africa. People from America and Europe are not grouped as being a foreigner in the South African sense but
The convergence of racial unity and inroads towards the non-classification of race has been compromised by the accumulation of rights, privileges, and perceptions of the “whites”, and the life experiences, inequalities and societal impediments of the ‘non-white”. These experiences represent an overarching inability to forge ahead without cognizant realizations of past injustices and reparation for past aggressions. Noting the attempts at racial reunification in South Africa and the redress of exclusionary policies existing within the
Africa is land of various climates, deserts to the north, in the middle of the contenent, lays large jungles, and plains and mountains to the south. The whole southern end itself is various, not only in its in its cultures, but its peoples too. Between the beginning of the 19th century and the beginning of World War I in 1914, there was a power struggle between 3 major groups of people: The British, who had once inhabited the Cape Colony and had returned, the Native Africans, who had been there for some time, and had learned to live off the land, and the Boers, the descendants of the Dutch who had lived in the cape until the British returned. All of these people held power, but none of them held on to
In a Western perspective, Africa is perceived as a poor, insecure, and violent continent. Although this statement is ignorant and disregards the multidimensional issues that are in each of the 54 countries, security and violence is a general issue in most African countries. African countries have not endured an easy history, and their history continues to create present conflicts. Their violent colonial past has left certain countries with ethnic rivalries and left their legacies with agents of security. Although the colonial past of African countries have been the leading cause of many of their current problems, they cannot be blamed for everything. Additionally, there is a positive correlated relationship between the state and the violence
I have always thought that Nelson Mandela has been one of the most important people in history. I find it very fascinating that one man could end the Apartheid and that is why I want to find out more about this. South Africa is a country with a past of enforced racism and separation of its multi-racial community. The White Europeans invaded South Africa and started a political system known as 'Apartheid' (meaning 'apartness'). This system severely restricted the rights and lifestyle of the non-White inhabitants of the country forcing them to live separately from the White Europeans. I have chosen to investigate how the Apartheid affected people’s lives, and also how and why the Apartheid system rose and fell in South Africa.
Currently, in both the United States and South America there is no segregation. However tension between races in both countries still exist. In the United States, African Americans make up the minority of the race. As a result, many feel that they still are not valued as equally as the white majority. The white majority disagrees, however, resulting in conflict over differing opinions. In South Africa the roles are flipped, but the tension still remains. Some of the white minority feels superior to the black majority and thus feel that the apartheid was justified. Conversely, some black Africans still want retribution for the years of oppression that they have faced.
The avowal that the apartheid ‘vision for democracy’ necessitated state terror and repression is evident when examining the South African apartheid system between 1960 -1994. The system of apartheid spiked significant internal resistance, hence, the ideology for apartheid stems from the creation of a white state surrounded by economically interdependent and politically dependent black states, which required state terror and repression to ensure mounting resistance and international condemnation did not abolish the apartheid system. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which increased support for armed resistance. Detentions were set without trial, torture, censorship and the outlawing of political oppositional organizations such as The African National Congress, the Black Conscious Movement, the Azanian Peoples Organisation, The Pan Africanist Congress and the United Democratic Front, were all a result of the apartheid government due to political resistance.
As a result of racial segregation in both the United States and South Africa, the coloured people’s resistance escalated. In truth, this time of division strengthened nationalism – their weapon that “[transformed their] common suffering into hope for the future” (Mandela, Notes to the Future 2012, 84). Moreover, the American Jim Crow Laws and South African apartheid led to discrimination, activism, reform and most importantly reconciliation.
Ethnic conflict is the dominant security issue of our time, 75 percent of all new conflicts are ethnic. Since 1989, ethnic conflict has killed at least 3.5 million and displaced 26 million people. Almost all ethnic conflicts, especially in the 21st century, occur in post-colonial settings. Colonialism is why we have ethnic conflicts, especially in Africa. There are many factors contributing to post-colonial ethnic conflict, however some have more influence over the others. I argue that during colonialism, the intraethnic and interethnic divisions that led to the creation of different types of ethnic groups, and unequal treatment by colonial rule led to ethnic conflict in post-colonial settings.
Since the end of the Apartheid, xenophobic violence is understood to have significantly increased in South Africa.
In Africa, Nelson Mandela famously countered the racial segregation, first by utilizing peaceful measures, then by a more forceful and vicious style. However, eventually Mandela recognized an amicable compromise as the only option to avoid catastrophic uprisings (“Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela”).
The intense ethnic conflicts that rocked Nigeria and South Africa have pushed them to develop constitutionally backed institutions for conflict management. In South Africa, the state has prevented further conflicts by developing multiple democratic approaches to create a foundation for peace and security. The new constitution crafted an impressive document aimed to heal the wounds of the past and to build a
Have you ever imagined a white South African begging for money from a black man on the street? Can you believe this black man throwing few coins at him? That is what I saw when I traveled in South Africa in 1998. In fact, South Africa has undergone a rapid and fundamental change. In four years - from 1990 to 1994 - the country succeeded in getting past a painful transition from an autocratic white minority rule to a black majority rule. Its political and economic institutions have been restructured, its society transformed. Despite the fact that the racially-based segregationist policy, Apartheid, has been smashed, the battle between the whites and the blacks has just begun.
African continent has been surrounded in many conflicts since the end of Second World War (WW2), partly due to colonization, struggle for power, strive for self governance, wars of liberations, abolition of apartheid among others. The Africans all along had been waiting for an opportunity to air their views and fight back the colonial rule. There was a latent heat in Africa that was waiting to ignite conflicts in those areas that Africans were being oppressed. It is important therefore to think that latent conflict is ongoing in varying degrees of intensity, whether or not the issues are clearly formulated. This approach best describe the African phenomenon where the causes of conflicts are many and complex, including poor governance, poverty, drought, famine, competition for scarce resources, and identity-based rivalries resulting to an adverse impact on economic development in the region. The impact of violent conflict has manifested itself psychologically, physically, and economically, going beyond the material and affecting the lives of thousands of women, children, and men. AU therefore, came at a time when it was most desired. The African continent needed a powerful organ that cans unit different regions, races, tribes and people from different religious background and creed. AU has become the best hope that the African continent is hanging
Apartheid policies entrenched race as the basis for access to power and resources. Conflicts resulted from increasingly polarized groups “Blacks” in majority and ‘Whites” in minority. The Apartheid government relied on security forces to maintain its authority and on the other hand, the African National Congress fought against discriminatory and exploitive social policies both using passive resistance and armed struggle (Democracy in South Africa). Finally, with international support Mandela successfully overthrows the unjust legislation and establishes a justice new republic of South Africa. Therefore, Mandela’s non-violence is successful.
South Africa endured one of the worst colonialisation any country could have went through, whereby the Apartheid regime objectively disregarded the economic participation of the black over to those of the white population. However, the new democratic government would thereby be challenged with effectively having to deal with the challenges in which the past government had left behind. Therefore, in effectively trying to deal with the issues, alternative approaches have to be implemented in order to deliver on the challenges of the public. On the contrary, this essay will critically compare and discuss the liberal and free market, as well as the state interventionist approach as alternative solutions in dealing with current issues of social security, the health and school systems. Which would be able to transform current developmental challenges facing South Africa. In summary, the essay will thereby state which approach can transform South Africa in effectively dealing with developmental challenges currently facing South Africa.