In What Ways Were The Lives of Africans changed Essay Example

begun to believe they didn't deserve to have rights. This put a lot of pressure on them and led them to do stupid things. The Government were determined to classify ethnical groups, personified in the Population Registration Act in effect from 1950 to 1991, it was crucial in determining the status of South Africans in all areas of life.

The act divided South Africans at birth into four racial categories--Black, White, Coloured, and Asian--though these classifications were largely random, based on considerations such as family background and cultural acceptance as well as on appearance. They wanted to make it easier for themselves when putting everyone into racial groups. The mixed race families made it a problem there was no way they could do it precisely because they weren't white or black. One reason for this law was to stop the Cape Coloureds from being classified as whites.

This made their lives worse, especially the coloured families because in most cases each member of a family was placed in a different groups which simply implies they were possibly going to see each other again, and they would have to rebuild their lives with strangers, and they also had to stand up for themselves because they had no one else. An example is the Du Proft family. Raymond Du Proft was white and Diane Bassick his wife was coloured. They fell in love but had to hide so they wouldn't get found out.

They were lucky because they had five children and weren't caught. They tried to be accepted as whites but their claims where denied. One of their sons ended up killing himself because the government wouldn't let him

be with his white girlfriend who was pregnant. The movement of blacks was ever more controlled in the 1950's. This was also a result to the laws passed. Group Areas Act of 1950 established residential and business sections in urban areas for each race, and members of other races were excluded from living, operating businesses, or owning land in them.

Under the Group Areas Act (1950), the cities and towns of South Africa were divided into segregated residential and business areas, and the government removed thousands of Coloureds and Indians from areas classified for white occupation. To help enforce the segregation of the races and prevent blacks from encroaching on white areas, the government strengthened the existing pass laws, which required nonwhites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. The government did this because they wanted the good parts of the country to themselves. They also did this to destroy black and coloured communities.

This law gave them the power to move blacks out of their homes and to dump them in the reserves. They stayed in power because they had a strong security police force and allowed it to treat its adversaries very ruthlessly. This there lives worse because all their jobs were being taken away and they couldn't do any thing about, they were back to square one in the reserves. A lot of the blacks did not agree with all this so the prime minister at this time Verwoerd decided to introduce Separate development (separate but equal). He was trying to make the blacks think they would be equal.

He wanted them to agree with him and then send them to the Bantustans.

It was an excuse so people can accept segregation. It was said to the blacks that i?? 104 million would be used to improve their lives but it wasn't it was used on police force, law and order, on security to protect the whites and also on barbed wire to keep the blacks away in the reserves. The whole idea was to control the blacks without them realising it. The Native Laws Amendment Act also in 1950 was introduced. The government aimed to control what and where blacks went. They did this to kind of keep them out of the cities.

This made their lives worse because they didn't have their freedom anymore; they were like prisoners in their own country. It is like asking someone if you can go to the toilet in your own home. Sometimes when they needed to go to the city to maybe get some food or medical facilities they weren't let go, which meant they had to starve for days until they were let go. They government intended to make the blacks stay well away from the city and also to have power over them. In 1952 a new law was established it was The Abolition of Passes Act. It was established first to tauten up pre-war pass laws.

It forced all black people living in white areas to take a pass or orientation book enclosing individual information as well as their racial group. It was prohibited to work in white areas without that pass. Their lives became worse for the reason that they had to go everywhere with something to confirm who they really were, to be treated differently when

their pass was checked. Getting this pass rehabilitated always included waiting in queues for DAYS, without any food water or shelter, they had no choice if they wanted to survive they had to do this. Police attacked sternly forced this law greatly reviled.

Their lives got ruined because if their pass was not in order they had to work day in day out at white people's plantations without getting paid, and they got beaten up as well. They also had police coming in their homes at the middle of the night, just to check if their passes were in order or valid if not you got punished in front of your children even killed or they would send you away to labour work, away from your family and friends. The Separate Amenities Act of 1953 was chosen to inform all blacks that they weren't allowed in places. Civic services and Community spaces had signs saying 'Europeans Only' and 'Non-Europeans Only'.

Places like post offices, trains, and buses, parks and even beaches were classified for whites only. Hardly ever were the non-white areas as beautiful as the European ones. This made their lives worse because they were accepted as they were and because they weren't able to communicate or even have fun for they were told it wasn't for them. They couldn't go for walks without having guns on them watching every move they make, they couldn't even use the public transport which meant they had to walk all the way to their work places which were probably miles away.

Black South Africans lost many essential human rights due to Apartheid and the laws passed. Human rights are rights

that are believed to belong justifiably to every person but this the blacks didn't have. All the laws played a part in this loss for the blacks. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 defined communism and its aims sweepingly and authorized the government to arrest anyone it considered likely to further any collective aims.

Later laws gave the police the right to arrest and detain people without trial and without access to families or lawyers and left the courts with barely any means to interfere. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, with many following amendment, originally authorized the banning of organizations or of individuals; under the law the minister of law and order could ban an organization found to be promoting or aiding the objects of communism, or to be likely to promote such objects.

The definitions of communism and of the objects of communism were very minor road and included any activity supposedly promoting disturbances or disorder; promoting industrial, social, political, or economic change in South Africa; and encouraging unfriendliness between whites and nonwhites so as to promote change or rebellion. The power to label an organization or individual as communist or revolutionary rested with the minister. The main organizations banned under these laws were the Communist Party of South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC), and the Pan-African Congress.

This made their lives worse because they wouldn't have anyone to think of ideas to get them back on their feet and they had no one to stand up for who they were anymore. They had to do every thing they were told for they had no hope or strength to do anything. Detention without

trail was initially used on a great size throughout the Sharpeville disaster of 1960, when 11,700 citizens were locked up under the condition of urgent situations. Individuals alleged of intimidation possibly will be held for up to thirty days in the first case in point, and for longer if the Minister of Justice provided his endorsement.

This Imprisonment without examination made their lives worse because it gave the police ample of chance for viciousness and torment to them. At this time smallest amount 69 people had died in police detention and they blacks who lost their loved their loved ones were told lies about causes of the death like Suicide, falling out of a tenth floor window or that he slipped in the shower. Their lives got worse because they were battered and told not to sleep. A lot of enemies of the government died in mysterious situations.

It was common that the police murdered them because of useless reasons. Their lives got worse because every little thing they did was a charge against them so it made them fell afraid that they would end up dead and because they didn't want to leave their families they just stayed put. It was reasons like if a person refuses to do something or even if a policeman does not like that person he would get killed. Newspapers weren't allowed to mention forbidden individuals and those significant of the government found themselves in problems.

This made their lives worse as well because without the newspaper people weren't able to know what was going on in the world. This was also another way the blacks were stood up for but if

they killed the people like Laurence Gander, of the Rand Daily Mail was prosecuted for making public the conditions of prisons. This came as a threat to the government because they knew if people read it they would try to do something about it so the government thought murder was their answer how inconsiderable of them. In 1956 The Representation of Voters Act was created.

It was made to end the right of the blacks to vote with whites in elections, because the government knew the blacks weren't going to vote for any blacks they were likely to vote for a fellow black. The government knew they would lose their power. The blacks lives distorted even more because of the laws. Specifically The Group Areas Act as you would notice I have already used it but I think it links with this one as well because if the blacks are moved out of the city using this law, the next step would be to find a way to keep them their and stop them from coming back so that is when the restriction of movement comes in. hey Government brought this law up to destroy all black spots.

The blacks lives got worse because of the increasing population in the reserves. This brought problems for the reason that since they were to many people most of them wouldn't have any food or water. They had nowhere pleasant to sleep; their toilets were made of ridged iron. Many of them got sick because of the dirty water they drank and diseases spread quickly because of the population. Most of the people died (but the population still stayed the

same) because of malnutrition, starvation and lack of the right nutrients.

It was hard to say whether the substantial poverty or the cerebral torment of existing in such conditions was more dreadful. There were quiet a lot of blacks still in the city because they had nowhere else to go, they were no jobs in the country- sides so many moved to Cape Town to get one. The Government, on the other hand made it impossible and suggested they move well away from the city like a hundred kilometres away, so they could keep the jobs for whites only.

Their lives got poorer, their houses got bulldozed because they didn't to move, and this left many of them with no choice but to move back to the countryside's, but most of them stayed and suffered, they had to put up with years of more torment and violence especially because they got paid. The government's first comeback to the black rush towards the cities was to implement even more tightly the controls that already existed through the pass laws. When this was not enough anymore they modified the limits of some Bantustans to include townships, not far from white factories so that blacks could travel to work yet live in a homeland.

Most of the population in the townships increased greatly. One of the noticeable descriptions of poverty in the country are of groups of elderly women, all transporting home resting on her head a cargo of logs weighing up to 50kg, transitory under elevated stress cables that carry the electric power flanked by the towns of the state. Apartheid imposed appallingly heavy burdens on most South Africans. The

economic gap between the wealthy few, nearly all of who were white, and the poor masses, virtually all of who were African, was larger than in any other country.

The whites were well fed, well housed, and well cared for; Coloureds, and especially Africans suffered from widespread poverty, malnutrition, and disease. Consequently, despite the growth of the national economy, for most South Africans life was a struggle for day-to-day survival. Conditions in the homelands rapidly deteriorated, partly because they had to accommodate vast numbers of additional Africans. Attempting to reverse the flood of Africans into the towns, the government strengthened the pass laws, making it illegal for an African to be in a town for more than 72 hours without a job in a white home or business.

By 1983, in a particularly brutal series of forced removals, it had ejected more than 3. 5 million Africans from the towns and from white rural areas (including lands they had occupied for generations) and dumped them in the reserves. In 1953 The Bantu Education Act carried black teaching completely under government rule. Black schools had to supply different ways from white ones and tutor in their own language, because they government knew if they were taught English they would be able to get good jobs in the cities. They were taught to be ready for their life in the homelands, not in the cities.

Many pupils were educated in factory, farm schools, or mine that were less adequate than general schools. Teacher qualifications were lower for blacks than for the other groups. Illiteracy was high. Rural schools were crowded and short of materials. Few black pupils attended secondary schools.

Teachers were often poorly trained, particularly in the rural schools. The government also established direct control over the education of Africans. In the Bantu Education Act of 1953, it took African schools away from the missions.

Then, to meet the expanding economy's increasing demand for semiskilled black labour, it created more African schools, especially in the lower grades, but subjected the students to stringent discipline and prescribed syllabi and textbooks that endorsed official policies. At some schools they had police with guns watching over them. The Government suppressed the ideas of Black Nationalism. It discouraged blacks in believing in their ethnical background and their heritage it told them that it wasn't important, it daunted them to stop being proud of their culture and colour.

They were educated from early days that fairness was not for them. Verwoerd said that he saw no point in educating the blacks when he cannot use it in the future for anything. This changed their lives because they would grow up not knowing what rights they had or anything about their country their heritage or their ethnical background. I don't think they will even know who their parents were because they got separated at birth under The Population Registration Act. During Apartheid people really suffered because of who they were, when it wasn't even their fault they were like that.

They had been separated from every one they knew. They even weren't allowed to go anywhere without permission, they had their education taken away and their homes. They were put to live in disgusting places and most of all they had their human rights taken away. I think Human Rights were the most

important reason for their lives changing and getting ruined. I think this paragraph was important for it links with all the rest of the paragraphs because human rights are basically having freedom of movement, of a private life, of living well and of education.

But the blacks had none of these they were all taken away by the laws. I don't even think they needed to put all those laws because all of them fall under this category. I think this played a big role because every human can't really do anything if they don't have their rights, they didn't not have any control over their lives, they had no freedom of speech so this meant they couldn't defend themselves, they had little education which meant they had little understanding of the things happening to them.

They had no voting rights either which meant they would not have the chance to take part in an election and to choose who they thought had the strength to lead them equally. They also didn't have any power so they thought they had no chance to over come apartheid. Human rights are the basic treatment every human deserves, but this wasn't for the blacks at least the white people thought so. Without their rights they were like robots being operated to do all sorts of things for money and power.

They had been taken over and they had no say in it because they didn't have the power. They had to live like animals because they had no rights. Because I have Human rights like education right I'm here today but they did have a choice they had to learn how

to be a farmer and they had to accept life the way it was their. I think the entire paragraphs link. I think the Personal Lives paragraph was there so it could make the blacks fell weak and like they couldn't go on without close people next to them. It was also to make the white people's lives easier.

Now that all the blacks self confidence was gone the government decided on stopping them from going anywhere without permission and this was also to their advantage that they would get more slaves to work for them in this way (when they found their passes out of order), I also think that some of the blacks were probably trying to look for their families but with this new low it was impossible, so they lost their hope and courage and gave up. After all this the whites still wanted control over the blacks so they sent them to the homelands were many died and suffered a lot.

They then took away their human rights which was possibly all they had left, they took away black nationalism which made them feel they had nothing to look forward to in life because they didn't even know their heritage, I think they didn't really care any more and that was what the government wanted they had them right under their wing to do anything they told them and act the way they told them, they had total control over the blacks. And with their education taken away I don't think they had any idea about what was going on.