A Brief History of South Africa

Well, we might as well get this part out of the way. I'll try not to be boring.

South Africa was initially settled by the KhoiSan nomads, who brought methods of farming and livestock herding with them to the temperate area. Bantu tribes from sub-Saharan Africa eventually migrated to the region, which caused a cultural and linguistic blend (lots of these languages are still spoken today)

Lots and lots of stuff happened after that, but since these events didn't include white people, historians only started caring about them within the last 15 years.

Seriously, if we'd stopped talking about Thomas Jefferson for 15 minutes, I might have learned about this in school.

A few thousand years later, interaction with Muslim traders from India, South Africa turned the place into a center for ivory exploitation, and the Cape came to be an early trading post for the Far East countries.

Aaaanywho, in the mid-17th century the Dutch showed up. Not the laid-back, marijuana-and-french-fries-with-mayonnaise Dutch we know today, but the Calvinists (that fun-loving bunch who believed that the Catholic Church in the 17th Century wasn't strict enough).

Gold and diamonds hadn't been discovered yet, so European settlements were mostly limited to farms and trading posts on the coast. These outposts were maintained by the Dutch East India Company, who brought with them slaves from farther north/east, which is how Islam initially came to South Africa.

So by the 1800s, the Netherlands had declined as a global power, and the British seized South Africa in 1795 to prevent it from falling to Napoleon. As one might predict, relations between the British and the Dutch settlers were not particularly good. Religion was an issue (the Dutch Reformist Church outlawed divorce, the Anglican Church was started for the sake of a divorce), and when the Brits abolished slavery in 1834 it was seen as demonic by the Dutch (who were also called "Boers"). The Brits also began to heavily import labor, which is how you get a significant Indian population in South Africa today.

The word is "Boer". It will be important later.

So anyway, to escape British rule the Boers headed north, where they were constantly fighting the Zulus (the strongest indigenous tribe in South Africa at the time). Eventually, the Zulus fought the British as well, and  increasing amounts of military outposts were established by the British Army, bringing Welsh, Scottish, Irish and lower-class English to the country.

And Michael Caine. Not a lot of people know that.

With the Zulus pacified, problems emerged between the Boers and the British, culminating in two particularly gruesome wars. The Boers, not having the technology or the strength in numbers the Brits had, adopted a campaign of guerrilla warfare and hit-and-run tactics. Not to be outdone in un-gentlemanly warfare, the Brits resorted to a scorched-earth campaign, and also interned Boer civilians in concentration camps, where nearly 30,000 of them died.

The British eventually won, and British control remained until 1960.

After the war, it became apparent to the Boers (who by now self-identified as "Afrikaners") that not only would they have the British to worry about, but there were rather a lot of black people all of a sudden. To ensure that whites would maintain land, the Natives' Land Act was passed in 1913 to restrict blacks from owning land, and instead allotted them less than 15% of all total land in South Africa.

South Africa supported the Allies in World War II, much to the disappointment of the Afrikaners, who thought that they should have supported the Nazis.

"You know, guys, nationalizing industry and agriculture to protect white people sounds like a pretty good idea."

Eventually, South Africa left the British Commonwealth and became a republic under Henrik Verwoerd, who staunchly defended the apartheid measures that had existed since 1948. Incidentally, Verwoerd was stabbed to death, and not by a white person.

Under apartheid, non-whites were restricted from living in urban centers, holding high-income jobs, and subject to eviction from the few places they were allowed to live. Politically dissident bodies were outlawed (including the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela's party) and many went underground or into exile.

Conditions worsened in the 1970s with a number of violent uprisings, and by the early 1980s the government granted certain amendments to the apartheid system, including giving parliamentary representation to Indians and "Coloureds" (mixed race) - but not to Blacks. This did nothing to stem the amount of violence and civil chaos in the 1980s, which culminated in a state of emergency in 1986.

In the midst of political turmoil, the new President, FW de Klerk announced that all political parties that had been banned would be legalized, Nelson Mandela would be released, and that negotiations to end apartheid would take place. They successfully concluded in 1994. Since then, Nelson Mandela's party, the ANC, has ruled. However, the party has suffered serious internal turmoil, due to nepotism, authoritarianism and AIDS denialism under Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki was recalled by the ANC three years ago and replaced by Jacob Zuma, the current President (who has himself been the subject of a rape trial, as well as corruption charges).

See? That wasn't so bad.