South Africa
The Republic of South Africa
is the southernmost country
in Africa.
AN INDIPENDENT STATE:
LESOTHO
It is an enclaved, landlocked country
completely surrounded by South
Africa.
Because of its altitude, Lesotho
remains cooler than other regions at
the same latitude. Most of the rain
falls in summer.
Water and diamonds are Lesotho's
significant natural resources.
CITIES
South Africa has not one but three capital cities. More precisely, the
government is divided among three major South African cities:
Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein
idea of the balance of powers
Pretoria is the
administrative capital It is
often considered the real
national capital, and was the
capital of Apartheid South
Africa.
Cape Town, as the seat of the
National Parliament, it is also
the legislative capital of the
country.
Bloemfontein serves as the
judicial capital, as the seat of the
Supreme Court of Appeal.
South Africa is a very rich country:
290
conservation
parks
7 biomes
“A world in
one country”
300 mammal species
and 860 bird species
8 world
heritage sites
WATERS
There aren’t navigable rivers and significant natural
lakes. There are some artificial lakes used for irrigation.
Orange river is the largest and it forms the border with
Namibia.
There are more than three thousand kilometres
of coastline. The cold waters of the west coast
(Atlantic ocean) help the fishing industry.
CLIMATE
South Africa has a
subtropical climate
It is a dry country
It is a summer
rainfall region
Winds are frequent
on the coast
MULTILINGUAL COUNTRY
South Africa has eleven official languages. English is used for official and
commercial communications.
HISTORY
British colonial era: in 1795 British occupied the Cape as a
strategic base against the French control on the route to the
East. The discovery of diamonds and gold changed the
economy of South Africa and created more divisions between
rich and poor. Africans were forced to work in the mines and
subjected to discriminatory laws.
The South Africa war: the Boers and the
British fought between 1899 and 1902 for the
control of gold. The Boers lost and English
established a Union of South Africa in 1910
that gave rights to whites at the expense of
blacks.
Nationalist Movements: two nationalist movements emerged after the
formation of the union:
Afrikaner
nationalist
movement
They established their
own cultural
organizations and secret
societies.
Black nationalist
movement
The black nationalist
movement had no such
success. For most blacks,
they could not organize an
effective political party.
Union of
South
Africa
THE APARTHEID
In 1948, with the support of a majority of Afrikaners (who constituted
about 60 percent of the white electorate), the National Party won the
election on its apartheid platform (=political program). Hendrik F.
Verwoerd, the leading ideologue of apartheid, was the prime minister of
South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
every
person was assigned to one racial group

black people had no rights

South Africa was proclaimed a “white man’s country”
Blacks rose up in protest against apartheid in the
1950s. Led by Nelson Mandela and Oliver
Tambo, in 1955 white, coloured, and Indian
organizations opposed to apartheid, wrote a
Freedom Charter as a basic statement of political
principles.
The NP government punished all those who opposed
its policies. Tens of thousands were arrested for
participating in public demonstrations and many of
the delegates who drew up the Freedom Charter
were arrested. On 31 May 1961 a referendum
among white voters only, declared South Africa a
republic.
NELSON MANDELA
Nelson Mandela’s commitment to politics and the ANC
grew stronger after the 1948 election victory of the
Afrikaner-dominated National Party, which introduced a
formal system of racial classification and segregation
(apartheid).
In 1960 police opened fire on peaceful black in Sharpeville,
killing 69 people; Mandela decided that the time had come
for a more radical approach than passive resistance.
In 1961, Nelson Mandela co-founded and became the first
leader of “Umkhonto we Sizwe” (“Spear of the Nation”),
also known as MK, a new armed wing of the ANC.
“It would be wrong and
unrealistic for African
leaders to continue
preaching peace and
nonviolence at a time
when the government met
our peaceful demands
with force. It was only
when all else had failed,
when all channels of
peaceful protest had been
barred to us, that the
decision was made to
embark on violent forms
of political struggle.”
Nelson Mandela, 1961.
Nelson Mandela was arrested and sentenced to
five years in prison for leaving the country and
inciting a 1961 workers’ strike.
Nelson Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years
in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison, a colony
off the coast of Cape Town.
Mandela remained the symbolic leader of the
antiapartheid movement. In 1980 Oliver Tambo
introduced a “Free Nelson Mandela” campaign. As
pressure mounted, the government offered
Mandela his freedom in exchange for various
political compromises, but he categorically rejected
these deals.
On February 11, 1990 Mandela was released and
in 1994 ANC won the elections. Nelson Mandela
was named the first black President of South
Africa.
“I have fought against white
domination, and I have fought
against black domination. I
have cherished the ideal of a
democratic and free society in
which all persons live together
in harmony and with equal
opportunities. It is an ideal
which I hope to live for and to
achieve. But if needs be, it is an
ideal for which I am prepared
to die.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5O
J205MdKI
Speech by Nelson Mandela on 20 April
1964.