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Apartheid in South Africa - education & language Key concept: Consequence Essential Questions:
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| Petty apartheid - Describes the era of the 1950s when laws similar to “Jim Crow” laws in the United States prohibited inter-racial sex and marriage and strictly segregated residential areas, schools, trains, buses, beaches, toilets, parks, stadiums, ambulances, hospitals, and cemeteries. Brutally enforced by police (see “pass laws”). |
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The Bantu Education Act, No 47 of 1953 This act legalized an educational system for Africans designed to fit them for their role in apartheid society. Designed by H.F. Verwoerd and made law with the Bantu Education Act of 1953, Bantu Education placed the apartheid government in control of African education. Financing for Bantu Education was removed from the general government budget and linked instead directly to the taxes paid by Africans, which resulted in far less money spent on educating black children than white children. Though this system was put in place to isolate Africans and keep them from “subversive” ideas, indignation towards the inferior educations they received led to large-scale resistance to Bantu Education, the most notable example being the Soweto Revolt. |
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Under the [Bantu Education] Act ... African teachers were not allowed to criticise the government or any school authority. It was "intellectual baasskap", a way of institutionalizing inferiority. Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, the minister for Bantu education, explained that "education must teach and train people in accordance with their opportunities in life". His meaning was that Africans did not and would not have any opportunities, therefore, why educate them? "There is no place for the Bantu in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour," he said. In short, Africans should be trained to be menial workers, to be in a position of perpetual subordination to the white man. |
Image attribution: Unknown author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Young_Mandela.jpg
Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Reprinted ed., London, Little, Brown and Company, 2013.
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Verwoerd's speech in Parliament, 17 August 1953 "What is the use of subjecting a native child to a curriculum which is, in the first instance, traditionally European? What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot be used in practice? If the native is being taught to expect that he will live his adult life under a policy of equal rights, he is making a big mistake." |
Image Attribution: Afrikaners in die Goudstad, deel 2 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/HF_Verwoerd_Transvaler_%28cropped%29.jpg
Mulholland, Rosemary. South Africa 1948-1994. Cambridge, Cambridge UP., 1997.
Understanding Apartheid. Cape Town, Oxford UP Southern Africa, 2006. p. 48
South Africa has eleven official languages: English, Afrikaans, and nine African languages. Native South African languages are roughly divided into four families: Nguni; Sotho; Tsonga, or Shangaan; and Venda. Most black South Africans speak a Nguni language: Zulu and Xhosa are the most prominent languages. Sotho languages (South Sotho, North Sotho, and Setswana) are the next most common and dominate the central part of the country. Also, a few mixed languages have developed to facilitate communication between groups. Typical is a mixture of Zulu and Xhosa or Zulu and Sotho. Black South Africans speak their native African languages at home or within their own groups, and many urban black South Africans speak two or more native languages.
Afrikaans (a Dutch derivation) is widely spoken among people of mixed race and whites of Dutch descent. English is commonly used in business, between some ethnic groups, and as the primary language of instruction in secondary schools. The vocabulary and pronunciation of South African English reflects a unique relationship between English and other languages spoken in South Africa. English is more common in urban areas than rural regions. There have been some initiatives to teach white South Africans a major African language, but these have not been met with success.
"South Africa: Language." CultureGrams Online Edition, ProQuest, 2019, online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country_sections.php?cid=148&cn=South_Africa&sname=Language&snid=4. Accessed 13 January 2019.
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The changing meaning of words over time: The word Bantu was originally used as a label for the large number of ethnicities belonging to the Bantu language group. In the first part of the 20th century, it was regarded as a neutral term that could be used to describe South Africa's Black populations. After 1948, it took on an altogether different meaning. Bantu became the official apartheid term for Africans and it began to carry some very negative connotations. In the 1950's, African nationalists rejected the term and instead referred to themselves as Blacks or Africans. Today the word (outside the contexts of history and the study of language and ethnicity) is regarded as pejorative and insulting. |
In this clip Trevor Noah is quoted as saying "Now in a country where everybody's divided, if you're the person who can speak all of the languages, you immediately possess something that not many people do."
"Trevor Noah: Roots Across Africa." Hosted by Carlos Watson. Breaking Big, episode 1, PBS, 15 June 2018. Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/video/trevor-noah-roots-across-africa-kedisa/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2019.