Racialized Identity Under Apartheid in South Africa 27
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Racialized Identity Under Apartheid in South Africa 27 Suryakanthie Chetty Contents Introduction ...................................................................................... 464 The Colonial Era ................................................................................ 464 Mining and the Criminalization of Race ........................................................ 467 Intellectual Underpinnings ...................................................................... 468 Afrikaner Identity ................................................................................ 470 African Identity .................................................................................. 474 Colored Identity ................................................................................. 475 Indian Identity ................................................................................... 476 Fighting the Good War .......................................................................... 477 “Non-racialism” Under Apartheid .............................................................. 478 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 480 References ....................................................................................... 481 Abstract The apartheid state emphasized the distinct racial identities that were the hallmark of South Africa’sdefining population. Racial distinctiveness and, with it, hierar- chy had, however, its origins in South Africa’s colonial past and can be traced throughout much of the country’s turbulent history prior to 1948. Even within broad racial categories, there existed further distinctions based on class and affiliation. The line between race and class was itself blurred, and inequalities may be contextualized by ideological as well as socioeconomic and political concerns, a pattern that may be traced long before the rise of the apartheid state. However, there also existed a competing form of identity based on multiracialism. This emphasized unity and was particularly evident in political activism that S. Chetty (*) University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 463 S. Ratuva (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_34 464 S. Chetty agitated for full political equality. The history of racial identity in South Africa has therefore been linked to the tension between the opposing strands of unity and divisiveness. Keywords Apartheid · Colonialism · Nationalism · Bantustan · Black consciousness · Segregation Introduction The ascendance of the National Party under D.F. Malan in the election of 1948 marked the onset of apartheid in South Africa that was to last until 1994. Not simply perceived as a simple dichotomy of white and black, the policies of the apartheid state and the reactions they provoked marked a complex negotiation of race, ethnicity, and national identity. Yet the origins of this lie far earlier than 1948, beginning with the colonial encounter in the seventeenth century. There are, therefore, certain key periods in South African history that influenced racial identity and ideas of race that would culminate in the fixed notions of race and exclusion that were the hallmarks of the apartheid state. The ideological origins of this state may be located broadly in three features of the South African past – slavery at the Cape under the Dutch East India Company, the requirements of mining capitalism in the late nineteenth century, and the segregation era in the early twentieth century. Simultaneously, notions of race and identity were made and remade for much of the country’s turbulent history and not isolated from interna- tional trends. This chapter therefore traces the history of racial identity in South Africa as ultimately expressed under the apartheid state by focusing on the colonial era, the economic impact of mining, the formulation of scientific thought on racial distinction, the segregation era, and, ultimately, the apartheid state. The Colonial Era The region that was to become South Africa was subject to two successive waves of colonialism – first by the Dutch under the aegis of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the mid-seventeenth century and subsequently by the British in the early nineteenth century. It was under the VOC that slaves were imported to the Cape largely from Dutch possessions in Southeast Asia as well as other parts of Africa. Their labor was imperative for a burgeoning settlement that found it difficult to attract waged labor to such a remote outpost, and slaves were used both by the VOC and by the increasing numbers of farmers that stood at the forefront of territorial expansion further inland. Both labor requirements and the status of slaves as property meant that manumission was relatively rare. Those slaves that were freed, however, went on to form a “free black” community who were largely of Asian 27 Racialized Identity Under Apartheid in South Africa 465 origin and tended to embrace Islam rather than Christianity. Also included in the population of the Cape were the peninsula’s indigenous inhabitants, the Khoi who – as their pastoralist lifestyle was increasingly curtailed by settler incursion and conflict – were compelled to serve as a laboring underclass (Keegan 1996:15–20). Early settlement was characterized by an imbalanced sex ratio which contributed to a fluidity between the various groups with European men fathering children with slave and Khoi women. This was compounded by the Cape’s status as a key stopping point on the voyage between Europe and the East that led to periodic influxes of sailors and soldiers. While many of these encounters were temporary, formal mar- riages did take place. All of this contributed to the growth of a mixed or “Bastaard” group. This racial mixing, however, often took place at the lower levels of society, presenting little challenge to class and racial dominance. With the growth of a middle class and the notion of respectability associated with it in the mid-eighteenth century, already existing racial distinctions became increasingly entrenched. During the final years of Dutch control at the Cape, to be considered a free burgher or citizen with all the associated rights and responsibilities, one had to be of European descent whose immediate ancestry was not tainted by slavery. Due to the patriarchal nature of the society where power was held by men, those most affected tended to be male offspring (Keegan 1996:20–21, 23–24). When the British assumed control at the Cape, racial hierarchies – and associated discrimination – became, if anything, more entrenched. Both slaves and black residents at the Cape were subject to restrictions on movement, and there was no amelioration in these restrictions for Christian slaves. Under British rule, the various and varied groups that comprised Cape society were organized in a clearly delineated hierarchy that positioned middle-class, white men at the apex. Simultaneously, discrimination also took on a class dimension with the white working class perceived to be an underclass akin to that of “free blacks.” This was partly a product of racial prejudice that associated labor with race – since the initiation of slavery at the Cape, labor had become a marker of racial distinction from which respectable whites were exempt (Keegan 1996: 24). Under British rule, slavery also highlighted the contra- diction between the infringement on the natural right to liberty and that of private property. British rule was based on an espousal of capitalism, and the preservation of private property was therefore integral to this. Even British liberals argued for gradual emancipation that would allow both for compensation for slave- owners and the inculcation of the roles and responsibilities associated with freedom in slaves (Keegan 1996: 112). The last, in particular, would continue over the next century in relation to extending political equality to black South Africans. Yet, even as “free” labor, the Khoi in particular were subject to legal and administrative controls over their movements. The ostensibly greater liberalism associated with British rule proved little different from their predecessors. The Khoi were subject to labor contracts that tied them to particular employers and places of residence. Movement was governed by the issuing of permits or passes, and those without passes or contracts could be held without trial, subject to corporal punishment, and forcibly contracted to employers. Although their treatment was regulated by the legal system, this system was overwhelming biased in favor of the colonists due to the 466 S. Chetty assumption that, as the Khoi were lower in the racial hierarchy, their “natural rights” were necessarily circumscribed (Keegan 1996:54–55). Even as liberals sought a qualified amelioration of entrenched inequality, racial distinction was hardened by the periodic conflictthataroseasaresultofwhite expansion. From the period of Dutch settlement, interactions between the colonists and the indigenous Khoi and San were marked by both cooperation and conflict with an emphasis on the latter over time. The military superiority of the Dutch – often operating outside government control – allowed them to suppress Khoi uprisings based on territorial encroachment, confiscate Khoi cattle, and appropriate Khoi labor. For the hunter-gatherer San, there was implacable hostility