It´s very interesting because at that time South Africa was a very closed society but we were fortunate to have Charles Sibisi whose parents were teaching at the university. So he got material out of the university library. That helped us to catch up. And he used to listen to BBC. [Charles Sibisi was an anti-apartheid student activists who served in the leadership of the South African Students’ Organization, a national Black students’ group opposed to the apartheid government.]
We didn’t have access to television at the time so he was our international gatherer of information. So we were very much inspired by the student movement internationally. We were inspired by the black power movement in the United States. We were inspired by Martin Luther King. We´re inspired by Malcolm X so we drew on all of those but we also were inspired by Frantz Fanon whose writings spoke to this issue of psychology color oppression. That if you allow yourself to be imprisoned, to be oppressed, you are in a sense acquiescing to your oppression. He encouraged our thinking about identity politics and the importance of a mind that is free even though you live in an unfree society.
[Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968) was an American clergyman and civil rights leader. King used nonviolent civil disobedience to press for civil rights for African-Americans. Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) was an African-American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam who articulated concepts of racial pride and Black Nationalism in the 1950s and ´60s. Frantz Fanon (1925 – 1961) was a Martinique-born Afro-French writer and psychiatrist known for his controversial anticolonial scholarship. His works inspired postcolonial and Black liberation movements around the world.]
We also were inspired by the Negritude Movement with people, particularly in the West Indies who were writing about the Negritude Movement. The importance of black people or people of African descent who are scattered around the world to reimagine themselves and to capture the heritage that they represent because that is what is needed to make the world a better place.
[Negritude was a literary and ideological movement of the 1930s-1950s that began among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers. It rejected European colonization and emphasized black pride and traditional African values.]
Mamphela Ramphele was born in South Africa’s Limpopo province. She has been an anti-apartheid activist, a medical doctor, a community development activist, a researcher, a university executive, and a global public servant.
As a medical student, Ramphele became one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement with activist Steve Biko. They began the movement as a way to empower black South Africans and protest against the apartheid regime.
Following the 1976 Soweto uprising, a series of protests begun by South African high school students, Ramphele was detained without trial. She was released after five months and soon afterwards was legally banned, an apartheid-era mandate where individuals were prohibited from communicating with more than one person at a time and from traveling domestically or internationally without permission.
After the fall of apartheid, Ramphele was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town becoming the first black woman to hold such a position at a South African university.
From 2000 – 2004, Ramphele served as a Managing Director of the World Bank. She was the first South African to hold the position. Ramphele is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and has served as the director of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa.
Ramphele is the author of several books and publications on socio-economic issues in South Africa. She has received numerous national and international awards acknowledging her scholarship and leading role in spearheading projects for disadvantaged people in South Africa.
South Africa is a nation of almost 53 million on the southern tip of Africa. The nation has a unique multicultural character and is approximately 80 percent African and 10 percent European, with the remaining 10 percent being of mixed race or Asian heritage. These broad racial categories include a multitude of ethnic and linguistic groups.
Although it has the largest economy on the continent, much of the nation remains in poverty and there is great economic disparity. Historically, the mining industry has played a key role in South Africa’s economy and it continues to remain an important industry today, alongside manufacturing, tourism, and financial services.
South Africa was first settled by non-natives in 1652, when the Dutch established an outpost in what would later become Cape Town. Soon after, British, French, and German settlers came to the area. The descendants of the original Dutch settlers became known as Afrikaners. Conflicts over land and power arose between the settling groups as well as between the settlers and the native people of the region. In 1910, Britain formally created the Union of South Africa as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire.
Throughout South Africa’s history, non-whites were subjected to widespread discrimination. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government passed a series of laws institutionalizing discrimination and segregation. In the 1948 elections, the National Party, which served as a platform for Afrikaner nationalism, gained power. The National Party program was centered on the system of racial segregation known as apartheid. Supporters of apartheid argued that South Africa was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, “Coloured” or mixed-race, and Indian.
The white minority oppressed the African majority and other non-white groups. Black Africans were particularly disadvantaged in terms of education, housing, income, and health. Blacks were denied citizenship and not permitted to use the services and facilities accessible by the white minority. Many blacks were forced to relocate when their neighborhoods were declared “white.” A series of laws enacted in the 1950s further codified and expanded racial segregation. In part, the National Party justified its policies by branding its opponents as communists.
The African National Congress (ANC) was founded in 1912 to advocate for the rights of black South Africans. As apartheid expanded, the ANC and other groups used both nonviolent and violent actions to combat the government. The ANC and other groups were oppressed by the government, and many of their senior leaders were banned or imprisoned. Nelson Mandela, a prominent ANC leader, was imprisoned from 1962 to 1990.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the anti-apartheid movement gained strength. Foreign governments and the international community isolated South Africa. International sanctions damaged the economy and helped erode domestic support for apartheid. Meanwhile, the end of the Cold War weakened the government’s claim that yielding power would lead to a communist takeover.
In 1990, the government of South Africa took its first steps toward ending apartheid when it ended a ban on certain political organizations including the ANC. Nelson Mandela and other opposition leaders were released from prison and apartheid legislation was repealed. F.W. de Klerk, President from 1989-1994, helped to broker this transition of South Africa from the apartheid-era to a multi-racial democracy. In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work.
In 1994, South Africa held its first election that allowed all adults to vote, regardless of race. The ANC gained power and Nelson Mandela was elected president. South Africa enacted a liberal, democratic constitution, backed by a strong and independent judiciary. While the ANC has remained the strongest party, elections are vigorously contested and democratic safeguards are respected. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated abuses and crimes committed during the apartheid era.
Freedom House’s 2013 Freedom in the World report categorized South Africa as “free” with an overall freedom rating of two, with one being the most free and seven being the least. The country also received ratings of two in political rights and civil liberties. However, in the 2013 Freedom of the Press report, the nation was categorized as “party free” due to government restrictions on the press and the prevalence of civil cases brought against journalists for libel.
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