Evidence of human and humanoid occupation of South Africa extends back two million years. Stone Age artifacts date from 40,000 years ago, from which time there appears to have been a continuous human culture. This culture has been identified as being related to that of the Khoisan people and it lasted until the arrival of the Europeans and the Bantus, who largely absorbed them. The Bantu population of the region arrived as a result of the great southward migrations of Bantu people across central and southern Africa, which occurred circa 300 BC to the 16th century AD. This largely displaced the
Bushmen (whose aboriginal culture – still surviving in the Kalahari – is rivalled only in Australia) and the Khoikhoi (‘Hottentots’).
The European discovery of South Africa was roughly contemporaneous – the Portuguese navigator, Bartholomew Dias, discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. In 1652, Dutch settlers, under Commander Jan van Riebeeck, arrived to start a victualling station for the Dutch East India Company. Numbers were swelled by French Huguenots in 1688 and again in 1820, by British settlers, after the British occupation of the Cape. During the 18th and 19th centuries, British and Boer settlers fought a series of wars with the local tribes. Control of the Cape region was also a matter of dispute between the Dutch and the British. The latter finally gained control in 1806 and, dissatisfied with their new rulers, the Boer pioneers, or
Voortrekkers, moved northwards to establish the independent republics of the Orange Free State (now Free State) and the Transvaal (now Gauteng), bringing them into contact (and sometimes conflict) with the indigenous Africans – the Sotho and Nguni, in particular.
In 1869, diamonds (and, later, gold) were discovered in the Transvaal (now Gauteng), attracting huge numbers of fortune hunters, many of them British. President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal (now Gauteng), fearing British domination, invoked strict franchise requirements. Britain’s attempts at intervention resulted in the Anglo-Boer War; the British victory in 1902 eventually resulted in the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. In 1948, the National Party came to power and cemented the policy of apartheid – officially the separate development of all racial groups but effectively the creation of semi-autonomous ‘homelands’ for non-whites and the preservation of white supremacy elsewhere. Four ‘homelands’ (Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei and Venda) were created, comprising 13 per cent of all land in the country. Although officially styled ‘independent’, the ‘homelands’ were not recognized internationally and were entirely dependent politically and economically on South Africa.
The principal black opposition movement was the African National Congress (ANC). The bulk of the ANC’s organization and resources, including its military wing,
Umkhonto we Sizwe, (‘Spear of the Nation’) worked in exile. The most important black political force outside the ANC has been Chief Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement, with a power base in the Zulu areas in the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. Successive Governments dealt with black opposition with simple and brutal repression. Although, in public at least, the international community reacted strongly against apartheid and maintained economic sanctions against South Africa, there was simultaneously extensive and largely clandestine support from the West for the South African Government and its economy. The problems for the South Africans started in the mid- to late 1980s.
In February 1989, the hard-line national party President, PW Botha (known as ‘The Great Crocodile’), gave way to his education minister, FW De Klerk, who had an equally uncompromising reputation but, in the event, turned out to be relatively flexible and pragmatic. The new Government faced constant large-scale agitation by the ANC but also growing pressure from the white-dominated business community, who were starting to realise that the apartheid regime had no long-term viable future. The economy had been in near-crisis for some time and South Africa’s foreign creditors were demanding wholesale changes in domestic policy to safeguard their investments. Over the next 12 months, the De Klerk Government removed the ban of the ANC, the South African Communist Party and 30 other anti-apartheid groups, and released the jailed ANC leadership including, after 27 years of imprisonment, its leader, Nelson Mandela. Mandela and his ANC colleagues immediately started negotiating a final political settlement with the white Government.
The ANC is not a unitary movement but a coalition of numerous diverse interests; Mandela has described it as “an African parliament". More significant was the deep schism that emerged between the ANC and Inkatha, which frequently exploded into violence and threatened to destabilize the entire process. Despite several close calls, all three main parties (ANC, Inkatha and the National Party) entered into a process, which, by the end of 1993, had laid out a blueprint for a new constitutional future for South Africa. De Klerk kept the majority of the whites on board. The most dangerous white racist organization, the Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging (AWB, Afrikaner Resistance Movement) self-destructed and hard-line whites have since confined themselves to dreaming up implausible projects to establish ‘white homelands’ in remote parts of the country.
The centerpiece of the political settlement was the first genuinely inclusive national election in South Africa, which was held in February 1994. The ANC won 63 per cent of the poll, the National Party 20 per cent and Inkatha 11 per cent. Nelson Mandela became the country’s President with Thabo Mbeki and De Klerk as Deputy Presidents. The new Government faced a series of mammoth tasks in reversing the legacy of a half-century of apartheid, including the provision of decent standards of housing, education, health and other basic services for the great majority of the population whose needs had been ignored.
The practical necessity of not alienating domestic industrialists and international financiers meant that the Government could not move as quickly as it might have wished. The manifold injustices of the apartheid era were dealt with, for the most part successfully, by the deliberations of the ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’, which has uncovered much detail about the murkier aspects of that period. Inkatha continues to hold sway in KwaZulu-Natal, where there have been occasional but increasingly infrequent outbreaks of political violence. The ANC dominates the political scene in the rest of the country. The National Party (now called the New National Party) left the Government after the introduction of a new constitution in 1996, since when it has become a marginal force. The leading white-dominated party is now the Democratic Party, which plowed a lonely furrow as a white liberal opposition during apartheid.
Before the June 1999 elections, Mandela passed the leadership reins to his heir apparent, Thabo Mbeki, who led the ANC to a comfortable victory. Inkatha and the National Party were confined to less than 10 per cent of the vote. Mbeki and the ANC party also won comfortably in the 2004 elections. Mbeki’s administration is struggling with two major domestic problems – a huge violent crime wave and an HIV-AIDS pandemic, which afflicts over 10 per cent of the adult population. Mbeki’s persistent refusal to come to terms with the true nature of the HIV virus has drawn massive international criticism as well as being the subject of furious arguments between Mbeki and Mandela. The details and ramifications of this are beyond the scope of this brief history but this is undoubtedly the single largest problem facing the whole of Southern Africa.
Abroad, South Africa has pursued an independent foreign policy, dealing with a number of regimes that are out of favor with the West (Cuba, Iran and, until recently, Libya) but whose support for the ANC during apartheid – when the UK, USA and others were supporting the regime – was not forgotten. It has also pursued stronger relations with other major developing countries, notably Brazil and India, in an attempt to form some kind of counterweight to the overwhelming power of the West. Relations with the Europe and the USA are nonetheless stable.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Mbeki – under the rubric of the Millennium Africa Plan – has intervened in a number of regional conflicts. These include Ethiopia/Eritrea, Burundi and Congo (Dem Rep). Closer to home, the Government has shown a sometimes uncertain touch – a blundering intervention in neighboring Lesotho in 1998 was followed by inconclusive engagements in Angola and Congo (Rep). Most recently, Mbeki has been confounded by the increasingly anarchic situation in Zimbabwe. Here again, the historical legacy of mutual support among liberation movements during the dark days of apartheid and UDI has made Mbeki reluctant to take any measures against the Mugabe regime (see
Zimbabwe).
GovernmentUnder the terms of the new constitution, which was adopted on 8 May 1996 and entered into force on 4 February 1997, legislative power is vested in a bicameral parliament, comprising a National Assembly and a National Council of Provinces (formerly the Senate). The National Assembly is elected by universal adult suffrage under a system of proportional representation and has between 350 and 400 members. The 90-member National Council of Provinces comprises six permanent delegates and four special delegates from each of the provincial legislatures. The President, who is elected by the National Assembly from among its members, exercises executive power in consultation with the other members of the cabinet.
EconomyThe South African economy dominates the region. Agriculture is strong enough to allow South Africa virtual self-sufficiency in foodstuffs: livestock is reared extensively, and large amounts of sugar, maize and cereals are produced. Wine and fruit are exported in large quantities.
The industrial sector has traditionally been based on mining. The country has considerable deposits of coal, chromium, manganese and vanadium. Its most valuable minerals, however, are gold, platinum and diamonds, of which it has long been the world’s largest producer and exporter. The only key mineral that it lacks is oil.
After decades of inflation running into double figures, from 2004 inflation has been between 4% and 5%. This led the government to cut interest rates, which has encouraged greater consumer spending and a construction boom (aided by the impending 2010 FIFA Football World Cup, which further generated a 5% growth). Despite this, few inroads have been made into high unemployment rates, officially at 26.5% in 2005. However, the greatest long-term problem for the workforce is the country’s very high level of HIV/AIDS infection.
South Africa is the dominant member of the local Southern African Customs Union (with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland); it has also joined the Southern African Development Community and the Organization of African Unity.
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