Apartheid: More Than Just Separating

Apartheid is a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa. It lasted from 1948 to 1994. The term apartheid means “separation” and that’s what it basically was. Apartheid separated social classes in such way that the white race was socially superior to the others, in this case the black people. It distributed land so that black would be in a different area than white people.

I had heard about apartheid before but never thought it had lasted so many years. I think this idea of believing certain race is better than another is really archaic. I thought South Africa had ended with this at the same time as the United States. Marthin Luther King was really important to this country. If he hadn’t step up who knows how long it had take for the United States to be respectful with all races.

In the movie Invictus, we were able of looking at the side effects of apartheid. It must’ve been very hard for the population to overcome just a strict policy. I think policies like this one make the population tolerate and agree with discriminations. Black people were used to the attacks of white people, they felt inferior. Also black people accumulated a lot of rage throughout the many years of abuses. White people were used to be above the rest and they actually thought they were better. I think using Rugby was a very intelligent way of overcoming apartheid. In the movie, President Mandela used this sport to unify the country that had always been separated. He used a sport as a political issue, as Maestro John mentioned in class.

We should all respect the different races, because we are all human after all. Discrimination between races has always been an issue. We can think of examples like Hitler with the Jews, and the discrimination toward ethnical groups. Respect is the key to end discrimination. We should treat other people like we would like to be treated, no matter what their color, language, sex, point of view or religion is.

I am glad neither one of us had to live in such an unfair society. We are definitely moved forward from where we were 30 years ago.