More languages
More actions
Republic of South Africa | |
---|---|
Motto: ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke Unity in diversity | |
![]() | |
Capital | Pretoria (executive) Cape Town (legislative) Bloemfontein (judicial) |
Largest city | Johannesburg |
Official languages | Afrikaans English Ndebele Sepedi Sesotho Setswana Swazi Tshivenda Xhosa Xitsonga Zulu |
Dominant mode of production | Capitalism |
Government | Unitary parliamentary republic with an executive presidency |
• President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
• Deputy President | Paul Mashatile |
• Speaker of the National Assembly | Thoko Didiza |
• Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces | Refilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane |
Legislature | Parliament |
National Council of Provinces | |
National Assembly | |
Area | |
• Total | 1,221,037 km² |
Population | |
• 2022 census | 62,027,503 (23rd) |
• Density | 50.8 km² (169th) |
Currency | South African rand (ZAR) |
Driving side | left |
Calling code | +27 |
ISO 3166 code | ZA |
Internet TLD | .za |
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa with a coastline that borders both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It borders Namibia and Botswana to the northwest, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and Mozambique to the northeast and it encloses Lesotho.
History[edit | edit source]
Pre-colonization[edit | edit source]
South Africa has been continuously inhabited by humans for nearly two million years and is one of the regions where modern humans evolved during the Middle Stone Age, between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago. Significant social changes began around 2,000 years ago when several waves of migrants moved southward from West and Central Africa. These groups brought with them domesticated animals and crops, as well as technologies such as pottery-making, mining, and metalworking. The Khoikhoi, former hunter-gatherers in Botswana, adopted domesticated sheep and cattle from these Iron Age migrants and migrated south toward the Cape Coast. Simultaneously, Bantu-speaking Iron Age migrants settled south of the Limpopo River and rapidly expanded across eastern South Africa. By AD 400, they had established settlements in KwaZulu-Natal, and by AD 600, they settled the Eastern Cape.[1]
Dutch colonization[edit | edit source]
On 6 April 1652, a group of 90 European colonists, employed by the Dutch East India Company, arrived at Table Bay to establish the Cape Colony. At the time of their arrival, an estimated 75,000 Khoikhoi pastoralists and San hunter-gatherers inhabited the region known today as the Northern Cape, Western Cape, and Eastern Cape provinces.[1]
Initially intended to be a modest resupply post for ships traversing the Europe-Asia trade route, the Cape Colony gradually expanded over the following century. [1] Through systematic colonisation, land encroachment, and the appropriation of resources, by 1795, the Colony had come to occupy the entirety of the area today known as the Western Cape. This expansion caused the widespread dispossession of the Khoikhoi and San peoples, whose pastoral and hunter-gatherer livelihoods were disrupted by the seizure of ancestral lands, livestock, and water sources.[2]
In the early 19th century the colony was seized by the British during the Napoleonic Wars.[3]
British colonization[edit | edit source]
Although the British Empire defeated the Boer settlers they let them create their own state and racially segregate Africans.[4] African dockworkers first struck in 1874.[5] At the 1885 Berlin Conference, European powers divided and colonized Africa, and the British took control of what is now South Africa.[6] They fought against the Boers again from 1899 to 1902.[7] Africans rebelled again in 1906 under the leadership of Bambatha kaMancinza following a poll tax.[6] In 1910, the UK united various Boer settlements and British colonies into a single state.[7]
Apartheid era[edit | edit source]
The Afrikaner Nationalist Party took power in 1948 and had direct connections to German fascism.[7]
During the apartheid era, many Black Africans were confined to puppet states called Bantustans that were nominally independent. Bantustans made up 13% of the country's area and were on poor land far from urban areas. Africans who left the Bantustans without identification documents could be arrested and deported to the nearest Bantustan.[8]
In 1960, white supremacist forces killed members of the Pan-Africanist Congress who were protesting against apartheid in the Sharpeville massacre. Dockworkers in Durban struck in 1969 and again in 1972. Inkatha, a reactionary Zulu nationalist organization, opposed the strikes.[5]
The CIA suppressed the anti-apartheid movement from the 1960s to 1980s and provided information about ANC members and activities. In 1981, they sent the South African military into Mozambique to assassinate ANC members in exile. The CIA was responsible for the arrest of Nelson Mandela and violated a UN policy by sending weapons to South Africa.[9]
In the 1980s, the United States provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to South African media to promote Western bourgeois ideals and counter Marxism.[10]
Post-apartheid[edit | edit source]
In the 2024 national election, the alliance of the ANC, SACP, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions secured a combined 40.18% compared to 59.50% in 2019. The MK and EFF parties, which previously broke away from the ANC, secured 14.58% and 9.52% respectively.[11]
Current racial inequality[edit | edit source]
White settlers own over 70% of South Africa's farmland despite only being 8% of the population,[12] whereas Africans only own 4% of the farmland.[13] The average income for settlers is five times higher than for Black Africans.[8]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Hermann Giliomee, Bernard Mbenga, Bill Nasson (2022). New History of South Africa (pp. 6,7). Tafelberg. ISBN 9780624092230
- ↑ Richard Elphick (1985). Khoikhoi and the founding of White South Africa (pp. 173,174).
- ↑ A. B. Davidson (1979). The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: 'South Africa, Republic of'.
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'The West and the Barbarians' (pp. 221–222). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "The 1973 Durban Strikes: Building Popular Democratic Power in South Africa" (2023-01-24). Tricontinental. Archived from the original on 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "South Africa and the continental struggle for socialism" (2014-01-26). Liberation News. Archived from the original on 2019-07-14. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Josie Mpama (2023-03-31). "Josie Mpama" Tricontinental. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-16.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lewis Barnes (2018-05-05). "South Africa: Major developments in the long struggle for land reform" Liberation News. Archived from the original on 2019-07-14. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ William Blum (2002). Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower: 'A Concise History of United States Global Interventions, 1945 to the Present' (pp. 122–123). [PDF] Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 9781842772201 [LG]
- ↑ Ajit Singh, Roscoe Palm (2022-08-08). "Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media" Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 2022-08-08. Retrieved 2022-08-09.
- ↑ “ANC 40.18%, DA 21.81%, M.K. 14.58%, EFF 9.52%, IFP 3.85%, PA 2.06%, VF+ 1.36%, ACTIONSA 1.2%”
Independent Electoral Comission (IEC) of South Africa. "NPE Results Dashboard 2024" IEC Election Results. Retrieved 2025-01-21. - ↑ Francis Njubi Nesbitt (2018-08-27). "In South Africa, Trump Embraces a Global Neo-Nazi Myth" MintPress News. Retrieved 2022-07-02.
- ↑ "This Land Is the Land of Our Ancestors" (2022-06-22). Tricontinental. Archived from the original on 2022-09-05. Retrieved 2022-11-12.