Nationalism Case

It can be said in many countries that nationalism is a complicated issue but this could not be truer than in a country like South Africa. The following essay will discuss nationalism in South Africa and the problemss that have arisen because of it as well as the roots of other minority identities in South Africa.

Nationalism can be defined as "devotion or excessive patriotism to one's culture or nation and the belief that a nation will gain from acting independently rather than collectively". The start of nationalism in South Africa can be traced back to the historical situation on the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony in the early nineteenth century where wars of resistance were fought against white colonisation.

African nationalism was originally introduced to South Africa by the educated elite and upper classes who in the 1950's after WW‖ began to rebel against their colonial masters and fight for independence, They however were not successful in their attempts as in 1948 the National Party came to power in South Africa and quashed any ideas of African independence through their new political policy of Apartheid. The word apartheid stemming from the Afrikaans word for "apartness" came into use in the early 1950's, apartheid was a policy of racial segregation to ensure that the ''races" were kept separate and to promote white supremacy which was enforced by the South African government and was used as a means to suppress the "black" populous.

The National Party was formed on strong foundations of Afrikaner Nationalism which emphasized the unity of all Afrikaans speaking white South Africans. Afrikaner Nationalism is a political ideology that was born in the late nineteenth century around the idea that Afrikaners in South Africa were God's "chosen people" this belief created a mind set of racism which made white South Africans believe they were superior to the native blacks in all ways, this naive way of thinking has been perpetuated through the generations and has fractured and divided South Africa as a nation to this day.

Afrikaner Nationalism created complications in South Africa in that it created job reservation which favoured white South Africans for skilled positions in government jobs, this in turn lead to wide spread poverty amongst the black population as they were unable to secure decent jobs, and therefore were unable to provide for and educate their families. This was not the only reason for their lack of education as the government imposed acts stating that Afrikaans was to be the medium of instruction in all "bantu" schools, this was unrealistic in that a large percentage of the black students were unable to understand Afrikaans. These acts resulted in the 1976 Soweto riots that caused a stain on South Africa's history due to the loss of so many young lives which we still commemorate to this day through 'youth