Looking for assistance in gathering and compiling a history the South African state which focuses primarily upon the 20th century of Apartheid. I already have the relevant information necessary to understand the workings of the current bicameral parliament under Zuma and the ANC but it has been difficult finding and deciding upon unbiased sources which present the history of Apartheid and its natural abuses towards the natives with going too far in demonizing the government as overly racists or glorifying the supremacy of white rule.
General timelines from settlement to the modern day or just a source of such a timeline would be much appreciated as well, it's not that the initial colonial history of South Africa as a settlement and early Boer conflicts with the Zulu aren't important, I'm just more focused on the state than the colony in my research.
If at all possible I'd like the thread to avoid becoming a flame war between /pol/acks and /his/torians.
>>429031
Honestly, at this point in time I think it would be incredibly difficult to find unbiased sources about the severity and actuality of human rights abuses under apartheid. It's too recent an issue, and it's still too polarising.
I can't give you much help, unfortunately, but I can tell you that my mum, who is South African, told me once that if there were human rights abuses (apart from the restrictions on work and movement) committed by the state, almost no one really knew about it - on account of a lot of censorship by the government. She said that's why, even though you had a sizable group of White South Africans protesting against the law very early on, not too many people were against it. By the late 80s though, the general opinion among White South Africans was that it was bad, and most of them wanted it gone. I'm not saying no one knew what was going on, people just weren't aware of the severity of it (if it was severe at all).
Realistically though, white rule itself wasn't all that great, which may come much to the dismay of post-Apartheid white South Africans and other non-South African whites who idealise the system despite never living under it. The economy wasn't doing great, you couldn't travel easily or find work abroad due to being international pariahs, and the government was relatively corrupt and oppressive towards dissent (not much better than the one now, mind you). It was in no way "heaven on earth", That's just my two cents though, actual South Africans or people more knowledgeable about the subject are free to interject and correct any of my misconceptions.
>>429271
Appreciate the thought from your mom. The most difficult part about all of this is that you're right when you say that
>It's too recent an issue, and it's still too polarising.
Apartheid South Africa isn't quite on the level of Rhodesia because there is a 'hero' in the story represented by Nelson Mandela, unlike Mugabe and his massive failures. Still though I think it's important to recognize that we are talking about a state that went from creating and then dismantling its own nuclear weapons to replacing three finance ministers in one week. What's most difficult is trying to find material that demonstrates the efficiency of the Apartheid system as well as its social misgivings. A perfect example that I was able to find would be white Afrikaner unions convincing their employers to increase wages to push blacks out of the job market by making them too risky an investment given the higher wages. This resulted in more skilled workers being hired but created and economic dead weight loss through the decreased purchasing power of the formerly employed blacks.
Interesting fact: South Africa was better under white rule
>>429447
I'm South African and grew up during apartheid, although I left in my teens. That other guy's mom experience chimes with mine.
My dad was a union shop steward in one of the major newspapers in the late 80's ans early 90's. He represented both black and white members. He said that management basically assumed that he would shaft the black and female members who were facing redundancy by accepting a shitty deal for them on the basis that he would be rewarded with relocation and promotion. He also told stories about how he had to go all CSI to defend a member who was facing the sack because he had crashed a delivery truck, and the police hadn't investigated probably because they were idle fucks.
Incidentally, my mom worked for a company that reverse engineered US missiles with the help of the israelis. They did so by slicing them into thin segments and building a 3d image up.
>>429447
You could use the number of patents and other achievements in the sciences as a bench mark to compare efficiency.
If you can have a comparable or even higher output while under embargo it's fair to say that the system is more efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1yvH8dzASc
A work about the violations of human rights would not be complete without looking at the current government's restrictions on freedom of expression and discrimination in favor of blacks.
I've talked to several people that have had to leave South Africa because highly skilled whites can't compete for jobs with barely qualified blacks. Heck I've had a conversation with a girl from one of the townships in a student stance program saying as much as "well it would make more sense to send a Afrikaans speaker to Flanders. But we can't have white people in the program due to reasons". She also liked having electricity 24/7 due to not having outages caused by corrupt officials and race based hiring policy leading to incapable staff.
>>429503
In any event, what really killed the SA economy, apart from divestment, was the failure to adequately educate and train blacks with the skills to do the increasingly complex jobs of a modern economy. Essentially you had a huge rump of poorly paid or unemployable people and no welfare state to provide them with a means to survive.
Hence the tanking economy, hence the skyrocketing crime rate and political agitation.
The NP saw the writing on the wall and, to their credit, decided to negotiate a way out.
>>429472
got any of them unbiased sources man? Obviously the state was stronger and had a stronger economy despite massive international sanctions but still... citations.
>>429503
The level of underhanded and blatant fuck you's in the Apartheid system were staggering, from laws dictating what side of the street you could walk on, to 'pencil tests' on people's hair to determine whether or not they were mixed if they had light skin. I always knew it would be difficult to find sources on Rhodesia just because both sides had moral ambiguity which led to most people hearing Zimbabwe's former name for the first time after the Charleston massacre, but until i had looked into it i just assumed there would be more data available on South Africa because people love Mandela so much and I assumed they would want to 'expose' Apartheid's history.
>>429524
It's pretty troubling, you can relate these abuses of the majority on the minority directly to the survival of the ANC in South African parliament. The party itself represents not only the successful transition of power from minority rule to majority but also the resentment of natives today who still feel disenfranchised by the old government's legacy. Zuma is running his country into the ground and if the recent change in financial ministers I mentioned don't point to that than the massive student protests last month and free fall of the rand do.
>>429539
Why would they get data on apartheid?
mandela is already glorified and no amount of data would glorify him even more.
But the data might just chip away at his glorious image.
But if you ask me an old Dutch proverb still applies: zelfs al geef je een aap een gouden ring, het is en blijft een lelijk ding.
He did not renounce violence, he led a terrorist organization, he did not renounce the violence in the anti-apartheid movement and maintained ties with communist organizations
>>429564
I mentioned Mandela because he represents the differentiation between South Africa and Rhodesia in the most simplistic terms. While Mugabe drove Zimbabwe into the dirt economically within a decade and promptly implemented anti-white laws, Mandela initiated a slow decline while maintaining his image of a peaceful unifier that wanted the best for everyone. I'm more focused on the time preiod from around the 1950s to the fall of Apartheid because I've yet to receive any meaningful education on this history. Mandela already has smears on gloried image by the way, he neglected to mention the AIDs epidemic in his country or combat the steady increase in the murder rate in his country with meaningful legislation.
>>429621
25 year rule
>>429621
You could also look at the military data between 1945 to the fall of apartheid
In both absolute numbers and % of the national budget/manpower/brainpower
Also easier to compare military readiness under apartheid and current regime
Apartheid managed to develop a shit load of good weapon systems and platforms, produce them and even export them (mind you it took a bite out of their budget) the current regime can't even get decent modernization packages set up ( don't know how much they spend on defended tough)
>>429695
1994 we can give it a 2 year leeway due to the duration of the negotiations
>>429720
I love that I'm as old as a nation and debatabley doing better by comparison.
>>429031
Well one thing to consider is looking at the reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I doubt it's perfect, but they tried to expose the crimes committed by all sides during Apartheid, not just those of the ANC.
>>429817
>not just those of the ANC
Shit I mean NP. They looked at the crimes of both the pro- and anti-apartheid sides.
>>429767
>27
>older then russia
