Introduction
Apartheid was an official barrier which separated the different races in South Africa, namely the black South Africans and the white Afrikaans South Africans. Although Apartheid ended 20 years ago when Nelson Mandela was elected president, Apartheid still plays a large role in South African History. Apartheid began long before it was officially named Apartheid in 1948 by the leading political party, National Party. The separation between the black and white people of South Africa began around the time Jan Van Riebeek arrived in the Cape in 1652. Since then the segregation escalated due to events which caused hatred between the two races.
Apartheid began because the two races had very different views on living; Afrikaners began to believe that they were superior to the black people in South Africa. Due to the Afrikaans perspective, Afrikaans nationalism was enhanced because they thoroughly believed that the segregation had to take place because God wanted to set the Boer Nation apart. Afrikaners even believed that they were direct decedents of the Israeli Nation, in other words “the chosen nation of God”.
The Afrikaans nation had faced a brutal war in the late 1800s against a British regime who were interested in South Africa because the country was rich in diamonds. However, the Afrikaners were not prepared to leave their country and so the South African War began. Women and children were placed in concentration camps while the men were at war. Due to the