Mark Mathabane: The South African Apartheid System

How do think the natives of South Africa feel when the whites came to South Africa, took over and made them fourth class citizens, made an unjustifiable system that only whites benefit from, and made Afrikaans the official language? Mark Mathabane is the author of Kaffir Boy and grew up as an unprivileged black boy in the Apartheid system. South Africa is controlled by the white minority and has been that way for most of the 20th century (the 1900s) and the main problem was Apartheid. Apartheid is a system made for blacks to flounder and for only whites to profit from and Mark has advantages through this system even though he is black by learning different languages such as Afrikaans and English. Afrikaans is a language that originated from the African continent that whites use and force onto blacks. Mark’s ability to learn and to speak several languages gave him power within the Apartheid system by learning Afrikaans, English and Tribal languages.

Afrikaans the language used by the minority of South Africa to benefit over the natives. Mark is one of the natives and has an advantage by learning and fluently speaking in Afrikaans. Mark and Ndlamini get in a situation with a white superintendent and Mark surprises the superintendent by speaking Afrikaans when the superintendent asks, “ ‘You speak Afrikaans,’ “ (251). The superintendent is very
Afrikaans affected Mark’s life in a big way because it got him through Apartheid. English a more important language got him out of the country of South Africa. Tribal language is a huge part of his life, even from birth and will stay that way until he lives with himself (away from Papa). Learning English is a big part my life because I’ve met a lot of important people and it is the most known language in the world, therefore, communicating with most people. Now that you have background information, how would you