South Africa
Alicia Hudson
SOC 315
Professor Norsworthy
May 6, 2013
South Africa South Africa, a country on the southern tip of Africa, has an area of 471,442sq mi and a population of 44,188,000. It is predominately a black ethnicity with 76% of the population. Although South Africa is Africa 's most developed country, most of the black people - rural and urban - are poor, with low standards of living. South Africa has vital natural resources such as diamonds and gold and is rich in other resources such as coal, chromite, copper, iron ore, manga- nese, platinum, phosphate rock, silver, uranium and vanadium (South Africa, 2008). It is obvious that South Africa can sustain their economy through these resources. Through the centuries South Africa has faced difficult time since the Dutch came in 1600’s, in 1700 they started importing slaves establishing the dominance of white over non- whites in the region. The non-whites faced discrimination for years under apartheid and political corruption ran by the whites. Today things look better for the people of South Africa, but they still have many obstacles to overcome. Although South Africa has overcome many travesties throughout the years, their reasonably new democracy faces more with complex political parties, recent struggles with homelessness, and what is being done about this situation. Firstly, apartheid is an “Afrikaans word literally meaning apartness,” refers to the policy of racial segregation and its concomitant economic and political discrimination that was adopted by the South African government for a half century. Coined in the late 1930s by the South African Bureau for Racial Affairs (SABRA), apartheid reflected the social, yet non-legal, practices of South Africans. In the 1940s, the Afrikaner National Party used it as their political slogan. When they won the election in 1948, apartheid was written into law” (Apartheid, 2001). It was a bitter century for the South Africans especially the
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