Bantustan

The Bantustan were areas located in South Africa and Namibia reserved at the black populations. They enjoyed various degrees of autonomy during the period of apartheid in South Africa and during the South-African mandate on African South-west (1948 - 1994). In 1970, the Bantustans were renamed tuisland (in Afrikaans) or homelands (in English) by the authorities, the two terms meaning “national hearths”.

The Bantustan term comes from the accolation of the word bantou bantu (meaning “people”) with the suffix Persan - stan (meaning “ground of”). Bantustan thus means the “ground of the people”.

Today, the Bantustan term also indicates by extension any territory or area whose inhabitants are victims of Discrimination S and feels regarded as “citizens of second class” in their own country.

History

Creation

The creation of territories reserved for the Blacks and separation with the white man are born at the 17th century with the first delimitation from the grounds managed by the Compagnie Dutchwoman from the Eastern Indies, then with the Eastern fixing of the border of the Colonie of the Cape to the Fish river then with the Kei river. At the 19th century, the territories Xhosa S and the Zoulouland are already recognized by the colonial authorities.

Thus, well before the national Parti does not arrive at the capacity in 1948 and that the policy of Apartheid is installation, of the reserves were already established and officially recognized by the South-African State in 1913 and in 1936 in order to separate the black populations from the white populations (South-African application of the color British bar ).

The Fagan commission, installation by the government of Jan Smuts, recommends a liberalization of the racial system while starting with the abolition of the ethnic reserves as well as the end of the rigorous control of migrant worker. But the come to power in 1948 of the national Party involves the installation of a policy much more rigorous: apartheid.

The new minister in charge for the businesses of the natives Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd is based on the recommendations of the commission Sauer (which recommends a reinforcement of the segregation) to introduce series of measure which would allow, by excluding the black populations, to make the White majority in South Africa. The future creation of the Bantustans is adopted independent measurement and results in to withdraw the South-African Citoyenneté with the people having a territory to give them the citizenship of their Bantustan. The fact artificially of withdrawing the black population from the South-African population thus makes it possible to make the White majority. According to Verwoerd, the creation of the Bantustans is only the restoration of the grounds of origin of the South-African people.

In 1951, the government of Daniel François Malan issues “Bantu Authorities Act” which founds the Bantustans allocated with the various ethnicities of South Africa. On the whole, they are 13  % of the surface of the country which is occupied by these Bantustans, the remainder being reserved with the white population. The local tribal chiefs are requested to cooperate with the good performance of the Bantustans under penalty of being deposited. A small emergent rich black elite, because it finds an interest with the safeguarding of the Bantustans and traditional structures, influences their government in order to assure political stability, with the support of the South Africa.

The role and the capacity of the Bantustans are increased in 1959 with the adoption of “Bantu Self-Government Act” which projects an increased segregation of the communities. It makes it possible in particular the Bantustans to constitute a government allowing broad a autonomy, even quasi a Indépendance. This is a means to reduce the rights whose still the Blacks in South Africa profit.

The process of segregation is reinforced in 1970 with “Black Homelands Citizenship Act” which removes the South-African citizenship with the ethnos groups in their granting the nationality of their Bantustan. Out of their Bantustans, they are regarded as immigrant foreigners and do not lay out of Civic right. People who thus never lived in the tribal zones ancestral or recognized with the ethnos groups become foreigners in their own country.

Parallel to the creation of the Bantustans, the black populations are subjected to a program of displacement which in the long term aims to have an ethnos group by territory: blacks in their respective Bantustans and White in the remainder of South Africa. One estimates at 3,5 million the number of displaced persons towards the Bantustans between the Années 1960 and the beginning of the Années 1980. The government clearly asserts the total segregation of each ethnos group in South Africa. Connie Mulder, the Minister for the relations and the plural development, declares in front of the Parliament the February 7th 1978:

If our policy with respect to the black populations arrives to his natural conclusion, there will be no more only one Black with the South-African citizenship… Each black man in South Africa will be moved and reintegrated in a new State independent of respectful manner and there will not be thus more obligation of this Parliament to politically take into account these people. |Connie Mulder

This objective is however never achieved, and only 55  % of the population of South Africa lived in the Bantustans. The remainder of the population lives in the white areas, gathered mainly in Township S and Bidonville S in periphery of the white big cities. This is due to the fact that the economy of the South Africa is strongly dependant on the black population which is used as tank of Labor.

The Bantustans start to gain their independence in 1976 with the Transkei. However, none of them was never recognized like such by the other countries and UNO. Only South Africa and the South-western African recognize this statute. The territories allocated with the Bantustans are very complex, the borders multiplying the Enclave S and the turnings. For example, the South-African Embassy with the Bophuthatswana due being moved because it proved to actually be located in South Africa. However, during the abolition of the system, only four of the ten Bantustans were declared independent and certain ethnos groups did not have any Bantustan yet (in particular the Swazis, the Ndebeles of the South, the Namaquas, the Griqua S, the Lembas, and the Khoïkhoï).

The process of territorial segregation is adapted and set up starting from 1955 in the South-western African (currently the Namibia) then under mandate of the South Africa. The recommendations of the commission of Fox Odendaal in 1964 to create Bantustans are applied. In July 1980, the system is changed and founded either according to the geography but only according to the Ethnie S, following the abolition of apartheid in 1979 and the installation of local governments. In 1989, the South-African administration directed by Louis Pienaar, takes again the reality of the capacity in order to organize with the mission of the United Nations the transition towards independence from the Namibia, effective the March 21st 1990.

Life of the populations

The living conditions in the Bantustans were particularly hard: the extreme poverty of the black populations was worsened by the policy of the Bantustans and the fact that the borders excluded the best grounds and industries from the Bantustans. The Chômage was very widespread and only the true incomes came from the casinos and the spectacles of striptease, prohibited in South Africa because considered to be immoral. True cities of the leisures were built, such Sun City in the Bophuthatswana, constituting a very lucrative source of revenue with the hand of the black elite.

The poverty and the lack of resources of the Bantustans obliged the South-African government to maintain with flood the economy Bantustans. Thus, in 1985, 85  % of the incomes of Transkei was consisted by subsidies coming from South Africa. The governments of the Bantustans were generally corrupted and very little money arrived at the poorest populations, then obliged to seek work in the white areas as an immigrant worker. This fate was that of million people who worked during months far from on their premises without seeing their family. 65  % of the population of the Bophuthatswana was in this case of figure.

The Bantustans were very unpopular near the great majority of the black population which lived in Township S and from which the work conditions difficult and were protected very little by the right. Moreover, the attribution of a Bantustan with certain people was completely arbitrary knowing that certain ethnos groups did not have a clean Bantustan, that the Métis were moved arbitrarily, that certain tribes had never lived in the zones allocated with their ethnos group and that because of certain errors, certain tribes did not find themselves in the good Bantustan.

Dissolution

After the abrogation of the laws of apartheid in June 1991, the Bantustans were condemned. During three years, the conditions of their rehabilitation were negotiated in Kempton Park between the governments concerned, the South-African government and the national political parties. The Bophuthatswana and the Ciskei reinstated South Africa with difficulty, the South-African army having dù to play the mediators at the end of March 1994 to defuse the political crisis. The Bantustans were finally officially dissolved the April 27th 1994, date of the first multiracial elections of South Africa. They were reincorporated within the nine new provinces of South Africa whereas was confirmed the victory of the African National congress (or ANC) with the elections.

The reincorporation, central element of the electoral program of the ANC, was done in general in a peaceful way, although there was certain a reserve of the local black elites.

List Bantustans

Bantustans of South Africa

Ten, they have as a characteristic to be very parcelled out and to comprise many Enclave S. Seuls four of between-them independent between 1976 and 1994 were declared (Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Venda and Transkei):

Bantustans of Namibia

These ten Bantustans, of which three would have being declared independent between 1973 and 1989 (Ovamboland, Kavangoland and Caprivi  /  Lozi), covered large surfaces in general but comprised great desert parts (Namib and Kalahari):

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • Bantustans of South Africa on worldstatesmen.org
  • Bantustans of Namibia on worldstatesmen.org
  • Butler, Jeffrey, Robert I. Rotberg, and John Adams, The Black Homelands off South Africa: The Political and Economic Development off Bophuthtswana and Kwa-Zulu , Berkeley: University off California, 1991, Work in line
  • new South-African citizenship and citizens of the old Bantustans

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