History UsefulNotes / TheApartheidEra

South Africa draws its roots from the small, insular "settler" European communities along the Cape of Good Hope, largely divided between the British and Afrikaners - who were descended from Dutch settlers to the cape in the 1652, as well German, Huguenot, and Nordic people who mingled with said Dutch settlers later on. Conflict in the Cape was common, both between Europeans and against the native Africans; as such, these communities tended to structure their governments in a way that allowed their inhabitants to maintain power. The colonists tried to unify everyone under their own system; the British, in particular, tried to assimilate it like the rest of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, which saw staunch resistance from the fiercely independent Boers. This led to such bloody conflicts as [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the Boer wars]]. In the end, the whites stopped fighting with each other and adopted a common model of broad universal rights -- but only for white citizens. It was under this model that the basic segregation policies were established.\\

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]

South Africa draws its roots from the small, insular "settler" European communities along the Cape of Good Hope, largely divided between the British and Boers/Afrikaners, most of whom were of Dutch ancestry, though some were descended from Germans and French Huguenots. Conflict in the Cape was common, both between Europeans and against the native Africans; as such, these communities tended to structure their governments in a way that allowed their inhabitants to maintain power. The colonists tried to unify everyone under their own system; the British, in particular, tried to assimilate it like the rest of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, which saw staunch resistance from the fiercely independent Boers. This led to such bloody conflicts as [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the Boer wars]]. In the end, the whites stopped fighting with each other and adopted a common model of broad universal rights -- but only for white citizens. It was under this model that the basic segregation policies were established.\\

-->-- '''Debora Patta''', discussing the boycotts during the ''Series/{{Mayday}}'' episode on the Helderberg crash, an air disaster that the boycotts contributed to.

* In the ''Comicbook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesAdventures'' comic book produced by Creator/ArchieComics, a supporting character was a black [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] whose family moved to Jamaica from South Africa to escape apartheid.

* The island nation of Genosha in ''Franchise/XMen'' began life in 1983 as a deliberate fictional equivalent of apartheid South Africa, just as public awareness of the regime was increasing. Genosha is located off the east coast of Africa, near Madagascar, and is an incredibly prosperous and advanced nation whose wealth is built off horrifying mutant slavery. {{Mutants}} are brainwashed and tortured into becoming cheap labor for the mines, and even children with the mutant gene are taken away from their parents. Citizenship in Genosha is permanent and the regime refuses to recognize any overseas immigration, with anyone attempting to flee brought back by the [[StateSec Press Gang]]. The regime's security forces, which are extremely militarized police, appear to be made up entirely of white non-mutants who have zero problems massacring, torturing, and experimenting on mutants. There's a telling scene where the main antagonist's son ([[HeelFaceTurn who later turns against his father's regime]]) summons a mutant slave to fix his garden with his powers, addressing him as 'boy', and another where the same son is mistaken for a pro-mutant agitator by a policeman and nearly beaten up. Genoshan antagonists are given Afrikaner-sounding names such as 'Jan' in the case of the aforementioned policeman.

* While it's set before the era, the ''ComicBook/SpiderManNoir'' version of ComicBook/DoctorOctopus is a SubParSupremacist, a wheelchair-bound dwarf whose hatred of blacks is rooted in his transparent resentment of them for being normal-sized, able-bodied and healthy. At the end of the comic, he escapes to Nazi Germany, expecting a hero's welcome... and is dismissed out of hand by Goebbels for his congenital disabilities being incompatible with the Reich's ideals.

When Apartheid began, South Africa was surrounded largely by other colonial governments that were similarly racist (in Angola, Rhodesia, and UsefulNotes/{{Mozambique}}). That started to change in the 1960s and 1970s, as the black majority in those countries -- again, led by largely communist groups -- overthrew the European colonial powers and established independence. South-West Africa also won an independence war from South Africa and split to form UsefulNotes/{{Namibia}}. South Africa saw itself surrounded by increasingly hostile nations.\\

-->-- '''Debora Patta''', discussing the boycotts during the ''Series/{{Mayday}}'' episode on the Helderberg crash, a disaster that the boycotts contributed to.

While Botha made these concessions reluctantly, he helped lay the groundwork for his successor, F. W. de Klerk to announce the intention to end Apartheid when he was elected in late 1989, and many of the discriminatory laws were repealed over the next four years. This was the subject of fierce debate among South African Whites, with most non-Afrikaners (including both British descendants and others) supporting reform, conservative Afrikaners defending the existing system, and many more moderate Afrikaners conflicted. In February 1990, de Klerk lifted the ban on the African National Congress and released Nelson Mandela from prison, at which they began negotiating the transition to majority rule.\\

They also strove to reform its then-current standing military, which was for years the enforcer of the Apartheid regime. Most of the white soldiers resented being commanded by the Soviet-trained officers they had previously been fighting. Many of them became mercenaries (well, [[InsistentTerminology private military contractors]]), either fighting in NATO-aligned mercenary groups in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, or becoming "[[HiredGuns private security]]" forces. As this generation ages, though, the "[[AmoralAfrikaner racist white South African mercenary]]" trope is likely to die out except in period works.

* Dutch children's series ''WesternAnimation/AlfredJKwak'' (1989–1991) has a {{fictional country}} based on South Africa during the Apartheid period (black ducks segregated from white geese) referred as "Atrique" (it's unnamed in the Dutch and German version) in the English Dub. Alfred's love interest is Winnie Wana ([[NoCelebriiesWereHarmed based on]] Mandela's sister) who seeks refuge in Great Waterland thanks to the help of her father Kwa Wana (based on Nelson Mandela). Eventually, Wannes calls the authorities to arrest Winnie's parents. After Winnie and her brother Tom Wana managed to get their citizenship, her parents decide to head back to Atrique to continue fighting for freedom. During the ship back to Atrique, Wannes immediately calls the Atrique policemen about black ducks being on board. Luckily, Kwa Wana and his wife Blanche Wana manage to escape the night prior to arriving back to a segregated area with other black ducks.

South Africa already suffered from a serious shortage of skilled labor. Most of its black population was not allowed to hold desk jobs, and many of them were (kept) illiterate anyway. The country's insularity made it hostile to immigrants, and many people -- black and white alike -- were too disgusted with the country to want to move there. This meant the labor shortage was entirely self-inflicted, either directly through discrimination or indirectly through alienating anyone who wasn't a white supremacist.\\

In some sense, though, the experience of the newly independent neighbors caused South Africa to double down on its Apartheid policy. Rhodesia, for instance, became independent as Zimbabwe under its leader Robert Mugabe; but while the country had been one of the most successful in Africa under colonial and later white minority rule in the 1960s, Mugabe's governance was notoriously riddled with cronyism and incompetence, suggesting to whites in South Africa that Apartheid was NecessarilyEvil to prevent the country from facing a similar fate.\\

South Africa draws its roots from the small, insular "settler" European communities along the Cape of Good Hope, largely divided between the British and Boers/Afrikaners, who were most of Dutch ancestry. Conflict in the Cape was common, both between Europeans and against the native Africans; as such, these communities tended to structure their governments in a way that allowed their inhabitants to maintain power. The colonists tried to unify everyone under their own system; the British, in particular, tried to assimilate it like the rest of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, which saw staunch resistance from the fiercely independent Boers. This led to such bloody conflicts as [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the Boer wars]]. In the end, the whites stopped fighting with each other and adopted a common model of broad universal rights -- but only for white citizens. It was under this model that the basic segregation policies were established.\\

Since the 1960s, the government would justify such violence as a way of putting down protests, which became increasingly frequent. The Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 is seen as a turning point, as frightened police officers fired on an unruly protest, killing dozens, most of whom were shot in the back while fleeing. Anything could have sparked a protest; some of the biggest (such as the Soweto massacre) arose out of a government decree that at least 50% of the country's schools teach in Afrikaans rather than English, as many blacks considered Afrikaans in particular the language of the oppressors.

Foreign investment in South Africa was decidedly lackluster. This wasn't so much because the {{Mega Corp}}s had any particular moral qualms with the regime, but more that the country looked increasingly dangerous and unstable as its neighbors turned to chaos and South Africa seemed ready to follow suit. Governments were also putting pressure on companies not to invest in South Africa; in the U.S., this was a big reason for the enactment of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and later the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, where Congress overrode President Reagan's veto. South Africa was so desperate for investment that they gave "honorary white" status to East Asians, trying to entice UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese and UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}}ese companies to invest.\\

The boycott was also cultural. South Africa was already notoriously strict on this front -- television was considered [[MoralGuardians morally corrupting]] and didn't arrive there until ''1975''. They also weren't very kind to people who went to the country to film there. If you did get to perform there as a musician, it was likely at the infamous Sun City resort (which was in a Bantustan, as South Africa itself banned gambling for being morally corrupting as well); many other musicians detested the regime and wrote numerous {{protest song}}s. They even criticized Music/PaulSimon for recording ''Music/{{Graceland}}'' in the country -- with only black musicians. The British actor's union Equity actually went so far as to ban the sale of any programs filming there featuring their members -- in effect, pretty much the entirety of UK television, with only ''Series/TheSweeney'' making it down there.\\

But it really hit them hard with UsefulNotes/{{cricket}}, a favorite sport in South Africa; very few teams were willing to play there. South Africa made it worse on itself by refusing to allow non-whites to play cricket there, and they really got in hot water when they insisted that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Oliveira_affair Basil D'Oliveira]], a mixed-race English cricketer (himself a 'coloured' South African who'd moved to the UK) not be included in the England team that was set to tour South Africa in 1968–69, resulting in the cancellation of that tour.

* Creator/HarryTurtledove's AlternateHistory novel ''Literature/TheGunsOfTheSouth'' has bitter Afrikaners, members of the real-life ''Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging'' (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), steal a time machine and provide the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Confederate States of America]] with AK-47s in the hopes of building a powerful nation that supported "white power". [[spoiler: They face opposition from Robert E. Lee and other moderates who, regardless of their personal feelings on slavery, dislike the AWB line, especially when they discover future books the AWB men had brought back with them showing that slavery will be condemned and the Confederacy looked down on for association with it. In the end, the AWB is put down after trying to assassinate Lee at his inauguration after running on a platform of abolishing slavery, which is done (the slave owners are compensated).]]

* In an episode of ''Series/TheGoodies'', the Goodies move to South Africa just after all black natives have left. The regime starts a new form of segregation called Apart-Height. Which does not bode well for anyone under a certain height. Eventually the native Jockeys overthrow the government.
* In the ''Comicbook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesAdventures'' comic book produced by Creator/ArchieComics, a supporting character was a black werewolf whose family moved to Jamaica from South Africa to escape apartheid.

** The South African writer stated that it wasn't supposed to be an allegory for anything, but was just his idea of what would realistically happen to aliens if they landed in South Africa during apartheid (it's stated they landed in 1983).

* The German book ''Literature/MeineSchwesterSara'' follows the life of Johannes Leroux. His family (especially his father) are supporters of the Apartheid, but Johannes later starts to doubt if this system is right after his father started to hate his adopted sister Sarah, who was the child of a jewish woman.

* ''Series/SpittingImage released a'' song attacking Apartheid called "I've never met a nice South African" which does admit that nice (i.e. anti-Apartheid) South Africans exist, and that they either left the country or got put in prison.

* An episode of ''Series/SilentWitness'' involves Nikki Alexander (born in the country) being hired to identify the bodies of ANC activists executed in 1985. It also features a woman getting "necklaced" for fleeing the house where she's held as a sex slave and telling the police, an ANC punishment for informers that involves placing a tire around their neck, dousing it in petrol and setting it alight.
* ''Literature/ThePowerOfOne'', a novel by Bryce Courtenay, and the movie of the book focus on an English colonist who boxes in illegal interracial tournaments and inspires the native Black population, giving them lessons in English. The Afrikaner police are depicted as Nazi-like, and [[spoiler: the main antagonist of the story]] is explicitly a Nazi sympathizer, who has a swastika tattoo, listens to the Horst Wessel Lied, and, [[spoiler: as a teenager,]] swore allegiance to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. TruthInTelevision somewhat, since many white South Africans were supportive of the Nazis during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

* South African author Alan Paton is most well-known for his anti-apartheid literature, such as ''Ah, but Your Land Is Beautiful'', which displays several episodes during apartheid's beginnings in the 1950s. Paton's most famous novel is ''Literature/CryTheBelovedCountry'', which explores the complex social interactions of Whites and Blacks during the turbulent upheavals of apartheid's emergence through the eyes of a black pastor and a white farmer. The book was adapted to film in 1951 and 1995, the latter one starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris; there was also a stage musical adaptation, ''Lost in the Stars'', that was itself filmed in 1973.

* ''Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo'' depicts an AlternateHistory where, amongst other wackiness, Magnus Malan becomes dictator of an even more extreme South Africa and implements (even worse) racist policies against blacks and even non-Afrikaner whites. South Africa in this timeline is a Neo-Nazi state in all but name, and is engaged in a losing war against the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, committing massacres against natives and using dirty bombs and chemical weapons against her enemies. When it becomes apparent to Malan that South Africa's gonna lose, he arranges to wipe out most of the continent with the country's nuclear arsenal. It's quite telling the setting is a CrapsackWorld when the POTUS [[spoiler:UsefulNotes/DonaldRumsfeld]] openly supports this kind of place.

* ''A Dry White Season'' is a 1989 film starring Donald Sutherland as a white businessman who attempts to reveal the truth of a black suspect's death by torture in police custody, with predictable results.

* ''Film/{{Bopha}}!'', directed by Creator/MorganFreeman and released in 1993, follows Black South African policeman Micah Mangena and his family. Set in 1980, the film opens with another Black police officer being burned alive by fellow Black people, and gets worse from there. Micah, though initially believing that serving as a police officer is best for his people, grows increasingly doubtful when the regime represses peaceful protests with mass brutality, and gets into conflict with his son Zweli about this. It's based on a play released in 1986.

* ''Film/YankeeZulu'': A comedy film from 1993 produced in South Africa (where it was known as ''There's a Zulu on My Stoep'') about two friends, one black and one white, who grew up together in the apartheid era before an incident shattered their friendship and drove them apart, until decades later when they reconcile and rekindle what they had over the pursuit of a lottery ticket worth half a million rand. While the film does suffer in hindsight from an extended scene involving {{Blackface}} that goes on for an uncomfortably long time (something that is unfortunately present throughout most of star Leon Schuster's works), it is still notable for being a deliberately anti-racist, and by extension anti-apartheid, movie that was also at one point the highest grossing movie produced in South Africa, which speaks to how much the South African public at the time felt about the dying segregationist policy.
* The island nation of Genosha in ''Franchise/XMen'' began life in 1983 as a deliberate fictional equivalent of apartheid South Africa, just as public awareness of the regime was increasing. Genosha is located off the east coast of Africa, near Madagascar, and is an incredibly prosperous and advanced nation whose wealth is built off horrifying mutant slavery. Mutants are brainwashed and tortured into becoming cheap labor for the mines, and even children with the mutant gene are taken away from their parents. Citizenship in Genosha is permanent and the regime refuses to recognize any overseas immigration, with anyone attempting to flee brought back by the [[StateSec Press Gang]]. The regime's security forces, which are extremely militarized police, appear to be made up entirely of white non-mutants who have zero problems massacring, torturing, and experimenting on mutants. There's a telling scene where the main antagonist's son ([[HeelFaceTurn who later turns against his father's regime]]) summons a mutant slave to fix his garden with his powers, addressing him as 'boy', and another where the same son is mistaken for a pro-mutant agitator by a policeman and nearly beaten up. Genoshan antagonists are given Afrikaner-sounding names such as 'Jan' in the case of the aforementioned policeman.

* ''Series/CallTheMidwife'': The Series 6 Christmas special (set in 1961) centered on the Poplar Nonnatus midwives (along with Dr. Turner, Fred, and Reverend Hereward) going to assist a tiny mission clinic the Order runs in rural South Africa operate a polio vaccination campaign. Apartheid affects the availability of supplies. The (White, English) midwives are also shocked that they are forbidden ''by law'' from socialising with their (Black) patients. (Please recall that they had been attending to and socialising with patients of all races back in Poplar for nigh on a decade at that point, seeing as it was exactly the kind of neighbourhood where postwar immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the West Indies ended up in those days.) Also, one of the patients knew how to read, write, and type and had actually been a secretary in one of the cities before the regime prohibited Blacks from working office jobs.

* Music/ArtOfNoise's "Instruments of Darkness" is a ProtestSong against apartheid, being a VoiceClipSong that sets excerpts from pro-apartheid South African politicians' speeches against a foreboding instrumental backdrop.

* Dutch children's series ''WesternAnimation/AlfredJKwak'' (1989–1991) has a fictional country based on South Africa during the Apartheid period (black ducks segregated from white geese) referred as "Atrique" (it's unnamed in the Dutch and German version) in the English Dub. Alfred's love interest is Winnie Wana (based on Mandela's sister) who seeks refuge in Great Waterland thanks to the help of her father Kwa Wana (based on Nelson Mandela). Eventually, Wannes calls the authorities to arrest Winnie's parents. After Winnie and her brother Tom Wana managed to get their citizenship, her parents decide to head back to Atrique to continue fighting for freedom. During the ship back to Atrique, Wannes immediately calls the Atrique policemen about black ducks being on board. Luckily, Kwa Wana and his wife Blanche Wana manage to escape the night prior to arriving back to a segregated area with other black ducks.

South Africa draws its roots from the small, insular "settler" European communities along the Cape of Good Hope, largely divided between the British and the Dutch (who became known as the Boers or Afrikaaners). Conflict in the Cape was common, both between Europeans and against the native Africans; as such, these communities tended to structure their governments in a way that allowed their inhabitants to maintain power. The colonists tried to unify everyone under their own system; the British, in particular, tried to assimilate it like the rest of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, which saw staunch resistance from the fiercely independent Boers. This led to such bloody conflicts as [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the Boer wars]]. In the end, the whites stopped fighting with each other and adopted a common model of broad universal rights -- but only for white citizens. It was under this model that the basic segregation policies were established.\\

"Apartheid" is an Afrikaans word [[note]] English speakers tend to pronounce it as “a-par-tide,” but in Afrikaans it’s pronounced “a-par-tate” (rhymes with “hate”)[[/note]]. It was coined as a neologism that literally means "apart-ness"; more accurately, it means "segregation"[[note]]. [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord The National Party government invented the term precisely to avoid the negative connotations that "segregation" (''segregasie'') had]][[/note]]. And in practice, it refers to the overriding policy in UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica from 1948 to 1994 of strictly enforced racial segregation.

During the Apartheid era, South Africa was the most visible nation in the modern world to have an official policy of "scientific racism" -- the idea that certain races were scientifically, objectively, better than others or at least distinct enough to deserve special protection.[[note]] Neighbouring UsefulNotes/{{Zimbabwe}}, when it was called Rhodesia, also applied apartheid -- in such a heavy-handed and repressive way that [[EveryoneHasStandards even South Africa pleaded with them to tone it down a bit]], as it was giving both countries a bad name.[[/note]] As an anthropological theory, it was mostly discredited in the West after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust when millions died as a result of such theories]]. South Africa, however, did this to "protect" its white citizens, who made up only 15 to 20% of the population, one of only a rare few cases where an ethnic minority subjugated the majority group rather than the other way around.

!HowWeGotHere -- South Africa and the leadup to Apartheid.

Only whites could be considered "true" citizens of South Africa or participate in South Africa's government. The government tried to confine everyone else to the countryside, where they set up ten ''Bantustans'', "native homelands". Six of these were provinces of South Africa itself, while four were nominally independent microstates. In practice, all were effectively governed by and subservient to South Africa. Blacks and coloureds could get citizenship in one of the Bantustans, but this was effectively meaningless. The idea was that under the guise of "de-colonisation", blacks could form their own nations and societies separate from the European-colonized areas. In practice, that was impossible, as these places were poverty-ridden, completely devoid of healthcare, education, or infrastructure, and basically just sources of cheap labor for South Africa's mines - and often used as a place to "deport" blacks living elsewhere in South Africa.\\

Segregation was strictly enforced, even more so than in the U.S. at the time. Non-whites were formally prohibited from white areas, which could range from public facilities, to beaches, to neighborhoods, to effectively whole cities. Most jobs were completely closed to non-whites. Inter-racial relationships were strictly forbidden; although "coloured" was an officially-recognized "race", it consisted heavily of people whose mere ''existence'' was illegal (though the bulk of "coloureds" were descended from race-mixing at an earlier point in history, some were not; the title of Creator/TrevorNoah's[[note]]Born in 1984 to a Xhosa mother and Swiss-German father[[/note]] black-comic[[note]]No pun intended[[/note]] memoir ''Born A Crime'' says a lot).\\

The government dealt with political opponents by "banning" them. This meant that they could not communicate with more than one person at a time when not at home, they couldn't enter certain areas, and they could not be quoted in the media. (This legal measure is still on the books today, just not used as much.) Those suspected of "terrorism" could be detained indefinitely, without charge or trial -- "terrorism" was broadly defined as anything from "[[RedScare communism]]" to "pissing the government off". South Africa, until 1993, had the dubious honor of having the highest percentage of its population in prison. (The U.S. has since overtaken it thanks to [[DrugsAreBad the "War on Drugs"]] and, before it, the "War on Crime".)\\

And that's if you stayed alive. South Africa hanged 2,949 people from 1959 to 1991, with 1,123 of those in the 1980s alone - topping the global execution chart in some years for various offences; frequently with political motivations in the issuing of the death penalty and definitely applied in a very racist manner - black people were far more likely to be hanged than white people. Mandela himself just escaped the death penalty at his own trial.\\

The Apartheid era coincided with [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheColdWar the Cold War]]. As was common in authoritarian colonial states, the largest and best-organized opposition group -- in this case the African National Congress, or ANC -- was very leftist and openly allied with the [[RedScare communists]] - especially the Soviet Union and Cuba. The white South Africans responded by being so vehemently anti-communist that they attracted some support from the West, including the U.S., the U.K., and Israel, especially among conservative politicians like UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher. Israel and South Africa are even alleged to have collaborated on [[UsefulNotes/TheRestOfTheNuclearClub nuclear technology]]. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was doing what it could to support the insurgents, usually through Cuba and the MPLA in Angola, while the South Africans backed anti-communist insurgents throughout Africa such as UNITA in Angola.\\

When Apartheid began, South Africa was surrounded largely by other colonial governments that were similarly racist (in Angola, Rhodesia, and Mozambique). That started to change in the 1960s and 1970s, as the black majority in those countries -- again, led by largely communist groups -- overthrew the European colonial powers and established independence. South-West Africa also won an independence war from South Africa and split to form Namibia. South Africa saw itself surrounded by increasingly hostile nations.\\

South Africa already suffered from a serious shortage of skilled labor. Most of its black population was not allowed to hold desk jobs, and many of them were illiterate anyway. The country's insularity made it hostile to immigrants, and many people -- black and white alike -- were too disgusted with the country to want to move there. This meant the labor shortage was entirely self-inflicted, either directly through discrimination or indirectly through alienating anyone who wasn't a white supremacist.\\

Foreign investment in South Africa was decidedly lackluster. This wasn't so much because the {{Mega Corp}}s had any particular moral qualms with the regime, but more that the country looked increasingly dangerous and unstable as its neighbors turned to chaos and South Africa seemed ready to follow suit. Governments were also putting pressure on companies not to invest in South Africa; in the U.S., this was a big reason for the enactment of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and later the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, where Congress overrode President Reagan's veto. South Africa was so desperate for investment that they gave "honorary white" status to East Asians, trying to entice Japanese and Taiwanese companies to invest.\\

The boycott was also cultural. South Africa was already notoriously strict on this front -- television was considered [[MoralGuardians morally corrupting]] and didn't arrive there until ''1975''. They also weren't very kind to people who went to the country to film there. If you did get to perform there as a musician, it was likely at the infamous Sun City resort (which was in a Bantustan, as South Africa itself banned gambling for being morally corrupting as well); many other musicians detested the regime and wrote numerous {{protest song}}s. They even criticized Music/PaulSimon for recording ''Music/{{Graceland}}'' in the country -- with only black musicians. The British actor's union Equity actually went so far as to ban the sale of any programs filming there featuring their members - in effect, pretty much the entirety of UK television, with only ''Series/TheSweeney'' making it down there.\\

South Africa also faced international sports boycotts; it was barred from the Olympics between 1964 and 1992. South African teams that did go abroad often sparked protests against the regime. Going to South Africa at all as an athlete would get you bad press. When the New Zealand UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion team toured South Africa in 1976, the IOC was under huge pressure to ban New Zealand; when they didn't, because of a [[EveryManHasHisPrice lucrative sponsorship deal at stake]], twenty-five African countries boycotted that summer's Olympics in Montreal. Just 5 years later in 1981, the all-white Springbok rugby team toured New Zealand, sparking a major culture war battleground between equally passionate supporters and opponents of the tour. Nelson Mandela would later state in an interview that the anti-tour protests in New Zealand were "[[https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/9485493/Nelson-Mandelas-New-Zealand-legacy like the sun coming out]]".\\

But it really hit them hard with UsefulNotes/{{cricket}}, a favorite sport in South Africa; very few teams were willing to play there. South Africa made it worse on itself by refusing to allow non-whites to play cricket there, and they really got in hot water when they insisted that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Oliveira_affair Basil D'Oliveira]], a mixed-race English cricketer (himself a 'coloured' South African who'd moved to the UK) not be included in the England team that was set to tour South Africa in 1968-69, resulting in the cancellation of that tour.

There's some debate as to who exactly should get the most credit for ending Apartheid. UsefulNotes/NelsonMandela gets much of the credit, but the foundation was laid even before he became the president. The process to end Apartheid ultimately began in the mid-1980s under the leadership of P. W. Botha. While Botha was a staunch supporter of Apartheid and his leadership in the 1980s oversaw some of the most brutal years of the Apartheid era, Botha also began relaxing or repealing laws governing racial discrimination starting in 1985. At the same time, Botha began engaging with Mandela and offered to release him from prison multiple times, but Mandela consistently refused because he found the conditions Botha attached to his potential release to be unacceptable.[[note]]Botha first offered Mandela freedom in February 1985 on the condition that he renounce violence as a political weapon, but Mandela refused because he considered it unacceptable to leave prison while the ANC remained banned and believed that he would be entering negotiations with the government from a position of weakness unless they formally recognized the ANC's legitimacy.[[/note]] Nonetheless, Botha and his government maintained engagement with Mandela throughout the rest of the decade in what became the first time he was recognized as a legitimate political leader by the government. \\

It is generally agreed that both Botha's reforms and de Klerk's decision to end the system entirely were driven at least partly by an escalation of ethnic violence in the country throughout the 1980s that lead to fears the country was headed towards a civil race war not unlike the Rhodesian Bush Wars of the 1970s. With the Rhodesian government under UsefulNotes/IanSmith providing a great historical example of how to ''not'' handle the situation,[[note]]Smith's entire tenure as Prime Minister of Rhodesia, from 1964 to 1979, was defined by him doing everything he could to maintain white minority rule despite massive international pressure to end it and the Rhodesian Bush War, which was a guerrilla war in Rhodesia's countryside between Smith's government and Soviet-backed black liberation armies lead by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. By adamantly refusing to even consider the idea of black majority rule, Smith squandered any opportunity to turn the country over to more moderate black leadership and was ultimately forced to accept a settlement in 1979 which was all-but guaranteed to bring Mugabe to power. Ironically, Smith's refusal to grant majority rule was because of [[SelfFulfillingProphecy fear that a radical warlord like Mugabe taking over would be inevitable]].[[/note]] the National Party understood it would be wise to negotiate with Mandela and the ANC while they were still willing to use peaceful means to achieve their goals. In 1992, a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_apartheid_referendum,_1992 referendum]] was held on whether Apartheid should be continued; over two-thirds of white South Africans voted to end Apartheid.\\

South Africa then set up a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa) Truth and Reconciliation Commission]] as a way to address the crimes of the Apartheid era. Perpetrators of crimes on both sides were given amnesty if they confessed and asked for forgiveness.\\

* Several Creator/WilburSmith novels - particularly ''Power of the Sword'', ''Rage'' and ''Golden Fox'' - are set in South Africa at the time of Apartheid.

** In addition, as a possible TakeThat against the Apartheid regime, the aforementioned main antagonist is named Botha, after the then-recent leader of Apartheid South Africa. The first Apartheid-era President appears as a character as well, whose daughter the protagonist gets involved with (leading to her death when a meeting of anti-Apartheid activists is broken up by heavy-handed police).

* The apartheid-era South African Defence Force is one of the playable sides in ''[[VideoGame/GraviteamTactics Graviteam Tactics: Operation Hooper]]''.

* The ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'' episode ''If It's Doomsday, It Must Be Belfast'', Verminous Skumm gives nuclear devices to people living in areas of ethnic conflict, expecting the other side to detonate them. One of the places is South Africa (This episode aired around the time apartheid was coming to an end), where a black protester and an Afrikaner extremist are both give devices.
* ''Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo'' depicts an AlternateHistory where, amongst other wackiness, Magnus Malan becomes dictator of an even more extreme South Africa and implements (even worse) racist policies against blacks and even non-Afrikaner whites. South Africa in this timeline is a Neo-Nazi state in all but name, and is engaged in a losing war against the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, committing massacres against natives and using dirty bombs and chemical weapons against her enemies. When it becomes apparent to Malan that South Africa's gonna lose, he arranges to wipe out most of the continent with the country's nuclear arsenal. It's quite telling the setting is a CrapsackWorld when the POTUS [[spoiler:Donald Rumsfeld]] openly supports this kind of place.
* One chapter of ''Manga/{{Golgo 13}}'' is set immediately after the election of President Mandela, when apartheid is still heavy on everyone's minds. Mandela, who met Golgo 13 during his imprisonment, hires the assassin to kill a white-supremist general who wants to take South Africa by force and reestablish apartheid.

* ''Film/{{Bopha}}!'', directed by Creator/MorganFreeman (released in 1993) follows Black South African policeman Micah Mangena and his family. Set in 1980, the film opens with another Black police officer being burned alive by fellow Black people, and gets worse from there. Micah, though initially believing that serving as a police officer is best for his people, grows increasingly doubtful when the regime represses peaceful protests with mass brutality, and gets into conflict with his son Zweli about this. It's based on a play released in 1986.

* ''Film/YankeeZulu'': A comedy film from 1993 produced in South Africa (where it was known as ''There's A Zulu On My Stoep'') about two friends, one black and one white, who grew up together in the apartheid era before an incident shattered their friendship and drove them apart, until decades later when they reconcile and rekindle what they had over the pursuit of a lottery ticket worth half a million rand. While the film does suffer in hindsight from an extended scene involving {{Blackface}} that goes on for an uncomfortably long time (something that is unfortunately present throughout most of star Leon Schuster's works), it is still notable for being a deliberately anti-racist, and by extension anti-apartheid, movie that was also at one point the highest grossing movie produced in South Africa, which speaks to how much the South African public at the time felt about the dying segregationist policy.

** Discworld apartheid is strained by Igors, who see nothing wrong in replacing a damaged limb on a white Vondalaander (Afrikaner) with a healthy functioning one. From a black-skinned donor. Vampires also strain the system, as they are generally white-skinned Central Continent immigrants. But they mix the blood of black and white people in a novel way the Staadt is not happy with. And what if a white-skinned vampire wants to "make" a black-skinned protegee vampire?

* Similar to the ''Film/District9'' example, the South Africa subplot in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureauNotAlone'' is evolving (or rather, hinted at evolving) into The Apartheid Era for ponies. The RecursiveFanfiction sequel, ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureauConquerTheStars'', confirms this but also states that both species got over it in the timeframe between the two stories.

* ''Series/CallTheMidwife'': The Series 6 Christmas special (set in 1961) centered on the Poplar Nonnatus midwives (along with Dr. Turner, Fred, and Reverend Hereward) going to assist a tiny mission clinic the Order runs in rural South Africa operate a polio vaccination campaign. Apartheid affects the availability of supplies. The (White, English) midwives are also shocked that they are forbidden ''by law'' from socialising with their (Black) patients. (Please recall that they been attending to and socialising with patients of all races back in Poplar for nigh on a decade at that point, seeing as it was exactly the kind of neighbourhood where postwar immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the West Indies ended up in those days.) Also, one of the patients knew how to read, write, and type and had actually been a secretary in one of the cities before the regime prohibited Blacks from working office jobs.

* Dutch children's series ''WesternAnimation/AlfredJKwak'' (1989-1991) has a fictional country based on South Africa during the Apartheid period (black ducks segregated from white geese) referred as "Atrique" (it's unnamed in the Dutch and German version) in the English Dub. Alfred's love interest is Winnie Wana (based on Mandela's sister) who seeks refuge in Great Waterland thanks to the help of her father Kwa Wana (based on Nelson Mandela). Eventually, Wannes calls the authorities to arrest Winnie's parents. After Winnie and her brother Tom Wana managed to get their citizenship, her parents decide to head back to Atrique to continue fighting for freedom. During the ship back to Atrique, Wannes immediately calls the Atrique policemen about black ducks being on board. Luckily, Kwa Wana and his wife Blanche Wana manage to escape the night prior to arriving back to a segregated area with other black ducks.

* "Biko", the closing track to Music/PeterGabriel's 1980 SelfTitledAlbum (better known by the FanNickname ''Music/{{Melt}}''), retells the arrest and killing of Steve Biko by white police officers as a result of his open protest against Apartheid, with Gabriel advocating for increased pressure against the South African government to repeal the legislation and promising that Biko's legacy will not be forgotten. Notably, the song ended up being one of the first major mainstream exposures of Apartheid to a western public, and in hindsight is often credited for both making the name "Steve Biko" known outside of South Africa and popularizing the anti-Apartheid movement in the Anglosphere, to the point where writer Michael Drewitt called it "arguably the most significant non-South African anti-apartheid {{protest song}}" in 2007. When a live performance of the song from Gabriel's ''[[Music/{{So}} This Way Up]]'' tour was released as a single in 1987, the accompanying music video combined footage from the tour with clips from the aforementioned ''Film/CryFreedom''.

During the Apartheid era, South Africa was the most visible nation in the modern world to have an official policy of "scientific racism" -- the idea that certain races were scientifically, objectively, better than others (or were at least distinct enough to deserve protection).[[note]] Neighbouring UsefulNotes/{{Zimbabwe}}, when it was called Rhodesia, also applied apartheid -- in such a heavy-handed and repressive way that [[EveryoneHasStandards even South Africa pleaded with them to tone it down a bit]], as it was giving both countries a bad name.[[/note]] As an anthropological theory, it was mostly discredited in the West after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust when millions died as a result of such theories]]. South Africa, however, did this to "protect" its white citizens, who made up only 15 to 20% of the population, one of only a rare few cases where an ethnic minority subjugated the majority group rather than the other way around.

In some sense, though, the experience of the newly independent neighbors caused South Africa to double down on its Apartheid policy. Rhodesia, for instance, became independent as Zimbabwe under its leader Robert Mugabe; but while the country had been one of the most successful in Africa under colonial rule in the 1960s, Mugabe's rule was notoriously riddled with cronyism and incompetence, suggesting to whites in South Africa that Apartheid was NecessarilyEvil to prevent the country from facing a similar fate.\\

South Africa also faced international sports boycotts; it was barred from the Olympics between 1964 and 1992. South African teams that did go abroad often sparked protests against the regime. Going to South Africa at all as an athlete would get you bad press. When the New Zealand UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion team toured South Africa in 1976, the IOC was under huge pressure to ban New Zealand; when they didn't, because of a [[EveryManHasHisPrice lucrative sponsorship deal at stake]], twenty-five African countries boycotted that summer's Olympics in Montreal. Just 5 years later in 1981, the all-white Springbok rugby team toured New Zealand, sparking a major culture war battleground between equally passionate supporters and opponents of the tour. Nelson Mandela would later state in an interview that the anti-tour protests in New Zealand were "[[https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/9485493/Nelson-Mandelas-New-Zealand-legacy like the sun coming out]]".

It is generally agreed that both Botha's reforms and de Klerk's decision to end the system entirely were driven by an escalation of ethnic violence in the country throughout the 1980s that lead to fears the country was headed towards a civil race war not unlike the Rhodesian Bush Wars of the 1970s. With the Rhodesian government under UsefulNotes/IanSmith providing a great historical example of how to ''not'' handle the situation,[[note]]Smith's entire tenure as Prime Minister of Rhodesia, from 1964 to 1979, was defined by him doing everything he could to maintain white minority rule despite massive international pressure to end it and the Rhodesian Bush War, which was a guerrilla war in Rhodesia's countryside between Smith's government and Soviet-backed black liberation armies lead by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. By adamantly refusing to even consider the idea of black majority rule, Smith squandered any opportunity to turn the country over to more moderate black leadership and was ultimately forced to accept a settlement in 1979 which was all-but guaranteed to bring Mugabe to power. Ironically, Smith's refusal to grant majority rule was because of [[SelfFulfillingProphecy fear that a radical warlord like Mugabe taking over would be inevitable]].[[/note]] the National Party understood it would be wise to negotiate with Mandela and the ANC while they were still willing to use peaceful means to achieve their goals. In 1992, a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_apartheid_referendum,_1992 referendum]] was held on whether Apartheid should be continued; over two-thirds of white South Africans voted to end Apartheid.\\

* The island nation of Genosha in ''Franchise/XMen'' began life in 1983 as a deliberate fictional equivalent of apartheid South Africa, just as public awareness of the regime was increasing. Genosha is located off the east coast of Africa, near Madagascar, and is an incredibly prosperous and advanced nation whose wealth is built off horrifying mutant slavery. Mutants are brainwashed and tortured into becoming cheap labor for the mines, and even children with the mutant gene are taken away from their parents. Citizenship in Genosha is permanent and the regime refuses to recognize any overseas immigration, with anyone attempting to flee brought back by the [[StateSec Press Gang]]. The regime's security forces, which are extremely militarized police, appear to be made up entirely of white non-mutants who have zero problems massacring, torturing,a and experimenting on mutants. There's a telling scene where the main antagonist's son ([[HeelFaceTurn who later turns against his father's regime]]) summons a mutant slave to fix his garden with his powers, addressing him as 'boy', and another where the same son is mistaken for a pro-mutant agitator by a policeman and nearly beaten up. Genoshan antagonists are given Afrikaner-sounding names such as 'Jan' in the case of the aforementioned policeman.

In some sense, though, the experience of the newly independent neighbors caused South Africa to double down on its Apartheid policy. Rhodesia, for instance, became independent as Zimbabwe under its leader Robert Mugabe; but while the country had been one of the most successful in Africa under colonial rule in the 1960s, Mugabe's rule was notoriously riddled with cronyism and incompetence, suggesting to whites in South Africa that Apartheid was a NecessaryEvil to prevent the country from facing a similar fate.\\

It is generally agreed that both Botha's reforms and de Klerk's decision to end the system entirely were driven by an escalation of ethnic violence in the country throughout the 1980s that lead to fears the country was headed towards a civil race war not unlike the Rhodesian Bush Wars of the 1970s. With the Rhodesian government under UsefulNotes/IanSmith providing a great historical example of how to ''not'' handle the situation,[[note]]Smith's entire tenure as Prime Minister of Rhodesia, from 1964 to 1979, was defined by him doing everything he could to maintain white minority rule despite massive international pressure to end it and the Rhodesian Bush War, which was a guerrilla war in Rhodesia's countryside between Smith's government and Soviet-backed black liberation armies lead by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. By adamantly refusing to even consider the idea of black majority rule, Smith squandered any opportunity to turn the country over to more moderate black leadership and was ultimately forced to accept a settlement in 1979 which was all-but guaranteed to bring Mugabe to power. Ironically, Smith's refusal to grant majority rule was because of [[SelfFulfillingProphecy fear that a warlord like Mugabe taking over would be inevitable]].[[/note]] the National Party understood it would be wise to negotiate with Mandela and the ANC while they were still willing to use peaceful means to achieve their goals. In 1992, a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_apartheid_referendum,_1992 referendum]] was held on whether Apartheid should be continued; over two-thirds of white South Africans voted to end Apartheid.\\

They also strove to reform its then-current standing military, which was for years the enforcer of the Apartheid regime. Most of the white soldiers resented being commanded by the Soviet-trained officers they had previously been fighting. Many of them became mercenaries (well, [[InsistentTerminology private military contractors]]), either fighting in NATO-aligned mercenary groups in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, or becoming [[HiredGuns "private security"]] forces. As this generation ages, though, the "[[AmoralAfrikaner racist white South African mercenary]]" trope is likely to die out except in period works.

The government dealt with political opponents by "banning" them. This meant that they could not communicate with more than one person at a time when not at home, they couldn't enter certain areas, and they could not be quoted in the media. (This legal measure is still on the books today, just not used as much.) Those suspected of "terrorism" could be detained indefinitely, without charge or trial -- "terrorism" was broadly defined as anything from "[[DirtyCommies communism]]" to "pissing the government off". South Africa, until 1993, had the dubious honor of having the highest percentage of its population in prison. (The U.S. has since overtaken it thanks to [[DrugsAreBad the "War on Drugs"]] and, before it, the "War on Crime".)\\

The Apartheid era coincided with [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheColdWar the Cold War]]. As was common in authoritarian colonial states, the largest and best-organized opposition group -- in this case the African National Congress, or ANC -- was very leftist and openly allied with the [[DirtyCommies communists]] - especially the Soviet Union and Cuba. The white South Africans responded by being so vehemently anti-communist that they attracted some support from the West, including the U.S., the U.K., and Israel. Israel and South Africa are even alleged to have collaborated on [[UsefulNotes/TheRestOfTheNuclearClub nuclear technology]]. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was doing what it could to support the insurgents, usually through Cuba and the MPLA in Angola.\\

Foreign investment in South Africa was decidedly lackluster. This wasn't so much because the {{Mega Corp}}s had any particular moral qualms with the regime, but more that the country looked increasingly dangerous and unstable as its neighbors turned to chaos and South Africa seemed ready to follow suit. Governments were also putting pressure on companies not to invest in South Africa; in the U.S., this was a big reason for the enactment of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. South Africa was so desperate for investment that they gave "honorary white" status to East Asians, trying to entice Japanese and Taiwanese companies to invest.\\

Segregation was strictly enforced, even more so than in the U.S. at the time. Non-whites were formally prohibited from white areas, which could range from public facilities, to beaches, to neighborhoods, to effectively whole cities. Most jobs were completely closed to non-whites. Inter-racial relationships were strictly forbidden; although "coloured" was an officially-recognized "race", it consisted heavily of people whose mere ''existence'' was illegal (though the bulk of "coloureds" were descended from race-mixing at an earlier point in history, some were not; the title of Creator/TrevorNoah's[[note]]Born in 1984 to a Xhosa mother and Swiss father[[/note]] black-comic[[note]]No pun intended[[/note]] memoir ''Literature/BornACrime'' says a lot).\\

Less 'legally', hundreds of people were tortured in jail or killed with such explanations as [[CutHimselfShaving "fell down some stairs"]]. Public inquests would routinely back such findings, even over [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch obvious evidence to the contrary]]. Security and intelligence services committed several outright assassinations, both in South Africa and abroad; their preferred method was [[YouGotMurder the letter bomb]], colloquially known as the "care package" (because [[{{Pun}} they take care of you]]). Prominent exiled dissident Ruth First was murdered in this manner.\\

In some sense, though, the experience of the newly independent neighbors caused South Africa to double down on its Apartheid policy. Rhodesia, for instance, became independent as Zimbabwe under its leader Robert Mugabe; but while the country had been one of the most successful in Africa under colonial rule in the 1960s, Mugabe's rule was notoriously centered around cronyism and incompetence, suggesting to whites in South Africa that Apartheid was a NecessaryEvil to prevent the country from facing a similar fate.\\

There's some debate as to who exactly should get the most credit for ending Apartheid. UsefulNotes/NelsonMandela gets much of the credit, but the foundation was laid even before he became the president. The process to end Apartheid ultimately began in the mid-1980s under the leadership of P. W. Botha. While Botha was a staunch supporter of Apartheid and his leadership in the 1980s oversaw some of the most brutal years of the Apartheid era, Botha also began relaxing or repealing laws governing racial discrimination starting in 1985. At the same time, Botha began engaging with Mandela and offered to release him from prison multiple times, but Mandela consistently refused because he found the conditions Botha attached to his potential release to be unacceptable.[[note]]Botha first offered Mandela freedom in February 1985 on the condition that he renounce violence as a political weapon, but Mandela refused because he considered it unacceptable to leave prison while the ANC remains banned and believed that he would be entering negotiations with the government from a position of weakness unless they formally recognized the ANC's legitimacy.[[/note]] Nonetheless, Botha and his government maintained engagement with Mandela throughout the rest of the decade in what became the first time he was recognized as a legitimate political leader by the government. \\

They also strove to reform its then-current standing military, which was for years the enforcer of the Apartheid regime. Most of the white soldiers resented being commanded by the Soviet-trained officers they had previously been fighting. Many of them became mercenaries (well, [[InsistentTerminology military contractors]]), either fighting in NATO-aligned mercenary groups in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, or becoming "private security" forces. As this generation ages, though, the "[[AmoralAfrikaner racist white South African mercenary]]" trope is likely to die out except in period works.