Adding to this appearance of legitimacy was the introduction of a welfare system by which the state provided meager social services and limited development opportunities to privileged sectors. The Whites who account for about 13% of … The last national census of the South African population was carried out in 2011. Ethnicity is more than skin color or physical characteristics, more than language, song, and dance. Identity in South Africa: Examining self-descriptions across ethnic groups. Except for post-apartheid South Africa, Africans won their independence without negotiating an internal social contract that would win and sustain national consensus. In 1985, the United Kingdom and United States imposed economic sanctions on the country.In one of the most devastating aspects of apartheid, the government forcibly removed black South Africans from rural areas designated as “white” to the homelands and sold their land at low prices to white farmers. This crude force was, however, softened by making use of traditional leaders as extended arms of state control over the tribes or the local communities, giving this externally imposed system a semblance of legitimacy for the masses. Some ethnic groups are unique to South Africa while others like Basotho crossed the border into the country. National resources were otherwise extracted and exported as raw materials to feed the metropolitan industries of the colonial masters.History has stripped Africa’s people of the dignity of building their nations on their own indigenous values, institutions, and heritage. The regimes built on them lacked legitimacy and in most cases were soon overthrown with no remorse or regrets from the public. What makes the issue of identity particularly acute for the continent is that it touches not only on politics, but also on economics and the organizational capacity for a self-generating and sustainable development from within.African governments have responded to the challenge in varying ways, ranging from pragmatic management to blind neglect and catastrophic mismanagement. But these upheavals involved only a rotation of like-minded elites, or worse, military dictators, intent on occupying the seat of power vacated by the colonial masters. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) would be forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities. These were the units of social, economic, and political organizations and inter-communal relations.A few states in Africa enjoy a high degree of homogeneity or, at least, a relatively inconsequential diversity. Indians, Coloureds and Africans were also allotted separate schools.Race and ethnicity have been and still is at the heart of South African history, politics, society and economy since the European colonisation. On the other hand, ethnicity is clearly a resource for political manipulation and entrepreneurship.
Whites make up 9.6% of the total population. In 1991, the government of President F.W. Is it possible to consolidate the framework of the modern African state while giving recognition and maximum utility to the component elements of ethnicities, cultures, and aspirations for self-determination?How are these options to be brought about? Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its laws remained in effect for the better part of 50 years. South Asian Ethnicity. But an eclectic process that fashions a system in which ethnic groups can play a constructive role in the modern African state could significantly reduce the tension, foster cooperation, and facilitate the process of nation building.The fourth category, the zero-sum conflict situation, consists of states embroiled in acute crisis with no collective sense of identification, no shared values, and no common vision for the nation. The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each population generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture.The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan populations.. For every 100 White females there are 94.0 White males.
Together with the South Indian National Congress, the ANC organized a mass meeting in 1952, during which attendees burned their pass books. The second option is to create a pluralistic framework to accommodate nations that are racially, ethnically, culturally, or religiously diverse. Traditionally, black South Africans lived in rural areas and practiced subsistence farming and hunting. Until 1991, South African law divided the population into four major racial categories: (1.) Most of the Coloured population live in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces, whilst the majority of the Indian population live in KwaZulu-Natal.