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The Pettiness of Apartheid

 Apartheid can be viewed as having existed on two different levels. On the one hand, you had ‘grand apartheid’.  This comprised of civil and political rights such as the right to vote.  On the other hand you had ‘petty apartheid’.  This was your more day-to-day manifestations of apartheid. Of course petty apartheid was only enabled through the loss of rights due to grand apartheid, but I wonder had petty apartheid not existed as it did, whether there would have been as much opposition to the system throughout its existence. Petty apartheid was indeed petty.   It led to multiple humiliations upon the non-White population of South Africa. It was a constant reminder of inferior status in their own country.   There are two examples of petty apartheid that have really stuck out to me from all my reading over the years.   I have read a lot about the justice system in South Africa and the punishments and cruel treatment and even summary killings.   These are horrific things to read, but on
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Bram Fischer – Afrikaner Revolutionary

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    [1]     In many ways, Bram Fischer, the grandson of the prime minster of the Orange River Colony, had made the greatest sacrifice of all.   No matter what I suffered in my pursuit of freedom, I always took strength from the fact that I was fighting with and for my own people.   Bram was a free man who fought against his own people to ensure the freedom of others.                                                                               Nelson Mandela  [2]   When looking at prominent political trials, it is usual for the focus to be upon those who are being prosecuted.   Sometimes, however, another story can be discovered in the background when attention is spared for other players involved in the proceedings.   This is certainly the case with the Rivonia trial.   The life of the lead advocate for the defence, Bram Fischer, was one of great commitment and sacrifice in his participation in the fight to end apartheid in South Africa.   In 1966, two years after repres
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Jail Break!

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One of the frustrating things when studying the efforts of anti-apartheid campaigners in the 1950s and 1960s is seeing how the might of the South African state was so successful in closing off avenues of protest and in criminalising dissent. Prominent South African activists, even when not detained, found themselves voiceless due to banning orders. [1]   They were also frequently harassed by the police and often were threatened with arrest.  My research has paid particularly close attention to the Rivonia trial of 1963-64, but this trial was just one prominent example of many such prosecutions, and a particularly significant success for the South African Government in its attempts to remove the influence of the anti-apartheid movement in the country.  Anti-apartheid protest within South Africa was hit to such a degree by the mid-1960s that it took years to recover.  In the years following, it was reliant on a network of anti-apartheid campaigners working around the world to continue
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An Introduction to the Rivonia Trial

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  For the last five years or more, my life has revolved around a South African court case from 1963-64.   The case was known as the Rivonia trial due to the location of the arrests of many of the defendants at the Liliesleaf Farmhouse in the Rivonia suburb of Johannesburg.   While many of the men on trial were well known anti-apartheid activists at the time, one name remains a global icon – Nelson Mandela.   When I started my thesis, several of the defendants and the legal team were still living, but this year we lost the final two defendants as well as the remaining member of the defence team who represented all bar one of the men on trial. [1]   To me this marks the point where the events that I have been studying truly become history, as those most integrally involved are now gone.   The main aim of this post is to bring to light, to hopefully a few more people, the names of the other men who were on trial for their lives alongside Nelson Mandela, as well as the men who defended the
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