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Schule > Geschichte > 18. und 19. Jahrhundert > Racial Classification in South Africa

Today I want to talk with you about racial classification in South Africa, because in my school we have already talked about that theme. Perhaps you don't know anything about it, and therefore first I want to explain the meaning of the word classification.
If you have a look into the so -called Illustrated Oxford Dictionary, you can read, that classification is an arrangement in classes or categories.
In South Africa colonialism was the result of discrimination. Until 1863 the Dutch lived in peace with the Blacks. But suddenly they neither wanted to stay in the church together nor they wanted to pray next to them. The Dutch explained their reaction with some written parts in the bible. After the British discovered South Africa the development between black and white people began. According to the year 1949 the politic in South Africa was still influenced by discrimination.

The discrimination was able to continue, because the British prepared three important laws, that especially boosted the discrimination against black people.
I want to tell you something about those laws. First the British pronounced, that the government got the all-over-power to themselves. Then the British decided, that there were no elections for black ones. At least the press freedom was forbidden by the British.

Under those conditions life for black people was very hard and difficult. Black people had to live on a small part of ground, because the British took them away a big part of the ground, where in former times the black ones lived. They became farmers and the black ones lost their own ground. The black people needed to have a special passport and they needed a labor certification to work in the city. They weren't allowed to use the same toilets as white people. Particularly coloured people got big problems. Because of these problems there were a lot of consequences for the blacks. They had to live under bad living conditions. They had not enough money for living and so the criminalism rate in South Africa "exploded. The Black People only lived in so-calledTownships and they needed a passport to go in the normal city for business where most of the white people lived. According to the bad hygienic conditions a lot of people died because stavacation and sickness in the townships. Most black people also got an infection with the HIV-Virus and died because of AIDS.
After the UNESCO was founded in the year 1949 declaration against racism was proclaimed. About 1990 the discrimination got less influence and so Nelson Mandela, a famous rival of the Apartheid Laws, became the first black president in South Africa. Today the black people still get problems to reach the middle class, because the white people are still proprietors of many farms. Today in South Africa there's stil a high rate of criminalism.
All the problems according to discrimination haven't been solved until today and it will take a long time to solve them in the future.

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