Apartheid and Crimes in South Africa - Essay Example

Apartheid and crimes in South Africa 'Cry, the beloved country' is a novel on the evils affecting the South African nation during the apartheid system. This system bestowed the full force of the law to the white supremacy leaving the blacks in ruthless subordination to the whites. This is a story of bravery and survival that is set next to the racial prejudice in southern Africa. Even though, the novel was on paper prior to the institution of the apartheid system in the country, the society was already facing the social evils of the then system. The novel tells the story of Stephen Khumalo who is a black Christian in the rural South Africa who sets for Johannesburg to look for the missing members of his family, his sister Gertrude and his son Absalom and his brother John. Even though, he gets to fin d them, it is evident that it is at an appalling cost. This is because he finds his brother having lost his faith and in turn learnt to hate his sister had lost her dignity and turned to prostitution, and his son having killed Arthur Jarvis son who is a white man opposed to the apartheid. Despite all these findings, it is noteworthy that the novel ends in a hopeful note, and this is by way of a conversation between James and Stephen on the future of South African racial understanding. This paper assesses the novel by focusing on the rampant crime that existed in the then South Africa, and this is to establish the accurate origin of the crimes. This book is laid down in South Africa of the 1940s a time during which there was both economic and political tensions that had resulted into a lengthy complicated history. Before the arrival of the Europeans in the mid 1600s, South Africa was inhabited by a considerable number of African tribal groups such as the San and the Khoikhoi and afterwards the Bantu speakers who are the ancestors of the present Zulus (Natarajan, 200). Even though, the Europeans had not come to settle as colonizers, a century later had resulted into a settlement of Europeans into deeper areas of South Africa, thus, displacing the native south Africans (Natarajan, 202). The arrival of the English almost a decade later transformed South Africa into a colony, and this had disastrous effects on the South Africans. This led to a conflict between the Boers who were the European settlers of South Africa and English, but it was till 1881 that a war between them transpired. However, this was after a series of clashes between the Boers and the native South Africans. At this time, it is evident that black workers were only permitted to hold unskilled jobs, and subjection to pass laws that restricted their freedom (Ikejiaku, 451). The enactment of the Natives Land Act led to a reduction in the land the natives were permitted to own. This is evidenced by the assertion of Arthur Jarvis that it is merely a tenth of the territory, that was allocated to the native south Africans yet they formed four fifth of the country’s population (Paton, 156). This subsequently resulted into the emigration of most native South Africans into urban areas to work on mines. This influx of cheap labor was welcomed by the min e owners, who did not care about the housing and services of these people. It is in this context that the novel begins as Stephen Khumalo goes to the city to look for his son and other members of his family, and these are associates he had not made out for a lengthy time. The status of his family members at the time he finds them paints a true picture of the social evils in the Apartheid Africa, and this is of course the cause of the rampant crimes in South Africa. This is a clear indication that it is the society itself that caused the crimes. The novel depicts the whites as those affected by the native crime but also sheds some light on the social instabilities as well as moral issues as the cause for the breakdown of the tribal system. This disconnection, thus, leads to conglomeration of crime as the natives strive to survive. Some of the social evils that fueled the crime were the degradation of the natives land and the disintegration of the tribal community (Paton, 66). This is because these causes are sequenced in a way that the invasion of native lands by foreigners leads to displacements that lead to the disintegration of the tribe, and possible migration to urban centers where crime seem to be concentrated. According to Winslow (78) it is this effects of social segregation that lead to enforced inequality and off course prejudice. The attack on whites by blacks has been described as a form of retaliation from the blacks for the evils they are doing to them. This was a cry from the natives for the whites to stop their abuse and create an equal society (Natarajan, 320). The breakdown in the traditional tribal culture left most natives with no social organization to turn to, and, thus being lured into evil acts that would be avoided with a traditional, cultural system in place. However, it should be remembered that it is the foreigners that led to this breakage by displacing them from their lands, thus, making the assertion that crimes in South Africa were caused to society evils. Additionally, Ekejiaku (458) asserts that political power was monopolized to the extent that they took advantage of this to do nothing in the alleviation of poverty among the black South Africans, and this led to many black men turning to crime. Ikejiaku (452) asserts that crime increased to an alarming rate in the year 1984, and this was because of the incorporation of a new constitution that provide for laws that segregated against the black South Africans. This was an unprecedented rise of crime from 10, 000 in 1989 to 11000 in 1990, and this was not until 1991 when the police confirmed that an estimated 22000 people had died in violence that was related to crime in only fifteen months. This subsequently led to South Africa known as one of the nations globally with the highest number of crime rates on a per capita basis (Winslow, 22). “It is right to argue that the high level of crime during the apartheid period was because a large number of apartheid and draconian internal security laws were placed on or enshrined in the South African statute books between the mid-1950s and late-1980s” (Ikejiaku, 452). This resulted into behaviors that black Africans had been used to as free and normal being detested or even criminalized. Some of these behaviors included living or playing in areas that had been reserved for a people of another race or even strikes that are politically motivated (Natarajan, 322) This extreme social manipulation was accomplished through legalities that were illegally and immorally applied, and this was through apartheid. Apartheid criminalized the legal system by developing t in a way that supported crimes committed in the name of apartheid (Natarajan, 317). For example, in the novel, Absalom, Gertrude and Arthur are victims of the social injustices that led to growth of crime in South Africa. If there is no displacement of people in the beginning, this group of people would not have drifted to urban centers. They will have remained in their lands doing cultivation. Therefore, apart from getting food and selling some to meet their daily needs, they would not resolve to crime as a means of receiving what they yearn for or just because of resentment. Additionally, the displacement ill not have, therefore, taken place, resulting in the staying together of the traditional, cultural system that provided some guidance to its people. It is noteworthy that the novel exemplifies the fact that the decadence in the social system was the cause of the many crimes in South Africa. These included displacement of native’s from their land, breakdown of the traditional, cultural system, corrupted political system and migration to urban centers. Therefore, the black South Africans with no means to survive because of their restrained and unattractive wages had to seek a way through which they would have the society listen to their plight and off course come to their aid. This leads to the assertion that the crimes committed by the native, black population of South Africa are caused by the society itself. Works cited Ikejiaku, Brian-Vincent. Crime, poverty, political corruption and conflict in apartheid and post apartheid South Africa: The implications on economic development. African Journal of Political Science and International Relations. 2009, Vol.3, No. 10 pp 451-459. Natarajan, Mangai. International Crime and Justice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Paton, Alan. Cry the beloved country. Ed. Simon and Schuster, 2003. Print Wislow, RZ. A comparative criminology tour of the world. South Africa. San Diego State University. Print. Read More