South Africa, Apartheid and the Web: the Politics of Historical Interpretation

South African history is political. The different ethnic and racial communities in South Africa struggle over the meaning of their nation's history, especially the racial segregation system known as apartheid. The anti-apartheid movement may mean one thing to a conservative Afrikaner, another thing to a Zulu nationalist, and yet another to a Xhosa-speaking member of the African National Congress. U.S. and British interpretations of South African history also represent foreign interest in South Africa, which is based on that nation's regional military and economic power and international concern over apartheid and its aftermath. This paper examines five web sites on South African history, and looks at the differing interpretations of apartheid. The web sites also show how history is used in South Africa -- both as a means of asserting identity and of national and racial reconciliation.

A web site devoted to South African expatriates– living around the world – has a section on South African history that reflects in many ways an Afrikaner point of view. The expatriate community obviously includes many Afrikaners who left South Africa in “white flight” from violent crime, political unrest, or fear of black majority rule. The history section of the RSA-overseas web site speaks of the Afrikaners in heroic terms as having “a place to assert themselves in [South Africa] – in an identity born of the soil.” The site does not ignore that “Blacks were excluded from political power,” but does not spend much time on the impact of apartheid on blacks, Asians, and mixed race people. There is little or nothing about the harshness of the pass laws and other discriminatory legislation, the violent repression of dissent, or the huge economic inequalities in South Africa. Instead, the site mentions that some black consciousness groups were banned, anti-apartheid leaders were detained or went into exile, and that there was “severe internal unrest (often black v. black).” The emphasis on black-on-black violence hides the severity of white minority repression of black demonstrators during the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the Soweto uprising in 1976.

The expatriate web site also sees the end of apartheid as strictly the result of internal reforms by P.W. Botha and F.W. de Klerk. The role of the anti-apartheid movement both inside South Africa and overseas is not discussed, and little is said about the international isolation of the apartheid regime. The site also overstates the reforms of P.W. Botha, who was trying to give apartheid a new lease on life by making some relatively minor changes, including having mixed race and Indian chambers of parliament even though these legislators had few powers and the black African population – the majority – was excluded altogether. The end of apartheid is summarized as “After much awful unrest there were relatively peaceful elections in 1994, and a new government came into power with equal rights for all.” No mention is made of Nelson Mandela’s election as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

ThThe expatriate web site is very basic and does not take full advantage of design opportunities on the web. The section does not print on a standard sheet of paper. However, the site does appear to offer benefits to (white) South African expatriates by creating a sense of community and offering ways to engage in dialogue with compatriots.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a web site devoted to “The Story of Africa,” which promises to tell the history of Africa from the perspective of Africans. However, it is probably more accurate to say the BBC site tells the story of Africa from the perspective of Britons trying to write history from the viewpoint of Africans. The site includes some pictures and links to audio recordings of BBC news reports and excerpts from historical addresses. For example, one can listen to an interview with black consciousness leader Steve Biko.

The BBC history downplays the role of the English in instituting racist policies in colonial South Africa and blames apartheid on an Afrikaner “belief in the racial superiority of Europeans, wherever they set up.” In fact, some historians argue that the English were responsible for instituting racial separation policies. Timothy Keegan, in Colonial South Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996) claims that British imperialism and capitalism laid the groundwork for the later apartheid system. Keegan wrote, “forces of development and modernization” arose in the first half of the 19th century that used “racial categorization in new ways to forge a new white-supremacist order appropriate to the modern world of capital and enterprise.” (p. 14). According to Keegan, the British settlers of 1820 brought with them “an ideology conducive to the development of productive capitalism.” (p. 62) The land-hungry British settlers believed in white superiority, a laissez-faire economic system, and expansion of British control over southern Africa. The BBC history reverses this process, saying that the Afrikaners instituted the policies and the English were “happy in the main to take advantage of a system which provided cheap African labour and a high standard of living for whites.”

The BBC history also argues that the end of the Cold War was the decisive reason for the end of apartheid. The site states, “When Communism began to collapse in 1989 the South African government was deprived of the principle reason for its aggressive foreign policy. The will to maintain the system of apartheid began to flag.” Once again, the impact of the anti-apartheid movement is minimized. Curiously, the BBC history rushes over the events leading to the end of apartheid and the election of ANC leader Nelson Mandela as president. Surely, the BBC archives would have much good material on these relatively recent events. In an amazingly succinct conclusion, the BBC states “Nelson Mandela was finally released [from prison] in 1990 and the country went to the polls in the first nonracial election, resulting in a resounding win for the ANC – under Nelson Mandela.”

A more recommendable general history of South Africa can be found in the Library of Congress (LOC) online Country Profile of South Africa. The site includes much more information than the BBC site, especially on events in recent decades leading up to the multi-racial 1994 elections. The LOC site points out that “History has a compelling importance in South Africa. Political protagonists often refer to historical events and individuals in expounding their different points of view.” Like Keegan, the LOC history argues that the expansion of capitalism in colonial South Africa after the great mineral discoveries in the 1860’s and 1880’s led to “a great demand for labor. To meet these labor needs, the British conquered most of the African peoples of the region…and subjected the defeated people to controls that persisted practically to the present day.” At the same time, the LOC history argues “Afrikaner politicians organized and developed a powerful ethnic identity, portraying Africans as savage and threatening and building especially upon white fears of economic competition from cheaper black workers.” In its balanced argument, apartheid arose from British imperialism and capitalism, as well as Afrikaner nationalism and racism.

The LOC history also provides detailed information on the anti-apartheid movement and the international response to the racist system. Instead of seeing the end of apartheid as the result of white reformists, the site gives substantial credit to the black resistance organizations and international sanctions. In its words, “Facing mounting international disapproval and economic stagnation, the government tentatively began to signal its awareness” of the need for some reforms. The LOC history also gives Nelson Mandela credit for assuming “a central role” in ending apartheid.

The LOC history is more like a chapter in a book than a web site. It is not easily navigable between sections and makes no use of hot-links, photographs, recordings, or movies. Even though its information is more detailed and scholarly than the BBC and expatriate sites, it cannot compare to the standard survey of South African history by Leonard Thompson. Thompson’s A History of South Africa has 277 pages of text on South African history from the first Africans to the multi-racial elections in 1994. The book also includes substantial footnotes, maps, pictures and appendices. Thompson also gives a balanced, multi-causational view of the end of apartheid. He points to demographic, economic, educational, and international trends that set the stage for the dismantlement of the racist system. (pp. 241-243) Thompson is less clear about the origins of apartheid, primarily setting it in the context of earlier decades of racial segregation and stating the key moments in the institutionalization of the policy in 1948.

Two web sites on South African history that meet some of the promise of New Media are the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) online archives and the South Africa History Online project. The TRC site includes statements, testimony, and documents related to apartheid-era abuses from 1960 to 1994 – by both the white minority government and black liberation movements. Although not a technically sophisticated site, it nevertheless provides online access to many resources for the student of South African history. This is not a general survey of South African history, but archival information related to human rights abuses, some of them horrifying, including sexual torture. In fact, scrolling down the list of victims or dipping into the testimony underscores the horrible impact of apartheid. The purpose of the TRC commission was to use history – the uncovering of these past abuses – for the purposes of national healing. Those who admitted their role in political crimes could be eligible for an amnesty from prosecution. The chairman of the commission – Nobel peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu – stated, “Having looked the beast of the past in the eye, having asked and received forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past – not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us.”

Some of the testimony may have reopened old wounds, but clearly provided cathartic release. Although all parties to the conflict were investigated, the emphasis was on the apartheid government’s abuses: “The Commission was obliged by statute to deal even-handedly with all victims…this does not mean…that moral judgement was suspended or that the Commission made no distinction between violations committed by those defending apartheid and those committed to its eradication.” The Commission drew a distinction between the “just war” of the liberation movements and the “just means” for waging that war. This distinction is understandable given the international condemnation of apartheid, but historians must be aware of this when reviewing the testimony. Of course, the testimony is available in printed versions, but for many students and historians the online version is easy to access around the world. In an earlier era, this sort of material would be available only in government archives or certain well-stocked libraries. Unfortunately, the site provides only a summary of the final report and not the actual volumes.

The South African History Online (SAHO) web site is technically and visually sophisticated, with stimulating graphics, pictures, and features. The themes of the site seem to be celebration of black South African history, as well as reconciliation. SAHO – a non-profit organization partially funded by the South African government – pledges to work “Towards a people’s history of South Africa,” and to “break the silence of our past.” The site is clearly aimed at South African students and is a good teaching tool – although one wonders how many poor blacks in South Africa are able to access the site. Books would probably be the most economical means to reach these students. The SAHO site includes features on famous South Africans, many of them anti-apartheid leaders, notable locations and tourist attractions, national symbols and heritage, arts and culture, exhibitions, online publications, and teaching resources. Although all ethnic and racial groups are represented on the site, SAHO emphasizes black South African history as a way “to address the biased way in which the history and cultural heritage of Black South Africans has been represented in our educational and heritage institutions.” In other words, SAHO is attempting to remedy the former apartheid regime’s white-oriented history.

Despite this, some of the history presented on the site appears to be written towards “political correctness” and treats white politicians like F.W. de Klerk with circumspection in an apparent attempt at reconciliation. For example, we are told De Klerk’s National Party “now accepted that [it] needed to negotiate with these [anti-apartheid] movements, and could not rely on building up allies outside of the freedom movements.” Little is said about the negotiation process ending apartheid.

SAHO does accept the African National Congress’s argument that a “third force” – the security agencies of the apartheid government -- instigated black-on-black violence. This is a way to diminish the responsibility of the ANC and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party in the horrific bloodshed in the years before the 1994 election. While the security agencies either turned a blind eye to the violence or were involved in individual incidents, the fighting between the ANC and Inkatha supporters clearly was largely based on the rivalry between those two organizations. As could be expected, SAHO gives ample credit to the apartheid resistance movement in ending apartheid, and blames the institutionalization of the racial segregation system on “ideas of racial superiority and fear” by whites of losing “their jobs, cultural and language.” Economic reasons and the historical background of apartheid are not discussed in depth.

In conclusion, many of the sites on South African history represent particular political viewpoints. The Library of Congress’s history seems to be the most recommendable general history available on the web – even though it does not compare to the standard textbook survey of South African history by Leonard Thompson. The South African History Online site is the most visually stimulating site, but one wonders how many impoverished blacks could use this teaching tool. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s site is the most useful for historians. It is a valuable online archive on apartheid-era abuses.

web site is very basic and does not take full advantage of design opportunities on the web. The section does not print on a standard sheet of paper. However, the site does appear to offer benefits to (white) South African expatriates by creating a sense of community and offering ways to engage in dialogue with compatriots.