Why should we be thankful for Apartheid
To most, the title is naturally considered foolish and unnecessary but a friend recently posed this question unto me and I thought of it as quite interesting. There's no denying that behind slavery and the holocaust, apartheid was the most atrocious act of systemic human abuse. (Not that I'm classifying these gross violations into a hierarchical form but, as far as I'm concerned, Hitler and Columbus' descendants took many more lives. Apartheid was just a formal slavery scheme; the most evil blueprint created by human beings) However, much like your coin, there're two sides to everything, so surely there must have been something positive about apartheid.
The first positive effect, which most would agree on, is obviously the advanced infrastructure system brought along. Namibia and South Africa have cities and towns blessed with detailed road routes, buildings and sewage systems planned by the orchestrators of apartheid. Yes, Africa was doing quite fine without tar roads and tall buildings but, already long before apartheid, the world was moving towards a certain "city" standard which is now globally recognised. It would've taken us much longer to construct the white man's design. The convenience of roads and sewage systems is also undisputed. Without buildings, storage of produce and all other goods would've been temporarily maintained with mud and hut houses but constant maintenance would have to accompany that. Administration of the city and other institutions would've been extremely complicated as well.
Besides all these possible outcomes, a carefully constructed city deluged with tall buildings and roads rests so easily on the eye.
In addition, infrastructure brought investments and different types of developments to the motherland. The construction of buildings and roads showed the world how much potential we have to develop. The 'colonizers' returned to steal from us but with that, more jobs were created and countries were further developed. The problem came along when the system based development on differences between people by regarding them as superior or inferior.
Apartheid, by virtue of colonialism, also introduced education to African. Education was then established to fuel industrialization and other agendas but knowledge spread through nonetheless. Because of that, African children can now apply their knowledge to fight injustice, recognise psychological problems, become physicists, empower themselves and have logical arguments. Not to say that Africans were completely daff before the education system reached the motherland, it just brought their intellect to the surface, contrary to popular belief. By the late 1960s, blacks in South Africa and the Bantustans had the highest literacy rate of all blacks in Africa, and since 1970, the budget for black education was raised more than any other governmental department. By 1985, there were more than 50 000 black students attending universities in South Africa and the homelands. That's actually not a bad statistic, in fact, the very same education propelled the movement against apartheid. It galvanized people to be more aware and put more pressure on the Government to end apartheid, which it ultimately did. I'm still not quite comfortable with the current model of education or the one that the missionaries introduced but I appreciate knowledge. If used wisely, it could literally unlock a whole new thought pattern which can transform the world.
Service delivery is another issue I want to lightly touch on; a plethora of elderly citizens actually praise the apartheid government for efficient service delivery, obviously only compared to the current state of delivery. Health care is of paramount importance to humans and people argue that governments in South Africa couldn't be bothered with the machinery of health programs or facilities. Maybe it was because white people used force in order to get the job done back then, but nonetheless they say the job was done. "As you move away from something and have some psychological distance, you tend to remember the good things," said Robert Mattes. "The old apartheid state was evil and oppressive, but things worked. That's the impression."
Lastly, but probably the most complex, apartheid somehow forced Africans to preserve their culture and languages with the assistance of the Group Areas Act. The Bantu states that were apparently legally acknowledged as ethnic black homelands by the white South African governments were Transkei, Ciskei, QwaQua, KwaZulu, Bophuthatswana, Lebowa, and Venda in South Africa; and Ovamboland, Kavangoland and East Caprivi in Namibia. Paralyzer argues that the creation and division of homelands ensured that a society only consisted of one language and cultural practices. If Africans were permitted to legally interact with other cultures, we would've eventually lost our languages and heritage in order to accommodate the "mixed" generation. For instance, if Zulus interacted with Sothos a medium of communication, derived from both languages, would have to be created for maximum effect. How then would 21st century children explain their real origins to the following generations? The Bantu Education system further assisted this as most black schools made sure you learn (or were instructed in) your native language. The division of different cultures made sure they only spoke their language, practiced and embraced their own traditions. But also I just feel that apartheid played itself by trying to equate the white man with God. From what I see, black people are actually more proud of themselves because they were made to believe that they were inferior. Sometimes I feel that apartheid was designed because we intimidated white people, that's just me though. Apartheid makes me feel black and I love that. Maybe I'm just way too fond of my own culture but I find this to be truly positive.
There is an awful lot more that can be said about the policy of absolute racism and discrimination, which was implemented in various ways and to differing degrees but the above, I found, was most interesting to mention. I'm not saying that the possible outcomes I predicted would've been the only ones or similar ones would've yielded, I just had to support the title. This is, also no excuse for the agony experienced by the people under the system that produced these few positives. I'M NOT EULOGISING APARTHEID!
To make it clear, the system failed more than it succeeded to varying degrees on different aspects. It was a political system implemented by devilish men, and it would be ignorant not to acknowledge that there were injustices that accompanied the system. I agree that it's extremely odd for me, as a black man, to be reviewing the system that indefinitely disadvantaged me, however one has to be open to new thoughts and ideas in order to fully fathom something as paramount as this. All in all, I'm thankful for apartheid because it makes me feel black, it educates me but again, it makes me feel black without taking away my dignity because I don't allow it to.
