Glossary
| South Africa | | Postcolonial independent nation located on Africa’s southern tip. Originally inhabited by Bantu-speaking tribes, what is today South Africa was conquered by the Dutch, and then the British, in the 17th and 18th centuries. By 1910, South Africa was an independent nation run entirely by descendants of Dutch and British colonizers. The white government created a segregated system of “apartheid” (‘apartness’) in which the nation’s black African majority was denied access to basic civil rights, and separated entirely from the politically and economically empowered white minority. After years of struggle and resistance the system of apartheid was overthrown in 1994, when the first democratic election was held. Nelson Mandela, a former political prisoner and civil rights activist, was elected president. |
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