Why South Africa is still so segregated

This strip, in Cape Town, South Africa, divides the coastal community of Strand from the municipality of Nomzamo. They are only a few meters away. But the people on each side live very different lives. Strand has backyards and driveways. Nomzamo is much denser. And people here have fewer basic services: less running water. Less internet access. And Nomzamo is majority black, while the area on the other side of the line is majority white. If we use points on a map to represent race, you can see how stark that divide is. If we zoom in on the entire city, we can see that it is actually everywhere.

And this is the case in much of South Africa. The color of your skin here often determines where you live. It also determines your quality of life. This map shows where jobs and opportunities are mainly concentrated in Cape Town. And this is where the majority of the city's blacks live, in informal settlements called "townships" on the outskirts of the city. "People have to travel by public transport for up to three hours a day and cannot attend to their obligations in the community, with the rest of their family, because they are always working and always travelling." For decades, South Africa was under apartheid: a system that made segregation into law.

A white minority controlled where non-white people could live, work, and exist. Many were forced to leave their homes. In 1994, a democratically elected government took power and ended apartheid. It was supposed to be a new beginning. But much of the country

still

looks like this. And that's because South Africa's legacy of racial division goes back centuries. In the 17th century, the Dutch seized the

south

ern tip of Africa to supply food to ships along the trade route to Asia. 150 years later, Britain took it over and called it "Cape Colony." Many Dutch settlers moved here, further inland, to escape British rule and continue exploiting slaves.

Like the Dutch, the British used the Cape Colony as a strategic location for trade; It was not economically significant. But in the 1870s that changed, when the British began mining diamonds there. Suddenly, the Cape Colony became one of Britain's most prized and exploited colonies. To get the diamonds out of the country, they built railroads to connect the mines here with the coast. The railways allowed the British to access a global diamond market through the port city of Cape Town. Soon the Cape Colony's economy centered on the railways. Especially this main route. The green areas on this map show the black regions of the Cape Colony, largely excluded from the railway economy.

Racial inequality in the Cape Colony was being reinforced by location. To keep it that way, the colonial government began to make segregation a law. The Native Land Act of 1913 pushed black people into these areas: just eight percent of South Africa's land; and prevented them from owning land anywhere else; or relocate them to the outskirts of major cities to work for whites. These laws began to shape the region. The growth of Cape Town through increased trade turned the port city into a major city. Many immigrants from the rest of the colony and elsewhere moved here, to what was then the outskirts of Cape Town, where former slaves, merchants, artists and immigrants were forming a neighborhood called District Six.

As the city grew around District Six, so did the neighborhood. For decades, District Six was a prosperous and integrated community. "We were a very cosmopolitan family, you could almost say, because there were people of all nationalities and from all walks of life." "This was the statement: Your son is my son." But it wouldn't last. In 1934, Britain's legal control over what was now the Union of South Africa officially ended. The remaining white minority, the descendants of the Dutch settlers, took control. And they built on the foundation that the British were leaving behind. Between 1949 and 1971, the all-white government passed 148 laws that solidified apartheid. "Apartheid allowed the full realization of the ambition of the fascist project in South Africa." In 1950, the Population Registration Act officially classified people by race: white, colored, and native (or black).

And finally, Asian. Then they made laws that said where people could live. Across the country, black South Africans were relocated to these areas, called homelands or "bantustans." The Bantustans were rural areas and had underdeveloped economies. Many of them were in areas that Britain had already excluded from the railway economy and where black land ownership had been restricted. Blacks were forced to carry "pass books," which specified where they were allowed to work or travel. In cities like Cape Town, the "Group Areas Act" moved remaining non-whites into separate urban areas. "The most privileged lands and those closest to higher value properties were allocated to whites." In 1966, the government declared that District Six was now a whites-only area.

Residents of District Six received deportation letters like this one, which said that living there was illegal because they were not white. The bulldozers entered District Six and leveled it. "We lived here. We had a life here." "It was very traumatic for a lot of people." "It's like ripping someone's heart out." More than 60,000 people were forcibly removed from their homes. This type of violence against non-white people was common throughout the country. But, after decades of pressure, both inside and outside South Africa, the apartheid regime finally came to an end. The new government lifted restrictions on where people could live.

Millions of people, who had been excluded from economic development for centuries, migrated to major cities in search of basic services and economic opportunities. "For any family without employment prospects, the most rational and logical option is to migrate to an urban center." They settled where there was vacant land, creating townships on the outskirts of major cities such as Cape Town. The government built millions of homes and expanded the supply of drinking water and electricity. "But it had a series of unforeseen consequences, the most important of which was that the only land that could be used for the public housing program was on the outskirts of the city.

And for that reason, a brilliant intention to overcome the legacy of the "apartheid inadvertently reproduced the very legacy it sought to undo." Today, 60% of Cape Town's mostly black population lives in these townships on the outskirts of the city. The point is that central Cape Town has land to develop. But because of its location, it is valuable, so it is usually sold to private developers, who build luxury apartments. Nearly a billion dollars are coming to shore. But, right in the heart of Cape Town, despite all the expensive developments, District Six remains largely untouched. Former residents have fought against private development and, in fact, succeeded.

Some have even managed to return to the houses built by the city. "I wanted to come back here, where I was born, which was part of our family's heritage." "I couldn't believe he was back. It was a sense of relief." But there are

still

hundreds of applicants waiting to return to District Six. "We have not done the difficult and painful work of confronting the intergenerational consequences of colonialism. Of apartheid." The history of racial segregation in Cape Town and South Africa begins a long time ago. But it is very tangled with the present. Apartheid and colonialism ended here.

But many of the barriers they built have yet to be dismantled. "The kind of psychic scars that are left on individuals and on communities. We haven't begun to say: How do we live together in the face of that history?"