South_Africa__the_Coloureds_or_Black_Africans

Africa is the second largest continent with a population of more than 680 million people making 10% of the world’s population. South Africa is located in the southern tip on the continent. On the west South Africa is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and on the south and east is bordered by the Indian Ocean. The capital of South Africa is Pretoria. South Africa has a population of 42,718,530, and it has a “mostly semiarid; subtropical along east coast; sunny days, cool nights” (Kwintessential) climate. South Africa is an area that make-up 75.2% black, 13.6% white, 8.6% Colored, and 2.6% Indian ethnicity. A region where the religions believes are based on a 68% of Christianity, Muslim, Hindu, indigenous beliefs and animist. Another part of South Africa’s culture is its language. This is a city that has 11 official languages making English the language of administration. Other languages that are part official in South Africa are Afrikaans, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tsongo, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. South Africa is considered one of the most multicultural countries in the world. Its populations is conform of indigenous black people, white Europeans, Indians, Indo-Malays, Chinese, and others making it difficult to generalize all South Africa etiquettes and culture. In South Africa families are based on a nuclear family and extended family or a tribe. “A traditional African society, the tribe is the most important community as it is the equivalent of a nation. The tribe provides both emotional and financial security in much the same way the nuclear family does to white or coloured South Africans. The coloured and more traditional Afrikaans cultures consider their extended family to be almost as important as their nuclear family, while the English-speaking white community places more emphasis on the nuclear family. (Kwintessential)” In South Africa race is defined based on the classification of people based on their characteristics. These characteristics can be on the person’s inheritance, which they share, such as skin color, bone structure, hair texture, and others. In the other hand ethnicity, is not based on genetics, this is a way where people sharing the same ancestry, culture, beliefs, language, township neighborhoods also known as “tribal”, were grouped together. It is important to understand that tribes in South Africa had “not existed for most of the twentieth century (Byrnes)”, the definition of tribe is describes as a group of people sharing similar cultures such as belief and behavior where the group is able to trace their ancestry to a common ancestor, however; in South Africa the township neighborhoods also known as tribal they do not shared a common ancestors. This was done base on government official’s rules to “imposed fairly rigid ethnic or tribal categories on a fluid social reality, giving each black African a tribal label, or identity, within a single racial classification (Byrnes).” Even when the government was the one that created these types of ethnic groups it created divisions among people of a particular class or region. In today’s society racial and ethnic discrimination is a problem found in the world. This is one of the major problems in human rights, a problem that is faced by minority and majority populations. An example of this discrimination in South Africa is the Apartheid. “Apartheid was the system of government that lasted in South from 1948 until 1994. Under Apartheid, black people did not have equal rights with white people. They were not allowed to use the same facilities as white people, intermarry, or mix with white people as equals. Although this was made law after World War II, it really continued the racist treatment that black people and other non-white people had experienced in South Africa for generations (Apartheid).” Even when Apartheid system ended in 1994, the country of South Africa still struggle against ethnic and racial hatred. Another form of discrimination many South Africans suffered was in the area of education. During 80’s young people were destroying schools to create an identification with Apartheid. Because of the students strikes, vandalism, and violence it created a bigger shortages of teachers, classrooms, and equipments in schools. The Bantu Education Act was also part of a form of discrimination in South Africa. This act created the “purity” concept of racial making the education for black people to be inferior. Verwoerd one of the architects of the Bantu Education Act said that “black Africans "should be educated for their opportunities in life," and that there was no place for them "above the level of certain forms of labour (Byrne).” In the 90’s when Apartheid laws were being lifted the education system started changing. In 1993 president Frederik W de Klerk stated in a speech to the Parliament that a nonracial school system was needed, a nonracial school system that allows the preservation of religious and cultural values, and the different languages. South Africa is a country that has survived many years of difficult times, however; this is also a country where its population is full of life, they are individuals that enjoy singing, dancing, and drumming. This is a country where many individuals from different part of the world visit to enjoy and learned about their culture. This may include food, clothing, religion, and others. Many people also visit the country to enjoy a vast number and variety of wild life, people also visit parks such as Kruger National Park in the Songimvelo Game Reserve where individuals are able to see a variety of games, or visit the Hermanus on the Southern Cape for whale watching. Even though South Africa is a country that offers its beauty to visitor around the world, this is a country that has not yet won battle.