Talk:Apartheid

This article has repeatedly been subject to mass additions to the "See also" section, many of which are tangential. The last discussion I can find is in Archive 9, where consensus was reached on what links should be included. I have reverted to the agreed list, twice, but additions are being made contrary to that consensus. Any additions to the previous consensus need to be discussed and agreed here, before they are added to the article. - Arjayay (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for keeping an eye on this, and especially for adding the hidden note to the section which I hope will be useful in reducing the willy-nilly addition of links.

Looking at the articles previously added, I think that Allegations of apartheid by country is perhaps one that would be an appropriate addition. Thoughts? htonl (talk) 19:59, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I think that is a good link, as it covers/removes the need for several of the links that are repeatedly added. My opinion, of course, does not create consensus. Let us see if others agree/disagree with us over the next 7 days. - Arjayay (talk) 20:15, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree, it would be a good addition. Greenman (talk) 07:31, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

OK htonl and Greenman, it is now 16 days since the proposal, which has had no negative response, so is carried nem con - Arjayay (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be beneficial to have a separate apartheid era South Africa country page due to the differences between the South Africa’s modern day government and the apartheid era government along with the length of this article (which has a warning saying it is too long). The Republic of Rhodesia has its own. Page and it is quite surprising that doesn’t. I think it could be titled” History of South Africa (1948–1994)” and contain the information of that time period. ErickTheMerrick (talk) 13:48, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

This has been repeatedly brought up on this page, and is problematic because "apartheid" is not a country. The state of South Africa went through at least two major constitutional changes between 1948 and 1994 (in 1961 and 1983). It would be misleading to frame it as a single politically contiguous entity between 1948 and 1994 because it was not. In terms of constitutional continuity, the Union of South Africa existed from 1910 to 1961, when it was superseded by the Republic of South Africa, and that is a far more correct defining point than the subjective lumping together of everything from 1948 to 1994 as a single era simply because the country had the same ruling party for that duration.

Apartheid is a defunct legal system in a nation-state which has existed since 1961 (the Republic of South Africa), rather than a defunct nation-state or polity in and of itself. --Katangais (talk) 14:15, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

I think making a Republic of South Africa (1948-1994) page could also work. That actaully might be the best option looking back at it. ErickTheMerrick (talk) 16:43, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Excuse me, I meant 1961-1994 ErickTheMerrick (talk) 16:44, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello, While apartheid was not major history I would like to point out that besides apartheid There should be a page for South Africa Under National party control or South Africa Under minority rule.

This would make the flow much better. Either that or we could expand Apartheid to include other actions The National party did such as the development of nuclear weapons, The War with Angola and the transfer of power.

This all merged into one article Would make it much more easier to read instead of having it in separate articles. Freedom759 (talk) 22:33, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

This section is pretty disjointed. Prezbo (talk) 08:36, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Made some changes Kowal2701 (talk) 14:13, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

This article covers history of the interrepublic period between 1961 and 1994. I suggest this page should be split to a separate page called Republic of South Africa (1961 - 1994) Similar to how West Germany's page is The federal Republic of Germany (1949 - 1989) Freedom759 (talk) 20:46, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Here is the page I am talking about the West Germany article. Freedom759 (talk) 20:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree with that. South Africa under the National Part really needs to be its own article. Maybe it should even be split(and/or merged) into 2 articles of the Union of South Africa(1948-1961) and Republic of South Africa(1961-1994). Ananinunenon (talk) 10:02, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

South Africa adopted a new constitution in 1983. So technically there were two republics under the National Party, one from 1961-1983 and one from 1983-1994. The Republic from 1961 to 1983 restricted the political franchise to whites, the one from 1983-1994 restricted the franchise to whites, Coloureds, and Indians. The country was also transformed into a presidential republic. A “Republic of South Africa (1961-1994)” article would totally ignore this and is a gross oversimplification at best, and misinformed at worst. --Katangais (talk) 01:13, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you However I suggest this article be split Due to how the single stand alone article on The Republic of South africa does not mention the stuff the national party did such as the war with Angola nor does it go into detail on the stuff the republic did. Also this Apartheid article mentions stuff which had nothing to Restricting the franchise to whites such as the development of nuclear bombs something that Was not created due to Apartheid. The reason I suggest

Therefore this article should be split in a similar fashion to the West Germany article. This article is way to long the way it is because it mentions stuff the interepublic did that apartheid did not. Freedom759 (talk) 17:45, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Also this article that I suggested be made would focus on South Africa when it was under the National party control since This would be beyond Apartheid. It would also have info on the Angola war, Western South Africa (known today as Namibia) and Also the creation and destruction of the nuclear bombs south Africa made at the time and the ties it had with the rest of the world at the time.I suggest a article be made on South Africa Under the national party because The current Article on the Republic of South Africa Ignores and does not mention a majority of the history during apartheid era except for in its history section where it mentions 3 paragraphs. I would also like to point out that the 1983 Constitution only granted the vote to Coloureds and Indians on a segregated basis. It did not give them full voting rights. Freedom759 (talk) 18:07, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

You have totally missed the point on why a single country article entitled Republic of South Africa (1961-1994) is inappropriate in my view. I am not disputing that the Indian/Coloured franchise was limited. I am pointing out that from a constitutional point of view there were two republics, one from 1961 to 1983 that was a more conventional Westminster system, and one from 1983 to 1994 that was a presidential republic with a tricameral parliament. --Katangais (talk) 14:34, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I also agree with this primarily on the fact that this article is just way too long. It does go into a lot of detail but could go into more if it was split and there were multiple paragraphs for each article. This would let it go in depth on singular topics more. Slup2 (talk) 03:17, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

As I have said elsewhere, the appropriate solution would be to create an article History of South Africa (1948–1994) which could cover apartheid and also everything else that was going on during the period. htonl (talk) 07:56, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

This is certainly a much more appropriate solution from my perspective. --Katangais (talk) 14:37, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

@Katangais if we split it into a separate page to make things that happened in South Africa Im all in since this page covers stuff that is not related to apartheid

or the other option would be to include more information in the apartheid era of the Republic of South Africa and include more info during the time of White minority rule such as the flag during the time and other information about the country before Majority rule.

although I see that your option is a more appropriate option since this is a controversial topic and it is best separated from the main article on the Republic of South Africa Freedom759 (talk) 21:01, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

@Htonl I like the idea however I would like it similar to how the west Germany article is listed like a country despite it technically being current day Germany (since west Germany is basically the current German government) Freedom759 (talk) 09:08, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

The FRG did not fundamentally change the structure of its republic during its history as “West Germany” between 1949 and 1990, the way South Africa did in 1983. --Katangais (talk) 14:37, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I guess I agree with Htonl But I Should point out that it did change its structure By allowing Non whites to vote and then also changed it status I believe by rejoining the Commonwealth Freedom759 (talk) 17:51, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Which is precisely the point. The Republic of 1983-94 changed its structure by opening the franchise to Coloureds and Indians, adopting a tricameral parliament, and becoming a presidential republic, all enshrined in a new constitution. All significant changes. Modern South Africa did not rejoin the Commonwealth until after the constitutional changes of 1994, at which time we may correctly regard it as a new Republic. --Katangais (talk) 21:40, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

anyways I am hearing we agree to splitting the article into a History of South Africa during the inter Republic era during minority control between 1961 and 1994.

We should include the 2 constitutional changes and other things that happened in south Africa at the time. Freedom759 (talk) 21:58, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I would support the creation of a separate history article entitled History of South Africa (1948–1994), or alternatively History of South Africa (1961–1994). We could fork it from this article as well as History of South Africa#Apartheid era (1948–1994). --Katangais (talk) 03:21, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

In my opinion, History of South Africa (1948–1994) is the right split, not separating out 1948-1961, 1961-1983 or 1983-1994 or some combination of them. The change to a republic and leaving the Commonwealth in 1961 was symbolically important but not a watershed in history the way 1948 or 1994 were. The 1983 constitution was a sham rather than a watershed. It was a halting step at reform which cosmetically gave rights to Coloured and Indian citizens through the tricameral system but completely ignored the Black majority, and cynically maintained the status quo by ensuring the White chamber of parliament maintained power over the other chambers. Zaian (talk) 08:43, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

@Katangais I would need help creating the article since I joined in August and never made a article before but yes.

if we could make a history of South Africa article focussing on 1948 to 1994 that would be great. Freedom759 (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Greetings. I've created the Republic of South Africa (1961—1994) page. Feel free to help with it. Schwartz7887 (talk) 16:09, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@Schwartz7887

thank you so much for making the Page.

now it's much less confusing for others when they need to look up stuff for South Africa during the inter Republic era Freedom759 (talk) 20:29, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Take that back it was deleted Freedom759 (talk) 21:54, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

This has also been discussed here Kowal2701 (talk) 16:12, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

The "Republic (1961-1994)" article seems to have been deleted as the user who created it was apparently a sockpuppet of a banned user. I've started a draft at Draft:History of South Africa (1948–1994) which I hope we can use to collaborate on building up a suitable article. - htonl (talk) 23:36, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

THIS DISCUSSION IS CLOSED.

A agreement has been reached to split the article.

To help with the split please move information that is relevant over to Draft:History of South Africa (1948–1994) Freedom759 (talk) 02:42, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Greetings.

The article History of South Africa (1948–1994) has been published. Feel free to contribute to it.

I've also created some other drafts and it'd be nice to see some help on them too:

Draft:Republic of South Africa (1961-1984)

Draft:Republic of South Africa (1984-1991)

Draft:South African transition to democracy Schwartz7887 (talk) 10:44, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

The lead currently states that whites were followed by “Indians, Coloureds and black Africans.”

My understanding from the historiography is that apartheid did not operate with a single fixed hierarchy between Indians and Coloureds across all contexts. In some administrative classifications Indians were listed first, but in practice policies varied by region and sector (for example the Coloured Labour Preference policy in the Western Cape).

Would it be more accurate to avoid implying a rigid ranking and instead clarify that these groups were separately classified with varying rights depending on law and region?

Possible wording:

“Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, while other groups were classified into categories including Indian/Asian, Coloured and Black African, with differing rights and privileges depending on the law and context.”

Thoughts? Fosterliberty (talk) 09:37, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

A couple of comments: firstly, is there any particular reason you chose to capitalise "Black" but not "white"? Secondly, "Indian" and "Asian" should not be used interchangeably; they are not the same. Consider, for example, the case of Chinese South Africans, who were at least initially classified as "Asian" by apartheid legislation. --Katangais (talk) 13:04, 20 March 2026 (UTC)