Bantustan

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Image:Southafricanhomelandsmap.png

Bantustan refers to any of the territories designated as tribal "homelands" for black South Africans and Namibians during the apartheid era. The term "bantustan" was first used in the late 1940s and was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in the Bantu languages) and -stan (meaning "land of" in the Persian language). It was based on Hindustan, a term used to refer to Hindu-inhabited India. It later became a disparaging term used by critics of the apartheid-era government's "homelands".

The word "bantustan" is often used in a pejorative sense when describing a country or region that lacks any real legitimacy or power, and that sometimes emerges from national or international gerrymandering. It has been used particularly with reference to Israeli policies towards the Palestinian populations of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Contents

Creation of the Bantustans

Well before the National Party came to power in 1948, South African governments had established "reserves" in 1913 and 1936 with the intention of segregating black South Africans from whites. The National Party's Minister for Native Affairs (and later Prime Minister) Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd sought to build on this, introducing a series of measures that were intended to reshape South African society to exclude its black majority population. The creation of the Bantustans was a central element of this strategy.

Verwoerd argued – with little credible evidence – that the Bantustans were the "original homes" of the native peoples of South Africa. In 1951, the government of Daniel Francois Malan introduced the Bantu Authorities Act to establish small "homelands" allocated to the country's different black ethnic groups. These amounted to no more than 13% of the country's land, leaving the remaining 87% to the white population. Local tribal leaders were co-opted to run the homelands, with uncooperative chiefs being forcibly deposed.

The role of the homelands was expanded in 1959 with the passage of the Bantu Self-Government Act, which set out a plan called "Separate Development". This enabled the homelands to establish themselves as self-governing, quasi-independent states. The intention was to remove the few rights that black South Africans still had in South Africa, by making them nationals of the homelands rather than of South Africa. The homelands were encouraged to opt for independence, as this would greatly reduce the number of black citizens of South Africa. The process was completed by the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, which forcibly made blacks citizens of Bantustans, even if they had never set foot in their nominal "homeland", and cancelled their South African citizenship.

In parallel with the creation of the homelands, South Africa's black population was subjected to a massive programme of forced relocation. An estimated 3.5 million people were expelled from their homes during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, many being resettled in the Bantustans.

The government made clear that its ultimate aim was the total removal of the black population from South Africa. Connie Mulder, the Minister of Plural Relations and Development, told the House of Assembly on 7 February 1978:

If our policy is taken to its logical conclusion as far as the black people are concerned, there will be not one black man with South African citizenship ... Every black man in South Africa will eventually be accommodated in some independent new state in this honourable way and there will no longer be an obligation on this Parliament to accommodate these people politically.

The Bantustans began to be given "independence" in 1976, with Transkei the first to obtain this status. However, none of them received recognition from the outside world. Their territories were broken up into numerous, non-contiguous enclaves, and the boundaries between these were very convoluted. In one instance, the South African embassy to Bophuthatswana had to be moved because it turned out that it had actually been built in South Africa rather than the homeland.

A similar policy was pursued in South African-occupied South West Africa (present-day Namibia), where ten Bantustans were created. (See Bantustans in South West Africa for more on this topic.)

Life in the Bantustans

The Bantustans were all extremely poor. This was quite deliberate, as their boundaries were drawn to exclude economically valuable land and industries. Few employment opportunities were available. Their single most important home-grown source of revenue was the provision of casinos and topless revue shows, which the National Party government had prohibited in South Africa proper as being "immoral". This provided a lucrative source of income for the local elite, who constructed megaresorts such as Sun City in the homeland of Bophuthatswana.

However, the homelands were only kept afloat by massive subsidies from the South African government; for instance, by 1985 in Transkei, 85% of the homeland's income came from direct transfer payments from Pretoria. The Bantustans' governments were invariably corrupt and little wealth trickled down to the local populations, who were forced to seek employment as so-called "guest workers" in South Africa proper. Millions of people had to work in often appalling conditions, away from their homes for months at a time. – for example, 65% of Bophuthatswana's population worked outside the homeland.

Not surprisingly, the homelands were extremely unpopular among the black population, many of whom lived in squalor in slum housing. Their working conditions were often equally poor, as they were denied any significant rights or protections in South Africa proper. Most of the individuals assigned to homelands did not live in or originate from the small areas which the homelands encompassed, and the division into ethnic groups was often arbitrary.

A total of around twelve million people were citizens of the Bantustans. Another eleven million blacks lived in South Africa proper, though the ultimate intention of the apartheid governments was that all blacks should be moved to Bantustans with no permanent black residents after the plan was fully implemented. This was never fully realised, not least because the economy of white South Africa depended on access to a black labour force.

Post-1994

With the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the end of exclusive white rule, the Bantustans were dismantled and their territory reincorporated into the Republic of South Africa. The drive to achieve this was spearheaded by the African National Congress as a central element of its programme of reform. Reincorporation was mostly achieved peacefully, although there was some resistance from the local elites, who stood to lose out on the opportunities for corruption provided by the homelands. The dismantling of the homelands of Bophuthatswana and Ciskei was particularly difficult, with South African security forces having to intervene in the latter in March 1994 to defuse a political crisis.

From 1994, most parts of the country were constitutionally redivided into new provincial governments.

List of the Bantustans

The homelands are listed below with the ethnic group for which each homeland was designated. Four were nominally independent (the so-called TVBC states of Bophuthatswana, the Ciskei, the Transkei and Venda). The other six had limited self-government:

The first Bantustan that became operational was the Transkei under the leadership of Chief Kaizer Daliwonga Matanzima in the Cape Province for the Xhosa nation. Perhaps the best known one was KwaZulu for the Zulu nation in Natal Province, headed by a member of the Zulu royal family Chief Mangosuthu ("Gatsha") Buthelezi in the name of the Zulu king.

Lesotho and Swaziland were not Bantustans, but independent kingdoms, and are former British Protectorates.

See also


Apartheid-era Bantustans in South Africa Image:South Africa flag 1927.png
Bophuthatswana | Ciskei | Gazankulu | KaNgwane | KwaNdebele | KwaZulu | Lebowa | QwaQwa | Transkei | Venda
Bantustans that were "independent" are in italics

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