|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
La Guma was a writer, a leader of the South African Coloured People's Organisation (SACPO) and a defendant in the Treason Trial. Born in 1925 in Cape Town, the son of James La Guma. After graduating from the Trafalgar High School, he joined the Young Communist League in 1947 and became a member of the Communist Party a year later. He helped organise the Congress of the People. He was chairman of SACPO in the Western Cape in the 1950s and an executive member of the SACPO (later called the South African Coloured People's Congress) in the 1960s. He wrote for New Age from 1955. He wrote many articles for Fighting Talk in which he captured the atmosphere of the trial proceedings. He was placed under 24-hour house arrest in 1962, and then detained again in 1963. He left South Africa in 1966. He wrote four novels and many short stories, and received the 1969 Lotus Prize for Literature, awarded by the Afro-Asian Writers' Conference. He edited Apartheid: A Collection of Writings on South African Racism by South Africans (1972). In his first novel, A Walk in the Night (1962), La Guma describes the political and social existence of the "colored" people of the District Six slum in Cape Town. He examines the life of the district though the actions of four characters during the course of one night. He focuses on the decay and despair of the slum, whose residents are frequently too absorbed by their own miserable state to react to it, and thus suffer alone. In doing so, he explores the connection between rights and responsibilities through the unfolding of his characters' decisions and actions The apartheid regime in South Africa lasted for almost half a century. Born out of hatred and racism, it was condemned internationally. The blacks living in South Africa during apartheid were segregated and discriminated against by law; however this did not deter them. Several generations of South Africans fought to overthrow the apartheid laws implemented by the minority white rule. The blacks in South Africa, with their strong will, would not be kept from gaining their equality. Formation of Apartheid Although most whites living in South Africa had always held the belief that they were superior to the native South Africans, official apartheid and most discriminatory laws first began after the national elections in 1948. The Afrikaner Nationalist Party’s political platform was founded on racism and the fear that the white minority would some day be overwhelmed by the black society. The party contended that only total separation of the races would prevent a move toward equality of the black population. Once elected, D.F. Malan, the leader of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, declared that blacks should have no form of political representation in South Africa and called for prohibition of mixed marriages and banning of black trade unions as well as many other discriminatory measures. Malan immediately put into effect legislation to separate whites and blacks, to promote the idea that whites should be treated more favorably than blacks, and to provide the state with the necessary powers to deal with anyone who opposes these ideas. The Population Registration Act was passed in 1950. Under this act, all citizens, babies, and immigrants to South Africa had to be classified in a national register as either white, colored, native (later called Bantu), or Asian.
Approximate Word count = 2212
Approximate Pages = 8.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|