SPITCEROW Analysis of South Africa's Apartheid Conflict

Introduction

Many indigenous peoples and cultures were marginalized, disenfranchised, and even enslaved by European arrivals in Africa, North and South America, and parts of Asia during the widespread expansion of imperialism that began in earnest in the late fifteenth century and continued largely unabated well into the twentieth century in many areas. The effects of this long period of imperialism are still being dealt with in many, if not all, of the countries that were subjected to foreign rule, and racial and ethnic backgrounds continue to play a large role in these countries' development and political history. Though imperialism was almost entirely ended in the aftermath of the Second World War, the descendants of the imperial era are still trying to sort out the instabilities and conflicts created by the adversarial nature of foreign rule and domination. This can be seen as the direct cause of many internal conflicts occurring in the freed countries of the formerly imperialized world, particularly in Africa.

Few such conflicts are more prominent in the public consciousness — if only for the overt racism that was an inherent part of the system — than the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, which came to a head, and largely to a close, in the last decade of the twentieth century. Though the country had been independent from British rule for decades, a sizeable population of Dutch settlers had existed in the country prior to British imperialism and remained after it ended. During the years of apartheid, this white minority controlled the entire political power structure of the country. The situation was, by almost all accounts, highly unjust and highly untenable given the overwhelming majority of black South Africans.

This paper examines the specifics of the conflict in the 1990s, when what at first appeared to be attempts at reconciliation and justice on the part of the white leadership led only to a sharper division between the various political groups that emerged as soon as they were able to. By applying a SPITCEROW analysis — an identification and discussion of the conflict's sources, parties, issues, tactics, changes, enlargements, roles of other parties, outcome, and the "winner" (if indeed a winner emerged) — to the South African case, a deeper understanding of the way the problems of imperialism continue to play out today can be achieved (Von Feigenblatt 2008). This paper carries out this comprehensive analysis by conducting a deliberate progression through the SPITCEROW model, culminating in an overall assessment of the South African conflict.

Sources of the Conflict

The source of the conflict is rooted in the domination of the native black population of South Africa by successive waves of white European immigrants, including the direct imperial rule of the British Empire that lasted well into the twentieth century (Von Feigenblatt 2008). The overt racism inherent to the government intensified after the Afrikaner National Party — the party of the majority of Boers — took control of the government in 1948 and established a much tighter control over the black population than had been exercised by the British, who were largely in favor of semi-independent self-rule for many of their colonies (Ottaway 1993). Political inequalities led inevitably to economic inequalities as well, and these differences constitute the core sources of the conflict (Von Feigenblatt 2008).

Parties, Issues, and Tactics

Although the conflict took place largely along racial lines, there are more than two simple parties involved, and this complexity is largely what the changes taking place in the early 1990s revealed. Essentially, the conflict's parties can be broken into the government establishment — including both the political party in power and the bureaucracy it had created — the liberation movement (primarily the African National Congress and smaller supporting organizations), and the so-called second-tier parties. These second-tier parties included mainstream parties with less momentum than the major players, radical parties that recognized their inability to exert influence and so refused participation in the political process, and the independent and semi-independent governments of the various homeland areas established within the country (Ottaway 1993, p. 63). Each of these groups had some influence on the degree of the conflict and the direction of its progression throughout the early part of the decade.

The primary issues confronting the parties in this conflict were the need to establish economic justice among peoples that had been kept disparately apart by an unfair political system, the dismantling of this political system, developing a new constitution and government, and settling land disputes that had long been simmering (Von Feigenblatt 2008). Overcoming racism in thought and action was also a major concern that essentially lay beneath each of these other identified issues (Ottaway 1993).

There were a variety of tactics used by the various parties as the conflict progressed, and many tactics were similarly employed by often highly disparate groups. The African National Congress used mass mobilization as a primary tactic in its rise to power and its maintenance of momentum, but other liberation groups used similar tactics at cross-purposes to the ANC, undermining the power derived from this strategy to some degree (Von Feigenblatt 2008). Some groups — including certain liberation groups and other political parties more closely associated with the government establishment — also used violence and direct power tactics as a way of suppressing their opposition in the earlier stages of the conflict (Von Feigenblatt 2008). Eventually, more traditional and stable tactics of negotiation and use of the political process became the primary approach of both main parties, leading to the creation of a new constitution (Ottaway 1993).

Conclusion

Though moments and acts of violence certainly existed in the South African conflict over apartheid — which persisted for decades but became especially virulent and was eventually resolved in the 1990s — it was neither a predominantly violent conflict nor an especially vicious political battle, all things considered (Von Feigenblatt 2008). The existence of several different parties, each with often widely divergent goals and perspectives, led to many complications and a prolonging of the conflict, but these parties were also essential in the formation of the resolution that the conflict eventually produced (Ottaway 1993). Though the conflict was enlarged by certain external and internal circumstances that contributed to the major escalation in the early 1990s, this enlargement was also what brought the core issues to the foreground of political action in the country, thus enabling resolution rather than continued stagnation (Ottaway 1993; Von Feigenblatt 2008). Through an escalation of the conflict, an actual solution — rather than simply a mitigating of tensions — was finally reached between the parties.