ABSTRACT
The term ‘apartheid’ comes from the Afrikaans language and originally could be translated as ‘separateness’. However, by the 1940s it had acquired additional connotations and become synonymous with the National Party of South Africa’s political programme aimed at legislated racial separation. This programme was subsequently put into devastating effect. As a result the word has been absorbed into other languages to mean the ultimate form of ruthlessly applied and institutionally enforced racial segregation. Racially based separation was intended to operate at all levels of society. Thus, whether it was sitting on a park bench, standing in a queue in a shop or selecting a place of residence, there was to be no mixing of the White population with anyone else. Apartheid policies were enshrined in the law after 1948, to the condemnation of world opinion.
