Page 26 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - South Africa

24  INTRODUCING SOUTH AFRIC A

Groote Schuur Hospital, where the world’s first successful heart transplant was carried out in 1967

The modern South African state began majority of South Africans strug gled
as a halfway sta tion. Dutch traders of the to fulfil their most basic needs: food,
17th century, on long sea voyages to shelter and education.
their colonies in the East, replenished Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, the nation
their stores at the Cape. A fertile land, went through a period of tense upheaval
South Africa is still largely self-reliant and protest from the majority non-white
today, compelled to become so as a population, who demanded change.
result of the long period of international The struggle against apartheid began
political isola tion that resulted from its in earnest on 16 June 1976, when the
former policy of racial discrimination youth of Soweto marched against being
known as apartheid (apartness). taught in the medium of Afrikaans. Police
South Africa became a world producer of fired on them, precipitating a massive
gold and petro leum. Impressive advances flood of violence that overwhelmed the
were made in communica tion, weapons country. Finally, in 1989, the log jam
technology and mining, but apartheid started to break up. Negotiations had
stood in the way of har mony and been entered into with the imprisoned
economic growth. In the late 1960s, Nelson Mandela, and F W de Klerk became
while the world’s first human heart president. This led to democratic elections
transplant was performed at Groote in 1994 and the final demise of the
Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, the apartheid government.
People and Society
In the post-apartheid constitution that
took effect in 1997, it was deemed that in
a land of such differences, each group of
people must be fairly recognized for their
identity. English, Afri kaans and nine Bantu
tongues were all made official lan guages.
Afrikaans, derived from Dutch and altered
through con tact with other tongues, is
spoken by 13 per cent of the population.
South Africa’s cultural mix has its roots
Farm labourers relaxing on a hay wagon, West Coast in a colonial past. The origi nal hunter-

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