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I wonder if someone who knows about South African history could answer this one. For centuries, blacks in South Africa were largely law abiding, governed themselves with tribal laws more restrictive than the whites imposed upon them and were content to defer to intrinsically superior white men and let them run the affairs of state. What changed to necessitate a tremendously expensive formal apartheid system? I mean, if niggers think they can have casual sex with white women without reprisal such that you have to pass a law against it, things are already pretty f***ed up. How did this happen? Was it that white society collapsed and dragged everyone else down?

Cornfed wrote:I wonder if someone who knows about South African history could answer this one. For centuries, blacks in South Africa were largely law abiding, governed themselves with tribal laws more restrictive than the whites imposed upon them and were content to defer to intrinsically superior white men and let them run the affairs of state. What changed to necessitate a tremendously expensive formal apartheid system? I mean, if niggers think they can have casual sex with white women without reprisal such that you have to pass a law against it, things are already pretty f***ed up. How did this happen? Was it that white society collapsed and dragged everyone else down?

I'm not an expert on South Africa, but I believe you have it backwards. Apartheid marriage laws were designed to keep Whites from taking advantage of Black women. As soon as the Vegas-style Sun City resort opened in Bophuthatswana, where apartheid did not apply, the races began to mix freely, and prostitution flourished.

Apartheid as a formal system was unique to South Africa, because the Afrikaners were not "colonialists" like other European Whites in Africa. They were original pioneers and settlers of unoccupied land. So unlike the rest of colonial Africa, the Afrikaners did not go to rule Blacks or use their labor. Originally they were like Pilgrims in the U.S., intending to live on their own. They were later forced by British occupation to head north where they came into conflict with / contact with Blacks. The Brits eventually followed them, and conquered them. Apartheid began after they were conquered by the Brits, as a compromise. They would be allowed to keep their culture and language. I think they understood the British-imperialist policy of bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator, and wanted laws to serve as a cultural boundary. In the 1920's British and Jewsih mine owners used Blacks as scabs to break a strike by Afrikaner laborers. The Afrikaners actually had a Communist party for a short time, protesting this.

I guess your larger point is correct. Apartheid wasnt about defending against Blacks. It was about keeping the worldwide modern culture out. For example, I think television was kept out of South Africa till the 60's or later.