Page 110 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

Between 1948 and 1963, the newly elected nationalist Afrikaner government used its legislative majority to rearrange social, economic and political life. The government’s racist doctrine re-engineered society, and its consequences are still felt in contemporary South Africa. In turn, the right-wing ethos filtered down to political discourse and policymaking. These occurrences had a profound bearing on the mandate and the stature of the SARB.
1948
Afrikaner nationalist rule begins, formalising the political practice of separatism or apartheid, and underpinning it with racially discriminatory and draconian laws. These laws accelerated, and widened, protest action by black political organisations.
1955
The Congress of the People takes place in Kliptown, Johannesburg, at which the Freedom Charter was adopted. For decades to come, millions of South Africans would see it as their seminal political economic doctrine.
1960
The tragedy of Sharpville unfolds as the world witnesses the rising political repression in South Africa. A total of 69 people were mowed down in a hail of bullets by apartheid state police during a peaceful protest against pass laws in Sharpeville, southeast of Johannesburg. In contemporary South Africa, Sharpville Day is a public holiday and is commemorated as Human Rights Day on 21 March. The protest was organised by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a breakaway from the ANC, formed in 1959.
1964
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and his co-accused are sentenced to long prison terms, mostly life, for participating in an armed struggle against the apartheid government. Most political prisoners were sentenced and condemned to Robben Island.
The consequential political years: 1960–1989
South African Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs Dr Daniel Francois Malan (right), leader of the South African nationalists, who defeated General Smuts’s United Party in the South African elections, leaves Cape Town for Pretoria on 1 June 1948 with his wife. D F Malan was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. /AFP via Getty Images
100
A mass funeral for victims of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. A total of 69 people were killed when police opened fire on a crowd of protestors demonstrating against pass laws for black citizens. /Jurgen Schadeberg/ Getty Images