WW- chapters 23/24-- LAST POST!

Its hard believe that this will be my last post- this class went by very fast.
Ch. 23
The Case of South Africa: Ending Apartheid


South Africa won freedom from Great Britain in 1910 but its government was controlled by a white settler minority. The black South African freedom struggle was against an internal opponent. White population was split between British descendants (had economic superiority) and Afrikaners (Boers) of Dutch descent (had political dominance). Afrikaners had failed to win independence from the British in the Boer War (1899–1902). Both white groups felt threatened by any move toward black majority rule.


By the early 1900s, South Africa had a mature industrial economy and by the 1960s, had major foreign investments and loans.Black South Africans were extremely dependent on the white-controlled economy and the issue of race was overwhelmingly prominent.Policy of apartheid tried to keep blacks and white completely separate, while retaining black labor power enormous repressive powers enforced social segregation.


African National Congress founded in 1912,like India’s INC, it consisted of elite Africans who wanted a voice in society. For 40 years, the ANC was peaceful and moderate. In 1950s: moved to nonviolent civil disobedience. The government’s response was overwhelming repression, 69 unarmed demonstrators were shot at Sharpville in 1960.


ANC was banned and its leadership imprisoned, underground nationalist leaders turned to sabotage and assassination, and opposition came to focus on student groups.Soweto uprising (1976) was the start of spreading violence and organization of strikes. there was growing international pressure,exclusion from international sporting events, economic boycotts, and withdrawal of private investment funds.Negotiations began in the late 1980s. Key apartheid policies were abandoned and Mandela was freed and the ANC legalized. In 1994: national elections brought the ANC to power, apartheid was ended without major bloodshed.Most important threat was a number of separatist and “Africans only” groups.


Ch. 24
Feminism in the West, organized feminism revived in the West (1960s) with a new agenda against historic understanding of women as “other” or deviant. Demanded right of women to control their own bodies, agenda of equal rights in employment and education.“Women’s liberation”: broad attack on patriarchy as a system of domination. Consciousness raising: becoming aware of oppression,open discussion of issues involving sexuality. Black women emphasized solidarity with black men, not separation from them.


Feminism in the Global South,women had been welcomed in communist and revolutionary movements but were sidelined after movements’ success. Many African feminists (1970s) thought Western feminists were too individualistic and too focused on sex,resented Western feminists’ interest in cultural matters like female circumcision and polygamy.Many African governments and many African men identified feminism with colonialism.Not all women’s movements dealt explicitly with gender.Kenya: women’s group movement supported individual women and communities.Morocco: feminist movement targeted law defining women as minors; women finally obtained legal equality in 2004.


International Feminism,the “woman question” became a global issue in the twentieth century. Patriarchy lost some of its legitimacy, the UN declared 1975 as International Women’s Year and declared 1975–1985 as the Decade for Women. The UN sponsored a series of World Conferences on Women, by 2006, 183 nations had ratified the UN Convention to Eliminate Discrimination against Women. The sharp divisions within global feminism,conflict between developed and developing nations’ interests.Third world groups often disagreed. Global backlash and view that feminism had undermined family life.