South Africans know a tyrant when we see one. The race-hate. The sexism. The contempt for human rights and the rule of law. The construction of the white male as the only authentic citizen. The attacks on the press. The disdain for international opprobrium, or any reasoned criticism at all. These were standard fare under apartheid.
Apartheid was constructed by an elected government. But that government was elected only in the narrowest and most technical sense, as in most parts of South Africa only whites were allowed to vote. And only a minority of those who voted did so for the Nationalist Party, which took power in 1948. As in the 2000 and 2016 US Presidential elections, anomalies in our electoral system at the time meant that a minority of votes cast translated into a majority of seats in the national legislature.
Once in power, the apartheid government stripped non-whites of their limited voting rights, shut down newspapers, and silenced anyone who spoke out against the regime. The state started assassinating its opponents, or killing them in police custody. Government agents turned Black Africans out of “white” South Africa, removed their citizenship and segregated them into a series of government-created satellite states, where they lived in poverty.
