South Africa Apartheid

CIA Archives

Note: “The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all.

At the time, black South Africans outnumbered white South Africans nearly 5 to 1 yet the blacks were divided into different tribes with different languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Sotho, Venda, Ndebele, Pedi and more. Long before apartheid existed these tribal factions clashed and warred with one another. Then white rule used that animosity to divide and conquer. All non-whites were systematically classified into various groups and subgroups. Then these groups were given a given differing levels of rights and privileges in order to keep them at odds…
The Zulu went to war with the white man. The Xhosa played chess with the white man. For a long time neither was particularly successful, and each blamed the other for a problem neither had created. Bitterness festered. For decades those feelings were held in check by a common enemy. Then apartheid fell, "Mandela became a political white agenda" and they let him walked free, and black South Africa went to war with itself.”