Talk:History of South Africa in the apartheid era/Archive5

RACIAL CATEGORISATION

Among `white' South Africans were Europeans as well as people from Near East origins. Lebanese, Turks and Iranians were accepted as white but not Indians , why? They are mostly Caucasoid and could claim Aryan heritage. What would a European looking Anglo-Indian like Saira Mohan have been classified as? She could have assumed another identity and passed herself off for fully European(Mediterranean). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.169.47.77 (talk • contribs)

Indians make up a sizeable population in South Africa, and were defined as one of the four race groups under Apartheid (Black, White, Coloured and Indian). Other nationalities like Lebanese, Turks and Iranians would have been numerically less significant. Partly it would have been decided based on physical appearance. I've also read that some nationalities were classed as "whites" because their countries had better diplomatic relations with South Africa. I suppose individual foreigners would have gone through a bureaucratic process to determine their race in South African terms. Maybe this involved ticking a box on a form, and hoping that an official didn't decide to "downgrade" you, based on your name, your relatives, your appearance, and how he felt that morning? It became farcical when dealing with the blurred edges between the races too. The parliamentary opposition used to have a field day asking the Minister to report on how many Coloureds had been reclassified White, how many Whites reclassified Coloured, etc. It would be funny if it wasn't so offensive and painful to the people involved, separating families, condemning people to second-class citizenship, etc. Zaian 08:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Broken Links

Could we consider removing some of the links that don't go anywhere in this article? I would not know how, I'm just a newbie. Take Care, SonicBoom95 16:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"Many of the inequalities created and maintained by apartheid". I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that this sentence fragment is almost certainly factually incorrect. These inequalities existed during apartheid, but most were probably not created by it, in that they existed before apartheid. 69.111.198.49 00:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point, athough all it probably needs is clarification, for example: "Many of the inequalities created and/or maintained by apartheid" --Gogtjop 16:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Another link-related comment: Under "The apartheid system" there is a link labelled homeland that goes to the Bantustan article. Since I didn't know about the homeland system yet, that confused me. I thought it was a broken link. Perhaps the link should go to the homeland section of this article, which then has a link to the more detailed Bantustan article. 74.128.174.46 14:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Forgive me, I'm a newbie, but the page has been vandalised a bit-- a lot of "dfdfdf" for no good reason. Could someone fix it, or tell me how to go about reverting it? Thank you. Ipsenaut 05:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Change needed in See Also sections

Can anyone contribute to the discussion of why links to the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Jim Crow laws are necessary? It seems they are associated with apartheid South Africa for no better reason that they pertain to racial issues in institutional policy. This intermingles American and South African politics erroneously in that the associations are too broad, which is why I request that these links in the See Also section be removed. EnglishEfternamn^talk_contribs 22:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The concept of Apartheid

I agree that these hatreds weren't created by the apartheid policy, perhaps the racial seperationary culture of South Africa prior to Apartheid should be added more to the beginnings.

82.14.87.191 09:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Exactly which "hatreds" do you mean? (41.242.239.251 18:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)).

End of the "apartheid era" - 1990 or 1994?

Until recently the opening sentence stated that apartheid "was enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1994". The end date was recently changed to 1990, which is the date when De Klerk announced the beginning of negotiations. I've changed it back to 1994.

Impi's edit comment justified the date of 1990 by saying that the state ceased enforcing apartheid laws in 1990, but this is only partly true. Apartheid was more than enforcement of individual laws, it was about a racially-based state that was only replaced by a multi-racial government in 1994. Even at the level of laws, many were still enforced after 1990. The most fundamental apartheid law - the Separate Representation of Voters Act - prevented blacks from voting in by-elections and in the referendum of 1992. De Klerk's speech in 1990 was a major step towards ending apartheid, but it is simplistic to say that it was the end of apartheid. The elections in 1994 are, IMHO, more significant as a moment marking the end of apartheid.

Perhaps the opening sentence should be expanded to read "that was enforced in South Africa from 1948, and dismantled through negotiations between 1990 and 1994". Encarta dodges the issue, saying "until the early 1990s". Britannica says "In 1990–91 most apartheid legislation was repealed, but segregation continued on a de facto basis. In 1993 a new constitution enfranchised blacks and other racial groups, and all-race national elections in 1994 produced a coalition government with a black majority. These developments marked the end of legislated apartheid, though not of its entrenched social and economic effects."

Incidentally, giving the years as 1948-1990 disagrees with the title and scope of the article. Zaian 18:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with making some distinction. The facts are that Apartheid did breakdown considerable within the law books of the country in 1990. The rules of Apartheid were not 100% removed from the law books during that one year however, it took several years to clean it out. I am not sure how long the last bits of Apartheid stood within the law books of the country, maybe that's something we should research. But we must portray the truth of the matter by saying something like: the dam wall of Apartheid broke in 1990 and (+/-)4 years to drain out of the law books. (That actually sounded pretty good). Gilawson 18:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with classifying apartheid as being the 'racially-based state', for if that's the case we might as well term all of white-ruled South Africa's history as officially being apartheid. This clearly isn't the case: While previous white governments were segregationist and mostly racist, the consensus is that apartheid began in 1948 with the election of the National Party and its co-ordinated system of laws designed to oppress and separate black South Africans in a very specific way. Apartheid thus refers to this system of laws, which was dismantled almost in its entirety between 1990 and 1991.

While 1994 marks the symbolic end of apartheid as a result of the country's first fully-participated democratic elections, the ushering in of the ANC as the governing party and the end of the NP's reign, the fact remains that the legal system that defined apartheid was no longer in place by then. Though non-white South Africans still could not vote before 1994, this was not because of apartheid era legislation like the Separate Representation of Voters Act (which was actually repealed in 1983 as part of the Tricameral Constitution changes) but because of segregationist legislation and provisions that predated the NP and its creation of the apartheid system. 1994 was hugely important, but not necessarily as the end of apartheid but rather as the end of centuries of oppressive, racist and immoral white minority rule.

That said, there is a bit of a grey area as to when exactly apartheid was legally dismantled. Some sources use 1990 as the date, since this is when most apartheid-related laws were repealed and the government chose not to enforce those that remained, while others prefer to use the date of 1991, when the Land Areas Act and Group Areas Act were repealed. The latter were the last of the core apartheid laws. This is, I suspect, why Encarta hedges its bets by referring to "the early 1990s". So it might be worth adopting an approach similar to that of Britannica, if only to better establish context. There's no reason why we cannot point out that the system of apartheid was legally dismantled in 1990/91, but that segregation and racial disenfranchisement continued until the 1993 constitution and 1994 election. — Impi 20:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a legal historian, but even if there are grey areas around when the apartheid legal system ended, I still think that's only part of the story. In most people's minds the "apartheid era" is a political concept (rather than a legal one), quite firmly demarcated by the NP's coming to power in 1948, and the 1994 elections at the other. I realise "apartheid era" is a fuzzy concept, but at least the boundary dates 1948 and 1994 are fairly clear. The other problem I have with citing 1990 as the date at which apartheid ended is that it appears to give one-sided credit to De Klerk for ending apartheid. The 1994 date is more balanced in the sense that it acknowledges the negotiations process that led up to the new political era. Zaian 15:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yet using 1994 as the date seems to grant no credit to de Klerk at all, when it's clear he deserves much of it. Frankly, I'm in favour of a compromise that says apartheid was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990-1993, culminating in the 1994 elections. I think that approach is the most accurate you're going to get in a one-sentence summary of apartheid's end. And while you may be right that most people regard 1994 as the date legal apartheid ended, all that proves is that most people can be wrong. Our task here is to present the truth as best as we can, not to report merely on what most people believe, and the simple truth is that legal apartheid was finished before the first ballot was cast in 1994. Indeed, without the end of the apartheid system at least a year or two prior to the 1994 elections the latter could not have taken place legitimately. — Impi 15:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Whoa...

I need help. An IP Address is making quite a lot of edits and I don't particular like one of them where the user deleted a couple sentences and replaced them, including removing a few references. Tried to use Undo, but didn't work. So just making note that there has been a lot of edits that should be checked over. Thanks. Gilawson 20:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't look like they made that many changes, just many edits. I think one of the changes was to include a different citation and a statistic, which isn't the worst thing in the world. The other one I don't really understand. The sentense, "The withdrawal of Cuban troops, pressure on South Africa by its Western allies and the collapse of the Eastern bloc (and of the Soviet Union more generally) paved the way for the independence for Namibia in 1990." was changed to say "...abandonment of South Africa by its Western Allies..." I don't know anything about this, and the citation [1] is odd and not very reliable, anyway. Here is the diff from their first to last edit [2]. Smmurphy^(Talk) 22:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

International relations are always a bit murky. There's not a huge difference between allies starting to put pressure on you, and allies abandoning their support for you. Judging from the other changes by the same person, the sentence has tones of "they cynically abandoned us to the communists". However, another editor might have written the same words meaning "they finally abandoned their futile attempts to prop up the apartheid state". Does this make it NPOV? :-) Zaian 10:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

problem with Economic inequality and Black Economic Empowerment section

The section says that 90% of the poor are black, and then points out that 10% of the population is white. The statement should tell us what percentage of the population is black to be consistent. The way it's worded, assuming the vast majority of citizens are either ethnically black or white, it does not sound at all strange that if 90% of the population is black, that 90% of the poor are black. 76.81.41.58 17:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)Dave Cart

Economics

There needs to be a section on SA's economic growth, industries, and international position during this period. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.4.116.14 (talk) 20:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Biased article

I thought that I was reading an article about the Apartheid but somehow it ended up talking for more than a paragraph about the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I felt these paragraphs were not only unnecessary, loosely related to the topic at hand, but also incredibly biased. These paragraphs, to me, bring down the whole standard of the article and thus, should not be included in it.

Vandalism

Someone has vandalized this article with profanity and some very offensive terms. Someone who knows how to fix it PLEASE do so.

Removed Template:Discrimination sidebar

I removed Template:Discrimination sidebar because I find it too long and too broadly focused and it was placed too prominently in the article. It is nice that Wikipedia has articles about so many discrimination topics and it may even be useful to list them together, but it doesn't belong at the start of the article on apartheid, a fairly specific topic. Maybe at the bottom of the apartheid article, the general discrimination topic guide may be more useful. --CGM1980 23:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to replace at a better spot. Benjiboi 00:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Greetings. I've re-added template at the "See Also" section to avoid formattin gissues. FYI part of the Discrimination project is to show that all forms of discrimination, at the core, justify treating other people as somehow less human than oneself or of a lesser value than any other people. Although broad I think the point is to show we all have our value systems and we all can do a bit more to ensure that people are treated as equally or better than we would want ourselves to be treated. Keep up the good work! Benjiboi 23:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Allegations of apartheid

Template:Allegations of apartheid has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Terraxos 02:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

but where is the rest of world now? why dont they ban them from sport. because they have oil! the old south afrika was a threat to america and europe. whit a army no weaker than any other in the world. fokin de klerk!

Apartheid apologist?

I am trying to assume good faith in the many edits from 130.102.2.60 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). However, many of the changes from this address seem to be designed to excuse or whitewash the actions of the apartheid government. As an example, I am reverting this change which removes a damning quote about the attitude of the police towards the victims of the Sharpeville Massacre. I'm surprised other editors are not doing more to prevent the systematic change in emphasis from this anonymous editor.

Another change by this editor which I am uncomfortable with:

• Before - "With the ANC, PAC and South African Communist Party banned, and Mandela and his fellow leaders in jail or exile, South Africa entered some of its most troubled times. Apartheid legislation was increasingly enforced, and the walls between the races were built even higher, culminating in the creation of separate Homelands for blacks."
• After - "After Sharpeville the ANC, PAC and South African Communist Party were banned, and leaders like Mandela were either in jail or in exile. The State of Emergency was de-proclaimed; the economy boomed; and the government began implementing apartheid by building the infrastructures of the ten separate Homelands, and relocating blacks into these homelands."

Woohoo, great times everyone! Zaian 10:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

In this edit the anonymous editor signs as "PE Louw". In [3] User:Eric Louw signs as PE Louw and as the author of "The Rise Fall and Legacy of Apartheid". Mr Louw, since you are contributing regularly to this article, please log in so that people can identify your contributions and engage you in discussion. Please do not delete content arbitrarily. Please use edit summaries to explain your changes. And finally, the introductory paragraphs are a short precis of the article, not an invitation to editorialise. Zaian 07:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Allegations of apartheid

There is some discussion at this page about a rename proposal to Apartheid (alternate meanings). I would like to have input from editors working on this article. There is a growing recognition that while apartheid has traditionally and primarily refers to the South African situation, that its use in other contexts is increasing. See Crime of apartheid, Social apartheid, Israeli apartheid, Social apartheid in Brazil, etc. Your input is valued. Tiamat 23:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

• The current title of this article is misleading. It refers to the lenghty part of history of South Africa during the so called apartheid era without any link to the word "apartheid". There is no separate article entitled simply the "Apartheid" in English Wikipedia, like there are in most non-English other ones; just the redirection to this very article creating vicious circle. It causes lots of confusion in the so called "apartheid allegations series", especially in the Allegations of Israeli apartheid mess. greg park avenue 17:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is time to revisit this issue. There is really no reason why this article shouldn't be named simply "Apartheid", with a disambiguation page with links to other Apartheid-related articles. --Ezeu 00:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support a move to apartheid. The subject of the article is and should be apartheid, not the history of South Africa in the era and the article title should reflect that. Good luck keeping out non-SA subject matter but editorial vigilance and a dab header slightly stronger than the current one might work. (Something like This article deals with the system of segregation used in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. For the international legal definition of apartheid, see the crime of apartheid. For other uses, see Allegations of apartheid.) — AjaxSmack 13:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC) And agree with the need for another article on the history of South Africa from 1948-1994. But this article isn't it and its edit history should remain at apartheid. — AjaxSmack 18:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose a move to apartheid. If needed, write a new article called apartheid, but this one is about the history of South Africa in that period. It it necessary to have two seperate pages so that the issue is not confused by allegations of apartheid in Israel and elsewhere. BillMasen 14:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• This article about apartheid is sufficient enough with all the background concerning South Africa in the following sections in it. Just the title is misleading, that's all. There are different meanings of the term apartheid, but they belong to another article Apartheid (alternative meanings), see here. There were also other efforts to construct a separate article on this topic, see this, but not to avail. Also User:Tiamut tried one, but it failed. This one is the best I guess. greg park avenue 20:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - per User:BillMasen PalestineRemembered 21:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not a poll, its a discussion. "Per someone else" is useless. --Ezeu 01:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - no discussion!Phase4 08:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support - this article reads 90% like what an article on "apartheid" should read like. This would be like having History of the United States during the Reconstruction era instead of Reconstruction. It's really unfortunate that the quality of Wikipedia's articles on South African apartheid should have to suffer because of the edit warring over the "allegations of apartheid series." Its really hard to imagine anything good coming of BillyMasen's suggestion: the content is likely to be almost entirely repetitive with this article. If there really were need for different articles for "Apartheid" and "History of South Africa in the Apartheid era" then this article should be moved to apartheid and the second one should be split off of it. The foreign language links make this even more obvious. Savidan 08:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

An article about "apartheid in south africa" would be indistinguishable from an article about the "History of South Africa in the Apartheid era". Apartheid changed so much between 1948 and 1994 that a definition of apartheid which covered the entire period would have to be rather general. For this reason an article about apartheid from a non-historical perpective could not be as detailed as it should be. Any article concerning such a large subject has to be detailed, like this one is. BillMasen 16:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - now that it is clear that us South Africans perfected Apartheid others realize that they too need to be careful not to end up being guilty of tolerating Apartheid-like policies.Gregorydavid 17:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• I understand your opposition to the offensive word, but Wikipedia first, anyone's sentiments after; it's just how it shall work. We don't sweep these words under the rug and hide it under some unconspicious title like part of an archaic history of SA. Please, be the Man and face it. greg park avenue 15:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Apartheid is the proper name coined in South Africa to define a government policy which lasted more than 4 decades. This remains the definitive and encyclopedic use of the term. The arrangement whereby a page called Apartheid redirects to History of South Africa in the Apartheid era is to make the scope explicit and prevent unwinnable and irrelevant arguments about Israel from diluting the South African apartheid article. Such arguments (of which this is the latest of many) are a major distraction to editors and readers interested in the South African topic. The arrangement is not intended to make an article named Apartheid available for other takers - a disambiguation page or "see also" link can be used for that. The status quo has been tested quite a few times without any new consensus to change it emerging. Zaian 19:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• What arrangement and where Israel fits into it? Do you really think the title of this article was created just for sake of South Africa's good image to prevent it from dilluting the content of the article by pro- or anti-Israeli propaganda? Ever heard about paranoia? greg park avenue 20:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

These arguments always involve Israel in one way or another. You even mentioned Israel when you brought up this topic. It's not about South Africa's good image - it's about keeping this article about South Africa. You've really got no reason to call me paranoid and it doesn't help your cause to be insulting. Zaian 05:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it wasn't meant to offend you personally. The problem is that there is an article on South Africa including its history, but there is not a single article on Apartheid in English Wikipedia save for that paranoid apartheid series. And you cannot even create one, because it would have essentially the same content as in this one. That's why it's a stalemate - this article is blocking any potential article on "apatheid". Now imagine a hich school kid who never heard of South Africa looking in Google for the meaning of the word and finding what? Part of history of some outback coutry in apartheid era, but nothing on apartheid itself. This title is derivative of South Africa and apartheid, not the other way around. So it shall be changed if you want to keep Wikipedia logically consistent. It seems to me that you don't and you don't have even any single valid point for keeping this title, just WP:IDONTLIKEITgreg park avenue 10:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Apartheid is an offensive word, particularly to those South Africans who had no part in its creation, ie those who were eligible to vote for the first time in their lives during the 1994 elections who to this day are constantly reminded about Apartheid and suffer the consequences of being historicaly advantaged. Try another translation of the word and explore the Separateness of the Palestinians and the Jews etc. The Apartheid page redirects here as you know, so set it up as a disambiguation page pointing to The crime of Apartheid, Allegations of Apartheid, Other Apartheid-like systems etc. I once wanted an article Apartheid in a nutshell, and this is what it became. The recently created Apartheid Template is the closest thing to Apartheid in a nutshell that I have seen.Gregorydavid 13:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect I still don't think you have a valid point here. Actually, young West Germans, back in 1949 when they were allowed first time to vote, may have said literally the same thing - "Nazism" is an offensive word, find some alternative, we haven't got nothing to do with that, or create a nutshell. And they did. The article on Nazism has any language version but German one (Deutsch), same as "Apartheid" has any language version but English. What about historical truth and the standards of Wikipedia WP:NPOV? Correction: Pardon me, there is a link in German to the article on nazism, just not in alphabetical order as it supposed to be. greg park avenue 14:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Appealing to other dialects and languages in use across the transwiki is a poor argument. English may be the only language where apartheid has gained traction expanding its meaning beyond South Africa, and that's rather typical of the fluidity of English. When an English speaker calls someone a Nazi, for example, they generally aren't accusing someone of actually being a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party during the middle of the 20th century. Among the articles in Template:Allegations of apartheid there are 200+ references which attest, to varying degree, to a wider meaning of apartheid in the English language. As for this article, I'm fine with the status quo, though I could see a split of this article to encapsulate material purely related to South African Apartheid, it would be hard to untangle this from the the overall history of the period. -- 67.98.206.2 16:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This template never got consensus (AfD) and was speedily closed last time by someone who took part in the discussion - Cerejota - not my kind of NPOV idea. Splitting the parts not related to SA is OK with me; that's why I have supported Lothar's idea of moving the Allegations of apartheid to Apartheid (alternative meanings), but it failed. greg park avenue 16:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but that was a TfD four days after the last TfD closed, and a speedy close was inevitable. The template has been reworked, unfortunately many people are still fighting the last war on the current TfD. -- 67.98.206.2 17:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the solution now is to move the article back to where it was a couple of months ago when the "A" in apartheid in the title was in lower case. In my opinion, none of this pointless discussion would have been engendered if it had been left by Hayden5650 as History of South Africa in the apartheid era.Phase4 16:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

What about South African apartheid? This "history" angle looks just like a smoke screen. Just for future reference in case this RfM fails. greg park avenue 16:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. --Stemonitis 17:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Some of you may wish to discuss the proposed merge from allegations of apartheid ongoing at Talk:Apartheid -- 146.115.58.152 04:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

That discussion has now concluded. 6SJ7 22:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous edits from PE Louw

See my above comments under the heading "Apartheid apologist?". This same editor has been repeatedly editing the opening paragraph to avoid the term "racial segregation" and to add a slightly peculiar interpretation of what signalled the end of apartheid. I have been reverting them, for reasons described below.

As this editor seems to be unaware of edit summaries and talk pages, I've taken the unusual step of (temporarily) adding a message to them, as an HTML comment, in the article itself.

Mr Louw, I have repeatedly removed your edits to the opening paragraph, for the following reasons:

• of course apartheid was a system of racial segregation. You might prefer to call it something else, but that doesn't change the fact that races were segregated. Please stop removing this link and substituting another term.
• The Bophuthatswana coup was one of many steps in the end of apartheid. It was by no means important enough to be mentioned in the opening paragraph. Please do not add it again.

Please use edit summaries, please log in when editing, and please engage in discussions on the talk page. Zaian 07:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The details referred to above need to be dealt with in appropriate sections from the Bop coup to the Bhisho massacre..Gregorydavid 11:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Planned rewrite

I think this article is unfortunately a bit of a mess, and is in need of some sweet lovin', so I've decided that I'm going to attempt a rewrite of it. I think the biggest problem here is that there's no real organisation, and related to this is that there's some confusion as to the scope of the article.

Now I haven't edited this article before, but I've browsed through the talk archives so I now realise why the article has ended up at this title. However, I don't think that decision is a useful one for the long term, because it has meant that we no longer have an article that is solely about the apartheid policy that was maintained in South Africa in the latter part of the twentieth century. Making things less clear can only harm our readers.

This article should at least be entitled "Apartheid in South Africa" or something like that, so that the scope is clear and other parts of South African history don't have to be accommodated in the article. Obviously apartheid is intimately intertwined with the rest of South African history during the period, but given that this article will obviously be in summary style because of its size,

I've drawn up a draft outline of what a rewritten version might include, available here. Hopefully it provides a clearer structure. I would appreciate any comments that people have on the outline, particularly as to what people think it ought to include; that is, have I missed out anything significant. --bainer (talk) 08:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Awkwardly worded image caption towards the bottom

I noticed an awkwardly worded image caption towards the bottom of the page. I'm not quite sure how to fix it, but I wanted to call it out. I've included the box to the right of this comment.

File:PoliceVabahlali.jpg

The Police Crush Another Demonstration Against Durban Mayor Obed Mlaba by the Shackdwellers' Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 September, 2007

I don't really know what the image is or if it even contributes anything to the article, nor do I really feel that the caption is unbiased or even particularly sensible.

Corwinlw 05:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

South Africa - Lucky Dube

Why is there no mention of Lucky Dube in this article, since according to the Economist he provided the soundtrack to the anti-apartheid movement? Thanks201.221.71.25 16:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Delisted from GA status

This article does not meet the basic standards of a good article. It is largely unsourced, much of it is in bullet form and certain areas, including the introduction, are quite lacking in content. Perspicacite (c. 9:33, 3 November 2007)

Drive-by delisting is not recommended. It is polite to give editors a chance to respond to the concerns you have raised before delisting the article. More detailed comments are also appreciated by other editors of the article. Finally, if you take the trouble to look up the current oldid of the article, and also check for errors after making edits to the article history template (Category:ArticleHistory error lights up at the base of the talk page), then it will be appreciated by other editors such as myself. Thank you. Geometry guy 13:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice The Bainer already notified users back on October 9 that the article did not meet GA requirements. He then suggested several areas for improvement. Stop complaining. Try actually improving the article. Perspicacite 01:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No: Bainer offered to rewrite the article, not delist it. You should have notified editors of your intention to delist. I am not an editor of this article, so it is no use asking me to fix it: I would not know where to start. I already spent enough time fixing the errors you made to the templates (and that is the only reason I came here). Geometry guy 01:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No, nice try. From Wikipedia:Good article reassessment:

• "3. Leave a message on the article talk page detailing any remaining problems. If appropriate, add maintenance templates to the article."
• Nowhere on the delisting instructions does it say you have state your intention to delist - only where the article is lacking in quality. Furthermore, 'na na na boo boo' is not a response. I am not asking you to improve the article. I am asking you to complaining about standard GA delisting. Perspicacite 04:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm one of the people who wrote these guidelines, and actually, they then say "4. Allow time for other editors to respond". You delisted at the same time as listing your concerns. However, if I thought you had seriously breached delisting procedure, then I would have overturned your delistment immediately. Instead I fixed it, and gave you some advice about best practice. I have been less than impressed by your response. Geometry guy 11:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Do not use bullets

Wikipedia's MoS clearly says not to use bullets, use paragraphs. Users with accounts should not edit anonymously: WP:SOCK. Jose João (talk) 05:29, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I think your references do not support your précis of them. Even if the first one had, this is a clear case of WP:IAR since, in our current section "Apartheid legislation" {dealing with Apartheid legislation in South Africa: Precursors - Natives' Land (1913) Urban Areas (1923) Prohibition of Mixed Marriages (1949) Immorality Act† (1950) Population Registration (1950) Group Areas Act (1950) Suppression of Communism (1950) Bantu Building Workers (1951) Separate Representation of Voters (1951) Prevention of Illegal Squatting (1951) Bantu Authorities (1951) Natives Laws† (1952) Pass Laws (1952) Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) (1953) Bantu Education (1953) Reservation of Separate Amenities (1953) Natives Resettlement (1954) Group Areas Development (1955) Natives (Prohibition of Interdicts) (1956) Bantu Investment Corporation (1959) Extension of University Education (1959) Promotion of Bantu Self-Government (1959) Coloured Persons Communal Reserves (1961) Preservation of Coloured Areas (1961) Urban Bantu Councils (1961) Terrorism Act (1967) Bantu Homelands Citizens (1970)}, the opening sentence currently states: "From the 1950s onwards, various repressive and racist laws were passed. The principal "apartheid laws" were as follows:"

Either edit that sentence or leave the bullets (since they are clearly enumerating a list of distinct laws and their consequences).

I do deprecate you continually reverting good faith edits; reverts should be for vandalism only!

On a completely separate issue, is there a reason why you are piping your user name of Perspicacite to the name of the current Angolan Ambassador to Israel? I notice that you started our article on this gentleman.Alice.S 05:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Reversion is not to be used for vandalism only, I dont know why you keep on saying that. In regards to your question, there is no significant connection. Creating the article reminded me I wanted to see if I could manipulate my signature, something I have been unable to do in the past. The laws are described in depth, therefore it is not a list and should not be done in bullets. Arguably the content should just be axed until properly sourced. 06:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised you don't change your user account name again and get rid of the additional baggage.

On the proximate point of bulleted lists within articles, this reference may educate you. Please pay particular attention to the section "Indented List with content" where it states:

However, it can be appropriate to use a list style when the items in list are "children" of the paragraphs that precede them. Such "children" logically qualify for indentation beneath their parent description. In this case, indenting the paragraphs in list form may make them easier to read, especially if the paragraphs are very short. For example:

— Wikipedia Manual of Style: Embedded list

I realise that you are a much more experienced Wikipedian than I, but it is dangerous to be so dogmatic and combative.

May I remind you that I am still waiting for a source within our project for your assertions about passive voice ? Alice.S 02:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)