South Africa Today

The Rainbow Nation, South Africa, is a diverse nation with four prominent races and ten official languages, but it was not always this way.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s South Africa had two racial groups, black and white. In 1959 blacks could not live on white land and the two racial groups could not socialize. The white minority were the Dutch Boers and the British who had colonized South Africa and were ruling the black majority who lived there first.

In 1994 this all started changing in the presidential election when, “Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress (ANC), defeated F. W. de Klerk and became the first black president of South Africa”(Modern World History).  Nelson Mandela helped to turn the nation around, giving them independence and their own culture, but keeping some of the Dutch and British.

South Africa's culture is rooted in contributions from other contries. The British, “brought with them their English beliefs, mainly rooted in the Anglican Church. With them came missionaries who worked among many of the tribes, often siding with their plight” (southafrica.net). Similarly the food, like biltong; a jerky type meet, was brought by the Dutch. This shows that even though South Africa was colonized, they still assimilated the culture other countries brought.

These contributions are still evident today. In fact South Africa's culture is a unique blend of cultures from around the world. They are a melting pot like America.

Now South Africa is a member of the British common wealth and a nation that holds up music and dance. The nation still struggles (click here to see how you can help) but is on its way and is already one of the most tolerant and diverse nations on earth.