South+Africa

=South Africa=

//There is no doubt that South Africa is a country with huge economic growth and welfare. However, the inheritance from the Apartheid-period and the British colonisation has marked today’s South Africa. The questions I want to answer in this text are; in what kind of way have the British colonisations affected South Africa? Are there any similarities in language, school system etc today?//

Capital: Pretoria (executive), Bloemfontein (judicial) and Cape Town (legislative). Largest city: Johannesburg Area: 1 221 037 km² Population: 47 900 000 Independence from the United Kingdom: Republic: 31 May 1961.
 * Facts:**

//Johannesburg// - [|Link]

South Africa is located at the bottom of the continent Africa. In the north, South Africa borders to Nambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and in east Mozambique and Swaziland. The landscape is dominated by great extensive, rather plane, scrubland. The farther north you come, the dryer the landscape is. As a contrast to this, the eastern coastline is fertile and moisturising. Due to this varied topography and oceanic influence, a great variety of climatic zones exist. In general, South Africa has a temperate climate. However, as I mentioned, along the east coast the climate is more or less like the subtropical. The lack of great rivers and lakes in South Africa has driven the country into having trouble with enough freshwater. That means that the people in South Africa have to manage living with really low water consumption. //[|Link] The characteristic scrubland in South Africa -// //The fertile and moisturising coastline in South Africa//
 * Geography and climate**

South Africa’s history is long, complicated, bloody and really interesting. The modern history stretches back to 1652, when the Dutch East India Company founded a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope. The refreshment station was useful for the ships that travelled back and forth from Europe to Asia. Gradually the station enlarged, and became the city Cape Town. The native people in South Africa were little by little pushed aside by the Dutch settlers and the European slaves. The Europeans had been transferred from Asian colonies. In the years to come there were horrible conflicts, mainly caused by conflicting land and livestock interests.
 * History**

Great Britain conquered Cape of Good Hope in 1795, returned it back to the Netherlands in 1803, before they took it back again in 1806 when the Dutch East India Company went bankruptcy. South Africa increased a lot under the British dominion, and it developed into being a financial important colony for Britain. The British language and the administration came to South Africa, and the British parliament finally banned all slavery in 1833. The Boers*1) found this as a huge insult against God, and therefore emigrated to other areas of South Africa to form their own colonies. The relationship between the Europeans and the black population were not good. The black population were constantly exposed to oppression and slavery. To describe the years to come in South-Africas history, discrimination and racism are two relevant words. The discriminating regime took away the black people’s political, social and economic rights. This regime has later on been called apartheid, which is a terrible part of South Africa’s history. After enormous international pressure apartheid was abolished from South Africa at the end of the 1990’s. In the process of getting rid of apartheid Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were two of the opposition politicians who played a gigantic part.


 * 1) Boer is the Dutch word for the offsprings to the Dutch colonists, which mainly were farmers who settled in the east of the Cape Colony in the 19th century

media type="google" key="-3442082689947971343&hl=un&fs=true" width="400" height="326" //A short movie with some key words and pictures from South Africa. The music playing is the national anthem of South Africa Unfortunately the quality of the pictures changed when I uploaded the film, but I'll hope you can understand the content anyway//

There are many similarities between South Africa and Great Britain today. The British colonies have been a great part of South Africa’s history, and that is probably why Britain still have quite major influence on how South Africa is today.
 * Similarities**

//Language// The diversity of languages in South Africa is huge. South Africa has in fact 11 official languages! English and Afrikaans were the two languages that were distinguished under Apartheid. In addition to those, Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Swazi, Sesotho, Sepedi, Tswana, Venda and Shangaan are also languages that are being used in many different areas in South Africa. In practise, the English language work as an administrating language. Because of that, most people in South Africa are bilinguals; learning both English and a mother tongue at school. However, the English they are speaking in South Africa are a dialect version of the British English. The importance of the English language in South Africa is clearly a trace back to the Great Britain’s colonizing in South Africa.

//School systems// The school systems in both countries are well established, and it’s easy to see the similarities. Here is a little description of how the school systems work:

Before the 1990’s the school system in South Africa was characterized by the racial segregation. However, since 1994 they have worked really well with building up a national education system. Now there is 9 years mandatory and free of charge primary and secondary school for every child in the age of 6-15 years. This primary and secondary school can be followed by 2 or 3 years comprehensive school. In addition to primary and secondary school, South Africa now has a well-established system of higher education. Inn all 21 universities, 15 technological universities and many academies have been established in South Africa today.

In Great Britain the education is mandatory for all children between 5-16 years old. Most children get their education by official schools, which are financed by tax money. The first 6 years are called primary school, and after that there’s 5 years with secondary school. After the primary and secondary school the pupils choose for themselves if they want to go to comprehensive school or not. Higher education like universities and academies are also, like in South Africa, spread over the entire country.

//Culture and religion// If we take a look at the culture in South Africa it’s kind of divided into black people, white people, coloured (mixed-race) people and Asian people. When we take a closer look at the white people’s culture in South Africa it’s very similar to the culture in Great Britain, and other European countries. For example is sport and barbecuing immensely popular. The religious beliefs in South Africa are strong, most English-speaking whites are either Anglican or Roman Catholic. Many of the Africans converted also into a Western-Europe form of the Christianity under the colonisation.

As I have been trying to point out in this text, South Africa and Great Britain still have a lot of similarities. On the other hand, the differences are also many. I think that even though South Africa was a colony under Great Britain a long time, that didn’t affect all the areas in South Africa. The country has managed to keep alive some of the real African culture, luckily!
 * Conclution**

Sources of references

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