e liberals to achieve their aims.The basis for racial segregation, the offshoot of the policy of self-determination was the Population Registration Act of 1950. What followed was a now infamous collection of apartheid legislation that sought to segregate whites, coloreds, blacks and Asians from each other in all spheres of life and activity. Black resistance to apartheid was encouraged by an increasingly critical United Nations, the birth of the civil rights movement in the United States and the growing pressures for de-colonization and independence in the former European colonies of Africa and Asia. Rather than give in to increasing pressure, the Verwoerd government responded by accelerating the ‘homeland policy’ in terms of which black South Africans were denied citizenship of "white" areas and were expected to exercise their political rights in designated "traditional " tribal areas. By 1970, in terms of a law, every South African black became a citizen of one of the ten homelands thereby excluding blacks from the South African body politics. This maintains the “democratic” regime of South Africa for the white citizens, and forces the black citizens out of any political realm. Afrikaner Nationalists had devised apartheid in a way of satisfying black aspirations without loosing political control. It was a response that failed for economic reasons. Given the nature of the economy, the natural movement of people to the cities could not be stopped, and in due course the major pillars of apartheid had to be scrapped. In 1983, Botha introduced a new constitution, which would incorporate the colored and Asian communities into government but only on a junior partner basis to whites. Blacks were totally excluded. To address the issue of black political rights, Botha suggested a national advisory council. Blacks rejected this idea and participation in the elections to fill the new colored and Indian chambers of parl...
