LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
3.5 Missionary Functions and activities in South Africa
3.6.3 Multiracial Co-option
introducing the promotion of Buntu Self-Government Bill to parliament in 1959. Or Hendrick Verwoerd argued that. although this was not what White South Africans would have liked, they would have to accept that the Bantustans must be allowed to develop as fully fledged states. which might eventually become fully independent nations and members of the United Nations. He fUl1her said that. this would involve breaking up the territory of South Africa into a White state and a number of Black states.
Under the Nationalist Party Government. during the Baaskaap apartheid and separate development, many regulations and laws were formed to protect the minority White population of South Africa. The formation of apartheid legislations had a far more negative impact on the Black people than Whites as Carter noted:
Far more obvious than the Nationalists' effect on European society is their impact on the non-European. With surprising rapidity, the implications of apartheid have been spelled out in legislation. which provides tixed and detinite provisions for what had almost always been customary practice.
Initially apartheid legislation fell into the category of prohibitive or negative apartheid. either seeking to remove such rights as non-Europeans possessed in Europeans areas. Subsequently more radical measures of positive apartheid were introduced... at this late stage of contact. to recreate separate institutions. attitudes and values (Carter 1977:75).
It is remarkable how much attention and support the church paid to those apartheid laws.
These laws were the final proof of the tenacity with \\hich the ideals of apartheid were being pursued. Some of the apartheid laws and policies where formed by the Church, and passed over to the Government. Loubser commenting on one such law said
After 1915 the question of racially mixed marriages became a topic in the synods. In that year the Cape Synod instructed church councils to firmly oppose such marriages. The synod also decided to take the matter to the government. In 1917 prohibition of mixed marriages became the policy of the National Party (Loubser 1987:23).
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 1949 and the Immorality Act 1950 prohibited members of different races from having any intimate relationships. The Population Registration Act 1950, which made race a legal, as well as a biological concept. was particularly insulting in defining a Coloured person in purely negative terms, as 'a person who is not a White person or Native'. The Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents Act 1952 made it compulsory for all African men (and later women) to carry a 'reference book'. a new term for the old 'pass'. and established a country-wide system of influx control to regulate thc movements of Africans and to restrict their entry into the urban areas. The Group Areas Act 1950 and its amendments. and the Separate Amenities Act 1953, attempted a complete physical and social separation of the races by the
removal of Coloured, Indians and Africans from their land. to the outskirts of cities and towns. Whites introduced rigid segregation in sport and other recreational activities. The use of separate facilities on the trains and buses and of separate seats in public parks, were part of the package. all of which led to a proliferation of 'Whites Only" signs across the length and breadth of South Africa. The ative Laws Amendment Act 1957 consolidated the control over Africans in urban areas. This had first been attempted in 1923, through the Urban Areas Act. The amended Industrial Conciliation Act 1965 legalised job reservation for Whites and excluded Africans from the process of industrial conciliation over wages. The Suppression of Communism Act 1950, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1953 and the Unlawful Organisations Act 1960 aimed at the total suppression of all but the tamest opposition. These were almost unequalled for their harshness in the democratic countries of the western \-,,"orld. Only a few legislative measures of the National Party governments in the 1950s were overtly ideological. The most important of these were the Bantu Education Act 1953 and the Extension of University Education Act 1959. which took African primary and secondary education out of missionary control and created separate and inferior institutions such as universities for non-whites. These Acts made education an instrument of government policy in attempting to reshape and control African minds.
All these laws were affected the Church. especially the Black people, badly. Many Churches in South Africa were divided according to the colour of the skin of the people.
As a result of this apartheid laws. Churches were divided according Black. Coloured.
Indian and White. In all such structured churches. the White church was always considered the main or mother church. The Church was so badly divided that the majority of people. especially the Blacks. felt that the last place where they could have a sense of hope was crushed. They were oppressed both inside and outside the Church. In the Church. the Whites were the decision makers and the financial controllers. They were only told what. where and when to do things. Financially. they were told what had been paid for. Whites paid for their travelling. accommodation and their small salaries without their input in these important matters of the life of the Church. Outside the Church. the same White people were their bosses regardless of qualitications or skills. The White
person fUl1her earned a better salary compared to them.
With the emergency of nationalism and the rise of Black political parties such as the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress. the Black Christian leaders felt an urgent need to stm1 Black led Churches away from the White domination and control.
They wanted to start Churches that will accept and accommodate the African cultures and customs but which are not contrary to the Christian faith. It must be understood that Black leaders did not desire to be separated from their White brothers and sisters. but they, the Whites were the main cause of this act because of their SUPP011 of apm1heid system. whether, consciously or unconsciously. The following is a brief history of the African Indigenous Churches.