I grew up ‘coloured' in apartheid SA — now I cry for my beloved country, the US

Daily Maverick

02-07-2025

I observe the barrage of media images. Two strike me as strangely familiar. One is of ICE agents rounding up those suspected of being in the US illegally, and the other of members of the California National Guard and US Marines on the streets of Los Angeles – apparently to quell the protests there.
These images evoke a strong sense of déjà vu for me, a naturalised US citizen and someone who grew up classified as 'coloured' in apartheid South Africa.
My upbringing in a racist authoritarian state propelled me into anti-apartheid activism and continues to shape my work on racial, gender and social justice advocacy elsewhere. When I arrived as a graduate student in New York in 1983, the city and the country were in the middle of a vibrant anti-apartheid campaign.
I never dreamt that 40 years later I would feel this gnawing sense of familiarity with my past.
Let me be clear: The US today is not apartheid South Africa. Instituted in 1948, after an election victory by the white minority National Party, apartheid was no doubt one of the 20th century's most brutal forms of social engineering.
It was ultimately deemed a crime against humanity by the United Nations and its demise gave rise to one of the 20th century's most beloved political icons, Nelson Mandela, who captured the imagination of the world during his decades-long imprisonment.
The system of apartheid, underpinned by a racial ideology of white supremacy, increasingly became one of the most reviled legal systems of the 20th century. Apartheid violated the most basic tenets of international human rights law and policy, embodying a harsh combination of state- sponsored authoritarianism, militarism, race and gender discrimination, and economic exploitation.
Law was twisted into a tool of oppression. The very processes of law were co-opted to underpin the political project of apartheid for more than four decades. Under apartheid, the law dictated who could live where, who could go to what school, and who could marry whom. The law regulated every aspect of people's lives, even what clubs one could join and what books one could read.
These call to mind the points of history in the US where black people's lives and movements were heavily restricted and surveilled, such as the slave patrols, the Black Codes during Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era with the sundown town laws.
These absurdly rigid laws of segregation were bolstered by a brutal police and security apparatus determined to maintain a racially divided and racially hierarchical status quo. The slightest dissent was met with state violence.
In addition, a vast Kafkaesque body of censorship laws ensured that dissemination of ideas disfavoured by the government were sharply curtailed. These were reminiscent of the McCarthy era here in the US.
The display of force in Los Angeles, the military parade in Washington and the continuous warning to protesters have such a familiar ring.
In apartheid South Africa, the legal system existed to bolster white rights and white privileges under the guise of legality. The trappings of law and legality performed an important symbolic role for the white minority government.
It allowed white South Africans the psychological reassurance of living in a society governed by laws, even though the law was entirely stacked against the black majority population. Is some of this at play here in the US?
The ideology and system of apartheid relied on a vicious combination of race, class and gender subordination and discrimination.
Take the system of migrant labour, or influx control, as an example. Nothing had a more devastating impact on the lives of black South Africans, rendering a stable family life, freedom of movement and economic security an impossibility.
Under this system, all black South Africans – and only black South Africans – over the age of 16 had to carry a reference book, a 'pass', at all times. The pass contained a photograph, fingerprints and other information that identified the holder. Failure to produce a pass on demand was a crime.
Scores of black South Africans were arrested, accused of failing to have a pass, and sent to prison. Without these passes, finding employment and housing was impossible. This system, in effect for decades, has left a legacy of destruction and deprivation that will haunt South Africa for generations.
Some historians have argued that the pass system was the most hated aspect of the apartheid legal system, rendering the majority of black South Africans aliens in their own country. Activities of daily life that involved travelling became grounds to label black South Africans criminal. All under the veneer of law.
In the US, rounding up men seeking work outside the Home Depot or at their places of employment might not be the pass system, but the analogy is vivid.
It is this familiarity that I experience. I see this administration using law and force to label people as 'others' who do not belong here, and as criminals for seeking employment, or for wanting to live with their families.
I see the use of the security apparatus of the state to silence dissent.
I am reminded of how apartheid conscripted narratives of law and order, security, and 'us versus them' to justify stripping rights from those deemed 'other'.
The US is not yet apartheid South Africa, but it feels that bit by bit we are heading in that direction. And I cry for this beloved country. DM