1910–1950s: (South Africa and the Architecture of Apartheid — The Union Created in 1910 as a Compromise Between British and Boer, Segregation Embraced by All…

1910–1950s: (South Africa and the Architecture of Apartheid — The Union Created in 1910 as a Compromise Between British and Boer, Segregation Embraced by All White Parties Including Anglican Missionaries, the 1948 Election of the National Party Under Malan on a Platform of Apartheid, the Population Registration Act and Group Areas Act of 1950, Bantustans as Disingenuous Decolonization, and the Bantu Education Act of 1953 as Social Engineering): In South Africa, nationalists had furthest to travel against a capital-backed, ideologically motivated white minority governing the Union since 1910. The legislation creating the Union represented a historic compromise between British settlers and Afrikaners, with the white population as a whole defending its privileged position. Between the wars, a succession of governments developed racial segregation — all mainstream white parties and influential lobbies including Anglican missionaries embraced it, whether as a means to exploiting labor and underpinning white supremacy, or as protecting indigenous peoples from modernity. The expansion of the economy during and after the war drew thousands of Africans to cities, prompting the Afrikaner National Party to play on white fears of the black peril. In the 1948 election, the National Party under D. F. Malan won on a platform of apartheid — meaning separateness — taking previous segregation into an extreme new phase. The Population Registration Act of 1950 divided the population into white and non-white categories, the latter subdivided into Coloured, Indians, and Bantu — the term itself a linguistic category now abused as a racial one — with further division into tribal groupings. The Group Areas Act specified where particular tribes could live, aiming to undermine African unity and hinder nationalist feeling. The ultimate aim was moving Africans not in the mining economy to self-governing Bantustans — a disingenuous form of decolonization. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 placed Africans in government schools emphasizing racial distinctions and providing only basic skills — one of the most detested pillars of the system, facilitating social control as an exercise in engineering subordination.