cross-referenced news and research resources about
Bantustans
A Bantustan (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland) was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as part of the policy of apartheid. Ten Bantustans were established in South Africa, and ten in neighbouring South West Africa (then under South African administration), for the purpose of concentrating the members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating "autonomous" nation states for South Africa's different black ethnic groups.
The term was first used in the late 1940s and was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in some of the Bantu languages) and -stan (a suffix meaning "land" in the Persian language and some Persian-influenced languages of western, southern and central Asia). It was regarded as a disparaging term by some critics of the apartheid-era government's "homelands" (from Afrikaans tuisland). The word "bantustan", today, is often used in a pejorative sense when describing a region that lacks any real legitimacy, consists of several unconnected enclaves, or emerges from national or international gerrymandering.
Four of the South African Bantustans—Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei (the so-called "TBVC States")—were declared independent, though this was not officially recognised outside of South Africa. Other South African Bantustans (like KwaZulu, Lebowa, and QwaQwa) received partial autonomy but were never granted independence. In South West Africa, Ovamboland, Kavangoland, and East Caprivi were granted self-determination.
The Bantustans were abolished with the end of apartheid and re-joined South Africa proper.
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updated Sat. March 26, 2022
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Namibian
March 30, 2018
FORMER Ovaherero paramount chief Clemence Kapuuo was patriotic to the cause of Namibia's independence, and contemporary history has been distorted not to depict this fact, Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) leader McHenry Venaani has said. Speaking at the 40th commemoration of Kapuuo'sÃÂ ...
Political Analysis South Africa
March 29, 2018
The report attributes this to the geographical areas as these provinces are located in the former Bantustans. During the launch of the report in Pretoria on 27 March 2018, the Minister in the Presidency for the DPME, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said that a skills revolution should be the main solution to reduce poverty andÃÂ ...
Times LIVE
March 28, 2018
He was detained and tortured by the then Bophuthatswana government for his resistance to their bantustan rule. “He also had many run-ins with the Vametco mining with regards to royalties owed to his community in Rankotea‚ outside Brits. Amiel believed they were robbed [of] what was due to them.
Citizen
March 22, 2018
It also states that 44% of public schools in the country use pit toilets. The handbook added that these statistics revealed that schools in the former Bantustan areas had the worst infrastructure. “It is, therefore, invariably black South African learners who are most cheated of an acceptable learning environmentÃÂ ...
Independent Online
March 22, 2018
He said he built homes in uMlazi with a tiny budget allocated to him by the apartheid government, which was punishment for rejecting the idea of Bantustans. “I built houses and schools in uMlazi before you young people were born. Even though many of you have forgotten, the truth will never change,” heÃÂ ...
Daily Maverick
March 19, 2018
However, the market traders argue that the property was not transferred to Transnet because it formed part of the former Bantustan Republic of Bophuthatswana and was subsequently transferred to the government of the Republic of South Africa. In their view, the property was never transferred to Transnet.
People's World
March 14, 2018
... willingness to negotiate a two-state solution. Presenting this deal will illuminate for the international community that Israel is not truly pursuing a viable, independent, Palestinian state but rather, an apartheid-style bantustan. This is an abridged version of an article that originally appeared in Morning Star.
Daily Maverick
March 11, 2018
It is interesting to note that hardly two months after endorsing the ANC policy, the monarch is up in arms, seeing the policy as a threat to his Ingonyama Trust which owns the rural land of the former KwaZulu Bantustan. The ANC-led government inherited an extremely skewed, race-based distribution ofÃÂ ...
Financial Mail
March 8, 2018
To add to the land owned by the state, the 2013 report has a section called "unaccounted land", which is concentrated in the former Bantustans of the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, totalling 8.4m ha. Just under a quarter of the land in the Eastern Cape is "unaccounted" for. It is safe to assumeÃÂ ...
News24
March 3, 2018
However, there is no law to secure and protect communal land tenure, thus failing 17 million South Africans living in the erstwhile Bantustans. Again, the High Level Panel Report concludes that "communal areas remain sites of persistent poverty and inequality”, with the continued tenure insecurity beingÃÂ ...
Politicsweb
February 28, 2018
We expect this new Cabinet to vigorously pursue an agenda, informed by ANC's 54th National Conference outcomes; and SoNA commitments to create decent jobs, especially for the youth of this country, currently ravaged by poverty and squalor in working class Townships and former Bantustans. Our keyÃÂ ...
Zambian Watchdog
February 27, 2018
May you and yours be slaves to these loans that you are supporting. You will groan and bend like an ox cart overloaded with sheaves of corn. Reply ÷ comment-avatar ÷ Kachema wachalo 6 days. Bantustan or whatever you call yourself, are you out of your mind? Judging by your alias, bantustan, it appearsà...
The Star, Kenya
February 23, 2018
Many senior apartheid and Bantustan bureaucrats kept their positions. Even when they were replaced, their ethos and mode of operation prevailed. With the transition to the Mbeki period, changes in state, government and party became evident. The primary challenge shifted from ensuring stability toÃÂ ...
Mail & Guardian
February 22, 2018
M'rembula turns the shebeen of the Bantustan into his indumba — sending fly mummies into a trancelike mapanstula, moving their feet to the rhythm of Meadowlands. And Sundays. Yes, Sundays are the best days, because on these days Thuso Motaung spills unknown truths about the picturesqueÃÂ ...
News24
February 17, 2018
Back in the day, schools which fell under the KwaZulu Bantustan had on their syllabus a non-examinable subject called ubuntu-botho. This was ostensibly about values. In a 1987 article Praisely Mdluli explained the origins of ubuntu-botho. He says the syllabus was drawn up by the Inkatha-affiliated NatalÃÂ ...
Citizen
February 15, 2018
Ten Bantustans were established in South Africa. Gazankulu comprised of 10 formal townships, which were all created and built by the Apartheid Government and included Nkowankowa in Tzaneen. In 1994, after Apartheid, Gazankulu was sub-divided into different municipalities cross-cutting linguistic andÃÂ ...
The Electronic Intifada
February 10, 2018
It would have been absurd to suggest that what was needed in South Africa was scientific collaboration involving apartheid and bantustan institutions. Replace South Africa with Israel and the bantustans – the nominally independent Black-ruled “homelands” set up by the apartheid regime – with theÃÂ ...
National Catholic Reporter
February 6, 2018
It is a Palestinian Bantustan that the Palestinian people will never accept. Finally, and despite Mr. Winters' personal attacks against me, I will continue to respect his right to his opinion, no matter how much I disagree with it. It used to be that people had differences of opinion and analysis, presented theirÃÂ ...
Mail & Guardian
February 1, 2018
KwaZulu-Natal never became a bantustan because we never accepted independence. That explains why, unlike Transkei, Ciskei, Venda and others, KwaZulu-Natal never had its own military or passports. Because I refused to convert what was left of the Zulu kingdom into a bantustan, Pretoria retaliated byÃÂ ...
Independent Online
January 29, 2018
Kwena Mangope, the son of the late former leader of Bophuthatswana Lucas Mangope, speaking during his father's funeral in Motswedi village near Zeerust, North West. LUCAS Mangope, the former president of the former “independent country” of Bophuthatswana fitted the description of an “Uncle Tom”à...
Business Day
December 31, 1999
Several of the universities that serve the poorest students, such as those in the former Bantustans, are in dire straits. Unisa was swamped this year with thousands of additional students and failed to cope with the numbers. Four universities were closed for a time in recent weeks because of violent studentÃÂ ...
Daily Maverick
December 31, 1999
If black people had had guaranteed property rights, Group Areas and Bantustans could not have happened. An absence of property rights was also a major reason why township properties and rural land under black occupation were rarely developed. What sense is there in investing in property upgrades ifÃÂ ...
Liberation
December 31, 1999
Under Apartheid, Black people were confined to “bantustans” or “homelands” that were nominally “independent” areas for Black people to govern. These areas made up only 13 percent of the country, and were in disparate locations, often on poor quality land and far from urban centers where people couldÃÂ ...
BizNews
February 22, 2018
qn CAPE TOWN — Wits University sociologist, Ran Greenstein, says the greatest legacy of the Zuma years is to have alerted us to be ever-vigilant when it comes to the abuse of State power for self-enrichment. We've just had a decade in which the system was incrementally shaped to enable looting ofÃÂ ...
European Council on Foreign Relations
February 22, 2018
The first is that all Palestinian presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem remains in a permanent and ever-more formalized 'Bantustan status' - islands of minimal self-governance with the continued denial of basic rights, facing perpetual insecurity and possible future physical removal. The second isÃÂ ...
The Conversation AU
February 22, 2018
Many senior apartheid and Bantustan bureaucrats kept their positions. Even when they were replaced, their ethos and mode of operation prevailed. With the transition to the Mbeki period, changes in state, government and party became evident. The primary challenge shifted from ensuring stability toÃÂ ...
News24
February 18, 2018
It is housed in a property in Sibasa that used to be the South African ambassador's home to Venda Bantustan during apartheid. Sirwali asked authorities to consider suspending execution of the eviction order until new facilities were found. He said that without a base from which to operate, Tvep would haveÃÂ ...
News24
February 18, 2018
Back in the day, schools which fell under the KwaZulu Bantustan had on their syllabus a non-examinable subject called ubuntu-botho. This was ostensibly about values. In a 1987 article Praisely Mdluli explained the origins of ubuntu-botho. He says the syllabus was drawn up by the Inkatha-affiliated NatalÃÂ ...
AllAfrica.com
February 17, 2018
His error follows another blunder in January, when he announced that IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi had died instead of Bantustan of Bophuthatswana leader Lucas Manyane Mangope. In a statement, SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said, while the public broadcaster acknowledged that it wasÃÂ ...
Citizen
February 15, 2018
Ten Bantustans were established in South Africa. Gazankulu comprised of 10 formal townships, which were all created and built by the Apartheid Government and included Nkowankowa in Tzaneen. In 1994, after Apartheid, Gazankulu was sub-divided into different municipalities cross-cutting linguistic andÃÂ ...
The Electronic Intifada
February 10, 2018
It would have been absurd to suggest that what was needed in South Africa was scientific collaboration involving apartheid and bantustan institutions. Replace South Africa with Israel and the bantustans – the nominally independent Black-ruled “homelands” set up by the apartheid regime – with theÃÂ ...
teleSUR English
February 8, 2018
“One possible conclusion is that Netanyahu and The Jerusalem Post are promoting a future in which some two million Palestinians are squeezed into a Gaza Strip bantustan while even more Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) are forced into a greater Israel in which they may or mayÃÂ ...
National Catholic Reporter
February 7, 2018
It is a Palestinian Bantustan that the Palestinian people will never accept. Finally, and despite Mr. Winters' personal attacks against me, I will continue to respect his right to his opinion, no matter how much I disagree with it. It used to be that people had differences of opinion and analysis, presented theirÃÂ ...
Mail & Guardian
February 1, 2018
KwaZulu-Natal never became a bantustan because we never accepted independence. That explains why, unlike Transkei, Ciskei, Venda and others, KwaZulu-Natal never had its own military or passports. Because I refused to convert what was left of the Zulu kingdom into a bantustan, Pretoria retaliated byÃÂ ...
Independent Online
January 29, 2018
Kwena Mangope, the son of the late former leader of Bophuthatswana Lucas Mangope, speaking during his father's funeral in Motswedi village near Zeerust, North West. LUCAS Mangope, the former president of the former “independent country” of Bophuthatswana fitted the description of an “Uncle Tom”à...
Independent Online
January 28, 2018
Johannesburg - A deputy minister's ex-wife is on a crusade to help thousands of women who married under a discriminatory bantustan law. In heads of argument filed with the Constitutional Court by Legal Aid SA advocates Lilla Crouse and Chris Schuring, who are representing the 47-year-oldÃÂ ...
eNCA
January 27, 2018
Why dud people in the then bantustan rise against the dictator on the eve of our independence??? Instead the puppets called the AWB to save him. Imagine!!!!!! Get you facts of history together, stupid!!! Who then is the stupid? Me or you??? Bantustan freebies are no longer there you stupid? Wake up toÃÂ ...
SowetanLIVE Sunday Wolrd
January 22, 2018
As per tradition in the village, groups of residents converge on Mangope's house daily and form a circle as they pay respects to the royal family. Parties and playing of loud music will be forbidden during the mourning period. While the former bantustan leader is despised by others for collaborating with theÃÂ ...
Independent Online
January 20, 2018
The family of former bantustan leader, Lucas Manyane Mangope, have welcomed an offer by the North West provincial government to provide him with a special funeral following his death on Thursday. They said a provincial funeral was the “great gift” for the former homeland leader for “the role he playedÃÂ ...
Eyewitness News
January 20, 2018
Molefe remembers his time with Mangope as opposition leader in the province following the end of the Bantustan era. “I also served with him in the provincial legislature and occasionally he would be very venomous in his attack of the government led by the ANC but as the premier of the province, I wouldÃÂ ...
Haaretz
January 18, 2018
In fact, every Israeli government since 1967 has failed to live up to those proud liberal values by pursuing an expanded Israel ruling over a truncated Palestinian Bantustan, even if they did it under the guise of a "two-state solution." Within weeks of the start of the occupation in 1967, the Allon Plan (underÃÂ ...
The Scotsman
January 16, 2018
... currents carrying tides of people from one corner to the other. There is only false comfort in living behind fences in perfectly homogenous Bantustans, as the architects of Apartheid desired. Fanny Grainger is a reminder that, if you dig deep enough, no matter where we are, we are all from somewhere else.
malaysiandigest.com
January 16, 2018
The argument against this option is that Israel would be creating “Bantustans” along the lines of the artificial protectorates designed by apartheid South Africa in the 1970s to deny citizenship to its minorities. The strategy was a dismal failure, and the apartheid regime collapsed within two decades.
Center for Research on Globalization
January 13, 2018
Israel won't ever accept Palestinian statehood – except in name only on isolated bantustans surrounded by hostile, encroaching settlements. Compromise is out of the question. Palestinians are to be exploited, brutalized like enemies, denied their fundamental rights, ethnically cleansed from their privatelyÃÂ ...
New York Magazine
January 13, 2018
Its Arabs could outvote its Jews. So what exactly is the goal? The only way for a one-state Jewish democracy to endure is by denying the vote to millions of its citizens on the basis of their race, religion, or location. Sure, you can have “security” measures that create Bantustans or townships on the West BankÃÂ ...
Napa Valley Register
January 13, 2018
This would divide Palestinian areas into an archipelago of disconnected bantustans, ruling out any future contiguous Palestinian state. Netanyahu's coalition partner, the Jewish Home party, advocates outright annexation of at least 60 percent of the West Bank. And yet, the Israeli press reports that KushnerÃÂ ...
News24
January 12, 2018
Mandela engaged with Bantustan and traditional leaders with a similar purpose - to disarm a potential threat. As the unifier of the nation, did this mean that (with the exception of security issues) he left the governing and policy implementation to others? After the first few months of government when,ÃÂ ...
New Pittsburgh Courier
January 11, 2018
The announcement of the Likud resolution puts to bed any further pretense; Likud seeks to eliminate Palestinians from the occupied territories by seizing the best land and forcing the Palestinians into a situation that is further reminiscent of the Bantustan settlements established by apartheid South Africa,ÃÂ ...
Santa Fe New Mexican
January 5, 2018
The result would be a series of disconnected Palestinian “Bantustans” giving further evidence that Israel had become an apartheid state much like the old South Africa. This would be just fine with the Israel right wing, which believes that Jews have a God-given right to all of biblical Israel. Trump tweeted thisÃÂ ...
Mail & Guardian
January 4, 2018
By the time April 1993 arrived, I had been living in one of the Bantustans for a few months. I was researching the effect of separate development and deregulated labour policies and practices on women working in the factories. One day I was visiting Dineo at her home. We had met a few weeks previously atÃÂ ...
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bantustans
Southern Africa:
bantustans
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