HSY3704
Assignment 1
Semester 2 2025
DUE August 2025
, HSY3704
Assignment 1
Semester 2 2025
DUE August 2025
Agreement with the Statement: “The Apartheid State’s Bantustan (‘Homeland’)
Policy Was from Its Inception in 1959 Doomed to Fail”
The Bantustan or homeland policy, formalised through the Promotion of Bantu Self-
Government Act of 1959, was fundamentally flawed and unsustainable. Although
presented as a form of “self-determination”, it was intended to strip Black South Africans
of citizenship, confine them to fragmented territories and exclude them from the national
political and economic system (Christopher, 1994).
Reasons for its inevitable failure:
1. Economic Unviability
Homelands comprised about 13 per cent of South Africa’s land, much of which
was infertile, overcrowded and resource-poor (Lemon, 1991).
These areas lacked infrastructure, industrial capacity and arable land, ensuring
structural dependence on white-controlled South Africa.
2. Lack of International Recognition
No country outside South Africa recognised the so-called independence of
homelands such as Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda or Ciskei.
The United Nations condemned them as illegitimate creations of apartheid
(Murray, 1981).
Assignment 1
Semester 2 2025
DUE August 2025
, HSY3704
Assignment 1
Semester 2 2025
DUE August 2025
Agreement with the Statement: “The Apartheid State’s Bantustan (‘Homeland’)
Policy Was from Its Inception in 1959 Doomed to Fail”
The Bantustan or homeland policy, formalised through the Promotion of Bantu Self-
Government Act of 1959, was fundamentally flawed and unsustainable. Although
presented as a form of “self-determination”, it was intended to strip Black South Africans
of citizenship, confine them to fragmented territories and exclude them from the national
political and economic system (Christopher, 1994).
Reasons for its inevitable failure:
1. Economic Unviability
Homelands comprised about 13 per cent of South Africa’s land, much of which
was infertile, overcrowded and resource-poor (Lemon, 1991).
These areas lacked infrastructure, industrial capacity and arable land, ensuring
structural dependence on white-controlled South Africa.
2. Lack of International Recognition
No country outside South Africa recognised the so-called independence of
homelands such as Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda or Ciskei.
The United Nations condemned them as illegitimate creations of apartheid
(Murray, 1981).
