Check that this is your course

Use this guide if you study Pearson Edexcel A level History, Paper 2, option 2F.2: South Africa, 1948-94: from apartheid state to 'rainbow nation'. Do not use it simply because your course mentions apartheid or Nelson Mandela.

Paper 2 lasts 1 hour 30 minutes, carries 40 marks and is worth 20 percent of the A level. Section A is a compulsory evaluation of two contemporary sources. Section B asks you to choose one depth essay from two.

Pause permission: first learn the four-part sequence. Add detailed laws, organisations and arguments once that structure is secure.

Starting orientation

Apartheid did not make racial inequality appear suddenly in 1948. South Africa already had conquest, segregation, unequal landholding, racialised labour and restricted political rights. The National Party victory mattered because the state classified people more systematically and connected law, bureaucracy and coercion to control residence, movement, education, relationships, work and political membership.

The official categories Black, White, Coloured and Indian were imposed instruments of government, not natural or internally uniform communities. Resistance was equally varied: national movements, students, workers, women, churches, community organisations, armed groups and international campaigns all mattered.

Keep one enquiry in mind: how did a powerful apartheid state become unable to preserve white minority rule by 1994?

Essential vocabulary

• Apartheid: institutionalised racial classification, segregation and white minority rule.
• Pass laws: controls over African movement, residence and employment.
• Bantustan: territory presented as an ethnic homeland through which Black South Africans were denied common national political rights.
• ANC: African National Congress, a major liberation movement whose strategies changed over time.
• PAC: Pan Africanist Congress, formed after a split from the ANC in 1959.
• Black Consciousness: movement emphasising psychological liberation, Black dignity and independent organisation.
• UDF: United Democratic Front, a broad internal coalition launched in 1983.
• CODESA: negotiations for a democratic constitutional settlement begun in 1991.

1. The response to apartheid, c1948-59

The National Party won the 1948 election among the white electorate by mobilising Afrikaner nationalism, racial fears and economic interests. The electoral system gave it a parliamentary majority despite receiving fewer votes than the United Party. The Second World War, urbanisation and arguments about racial control shaped the result.

The Population Registration Act classified people by race. The Group Areas Act enabled compulsory residential and commercial separation. Marriage and sexual relationships were policed. Pass and influx controls restricted African movement. Bantu Education placed African schooling under state direction for an unequal social order. The Tomlinson Report supported developing Bantustans, while police powers, banning and the Treason Trial attacked opposition.

Resistance expanded. The ANC Youth League influenced the Programme of Action; the Defiance Campaign challenged unjust laws; women, workers and rural communities organised; and the 1955 Freedom Charter stated a broad non-racial democratic programme. The PAC emerged in 1959 after disagreement over the ANC's approach. Campaigns did not immediately repeal apartheid, but they widened participation, clarified aims and altered political legitimacy.

Knowledge check

1. Why was 1948 both a turning point and part of a longer history? 2. How did classification, place, movement and education reinforce one another?

2. Radicalisation and consolidation, 1960-68

In March 1960 police killed protesters at Sharpeville during an anti-pass campaign. Emergency rule and the banning of the ANC and PAC narrowed legal opposition. Both movements developed armed organisations: the ANC's Umkhonto we Sizwe and the PAC's Poqo. The Rivonia Trial imprisoned Mandela and other leaders, while exile and imprisonment weakened internal organisation.

Verwoerd created a republic, left the Commonwealth and strengthened separate development. Bantustans allowed the regime to claim that African political rights belonged outside common South African citizenship. Vorster combined security power with economic growth, international investment, armed forces and diplomacy. Apparent stability therefore rested on repression, administration and favourable economic conditions rather than general consent.

Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech and African decolonisation exposed South Africa's growing isolation, but international criticism did not yet force policy reversal. The state remained able to contain divided and disrupted opponents.

Knowledge check

1. Why did resistance strategies change after Sharpeville? 2. What made National Party rule appear stronger by the late 1960s?

3. Redefining resistance and challenging National Party power, 1968-83

Black Consciousness, associated with Steve Biko and the South African Students' Organisation, stressed dignity, psychological liberation and independent Black organisation. Labour action and student mobilisation expanded. In 1976 school students in Soweto protested against education and language policy; police violence spread revolt and international condemnation. Biko's death in police custody in 1977 further damaged the regime's legitimacy.

The ANC recovered from its early-1970s weakness through internal reorganisation, armed and underground activity, Oliver Tambo's external leadership and growing international legitimacy. Opposition was not an ANC-only story: students, unions, churches, women, civic groups and the PAC followed different strategies.

The National Party faced unrest, Bantustan problems, internal division, scandal, defence costs and economic strain. Political change in southern Africa increased strategic pressure. International opposition grew through the United Nations, independent states, churches, unions, consumer campaigns, sanctions demands, cultural action and sporting boycotts. External pressure mattered most in combination with domestic mobilisation and economic vulnerability.

Knowledge check

1. How did Black Consciousness differ from earlier resistance strategies? 2. Why was Soweto a wider political turning point?

4. Ending apartheid and creating a new settlement, 1984-94

The United Democratic Front connected hundreds of organisations. Township revolt, rent and consumer boycotts, student action, union growth, church leadership and underground activity weakened local government. Violence included state repression and conflict among apartheid's opponents. Emergency rule from 1985 expanded detention and censorship but further damaged legitimacy.

PW Botha's 'total strategy' combined security mobilisation with limited reform. It failed to restore governability or international confidence. Economic weakness, financial pressure, regional change, National Party division, mass resistance, ANC survival and the changing Cold War narrowed the government's choices. No single factor ended apartheid.

In 1990 FW de Klerk unbanned liberation organisations and released Mandela. Negotiation was neither smooth nor peaceful. CODESA, constitutional bargaining, conflict involving the ANC and Inkatha, right-wing resistance and uncertainty around the security forces shaped the transition. The principal apartheid laws were dismantled, but repeated breakdowns showed that agreement was not inevitable.

The 1993 interim constitution enabled the April 1994 election. The ANC won and Mandela led a Government of National Unity. Political citizenship and international recognition changed fundamentally. Land, wealth, housing, education and health remained deeply unequal. The phrase 'rainbow nation' therefore describes a democratic aspiration and moment of political transformation, not the immediate completion of social equality.

Knowledge check

1. Why did repression fail to restore lasting control after 1984? 2. What changed fundamentally in 1994, and what remained unresolved?

Anchor chronology

• 1948: National Party victory.
• 1950: Population Registration and Group Areas Acts.
• 1952: Defiance Campaign.
• 1955: Freedom Charter.
• 1960: Sharpeville; ANC and PAC banned.
• 1961: republic established; armed struggle develops.
• 1963-64: Rivonia Trial.
• 1976: Soweto uprising.
• 1977: Steve Biko dies in police custody.
• 1983: UDF launched.
• 1985-90: emergency rule.
• 1990: organisations unbanned; Mandela released.
• 1991: CODESA begins.
• 1994: first democratic election and Government of National Unity.

How to answer this Paper 2 option

For Section A, identify each source's argument and evaluate it using provenance, language, purpose and precise contextual knowledge. Bias is not a reason to dismiss a source: explain how its position affects what it reveals and what it cannot establish. Evaluate both sources in relation to the enquiry.

For Section B, answer the exact dates and concept. Use criteria such as reach, ability to change behaviour, effect on governability, economic pressure or influence on negotiation. Questions may cross key topics, so select evidence across the relevant period and sustain a judgement rather than narrating events.

Final retrieval check

Can you explain continuity and change in 1948; connect the main apartheid laws; distinguish the ANC, PAC, Black Consciousness and UDF; explain Sharpeville and Soweto; judge interacting causes of apartheid's collapse; describe negotiation and violence; and distinguish democratisation from complete social transformation?

Your next action

Retell the four-part story without notes. Then compare two causes of apartheid's collapse using reach, timing and dependence on other factors. Finally, practise one source evaluation tied to a precise enquiry.