The Purple Rain Protest - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... The Purple Rain Protest was the most remarkable protest that occurred on September 1989 in Cape Town. The protest is important in sociology since it aimed at eliminating social injustices implemented by the Boers. The protest was also socially stratified in that the protesters came from a low social class while the leaders such as Tutu came from a middle social class. White supporters in the protest were not actively involved in a bid to conserve their social class. Academically, the protest changes the governance system that created the political democracy in South Africa. The protest also involved iconic heroes such as Mandela and Tutu, who were instrumental in fighting apartheid. The paper will be covering the period between 1988 and 1994. The British and Dutch had colonized the country in the seventeenth century. Britain dominated the country and the Dutch were forced to establish new colonies of Transvaal and Orange Free State. After the country became independent from Britain, the Boers began sharing power with the Africans (Bond, 126). In the 1940s, the Afrikaner National party gained a strong majority, and the Boers officially began ruling the country. The National Party started apartheid as a means of implementing control over the economic and social system. This involved racial segregation to maintain white domination. In 1950, the registration act classified South Africans into blacks (Africans), whites, and colored (Indians and Asians) (Bond, 130). The Bantu Authorities Act if 1951 established ethnic governments in the African reserves called homelands. The conflict between Boers and Africans can be justified using the conflict theory introduced by Karl Marx. According to Marx, members of the society are constantly in conflict since the ruling class exploits and dominates the working class. The ruling class dominates the society by inflicting their values upon the low class (Kornblum and Smith, 8). According to Marx, social intercourse is reduced to economic origins and economic pursuits lead to class divisions. The Boers had oppressed Africans in order to gain control of the economy (Kornblum and Smith, 10). On the other hand, Durkheim considers the economy as one of the factors that make up the society (Kornblum and Smith, 14). The economy is responsible for the superstructure existing in the society as experienced during apartheid. Weber argues that religious ideologies can influence the economic and social structures. The economic superstructure is based on religion according to Weber’s theory (Kornblum and Smith, 17). During apartheid, religion was instrumental in uniting Africans who held protests and defied apartheid laws. Religious leaders organized and led these protests, which led to changes in the social structure that gave Africans freedom of movement and a share of economic activities. The purple rain protest of 1989 was held to pressurize the government to stop apartheid. The protest was organized by influential African leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu (Henrard, 120). They were the leaders of African National Congress, a political party fighting the apartheid government. ANC had started as a violent group, but embraced civil disobedience due to armed repression from the police. The protest occurred four days before the apartheid parliament held elections. The protesters were against detention without trial, death ...Download file to see next pagesRead More