Take for example the Apartheid in South Africa.

The policy of “apartheid” was brought into being by South Africa’s National Party in 1948, and involved the segregation of Blacks and Whites throughout South Africa. This situation led to a campaign of “civil misbehaviour” by the ANC (essentially, citizens broke the law and caused trouble with the aim of disrupting the running of South Africa). It also eventually led to numerous deaths and disappearances whilst it was enforced.

There were a number of names given to this period, and personally I feel that the name “baaskap” – which means domination – was the most appropriate, as that’s literally what the apartheid was – domination of the Black South-Africans by the Whites who saw themselves as better, and banned the Blacks from all sorts of activities, even from being able to own farm-land. Domination sums up everything that the powerful whites wanted to achieve from this situation.

There were other names that were used to describe the apartheid also, one of them being “co-operational existence”. Personally, I feel that giving the apartheid this name makes it sound like some sort of scheme to encourage equality or peace between two groups, whereas the ugly truth is the complete opposite – where one groups dislike and prejudice led to the ill-treatment and segregation of a race of people, for many generations, and for little reason.

One other name for the apartheid was “separate development” – which whilst being true in the sense that when segregation occurs, you HAVE to develop separately – is also a very glorified version of the truth in the sense that the name glosses over the appalling nature of segregation and its effects on the people of a nation.

If you take a moment to think about each name seperately, you begin to get an idea of how something as simple as a name, can completely alter a persons view of something…

Fin.