Apartheid Explained Apartheid (especially South African English: , pronounced as /af/;,) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap ('boss-ship' or 'boss-hood'), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. [1] Under this ... Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into petty apartheid , which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and grand apartheid , which strictly separated housing and employment opportunities by race. [9] The term apartheid comes from the Afrikaans word meaning ‘separation’. This system implemented political, social, and economic segregation on racial grounds in South Africa. It ensured domination... Translated from the Afrikaans meaning 'apartness', apartheid was the ideology supported by the National Party (NP) government and was introduced in South Africa in 1948. Apartheid called for the separate development of the different racial groups in South Africa.