UNIVERSITY OF MAKATI

J.P. RIZAL EXT, WEST REMBO MAKATI CITY

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE

SOUTH AFRICA

JENNIFER BERNAL
GLEE RONIELEE GABALDON
KATRINA PETEROS
JANE SEDA
JARELLE ANNE ALBANO

II- BBPM

PROF. JOSE RONILO DACARA

OVERVIEW OF SOUTH AFRICA

OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of South Africa

FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Republic
PRESIDENT: Cyril Ramaphosa
DEPUTY PRESIDENT: David Mabuza
CAPITALS: Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative), Bloemfontein (judicial)
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: Afrikans, English, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Northern
Sotho, Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga
POPULATION: 48,375,645
POPULATION RANK: 25 in the world
MONITARY UNIT: Rand
AREA: 470,693 square miles (1,219,089 square kilometers)
LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH
Male: (2016) 66.38 years
Female: (2016) 59.23 years

SOUTH AFRICA MAP

FACTS ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA
1.South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation.
Of South Africa’s almost 55 million population (Stats SA July 2015 estimate), around 80
percent is African, about 9 percent is white and just under 9 percent is mixed race.
These people are the descendants of white settlers, their slaves and Africans, and they
typically speak Afrikaans and English. Most of these live in the Western Cape.
Additionally, some 2.5 per cent of the population are descendants of Indian labourers
who came to the country in the early 20th century.

2. The meandering 850km road through Cape Winelands is world’s longest wine
route.

Route 62 runs between Cape Town, Constantia to Port Elizabeth, via Oudtshoorn and
the Garden Route, embracing 350 years of wine making as it passes classic Cape-
Dutch homesteads, green mountains, 200 cellars and miles and miles of vines.

3. South Africa has three capital cities

Cape Town (Legislative), Pretoria (Administrative) and Bloemfontein (Judicial). There
are nine provinces in total: Western Cape, Eastern Cape, ZwaZulu-Natal, Northern
Cape, Free State, North West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Each has its own
government.
4. Bones found in South Africa help support the theory that modern humans
originated in Africa.

Fossilised bones from hominids (part of the human evolutionary chain) dating back
between 4.5 and 2.5 million years were found in limestone caves some 50km northwest
of Johannesburg. In the Sterkfontein Caves, now part of what is known as the ‘Cradle of
Humankind’, there was also evidence that humans used stone tools two million years
ago and made fire 1.8 million years ago.

5. One street in South Africa has produced two Nobel Prize winners

Former President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both lived on Vilakazi
Street in Soweto, Johannesburg. They were both awarded with a Nobel Peace Prize in
1993 and 1984 respectively. Their efforts in ending the apartheid are historic, not only in
South Africa, but all around the world.

6. There are 11 official languages, each with equal status, in South Africa:

isiZulu (the most commonly spoken), Afrikaans, isiXhosa (2nd most common), siSwati,
Sesotho, Xitsonga, Sepedi, isiNdebele, Setswana, Tshivenda-, and English, which is
the language of business, politics and the media. There is also a large number of other,
non-official languages. Most Africans speak more than one language.

7. Table Mountain is over 260 million years old (and has around 900 routes to
climb or hike)

The iconic landmark’s layers of sandstone were flattened by ice sheets, hence the
‘table’ reference. Travelers can hike to the flat-topped mountain for spectacular views
overlooking Cape Town. With around 900 different routes to climb or hike up the
mountain.

8. South Africa, in 2006, was the first African country and the fifth country in the
world to recognise same sex marriage.

While the rest of the African continent is fiercely homophobic (in June 2015
homosexuality was illegal in 34 out of 55 African states), South Africa is a world leader
in gay rights. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was outlawed in 1996,
gays have been entitled to serve openly in the military since 1998 and same sex
couples can marry, adopt children and have equal access to IVF and surrogacy.
However, in rural areas LGBT people still face discrimination and personal attacks.

9. The world’s largest diamond was found in the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South
Africa on 25 January 1905.

The 3,106-carat stone weighed 1.33 pounds and was called the ‘Cullinan’ after the
owner of the mine. It was later cut into nine large stones and about 100 smaller ones;
the largest, the 530.2 carat Cullinan I or Great Star of Africa, is the world’s largest
colourless cut diamond and can be seen on top of the Queen of England’s Septre with
the Cross in the Tower of London. The world’s leading diamond company, De Beers,
was set up in Kimberley South Africa by Cecil Rhodes in 1881. Today the company
operates all over the world and sells more than a third of the world’s rough diamonds.
South African diamond mines account for 9.10 percent of the world’s diamonds.

10. South Africa is full of record-breaking animals.

It’s where you’ll find the largest land mammal (elephant), the largest bird (ostrich), the
tallest animal (giraffe), the largest fish (whale shark), the largest reptile (leatherback
turtle), the fastest land mammal (cheetah) and the largest antelope (eland).

FAMOUS LANDMARKS IN SOUTH AFRICA

1.The Big Hole, Kimberley

Kimberley was put on the mining map when it became clear, it the late 1860s, that the
area is rich in diamonds. Massive excavations started in 1871 and the aptly named Big
Hole and its surrounding buildings are what remains of the diamond rush.

2.Isandlwana Battlefield, Isandlwana

The Battle of Isandlwana took place on January 22, 1879, when approximately 20,000
Zulu warriors, under King Cetshwayo’s command, successfully ambushed and defeated
a British camp. This was a major, yet unexpected, moment in the history of the Zulu
nation.
3.Nelson Mandela Capture Site, KwaZulu-Natal

Nelson Mandela’s arrest occurred on August 5, 1962, at this spot in KwaZulu-Natal after
which The Rivonia Treason Trial followed. Its infamous adjudication sentenced Mandela
to 27 years in prison, until his release on February 11, 1990

4.The Cradle of Humankind, Maropeng

The Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to the Sterkfontein
Caves, and could very well be the birthplace of mankind as we know it. This famous
excavation site is where an approximately 3.5 million-year-old hominid fossil,
Australopithecus Africanus, (‘Mrs. Ples’), was found in 1947.
5.Robben Island, Cape Town

Former South African president Nelson Mandela was imprisoned at Robben Island for
18 of his sentenced 27 years. The original jail building still remains and three tours are
conducted daily, some by former political prisoners.

6.The Afrikaans Language Monument, Paarl

The Afrikaans Language Monument (Afrikaanse Taal Monument) was opened on

October 10, 1975, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Afrikaans being declared an
official language of South Africa, separate from Dutch.
7.Union Buildings, Pretoria

The Union Buildings in Pretoria, designed by star architect Sir Herbert Baker, is the
official seat of the South African government and contains the president’s office. The
complex boasts beautiful surrounding gardens, rolling lawns and panoramic views over
the city.

8.Cape of Good Hope

The Cape plays an important role in South African history as a stopping point for trading
ships sailing between Europe and the European colonies in the east. Initially,
Europeans bartered with the local Khoikhoi people for food and water but in 1652 the
Dutch East India Company established a small provision station in the sheltered bay
behind the Cape peninsula, forming the first European settlement in the region.
9.Table Mountain

Table Mountain is the most iconic landmark of South Africa. It is much more than a
scenic photograph background or a place from where you can take a breathtaking photo
of Cape Town. There are about 2,200 species of plants found on Table Mountain and
1470 floral species. Many of these plants and flowers are endemic to this mountain.
 Famous Authors
John Maxwell Coetzee

Born: 9 February 1940 (age 78)

Cape Town, South Africa

Occupation: Novelist, essayist, literary critic, linguist, translator, professor

Language: English, Afrikaans, Dutch

Nationality:South African

Australian (since 2006)

Alma mater: University of Cape Town

University of Texas at Austin

Notable works: The Life & Times of Michael K

Disgrace

Waiting for the Barbarians

Nadine Gordimer

Born: 20 November 1923

Springs, Transvaal,

Union of South Africa

Died: 13 July 2014 (aged 90)

Johannesburg, South Africa

Occupation: Writer

Language: English

Nationality: South African

Period: Apartheid-era South Africa

Genre: Novels, dramatic plays

Notable works The Conservationist

Burger's Daughter

July's People
Alan Stewart Paton

Born: 11 January 1903[1]

Pietermaritzburg, Natal

Died: 12 April 1988 (aged 85)

Durban, South Africa[2]

Occupation: Author anti-apartheid activist

Language: English

Notable works: Cry, the Beloved Country;

Too Late the Pharlarope

André Philippus Brink

Born: 29 May 1935

Vrede, South Africa

Died: 6 February 2015 (aged 79)

On a flight from the Netherlands to South Africa

Occupation: Writer

Language: Afrikaans, English

Nationality: South African

Alma mater: University of Potchefstroom

Sorbonne University

Notable works: A Dry White Season

An Act of Terror

A Chain of Voices
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

Born: Rolihlahla Mandela

18 July 1918

Mvezo, Cape Province, South Africa

Died: 5 December 2013 (aged 95)

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Alma mater: University of Fort Hare

University of London

University of South Africa

University of the Witwatersrand

Occupation: Activist Politician Philanthropist Lawyer Known for Anti-Apartheid

Movement

Notable work(s): Long Walk to Freedom

A world of strangers

By NADINE GORDIMER
Oxford graduate Toby Hood has left London
and is traveling to Johannesburg to become
a publisher’s agent. Toby, however,
becomes much more. With the novel’s first
sentence, “I hate the faces of peasants,” the
reader senses that Toby is not too socially
conscious. By the end of chapter 1, Toby
confirms his apathy: “Let the abstractions of
race and politics go hang. I want to live! And
to hell with you all!”
Toby’s year in Johannesburg dissipates this
apathy as he repeatedly comes face-to-face
with the shocking horrors of apartheid. For
example, Anna Louw, a black rights lawyer,
escorts Toby to a party and introduces him to
the black man who soon becomes his
closest friend: Steven Sitole. When the
shrieks of police cars and “the heavy running
of police boots” abruptly end the party, Toby
and Steven escape to a pumpkin field,
“panting and laughing in swaggering,
schoolboy triumph.” Unfortunately, Toby’s
future encounters with apartheid are not
quite as pleasant.
His typist, Miss McCann, decides to find another job when Toby has the audacity to
lunch at the office with black men. Later, Toby has to do the leaving, when his landlord
discovers that he is entertaining blacks: “Yoo can’t bring kaffirs in my building.... The
other tenants is got a right to ’ev yoo thrown out.... Wha’d ’yoo think, sitting here with
kaffirs.”
Toby has other unpleasant experiences as well. Among the most disturbing incidents...
Our narrator Toby is a young Englishman sent to South Africa to work for the family
business. He comes from the upper middle class but also from a family with open-
minded political beliefs. Toby doesn’t negate those beliefs but he doesn’t embrace them
in the same eager way as his family. At best, he agrees but is uninterested in wasting
his time on the debate. As he gets established in Johannesburg, he begins to move
between two worlds – the contented and extremely wealthy white suburbs and the
animated but poor black townships. These two worlds are embodied in two of his
relationships – a love affair with Cecil, a white divorcée, and a close friendship with
Steven, an educated and dashing young black man.
Toby considers himself immune from the rules of apartheid and travels freely, even
carelessly, between his white friends and the townships. He knows enough to keep his
worlds separated, not allowing the two to meet. One of the things I found so honest
about Toby was his understanding that neither of those two lives was really for him. He
disdained many aspects of his wealthy friends’ undemanding and counterfeit lives but at
the same time understood he would never have the courage to face the poverty and
violence of the townships.
Toby slides back and forth between the two worlds, and in a way, he becomes a smug
voyeur. Sampling the best of both worlds, keeping himself apart when it suits him and
never feeling guilty about his own double standard. Of course this kind of social
schizophrenia cannot really last. Eventually, a tragedy requires Toby to confront his
emotional sightseeing. He’s forced to face up to the disaster of apartheid and what it
means to him personally. No longer a system that has nothing to do with him but one
that is him, is in him, that he cannot just walk away from
By accident of geography or literary searching, Gordimer found her themes in the
injustices of her country’s policies of racial division.
Nadine Gordimer did not originally choose Apartheid as her subject as a young writer,
she said, but she found it impossible to dig deeply into South African life without striking
repression. And once the Afrikaner nationalists came to power in 1948, the scaffolds of
the Apartheid system began to rise around her and could not be ignored. “I am not a
political person by nature,” Gordimer said years later. “I don’t suppose, if I had lived
elsewhere, my writing would have reflected politics much, if at all.”
But whether by accident of geography or literary searching, she found her themes in the
injustices and cruelties of her country’s policies of racial division, and she left no quarter
of South African society unexplored, from the hot, crowded cinder-block
neighbourhoods and tiny shebeens of the black townships to the poolside barbecues,
hunting parties and sundowner cocktails of the white society.
Through Gordimer’s work, international readers learned the human effects of the “colour
bar” and the punishing laws that systematically sealed off each avenue of contact
among races. Her books are rich with terror: The fear of the security forces pounding on
the door in the middle of the night is real, and freedom is impossible. Even the political
prisoner released from jail is immediately rearrested after experiencing the briefest
illusion of returning to the world. Critics have described the whole of her work as
constituting a social history as told through finely drawn portraits of the characters who
peopled it.