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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

1974. [Second] General Laws Amendment Act No 94

With this act, "[t]he MASTERS AND SERVANTS ACT and portions of the BANTU LABOUR ACT are repealed in a move seen by many observers as a significant attempt by the government to reduce tensions among Black workers. The repealed laws had made it a criminal offence for workers to breach service contracts or to cause tension between different groups in the population" (Riley 1991: 138). However, according to Section 1, "the prohibition on the promotion of racial hostility between 'Bantu' and 'European' ... was extended to cover the encouragement of 'feelings of hostility between the different population groups of the Republic' " (Dugard 1978: 177). See also the NATIVE ADMINISTRATION ACT of 1927.

"However desirable such laws may be there is always the danger that they will be used mainly against blacks who express themselves forcefully about legitimate political and socio-economic grievances rather than against whites who cause feelings of racial hostility by racially abusive comments ... Unfortunately, the history of prosecutions ... lends support to this view, as all cases concern charges of inciting hostility among blacks towards the white section of the community" (Dugard 1978: 178).

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