Apartheid in South Africa was characterized by grotesque segregation between various ethnic groups. This categorization encouraged empathetic disconnection among said races and promoted white supremacy. In diminishing empathy betwixt distinct racial groups, apartheid stimulated South African distrust of the law. Apartheid caused South Africans to misunderstand the law 's role in defining and protecting human rights, but empathy may earn South Africans the trust, initiative, and comprehension essential to creating and maintaining an ideal community.
The optimal community in South Africa consists of a culture in which peoples mingle freely while sustaining their separate ideologies without intimidation or opposition (Eze 123-24). Apartheid, however, emphasized contrasts in the multiple cultures of South Africa, thereby eliminating intercommunal empathy. Cooper underlined the absence of empathy by quoting Steven Biko, who said, “white people on the whole have come to believe in the inferiority” of blacks, and have learned to “despise black people, not because they need to reinforce their attitude and so justify their position of privilege but simply …show more content…
Gibson’s research, the majority of South Africans do not support the rule of law (17-18). The opposite of particularism, the rule of law is the practice of government and society strictly adhering to the law, without manipulating the law for expediency, power, personal bias, or other outside reasons (Gibson 10-11). During apartheid, humanity was traded for the amplification of white minority control, but the rule of law aided rather than hindered this progress. Because the law abused South Africans instead of nurturing them, South Africans doubt the ability of the rule of law to guard their rights. Universalism, a primary component of the rule of law, states that for government to function appropriately the rule of law must be universally obeyed, but South Africans dispute both theories (Gibson
The optimal community in South Africa consists of a culture in which peoples mingle freely while sustaining their separate ideologies without intimidation or opposition (Eze 123-24). Apartheid, however, emphasized contrasts in the multiple cultures of South Africa, thereby eliminating intercommunal empathy. Cooper underlined the absence of empathy by quoting Steven Biko, who said, “white people on the whole have come to believe in the inferiority” of blacks, and have learned to “despise black people, not because they need to reinforce their attitude and so justify their position of privilege but simply …show more content…
Gibson’s research, the majority of South Africans do not support the rule of law (17-18). The opposite of particularism, the rule of law is the practice of government and society strictly adhering to the law, without manipulating the law for expediency, power, personal bias, or other outside reasons (Gibson 10-11). During apartheid, humanity was traded for the amplification of white minority control, but the rule of law aided rather than hindered this progress. Because the law abused South Africans instead of nurturing them, South Africans doubt the ability of the rule of law to guard their rights. Universalism, a primary component of the rule of law, states that for government to function appropriately the rule of law must be universally obeyed, but South Africans dispute both theories (Gibson