previous / next

segregation  ~  apartheid  ~  separation

[different pronunciation]

These three words in this set express the idea of making or showing difference, or keeping two persons or things or groups of people apart – physically or mentally, giving a different treatment to each.  However, they cannot be interchanged in all situations.  Therefore, let’s have some idea about each of them so that we can use them confidently when the need arises.

“Segregation” (noun) is ‘the act of dividing and keeping apart people of different races, sexes, religions, castes, cultures, colours, etc. so that they live, work or study separately at different places’,

e.g.

Segregation of students on the basis of their colour and religion is still practised in several developed countries in the world to this day.   [i.e. keeping students in separate classrooms or schools depending on whether they are black people or white people, and giving extra facilities to the white children only – racial segregation]

Social activists all over the world are working hard on the issue of segregation of men and women at work places.  [i.e. giving less money for the same work and giving less important jobs to women not because they are inefficient but just because they are women – gender segregation]

____________________

“Apartheid” (noun, the strongest of the three words, and it means ‘apartness’ in Afrikaans, a language in South Africa the country from where this apartheid originally put into practice) is ‘the political and social system in South Africa (from 1948 to 1994, policy origin being 1652) in which only the white people had the full political and social rights, and the other people, especially the black (native) people and the people from India and Pakistan (Asians), were forced to live in separate, small and less productive areas, to go to separate schools,  to do menial jobs with low wages, and were not allowed to move freely in places other than those that were given to them’,

e.g.

Nelson Mandela had to do twenty-five years in prison for opposing apartheid in South Africa.

Mahatma Gandhi was not allowed to travel in the same compartment of the train as the white people just for being an Indian in the apartheid regime of South Africa.

____________________

“Separation” (noun, the least forceful of the three words, used more in general sense) is ‘(of people and things) the act of staying away or standing apart from one another for some time, not necessarily because of the political or social system; the period of time two people or incidents stay away from each other; the act of staying at different places’,

e.g.

In many countries, there is no separation of the State and the religion.   [i.e. the rule of the government is based on the laws of the religion]

The wife and husband are considering a separation.   [i.e. they are going to live away from each other legally, by taking a divorce]

Thousands of children suffered separation from their parents in Nazi regime in Germany.

<<< Back to List S /  Next seize ~ siege >>>

<<< Back to main page