Prior to the mid-1990's, apartheid was the official governmental policy of South Africa. Apartheid consisted of programs or measures that aimed to maintain "racial" segregation. Some of its characteristics were:

• social, economic, political, military, and cultural dominance of a small White minority (led by English businessmen and Afrikaner/"Dutch" militia and politicians) over a large non-White majority.
• Ratio of 4.7 non-Whites for every White.
• Residential and business sections were established in urban areas for each "race" (blacks, "coloureds", whites, and Asians), and members of other "races" were barred from living, operating businesses, or owning land in them.
• Until 1994, blacks, coloureds, and Asians were systematically deprived of political participation in the conduct of national and provincial affairs. With few exceptions, the nonwhite population was prohibited from voting.
• Whites controlled the government, the military, and the police.
• Laws required nonwhites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. Other laws prohibited most social contacts between the races, authorized segregated public facilities, established separate educational standards, restricted each race to certain types of jobs, curtailed nonwhite labour unions, and denied nonwhite participation (through white representatives) in the national government.
• As a result, more than 80 percent of South Africa's land was owned by the white minority.
• Poorest 40% of the population received only 6.2% of the national product.
• Richest 20% took 58% of country's income.

Structurally, global society is a version of South African apartheid even though there are no explicit "racial" laws. We live in a Global Society:

• where two thirds of the population is non-White and one third is White.
• Though some exceptions exist (Japan, Kuwait), being White and belonging to the upper stratum tend to go together.
• The poorest 80% of the world's population make do with 14% of the world's goods and services.
• The richest 20% enjoy 86% of all goods and services.
• The world's weapons of mass destruction are owned primarily by countries whose populations are largely White (U.S., Russia, Ukraine, France, Britain).

Global apartheid is a structure of extreme inequality in cultural, racial, social, political, economic, military, and legal terms.