South Africa with more Europeans
- Thread starter abc123
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For one reason or another, the United States becomes extremely hostile to immigrants around the turn of the century. The political leadership in South Africa senses an opportunity and puts into place huge incentives for European immigration. You end up with large numbers of Eastern Europeans (Jewish and gentile), and some Germans, Italians and Irish moving to South Africa. The majority of these immigrants move into the big cities; by 1948, Cape Town is a booming harbour city, while Johannesburg is also huge. With this influx of white settlers of various ethnicities, South Africa's white native population (mostly Afrikaner and British) becomes more secure. However, eventually, these immigrants move the country to the left, with a powerful multi-racial Workers' Party based around urban, immigrant-descended workers, small farmers and rural farm labourers and miners. The party is faced with serious persecution, which builds a multiracial class consciousness, making class often more important than race. Eventually, the Workers' Party moderates, becoming part of a two-party system alongside the National Party, a conservative party supported by Afrikaners and other cultural conservatives, as well as businessmen.
Sounds reasonable to all the experts out there?
abc123
Banned
Well, I could imagine that British, after victory over Boers, decides to reduce number of Boers by allowing and helping anybody from Europe to settle there.
But, i'm not sure about this, would larger number of Europeans in SA mean that Afrikaaners will have less fear of Black equality or it will give them additional reason to try to implement the Apartheid?
On the other hand, new immigrant population will most likely be less inclined to Apartheid.
I don't think Britain was that secure about SA. After WWI I can see it as being more likely, but while Britain still directly controls South Africa I highly doubt they will want white immigration from anywhere but the British Isles.
Britain extended the franchise to all whites with the primary goal of reducing Afrikaner resentment, and it didn't do them much good. Apartheid itself was in large part influenced by the Afrikaners of the time, who in a great many cases were inspired by Hitler's Germany, rising from the ashes of a broken state that was the Weimar Republic into the powerful nation it became. South Africa began to see the Afrikaners work within its political system in the 1920s, but the idea of Afrikaner supremacy over South Africa was born with the leaders who saw Germany as a positive influence, and especially after the beginning of the construction of the Voortrekker Monument in 1937.
The best way to get more Europeans, honestly, would be for the United States to stay closed. With limits on immigration after the Great War, South Africa's whites see an opportunity to grow the white population substantially, and encourage immigration from everywhere, from across Europe. This has a small effect in the 1920s, but as the Great Depression hits, the visions of the wide-open spaces and warm climate of Africa catch hold in a big way, causing over two million Europeans to go to South Africa in the 1930s. This is followed by South Africa annexing Namibia in 1938. The Afrikaners themselves do not approve of this, but they let it go in any case. South Africa also allows better-educated Indians to come to South Africa in numbers in the 1930s.
By 1950, whites are 32% of the population of South Africa, with Indians being 4% and mixed-race being about 20%, with black Africans making up the rest. The Fagan Commission in 1948 advocates the beginning of the tearing down of segregation walls, but that is deeply unpopular with Afrikaners. Regardless, Smuts' United Party eeks out a narrow win in the 1948 elections, but Smuts in a political move extends South Africa's franchise to coloreds as well as to whites in 1949, a move meant to help ensure his party's continued leadership of South Africa. This move succeeds, and the growing activism of groups like the African National Congress for majority rule pushes the point further, and the United Party wins in 1953 as well. As South Africa's economy grows rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, so do demands for greater political equality. These begin to bear fruit after McMillan's infamous "Winds of Change" speech to the South African parliament in 1960. Deciding that South Africa has to adapt or die, the Union of South Africa begins steadily expanding the Franchise to all of its citizens. A baby boom across this time proves true across all races, and South Africa's white population passed the five million mark in 1955 and seven million in 1966, with the percentage of the population being white hovering through the period at about 35%.
Indians are given the right to vote in time for the 1964 elections. The National Party finally is victorious in the 1964 elections, but by now even they realize that attempt to remove the franchise from any group of people would be met with severe resistance, and they do not attempt it - in fact, they go the opposite direction, meeting in a famous series of meetings with the African National Congress leaders in 1966, led by famed rights lawyers Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. South Africa's Prime Minister wishes to enact an education franchise, but Tambo points out that black South Africans are rapidly approaching the same levels of literacy as whites and that the two sides will be equal in that regard by the early 1970s. Mandela points out that race-based politics were causing chaos in other nations in Africa, and that South Africa's white population, which was over a third of the population, couldn't realistically be ignored by any major political party in a universal suffrage election. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd hadn't expected that, but it proves true. The meetings enact a schedule to move to majority rule by 1980.
South Africa's minorities, however, find this too slow, and the result of this returns the United Federal Party to power in 1970. Verwoerd is replaced by Jan Steytler, who proudly announces "In the next election, all South Africans will be able to cast ballots to chose the people who lead them." Steytler is true to his word, and the franchise is completely revamped, removing all racial definitions, in 1974. The first election after this is held in 1975. The long dominant United Federal and National Parties soon find themselves challenged by the newly-established South African Progressive Party and the African National Congress. Steytler is re-elected, but with a tiny minority (86 of 225 seats) and is forced to ally with both the ANC and SAPP to stay in government. This makes several of the ANC's leaders ministers in South Africa's cabinet, including Mandela, Tambo, Anton Lembede and Walter Sisulu. The black cabinet members prove to be entirely up to their jobs.
The South African constitution is completely rewritten in 1977-78, enshrining rights for all peoples in the constitutional. By now, even the National Party is for this, and the support it. The constitution easily passes all of the provinces in referendums in April 1978, and Queen Elizabeth II's first ever state visit to South Africa signs it into law in Pretoria on July 15, 1978.
The 1980 election sees the next milestone. The ANC wins it, with only a slightly bigger number of seats than Steytler has, and Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa's first black Prime Minister on May 25, 1980.
Having more Europeans coming into South Africa could actually strenghtens the Apartheid if the Europeans incomers compete with the black population for jobs. I am talking about jobs in the gold, dimamond or coal mines for example here. Something which would seem like paradise for a starving half literate peasant from say Portugal, Southern Italy or Eastern Europe, compared to its current fate. While this would have the effect of increasing the overall percentage of the white population, you can bet that most new incomers and their descendents won't want anything to do with racial equality if this means that their positions and niche in the mines, the factories or lower service positions are under threat. Poor white racism had a lot to do with the Apartheid in South Africa and with segregation in the southern United States.
In OTL South Africa, the mineowners and key industralists in the Transvaal needed the black workforce in order to operate at full efficiency. Thence why some of them were not that keen on the idea of the apartheid to begin with.
If however there are enough "poor white" migrants willing to work down the mines and in the factories for low wages. The need for black workers will be lessened, since "poor whites" will fill in the same gap as the blacks. If there is no need for the blacks to fill in positions of any kind, then you remove an obstacle to a "super grand Apartheid" policy and all the population relocations and partitioning that would go with it ...
In OTL South Africa, the mineowners and key industralists in the Transvaal needed the black workforce in order to operate at full efficiency. Thence why some of them were not that keen on the idea of the apartheid to begin with.
If however there are enough "poor white" migrants willing to work down the mines and in the factories for low wages. The need for black workers will be lessened, since "poor whites" will fill in the same gap as the blacks. If there is no need for the blacks to fill in positions of any kind, then you remove an obstacle to a "super grand Apartheid" policy and all the population relocations and partitioning that would go with it ...
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Nice scenario. It surely takes into account all the different constellations.
If increased white emigration to SA happened as we saw "poor" Italians, Irish, etc moving to the US, would SA follow the same developments as the US?
Segregation in the South was instituted until quite late?
Could there have been a white majority if "serious" emigration had started in the 18xx's? Probably yes.
It might have meant that Apartheid was never enacted.
It could also mean that there would never have been a Boer war (1899-1902)
Remember, Lord Milner instituted a lot of the "racial" laws" prior to the republic from 1910. He was much more the 'grand-father" of apartheid than anybody else.
It becomes interesting insofar as two major economic drivers are concerned:
Agriculture: If black labour would not have been cheap, would the mechanisation of agriculture have taken place? as it is, by and large, hands are cheaper than machines.
Mining: would "poor" whites have been used extensively in the mines => less migrant workers from other African countries? Would the cost structure of mining have been less favourable? would the mining industry be viable? (or rather as profitable)?
If white majority should have the biggest impact it should be before the discovery of the gold fields, I think. Anything later would have been after the boundaries were set, and the "modern" state formed.
Ivan
If increased white emigration to SA happened as we saw "poor" Italians, Irish, etc moving to the US, would SA follow the same developments as the US?
Segregation in the South was instituted until quite late?
Could there have been a white majority if "serious" emigration had started in the 18xx's? Probably yes.
It might have meant that Apartheid was never enacted.
It could also mean that there would never have been a Boer war (1899-1902)
Remember, Lord Milner instituted a lot of the "racial" laws" prior to the republic from 1910. He was much more the 'grand-father" of apartheid than anybody else.
It becomes interesting insofar as two major economic drivers are concerned:
Agriculture: If black labour would not have been cheap, would the mechanisation of agriculture have taken place? as it is, by and large, hands are cheaper than machines.
Mining: would "poor" whites have been used extensively in the mines => less migrant workers from other African countries? Would the cost structure of mining have been less favourable? would the mining industry be viable? (or rather as profitable)?
If white majority should have the biggest impact it should be before the discovery of the gold fields, I think. Anything later would have been after the boundaries were set, and the "modern" state formed.
Ivan
I think the problem with this question, as per always with small colonies, is not attracting immigration, but keeping it. Immigrants are very willing to go back home or onwards migrate if their original destination does not meet their requirements and this happened a lot within the Empire in this era.
Then, remember that the local White populations are not necessarily happy with high immigration, even if of the right colour. Immigrants of the wrong culture (i.e. not yours!) but right colour were not always welcomed in many of the Settler countries IOTL and I would think the Afrikaner majority would not be receptive to such IOTL either. Then there is the Depression. More immigrants are competitors to local Whites and also potentially a cost as well. IOTL intra Commonwealth/Empire migration slowed dramatically in the 1930s due to the Depression and even the "right" sort of migrants (British) had hostile receptions in some of the Dominions.
I know in NZ the government pushed such migrants to small town NZ, where they knew the locals would not be so hostile to migrants, as the larger cities had experienced riots by the unemployed.
Then, remember that the local White populations are not necessarily happy with high immigration, even if of the right colour. Immigrants of the wrong culture (i.e. not yours!) but right colour were not always welcomed in many of the Settler countries IOTL and I would think the Afrikaner majority would not be receptive to such IOTL either. Then there is the Depression. More immigrants are competitors to local Whites and also potentially a cost as well. IOTL intra Commonwealth/Empire migration slowed dramatically in the 1930s due to the Depression and even the "right" sort of migrants (British) had hostile receptions in some of the Dominions.
I know in NZ the government pushed such migrants to small town NZ, where they knew the locals would not be so hostile to migrants, as the larger cities had experienced riots by the unemployed.
abc123
Banned
Good scenario, but I don't think that things would go so smoothly as there.
Maybe riots, even terrorism or rebellion of diehard white-rule Afrikaneers against plan of universal suffrage.
That's the reason why IMO Government of SA ( in situation where whites are about 33% of population ) would decide that they will gradually extend voting rights on Coloureds, Indians and Blacks.
Now, will that be conected with educational requierments ( first level of education required for having a vote ) or with racial group ( rights for Indians and Coloureds sooner than for Blacks ) I don't know.
But I do dobut that all Blacks would get voting rights before say 1980 or 1990.
Large-scale post-war immigration from southern europe, as happened in Australia. Greeks, Italians, Yugoslavs, maybe Spanish and Portugese. All fairly conservative. Even Dutch - large numbers of Dutch immigrants moved to New Zealand immediately post WW2. Should also be easy to attract Germans. Dutch and Germans would be absorbed easily.
Also, sponsor large-scale resettlement of refugees from eastern europe into South Africa - usually anti-communist and conservative. If at the same time, you encouraged them into jobs in the mines and factories, as Dunois said you actually strengthen the existing system.
If, at the same time, you created the "Homeland" states and gave them immediate independance a la Lesotho and Swaziland, odds are that in the immediate post-WW2 period well before the "Winds of Change", they would be recognized by most other countries. Thus, no "apartheid" and a clearly white-majority South Africa.
Also, sponsor large-scale resettlement of refugees from eastern europe into South Africa - usually anti-communist and conservative. If at the same time, you encouraged them into jobs in the mines and factories, as Dunois said you actually strengthen the existing system.
If, at the same time, you created the "Homeland" states and gave them immediate independance a la Lesotho and Swaziland, odds are that in the immediate post-WW2 period well before the "Winds of Change", they would be recognized by most other countries. Thus, no "apartheid" and a clearly white-majority South Africa.
Interesting, probably would work for the whites, although after the Second World War I assume that the black Homeland citizens would get tired of having their resources exploited and owned by a foreign white elite. Also, how vulnerable would the white South Africa be to Nazi infiltration?
abc123
Banned
I'm not so sure about that. IMO they wouldn't be so keen to reduce ratio of Europeans in SA.
Main advantage of doing this early - say late 1940s, is they are not Homelands. They are independent states, same as Lesotho and Swaziland. And in point of fact, you could do this easily enough - a decent sized Zululand and similarly for the !Xhosa and give Lesotho a bit of xtra land and its done. You keep the Indians and the Cape Coloureds as a minority, import black labor on a temporary basis if needed. Does not matter about exploitation if they come from independant countries that had been recognised as such by most states (remember, most colonies were still colonies at this stage and had no say). Mandela can become President of !Xhosaland
.As for Southwest, move enough immigrants there, you have a majority. Vote for union. Job done. Rhodesia might be a different story tho. I would say leave that one alone.
Main advantage of doing this early - say late 1940s, is they are not Homelands. They are independent states, same as Lesotho and Swaziland. And in point of fact, you could do this easily enough - a decent sized Zululand and similarly for the !Xhosa and give Lesotho a bit of xtra land and its done. You keep the Indians and the Cape Coloureds as a minority, import black labor on a temporary basis if needed. Does not matter about exploitation if they come from independant countries that had been recognised as such by most states (remember, most colonies were still colonies at this stage and had no say). Mandela can become President of !Xhosaland
As for Southwest, move enough immigrants there, you have a majority. Vote for union. Job done. Rhodesia might be a different story tho. I would say leave that one alone.
That being said, I'm assuming that the new states of former South Africa (Zululand, etc.) will be economically dominated by the white-majority Union of South Africa, whose businesspeople will likely own the mines and probably large tracts of land in the interior. That might lead to problems with Marxist rebels in the future...
One would assume so. As far as Marxist rebels go, there were never any problems with these emerging from Swaziland and Lesotho where the traditional rulers kept things firmly under control (and more or less still do). The problem was in South Africa, where those pesky liberals persisted in educating the blacks - so you got those liberal arts graduates like Mugabe and Mandela with inflated ideas of where the educated blacks should be.
My take would be a couple more independent states - Zululand and !Xhosaland - would be ruled by the traditional elites. Keeping in mind that also was Mandelas background. And that would make things far more stable in the short to medium term. And the beauty of it would be, in the late 1940s no other country would really question the setup. Of course, then you have to deal with those uppity rooinecks and immigrants.
abc123
Banned
But such states should have bigger area than bantustans- otherwise it isn't even close to a fair deal.
Before McMillan's "Winds of Change" or extention of voting rights there is something that you should have taken heavily into account: the "Colour Voters Act" and the 'South African Coloured Voters Cases' both extensively analysed by Hood Phillips in " South African Constitutional Law".
I think the National Party was pretty anti immigration post 48, or at least, not as open as Smuts had been anyway.
I have wondered about PODs here before, one of which was what if during the period between the 2nd South African War and the Union, that Britain reordered the provinces a bit. So instead of four provinces we end up with say six - splitting the Cape and Transvaal.
That could change the dynamic of the Union quite considerably. Instead of having only Natal English leaning we might end up with three English leaning provinces against three Afrikaner leaning provinces.
I think that you have a very wrong idea about 'poor whites' in South Africa;let's not forget that the South Africans came to Africa as persecuted people from their own countries themselves being boorish peasants,persecuted because of their religion(e.g French Hugenots constituting half the Africaaner population in S.A. easily identified by their surnames like DuPlessis,DuTois etc) and Dutch and Flemish peasants that formed some very strict regressive institutions like the Dutch Reformed Church, and all of them formed the laws of immigration that were very strict and allowed entrance to specialized new immigrants only;for example electricians who also worked in the mines for very high remuneration,brick layers from the british isles and southern Europe,but admission to people from Communist countries was out of the question( communism was outlawed in SA) the same applied t eny applicant who had ever visited a communist country even once.With such strict laws and despite very attractive salaries and fringe benefits the immigration rate was reduced to a trickle...and those that entered,became more racists than the locals despite the fact that they,overall,despised Africaaners due to their narrow-mindedness.