AHC: More White South Africans

Emperor Norton I

Emperor Norton I

As of 2011, South Africa has a population of 9.1% White people, with 2.6% being Indian/Asia, 8.9 "Coloured", and 79.4% African. I shouldn't need to go into the long history of Apartheid, and its end resulting in the African population assuming total dominance of social, political and economic life from the White population.

The challenge here is, starting with 1900, to increase the population of White South Africans to the greatest extent plausible. Bonus if you do it in the post-WW2 years.
 

The Oncoming Storm

Apparently one of the first actions of the National Party Government in 1948 was to dispose of the fleet of passenger ships the Smuts Goverent had intended to transport immigrants from Europe. The NP didn't like anyone who wasn't an Afrikaaner, this meant they didn't try and attract Europeans the way Canada, Australia and other countries did, so if you can stop them coming to power there'll be more "European South Africans" not just British but probably significant migration of Italians, Poles, Irish and other nationalities. It's never going to be a non black majority with this OP but there could be a significantly higher population of Europeans.
 

d32123

Banned
If you're talking just relative to the black population one grim possibility is a worse AIDS pandemic.
 

d32123

Banned
Another possibility is you can balkanize South Africa and have the successor state be in a more white region.
 

Burton K Wheeler

Moderator
No apartheid probably means a larger white population. You wouldn't have massive white emigration in the 1980's and early 1990's and a more educated black population's birthrate would fall off faster.
I don't have the numbers handy, but whites are actually growing as a percentage of the South African population (very slightly) because people who went overseas on work permits (mostly white) lost them during the global financial crisis and went back home, and the black birthrate has dropped off sharply since 1994 while the rural Afrikaner birthrate has stayed high.
 

Viriato

The Oncoming Storm said:
Apparently one of the first actions of the National Party Government in 1948 was to dispose of the fleet of passenger ships the Smuts Goverent had intended to transport immigrants from Europe. The NP didn't like anyone who wasn't an Afrikaaner, this meant they didn't try and attract Europeans the way Canada, Australia and other countries did, so if you can stop them coming to power there'll be more "European South Africans" not just British but probably significant migration of Italians, Poles, Irish and other nationalities. It's never going to be a non black majority with this OP but there could be a significantly higher population of Europeans.
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Just after the war 1945-1948 South Africa had a net of European immigrants higher than Australia. However, the National government wanted Afrikaners to maintain their status as the largest European group. The only immigrants they really wanted were Dutch immigrants and those never exceeded 5,000 per year. The NP had fought long and hard to become the ruling party and since at that time the majority of immigrants were from the UK, they did not want to lose their status.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but during the 1950s the net European migration was only just over 100,000 and around 250,000 during the 1960s. The government began encouraging European immigration after 1961, but even then it was very selective. The peak year was in 1975 with a net of around 50,000 European immigrants.

In the 1960s the government began allowing small numbers of Portuguese, Italians, Greeks and Yugoslavs to arrive, but even these had to usually be skilled or semi-skilled. Even when many Portuguese were leaving Angola and Mozambique in 1974-1976 only around 20,000 were allowed into South Africa.
 

Burton K Wheeler

Moderator
I guess, as a relatively obvious caveat to my post, that just keeping the National Party from taking power would both increase European immigration and prevent apartheid.
 

Viriato

Burton K Wheeler said:
I guess, as a relatively obvious caveat to my post, that just keeping the National Party from taking power would both increase European immigration and prevent apartheid.
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You may not have apartheid, but there were already several acts that kept non-whites segregates. Perhaps you'd have a situation like Rhodesia, where racial segregation wasn't as rigid as it was in South Africa.
 
Emperor Norton I

Emperor Norton I

d32123 said:
If you're talking just relative to the black population one grim possibility is a worse AIDS pandemic.
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Wouldn't that end up affecting the White population? One, in the cheap labor area, but also in the area that I don't feel that there aren't many White having sex with blacks, even in a racist, apartheid society.

d32123 said:
Another possibility is you can balkanize South Africa and have the successor state be in a more white region.
Click to expand...

That seems to be one of the things brought up in South Africa threads lately. I do wonder what those would look like.

azander12 said:
One easy idea: have the region accept a large number of Jewish refugees prior to WW2.
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What would motivate them to do that, though?
 

Burton K Wheeler

Moderator
Viriato said:
You may not have apartheid, but there were already several acts that kept non-whites segregates. Perhaps you'd have a situation like Rhodesia, where racial segregation wasn't as rigid as it was in South Africa.
Click to expand...

I don't mean to suggest it would be shiny happy paradise, but even a Rhodesia-like situation would avoid trapping the entire black population in rural poverty and driving the white population from the country to the extent apartheid did.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Emperor Norton I said:
Wouldn't that end up affecting the White population? One, in the cheap labor area, but also in the area that I don't feel that there aren't many White having sex with blacks, even in a racist, apartheid society.
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There was actually quite a bit, but only in one direction, if you catch my drift.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Emperor Norton I said:
No black gardener's making it with a housewife, I presume?
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Well, there was a bit of that. Nor was it unknown in the American South during Jim Crow; basically, a housewife or a daughter or a widow whoever could have their way with black males under threats of a lynch mob or the police. This is no less true in any slave society (apartheid being little more than watered-down slavery).
 

Marius

Yes, just get the UP to win in 1948, this will see a immigration continuing.

Another POD is have Rhodesia join the Union in 1922. You already have more whites and they will most likely be Smuts supporters. The addition of Rhodesia will cause all sorts of butterflies but English South Africans' proportion of the white population will now be almost equal to that of Afrikaners.
 

Marius

Burton K Wheeler said:
No apartheid probably means a larger white population. You wouldn't have massive white emigration in the 1980's and early 1990's and a more educated black population's birthrate would fall off faster.
I don't have the numbers handy, but whites are actually growing as a percentage of the South African population (very slightly) because people who went overseas on work permits (mostly white) lost them during the global financial crisis and went back home, and the black birthrate has dropped off sharply since 1994 while the rural Afrikaner birthrate has stayed high.
Click to expand...

You still had quite high white immigration to South Africa in the 1980s to be honest.

Re: the percentage, whites have dropped as a percentage from the last census, from 9.6% to 8.9% (now equal with coloured South Africans). The actual numbers of whites increased though, from about 4.4 million to 4.8 million.
 

Marius

Viriato said:
In the 1960s the government began allowing small numbers of Portuguese, Italians, Greeks and Yugoslavs to arrive, but even these had to usually be skilled or semi-skilled. Even when many Portuguese were leaving Angola and Mozambique in 1974-1976 only around 20,000 were allowed into South Africa.
Click to expand...

Do you have a source for that?

Just because from my experience, I would be very surprised if there are only 20 000 Portuguese in South Africa.
 
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