AHC: South Africa Demographics

[John Fredrick Parker]

With no PoDs prior to 1900, is it possible for South Africa (or area comprising it, or equivalent) to have a population where non black Africans - whites, coloreds, and Asians combined - comprise over half the population? If so, than depending on the PoD that works, what would the effects be?

 

[Thon Taddeo]

With larger, very gerrymandered Bantustans it might be possible. There would be some really ugly borders.

 

[saint-tea]

you'd really need a pre-1900 pod for this to work, but in my mind, it would be three step process. firstly, the early dutch settlers intermarry even more with the native africans, leading to more cape coloured. this could be accomplished by laxer racial views on the part of the dutch, think of the portuguese idea of lusotropicalism as a model for this. second, the british still take the colony from the hands of the dutch, and they bring a lot of white, anglophone settlers with them. this creates a dynamic in which english-speakers constitute the majority of european descended south africans, the opposite of what it is iotl. this might also mean that apartheid does not get constructed, or at the very least, it doesn't get constructed in the same way, as it was centered around afrikaner domination over the country. the british also import more labourers from their asian colonies, leading to a higher asian population. assuming every group gets to comprise between 10 and 20% of the country, we have a south africa that is majority non-black by the present day.

 

[Lusitania]

Yes but would required the South Africa take the same Nazi approach for the number too high to achieve alone with emigration.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

@Thon Taddeo @Lusitania @saint-tea

Do we really need anything that dramatic? After all, Black Africans “only” comprise 2/3 80% of the country as is; it’s even less, 60%,if you only look at the Cape Provinces, and if you somehow get around the Eastern Cape’s OTL current impact, you would pretty much meet the OP just by keeping the Cape Colony independent.

 

[Lusitania]

@Thon Taddeo @Lusitania @saint-tea

Do we really need anything that dramatic? After all, Black Africans “only” comprise 2/3 of the country as is; it’s even less if you only look at the Cape Provinces, and if you somehow get around the Eastern Cape’s OTL current impact, you would pretty much meet the OP just by keeping the Cape Colony independent.

Ok sorry missing something 5 million whites now 25 million blacks right?

 

[Simon]

IIRC after the National Party won the 1948 general election they clamped down on immigration since the previous United Party government had encouraged large-scale white immigration from the UK and they were worried about Afrikaaners becoming a minority. Continued mass immigration from outside Africa and picking up Westerners who don't want to return to their home countries during decolonisation would probably help, but even then it's still going to be a challenge.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

IIRC after the National Party won the 1948 general election they clamped down on immigration since the previous United Party government had encouraged large-scale white immigration from the UK and they were worried about Afrikaaners becoming a minority.

Man, for a white supremacist country where white people are the minority, that's... well, it's something.

 

[Quintuplicate]

Man, for a white supremacist country where white people are the minority, that's... well, it's something.

For all their trumpeting of the white race, white supremacists sure are dumb.

 

[walmart]

Man, for a white supremacist country where white people are the minority, that's... well, it's something.

For all their trumpeting of the white race, white supremacists sure are dumb.

it makes prefect sense given the nationalist party wanted to maintain Afrikaaner dominance over South Africa. Afrikaaners made up a bare majority of the white population ,bringing in more non-Afrikanners is a detriment to that.

 

[Bluesock]

Have several of the African states become independent by becoming or remaining british protectorates like Swaziland and Lesotho. For example no Zulu war in the 1870's means that Zulu land remains independent. The Xhosa areas like Pondoland were annexed quite late in the the 19th century, they could could have remained independent. To add to this, if bechuanaland kept its original borders it could have taken even more of the African population. Main issue standing in the way was that like almost all settler colonies the white settlers were thieves and wanted to have access to as many resources as possible to both control resources and black labour so many independt black protectorates was considered a big no.
But assuming this does happen, you could also have more Indian immigration and more intrestingly Chinese immigrants. One of the reasons black protectorates were annexed was to have better control of black labour and essentially force black africans to work on the mines and in the cities by imposing taxes and land reforms on them. Without this there is less reason for the majority of Africans to leave the protectorates. Chinese miners were used to make up for initial labour shortages however South Africa also had a yellow peril movement and this forced mining companies to stop recruiting Chinese labour. Without it we could see a South African Chinese population as big as the Indian population. South Africa could also get a few more White immigrants post ww2, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe, especially those who ended up going to Australia.
So yeah its doable, though overtime Africans would still be the majority no matter what you do.

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

IIRC after the National Party won the 1948 general election they clamped down on immigration since the previous United Party government had encouraged large-scale white immigration from the UK and they were worried about Afrikaaners becoming a minority. Continued mass immigration from outside Africa and picking up Westerners who don't want to return to their home countries during decolonisation would probably help, but even then it's still going to be a challenge.

Here’s an idea: maybe that, plus some sort of communist takeover or revolution in India shortly after independence? Many wealthy and/or high-caste individuals flee the subcontinent, but with racist immigration laws preventing very many of them from settling in the United States or several other British commonwealths, especially nearby Australia, South Africa and perhaps a few of the British colonies in eastern and southern Africa become attractive destinations for refuge.

 

[Quintuplicate]

it makes prefect sense given the nationalist party wanted to maintain Afrikaaner dominance over South Africa. Afrikaaners made up a bare majority of the white population ,bringing in more non-Afrikanners is a detriment to that.

The eternal conflict of ethnonationalism versus racial supremacism.

 

[Simon]

Man, for a white supremacist country where white people are the minority, that's... well, it's something.

Well there was a certain hierarchy in Nationalist Party South Africa – Afrikaaners, other Whites a.k.a. English, Coloureds, Blacks. As Noscoper wrote they only just made up a majority of the White population; if the United Party had won and continued to encourage immigration whilst also reforming the parliamentary constituencies it's likely that the Nationalist Party as a distinctly Afrikaaner party would have been sunk.

 

[Marius]

Here’s an idea: maybe that, plus some sort of communist takeover or revolution in India shortly after independence? Many wealthy and/or high-caste individuals flee the subcontinent, but with racist immigration laws preventing very many of them from settling in the United States or several other British commonwealths, especially nearby Australia, South Africa and perhaps a few of the British colonies in eastern and southern Africa become attractive destinations for refuge.

Not sure they'll be particularly welcome in SA, far more likely to go to places like Kenya or Uganda in such a scenario.

 

[Simon]

Of course even if the United Party had won you'd still likely see racial laws being maintained or expanded, but more on the scale of petty apartheid rather than grand apartheid. If you have a government that wants to increase the White population as a whole without having to worry about sub-sections of it then aside from outside immigration the other option is to grow it domestically. Subsidies for White families to have children whilst also subsidising/providing a certain level of birth control for the Black population would also help slant things.

 

[saint-tea]

@Thon Taddeo @Lusitania @saint-tea

Do we really need anything that dramatic? After all, Black Africans “only” comprise 2/3 80% of the country as is; it’s even less, 60%,if you only look at the Cape Provinces, and if you somehow get around the Eastern Cape’s OTL current impact, you would pretty much meet the OP just by keeping the Cape Colony independent.

i don't think what i said is necessarily dramatic, its just that these subtle changes can have a greater effect later down the line

 

[Ellis MacVey]

For all their trumpeting of the white race, white supremacists sure are dumb.

If they weren't, they wouldn't be white supremacists

 

[schai]

South Africa had its chance at end of World War one, when millions of eastern and southern European looked for new homes and wanted to start fresh (like million of Ukrainian). Multiple famines in earlier 20th century had killed millions of Ukrainian. Had they immigrated to South African. They would boost the European population to more than 5 millions in the South Africa. That would match the local African population at that time.

Furthermore, if Ukrainian had moved to South Africa as cheap labors, they would replace the local African labors. As a result of this, local African would have difficulty made a good income and raised big family. The African population would stagnate like their neighbors. After another 50 years, African would be a minority in South Africa.