AH Challenge: alternate South Africas

South Africa is not used much in AH, except in "how can we do a Draka/make fun of the Draka" sense. So, a little creative exercise: come up with a POD for South Africa after 1900, and write a little scenario based on that POD, of at least 100 words. Later there will be a vote for the most interesting scenario and another for most interesting POD (because sometimes we just don't know where to go with a good idea).

No giant natural disasters or ASB scenarios, please. And try not to wipe out humanity.

Bruce
 
Alrighty then.

POD: 1960. South Africa officially annexes South West Africa, and begins using its weight to ensure the white leadership of Southern Africa. Britain loathes their actions and the United States isn't pleased about it either.

South Africa takes over the Bechuanaland territory in 1965, under the pretense of terrorist operations being launched form the territory. It's BS, but Britain has no wish to land troops in Africa to stop the South Africans. A March 1970 terrorist attack by ZANLA manages to successfuly kill both Rhodesian Defense Minister PK van der Byl and two South African helicopter pilots, and the SADF takes over the duties of defending Rhodesia. Rhodesia is formally integrated into South Africa in 1980.

The South Africans, wealthier but seriously overstretched due to the much greater natural reserves of the apartheid state, begin clandestinely negotiating with several black leaders, including several moderate factions of the ANC and the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko. Both groups hold fast on the idea that the future of South Africa need to be determined by all races. The early 1980s see South Africa rocked by one big riot after another, tying up most of the SADF in simply holding back the rioting.

Finally relenting in 1983, Pretoria releases all of the Rivonia Trial prisoners except Mandela, and Mandela is released in April 1984. The ANC is legalized on the condition that it's armed wing disarms. MK ends its violent campaign in September 1984, and negotiations begin over the future of the country. Violent ANC factions, along with other tribes, fight viciously through 1984 and 1985, even as the government tries to negotiate an end.

The death of President Pieter Botha from a stroke on July 18, 1985, sees a hard-right faction take command in Pretoria, touching off a very bitter fight between the various races. The SADF is ordered to eliminate the Cuban forces in Angola, but this fails badly. Backed by the USSR, Cuban forces launch from Zambia and Angola and storm into South Africa itself in March 1986, with the Communist forces reaching all the way to Gweru, Windhoek and Maun before being stopped by a determined SADF defense.

Realizing the mess in South Africa, American, British and Commonwealth forces land in South Africa in November 1986, and quickly destroy the out-of-control regime in Pretoria, as well as ordering the Cubans out. They leave but very grudgingly, finally getting entirely out in September 1987.

The new Federal Republic of South Africa is born on paper on March 1, 1988, and has its first all-race elections on July 18, 1988. The ANC, to nobody's surprise, wins these - but they only get 35% of the vote. The blocs of other black parties all unite, leaving the whites with the balance of power in South Africa's government. This parliament sits in Cape Town on July 27, 1988, and Nelson Mandela takes the Oath of Office as the South African President on August 4, 1988.

South Africa, staunchly against communism as a result of the bloody violence of the war of 1986-87, develops rapidly in the late 1980s and 1990s. Investment, with the majority of it coming from America, Britain, Canada, Australia and Japan, sees the country rake in an astonishing $225 Billion in foreign direct investment between 1988 and 1998, and home-grown industries also play a role. The Federal Republic's GDP per capita roars from $3,500 in 1988 to $6,000 in 1998, and soars past $10,000 in 2009. Unemployment plummets from 27% in 1988 to 15% in 1998, sinking below 10% in 2004. The "African Lion" becomes not only the cornerstone of Africa's efforts to develop itself, but rapidly becomes a major player in international politics. Mandela serves only one term, departing to wide applause in August 1993, handing power to Steve Biko, whose Congress of South Africa (COSA) coalition wins power in the 1993 elections - which again leave the whites holding the balance of power.

South Africa's nuclear wepaons program is dismantled by President Mandela in 1989-90, but in most other ways the SADF is modernized, including the integration of many former independence militias, though the SADF's structure is mostly kept and many of the most senior commanders come from the SADF. The Federal Republic's governmental structure allows all voices a voice, and its 1989 constitution forbids laws being discriminatory based on race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnic background. This also leads to a landmark 2003 case which legalizes gay marriage.
 
POD

Imperial forces more decisively defeat the Afrikaner coalition in mid 1900, so that in counterpoint to OTL, the guerrilla phase of the war is either far more muted or non existent. Possible PODS:

  • The leadership, say Kruger, is somehow captured and therefore unable to flee to the Netherlands
  • Several of the key leadership of the later Guerrilla movement (bitter-enders?) killed or captured during the formal phase of the war. So perhaps capture De la Rey/De Wet/ Smuts/Botha and send them off to the off shore POW camps. I don’t know enough about the war to know if that would break the back of the bitter enders, but let us assume it does.

So, with that POD we get several changes, the first being no dedicated concentration camps or scorched earth campaign, no raid on the Cape etc – this hopefully would remove a key pan Afrikaner grievance, allowing the polity to fragment, rather than unite around the deaths as a cultural touchstone (I have Afrikaner friends who to this day are very bitter towards the British for this reason, despite living in Britain). The second being the key post war leadership would have different dynamics, on both sides – so any peace treaty, then post war implementation could be quite different. Thirdly, a quicker victory would have a big impact on British domestic politics – without the dragging on war, the concentration camps, the continued international pressure, Britain might have more will to impose its views on South Africa post war.

This may lead to stronger control by Milner/pro British groups in the post war period, less push to a wider Afrikaner political identity (which may mean less attraction for highly nationalistic Afrikaner parties) and perhaps less pressure for harsh racial politics. A) If the economies of the Transvaal /rest of SA was less devastated (due to lack of long running guerrilla war) then perhaps there would be less need for Chinese migrant labour, so less political mobilisation over non white immigration and job protection. B) Less extremism within Afrikaner politics combined with slightly less Afrikaner domination of the north/Union may mean less pressure to restrict the Cape Franchise post WW1, which allows for a good starting point for extension of the franchise. C) Less pan Union Afrikaner political mobilisation – perhaps the faster result allows the pre War consensus in the Cape to remain. D) Mild gerrymandering on the part of the British in the Transvaal especially may allow the Utilanders to dominate the local assembly and then the MPs sent to the Union parliament.

So come WW2 (assuming butterflies don’t butterfly it away, which it probably wouldn’t) we might have a slightly nicer Union that hasn’t laid the ground work for Grand Apartheid post war. This doesn’t mean a nicer time for non White minorities but it may mean that things do not get so polarised and we get a much more real incremental improvement of their position, including their incorporation or co-option into the existing power system. This will mean that SA, while still on the outer post Liberation, will be less isolated within the international system, within the Commonwealth (not as a republic) and will have greater scope to be accepted by post Liberation neighbours, allowing SA to retain or develop economic and political dominance earlier than the 1990s

Other potential changes – perhaps Rhodesia might vote differently in their 1923 referendum on post BSA rule, if they don’t view the Union as quite so Afrikaner dominated. Perhaps Britain is more willing to make concessions or push for incorporation of SW Africa or the other Crown Colonies, if they like and trust the Union governments more so than IOTL? With a slightly nicer, involved SA, then Rhodesia probably wouldn’t be able to declare UDI or something like it either, assuming they stayed out of the Union. It is one thing to defy Britain who is far away but quite another to defy your main neighbour
 
Interesting, but some quibbles...

Backed by the USSR, Cuban forces launch from Zambia and Angola and storm into South Africa itself in March 1986, with the Communist forces reaching all the way to Gweru, Windhoek and Maun before being stopped by a determined SADF defense.

Realizing the mess in South Africa, American, British and Commonwealth forces land in South Africa in November 1986, and quickly destroy the out-of-control regime in Pretoria, as well as ordering the Cubans out. They leave but very grudgingly, finally getting entirely out in September 1987..

But the ANC was quite pro-communist OTL: why destroy a reliably anti-Communist government and risk a pro-Soviet takeover? "Bastards on our side" and all that.


South Africa, staunchly against communism as a result of the bloody violence of the war of 1986-87, develops rapidly in the late 1980s and 1990s..

I suspect that there were bigger problems with the South African economy than a lack of sufficient anti-communism. Also, from the point of the ANC and many other South Africans, those were _liberators_: and successful ones, since the US decided the only way to prevent the Cubans from overthrowing the Apartheid government, was to, well, overthrow the Apartheid government.

Bruce
 
Thirdly, a quicker victory would have a big impact on British domestic politics – without the dragging on war, the concentration camps, the continued international pressure, Britain might have more will to impose its views on South Africa post war

Butterfly thought: with a quick victory, the damage the war did OTL to British self-confidence will be avoided. Slowed efforts to move away from "splendid isolation?" Further third-world adventurism?

Bruce
 
Well the more I think about it, the more the butterflies leap out, so I'll not think about it too much this early in the morning.

Re confidence, well, the stunning early British defeats would still occur as my as yet not closely determined POD comes in early-mid 1900, so the British will still have earned the mild contempt of their contemporaries as well as loss of face. Whether or not this is outweighed by their subsequent quick victory I am not sure.

Assuming my POD includes early capture/isolation/accomodation with the core Boer leadership, military and civil, followed by a quicker resolution to all fighting, then we don't get so much in the way of public acts of sympathy by say the Netherlands or the Germans, which will lessen potential aggravation between the nations.

It would also remove a strong mobilising point for the socialist/liberal centre left, where a lot of new activists cut their teeth.
 
But the ANC was quite pro-communist OTL: why destroy a reliably anti-Communist government and risk a pro-Soviet takeover? "Bastards on our side" and all that.

There began to be a series of meetings between high-ranking and influential Afrikaners in OTL in 1984-85, which laid out the ANC's goals to them, and expressed the concerns of the Afrikaners. By all accounts, the ANC knew by 1987 that true communism in South Africa was impossible - the whites held all the wealth and any attempt to redistribute it would destroy much of it. They follow that here, realizing that it would be better for them to work with the West rather than with the east - same as in OTL, pretty much.

I suspect that there were bigger problems with the South African economy than a lack of sufficient anti-communism. Also, from the point of the ANC and many other South Africans, those were _liberators_: and successful ones, since the US decided the only way to prevent the Cubans from overthrowing the Apartheid government, was to, well, overthrow the Apartheid government.

I am assuming (probably quite correctly) that the actions between the ANC and SADF would produce a scorched earth policy on both sides, resulting in major economic destruction. The government is also much more likely to keep its wealth under a Western alliance than a Eastern Bloc one, which to post-apartheid South Africa is crucial.
 
Without research and expertese, and a bit angry because computer issues made me rewrite it:

The South African Vietnam
The Vietnam analogy comes to mind. Not only did South Africa get involved in a number of low intensity conflicts, they also put great strain on the South African society where protest movement rose.

A number of elite units where disbanded when the new and democraticly elected coverment took power, including Battalion 32. Still, South Africa decided to in Rwanda where a genocide where building up.

The show of force was enough. The problem was that the killing would resume when the forces left, forcing South Africa to keep a large troop pressence.

The sucess made Mandela overconfident and a peace keeping force was dispached to Western Africa where they quickly got involve in a low intensity conflict. The units where largely unprepared for this since the units with extensive expirience where disbanded and soon where the first TV pictures showing South African soldiers sumary executing people.

Ie South Africa gets bogged down in a few conflicts and the costs start affect the society.
 

terence

Banned
No gentlemen. You have to go much further back for a viable POD.
The Afrikaaner state was effectively washed up after 1980 and anyone with more than half a brain knew it. It was all about video recorders and the case of the Indian toilet, a long story that I will tell one day. The collapse just took a bit of time.
The only real changes from OTL that were likely to have happened since 1980 were a more violent power struggle between the ANC and IFP.

Going back further, there would have been some kind of Boer War even without Rhodes/Jameson/Milner/Chamberlain. After the Transvaal become flush with cash they armed themselves and wanted to start throwing their weight about. They had eyes on Lorenco Marques and the modern Richard's Bay/St. Lucia as ports. Some, including Kruger, had the grandiose idea that they could get bits of the Cape as well. By 1899 their chances of winning were nil. So there will still have been the Afrikaaner bloody-minded-hate the-British mentality.
Any study of South Africa quickly shows that the Cape, Natal and other territory Afrikaaners did not join the Boer cause and the Cape Afrikaaners particularly have ever since provided a large chunk of the political opposition to the Nationalists as well as an educated elite. They were not flat earthers and not subject to the Transvaalers nazi version of religion and politics.
So, turn the Afrikaner beyond the Orange into a Cape Afrikaaner by taking British protection after 1835. No Transvaal independence, press freedom, religious freedom from day one. No objection to further British immigration ( as they were all British)--a peaceful Union in the 1920s together with the BLS states and Rhodesia. Industrialisation from 1916 instead of 1940. Implementation of the European immigration scheme in 1946 and one has a majority white ( or at least 50/50) nation with a huge economic base that would have been unaffected by the Winds of change.
 
No gentlemen. You have to go much further back for a viable POD.
The Afrikaaner state was effectively washed up after 1980 and anyone with more than half a brain knew it. It was all about video recorders and the case of the Indian toilet, a long story that I will tell one day. The collapse just took a bit of time.
The only real changes from OTL that were likely to have happened since 1980 were a more violent power struggle between the ANC and IFP.

Going back further, there would have been some kind of Boer War even without Rhodes/Jameson/Milner/Chamberlain. After the Transvaal become flush with cash they armed themselves and wanted to start throwing their weight about. They had eyes on Lorenco Marques and the modern Richard's Bay/St. Lucia as ports. Some, including Kruger, had the grandiose idea that they could get bits of the Cape as well. By 1899 their chances of winning were nil. So there will still have been the Afrikaaner bloody-minded-hate the-British mentality.
Any study of South Africa quickly shows that the Cape, Natal and other territory Afrikaaners did not join the Boer cause and the Cape Afrikaaners particularly have ever since provided a large chunk of the political opposition to the Nationalists as well as an educated elite. They were not flat earthers and not subject to the Transvaalers nazi version of religion and politics.
So, turn the Afrikaner beyond the Orange into a Cape Afrikaaner by taking British protection after 1835. No Transvaal independence, press freedom, religious freedom from day one. No objection to further British immigration ( as they were all British)--a peaceful Union in the 1920s together with the BLS states and Rhodesia. Industrialisation from 1916 instead of 1940. Implementation of the European immigration scheme in 1946 and one has a majority white ( or at least 50/50) nation with a huge economic base that would have been unaffected by the Winds of change.


Sure but if you make changes going back that far then you probably butterfly WW2 in anything like its current form and therefore decolonialisation ala winds of change.


Not a bad idea though, I think a POD would have to be a year or so before the time of the Jameson Raid at the latest - something that stops it and therefore doesn't help consolidate Kruger's rule - iirc the presidential elections were pretty close. It would also remove the main reason to militerise
 
No gentlemen. You have to go much further back for a viable POD.
The Afrikaaner state was effectively washed up after 1980 and anyone with more than half a brain knew it. It was all about video recorders and the case of the Indian toilet, a long story that I will tell one day. The collapse just took a bit of time.
The only real changes from OTL that were likely to have happened since 1980 were a more violent power struggle between the ANC and IFP.

Going back further, there would have been some kind of Boer War even without Rhodes/Jameson/Milner/Chamberlain. After the Transvaal become flush with cash they armed themselves and wanted to start throwing their weight about. They had eyes on Lorenco Marques and the modern Richard's Bay/St. Lucia as ports. Some, including Kruger, had the grandiose idea that they could get bits of the Cape as well. By 1899 their chances of winning were nil. So there will still have been the Afrikaaner bloody-minded-hate the-British mentality.
Any study of South Africa quickly shows that the Cape, Natal and other territory Afrikaaners did not join the Boer cause and the Cape Afrikaaners particularly have ever since provided a large chunk of the political opposition to the Nationalists as well as an educated elite. They were not flat earthers and not subject to the Transvaalers nazi version of religion and politics.
So, turn the Afrikaner beyond the Orange into a Cape Afrikaaner by taking British protection after 1835. No Transvaal independence, press freedom, religious freedom from day one. No objection to further British immigration ( as they were all British)--a peaceful Union in the 1920s together with the BLS states and Rhodesia. Industrialisation from 1916 instead of 1940. Implementation of the European immigration scheme in 1946 and one has a majority white ( or at least 50/50) nation with a huge economic base that would have been unaffected by the Winds of change.

I agree terence. I read an article by Arthur Keppel-Jones, the South African historian from the 1950s. In it said that at one stage the Orange Free State was very close to becoming more British-alaigned, rather than becoming the ZAR's sidekick. If that happened there would have been three relatively strong "British" states in South Africa (Cape, Natal, OFS), while the Transvaal would have been on the periphery. This would have led to an even stronger British influence in the region, and would have changed South Africa's history dramatically.
 
There are two other PODs which have been discussed on these boards before, but not in this particular thread.

The first is have the Rhodesians decide to join the Union in 1922 rather than opting for self-rule. The mainly English-speaking Rhodesians will be staunch supporters of Smuts and the South African Party (probably butterflying away Fusion and the creation of the United Party in early 1930s). There will be some form of racial discrimination (the Rhodesians were not paragons of racial equality either), but immigration from Europe will be encouraged, changing the dynamic of the country.

The second is the election win in 1948 of the National Party over Smuts and the United Party. The UP won more votes than the Nats in that election, but due to the vagaries of the FPTP system the Nats won the election, allowing them and their ally, the Afrikaner Party to govern. Change the results in a couple of seats and the UP and Smuts win in '48. Not too sure if that will change all that much though, the Nats would probably have a good chance of winning the next election in '53.
 

terence

Banned
I agree terence. I read an article by Arthur Keppel-Jones, the South African historian from the 1950s. In it said that at one stage the Orange Free State was very close to becoming more British-alaigned, rather than becoming the ZAR's sidekick. If that happened there would have been three relatively strong "British" states in South Africa (Cape, Natal, OFS), while the Transvaal would have been on the periphery. This would have led to an even stronger British influence in the region, and would have changed South Africa's history dramatically.

One hundred per cent right! The Free Staters were never the mind-numbingly weird neaderthals that ruled Transvaal politics after the 1870s. Steyn himself was a great Anglophile. When the Transvaal Afrikaaners were not fighting the British or the African tribes or the Free Staters they squabbled amongst themselves. (Frankly they have never stopped). In the 1840s, with a poplation of about 40,000 ( maybe a third of whom could read and write)-they had THREE competing Dutch reformed Churches and four centres of government.
I'll have ago at a TL later.

(Did you know that, inspired by Al Quaeda, the AWB flew hang gliders into the Union Buldings?)
 

terence

Banned
Sure but if you make changes going back that far then you probably butterfly WW2 in anything like its current form and therefore decolonialisation ala winds of change.
I am not so sure about that. Afrikaaner support for Germany (Or opposition to Britain) in WW1 was minute and confined to a small group that hadn't shared in the spoils of Union to the degree they thought they deserved.
The Afrikaaner support for the Nazis was among a small faction of a small faction--(it was though, very big amongst the heavily- indoctrinated University Students who became the politicos of the '50s and '60s.) The only WW2 difference that I could see would be the Union declaring war 3 days earlier than they did and possibly SA having its own blue-water Navy on the Australian pattern prior to the war if the economy of the 20s/30s had allowed it.


Not a bad idea though, I think a POD would have to be a year or so before the time of the Jameson Raid at the latest - something that stops it and therefore doesn't help consolidate Kruger's rule - iirc the presidential elections were pretty close. It would also remove the main reason to militerise
No, BEFORE the Dutchies get rich and BEFORE there is any reason for a Jameson raid.

There are two other PODs which have been discussed on these boards before, but not in this particular thread.

... but immigration from Europe will be encouraged, changing the dynamic of the country.
One of Smut's pet projects--cooked up with Churchill in 1945, was to open the South Afrian doors to the hundreds of thousands of 'Ayran' displaced persons from Europe. The Balts, the non-German germans being kicked out of the Eastern territories were to be shipped to South Africa (and Rhodesia). They would be joined by young British families whose trip was to be subsidised jointly by SA and the UK. As it was Churchill lost his job and the Atlee government wouldn't PAY and by the time Churchill was back, Smuts had lost his job and the Nats wouldn't PLAY. The original plan was for between 200,000 and 300,000 immigrants a year for ten years. The Aussies stepped in and took the cream with the Beautiful Balts and the ten pond Poms.

the election win in 1948 of the National Party over Smuts and the United Party. The UP won more votes than the Nats in that election, but due to the vagaries of the FPTP system the Nats won the election, allowing them and their ally, the Afrikaner Party to govern. Change the results in a couple of seats and the UP and Smuts win in '48. Not too sure if that will change all that much though, the Nats would probably have a good chance of winning the next election in '53.

Not exactly to do with the way FPTP works. It was a vagary of the constituency weighting that allowed rural seats--where the Nats were strong, to return an MP with a far smaller number of voters than the Urban areas where they were weak. The election was called just six months before the boundry commission was due to change the system--so it was never changed. The Nats continued to fiddle and gerrymander the system thereafter--blatantly.
 
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I still think that without the Jameson Raid there would be less polarisation in both the wider Afrikaner community and in the Transvaal as a state. Militerisation increased post raid and also solidified Kruger's control of the state.

For example, the biographies I've read of Smuts state that his primary reason for moving to the Transvaal and getting involved political was due to alienation resulting from this raid.

WRT the 1948 election the NP lead over the UP was 5 seats, but it appears there were 18 other MPs of varying allegiences - did they fall to standard Commonwealth practice of supporting the party with the most MPs?
 
I still think that without the Jameson Raid there would be less polarisation in both the wider Afrikaner community and in the Transvaal as a state. Militerisation increased post raid and also solidified Kruger's control of the state.

For example, the biographies I've read of Smuts state that his primary reason for moving to the Transvaal and getting involved political was due to alienation resulting from this raid.

WRT the 1948 election the NP lead over the UP was 5 seats, but it appears there were 18 other MPs of varying allegiences - did they fall to standard Commonwealth practice of supporting the party with the most MPs?

Yeah, you're right Julius, the Jameson Raid did make something of a difference. Smuts was something of an Anglophile early in life (he became one again post-Union) but due to the Jameson raid, he left the Cape, and threw his lot in with the Transvaal. I believe he was attorney-general of the ZAR at the bizarrely young age of 28.
 
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