apartheid surviving through to today?

could apartheid in South Africa last to today? if not how long could it last? and what would an apartheid South Africa look like in 2011?
 
could apartheid in South Africa last to today? if not how long could it last? and what would an apartheid South Africa look like in 2011?

Charlie Wilson dies and the US never assists Aphgans against the USSR. As a consequense the USSR survives to the modern day, as a secondary consequence caused by the survival of the USSR the apartheid in South Africa is never lifted and sanctions never reach the levels they do OTL. South Africa remains under an apartheid and the US mostly turns a bling eye as long as the USSR exists. If it ceases to be a threat then the US ceases to look the other way and South Africa is racked with crippling sanctions that lead to the end of apartheid.

-Finley
 

GTAmario

Banned
Take out civil rights movement and you get the whole Boycott SA
Which leads to all the sanctions
 
Could there erupt very bad civil war if aparthaid not abolish? I think that we would see now totally failed state.
 
it would have been like Rhodesia .... except bigger

If they'd decided to stay with Apartheid.....there's all sorts of factors to consider. A more

The South African Army was always the best. They'd have won any border conflicts hands down. They were also very good at de-stabilizing any neighbouring countries that supported ANC terrorists - look at what they accomplished in Mozambique. They also neutralised Angola and Botswana wisely stayed out of the whole thing. If Zimbabwe had actively suppported the ANC (as opposed to passively), the South Africans would probably have supported the Matabele in fighting Mugabe's Shona and the Matabele would likely have won in that case - so you have a "South African friendly" regime in Zim.

Which means any opposition would have been internal and the South Africans could have kept the lid on that, as they did for decades in any case. Think a Rhodesia scenario, but with more bombs and insurrections in the townships and less guerilla fighting in the countryside, where the terrs would have been hammered. Sanctions - didn't do anything much to Rhodesia and South Africa had a far stronger economy and was a nuclear power there for a while (remember that unexplained explosion down in the southern Indian Ocean - suspicions at the time whiere that the South Africans had tested a nuke). And sanctions didn't work in any case, they just made things a bit more expensive.

The question would then be, how far are the South Africans prepared to go to contain unrest in the townships. Do a Mugabe and unleash a "5th Brigade" or whatever it was that he used on the Matabele - have a South African version unleashed on the townships and damn the international press? Deport them all (except the workers) back to the Homelands and fence them in? Do a Gaddafi on the townships? For that you have to have a far more intolerant bunch of whites - there weren;t many that would have gone that far (having worked there for a few years in the transitional period before and after apartheid, that's a personal observation).

So here's a question. How far would the South Africans have gone in this scenarion to contain the internal unrest?
 
Not particular long time.

There was the "white" referendum in 1992/3 (as far as I remember it). Majority of whites voted for negotiations, wher we all knew it wold entail that apartheid had to go.

The sanctions were indeed biting.

The watershed in my opinion was 1984 with the state of emergencies, etc. Everyone knew it was over. Just amazing it could still carry on for another 10 years really.

There was no desire in the population (in general) to see more violence.

If you are interested, I did a very neat little scenario: Nuclear war in Southern Africa in 1986/7.

I still believe that it could have happened and the premises do touch on a lot of the above.

Ivan
 
South Africa is as fucked up as the Congo or Zimbabwe. With the vast bulk of the country in the hands of varying rebel forces with only a white enclave constituting/answering too the ‘’central government’’. There no way Apartheid can last without genocidal brutality on the part of the white supremacist regime.
 
South Africa is as fucked up as the Congo or Zimbabwe. With the vast bulk of the country in the hands of varying rebel forces with only a white enclave constituting/answering too the ‘’central government’’.

If the whites had wanted to hold power, there's no way any "rebel forces" would pin the whites down in enclaves. The old South African Army was just too good. Look at Angola (conventional warfare against the Cubans) and Namibia (they toasted the Swapo guerillas - units like Koevet were just to good at what they did (counter-guerilla warfare) and unlike Rhodesia, the whites made up a far more significant percentage of the population (6-8 million odd whites). Nope, the whites would not be pinned down in "enclaves." No chance. No way. Not in this scenario. The blacks "might" suceed in holding a few enclaves, probably the townships, but only of the whites let them do it.

There no way Apartheid can last without genocidal brutality on the part of the white supremacist regime.

Now there I agree with you. For the whites to hold on to power, it would have to be with the use of excessive force. Could have been done, but you have to come up with a scenario where they would feel justified in doing this. Even the AWB hasn't advocated genocide, they just wanted to be seperate.

Now for an alternative scenario like this to work, what you could try would be immediately post WW2, the new "Afrikaans" Govt creates the Homelands (Ciskei, Transkei, Kwazulu) with viable territory and grants them real independance a la Lesotho and Swaziland. Then deport all the blacks back to their "homelands", keep the Cape, Orange Free State and Transvaal and maybe part of Natal (and maybe not because if you dump Natal, you get rid of most of the Indians as well as the Zulu's), allow black workers in only as temporary workers on restricted work permits, give Cape Coloureds the vote and hey presto, you have a "white" south africa thats fully democratic and you've exported all your problems. No need to jail Mandela, you just deport him back to his State of origin.

Back in 1948, those new states would have been recognized by the rest of the world (no ex-colonies to make a fuss) and the "winds of change," in South Africa at least, would have turned into a summer breeze.
 
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If the whites had wanted to hold power, there's no way any "rebel forces" would pin the whites down in enclaves. The old South African Army was just too good. Look at Angola (conventional warfare against the Cubans) and Namibia (they toasted the Swapo guerillas - units like Koevet were just to good at what they did (counter-guerilla warfare) and unlike Rhodesia, the whites made up a far more significant percentage of the population (6-8 million odd whites). Nope, the whites would not be pinned down in "enclaves." No chance. No way. Not in this scenario. The blacks "might" suceed in holding a few enclaves, probably the townships, but only of the whites let them do it.



Now there I agree with you. For the whites to hold on to power, it would have to be with the use of excessive force. Could have been done, but you have to come up with a scenario where they would feel justified in doing this. Even the AWB hasn't advocated genocide, they just wanted to be seperate.

Now for an alternative scenario like this to work, what you could try would be immediately post WW2, the new "Afrikaans" Govt creates the Homelands (Ciskei, Transkei, Kwazulu) with viable territory and grants them real independance a la Lesotho and Swaziland. Then deport all the blacks back to their "homelands", keep the Cape, Orange Free State and Transvaal and maybe part of Natal (and maybe not because if you dump Natal, you get rid of most of the Indians as well as the Zulu's), allow black workers in only as temporary workers on restricted work permits, give Cape Coloureds the vote and hey presto, you have a "white" south africa thats fully democratic and you've exported all your problems. No need to jail Mandela, you just deport him back to his State of origin.

Back in 1948, those new states would have been recognized by the rest of the world (no ex-colonies to make a fuss) and the "winds of change," in South Africa at least, would have turned into a summer breeze.


This sounds like an incredibly interesting timeline.
 
This sounds like an incredibly interesting timeline.

Agreed, it would be a interesting time line. The South African internal security arrangements were very effective overall and if it wanted to the government could have held out if it was willing to use extreme measures. That said international economic pressure did historically have a huge roll in introducing multiracial democracy, and South Africa was not totally self-sufficient.
 
I understand that financially the SA state was heavily indebted and getting near the end of its resources by the mid 1980s, so whether or not it had the desire to push the issue, it could not afford to do so for much longer
 
I understand that financially the SA state was heavily indebted and getting near the end of its resources by the mid 1980s, so whether or not it had the desire to push the issue, it could not afford to do so for much longer

The country's economy was pretty much stangant by the middle of the 1980s, yes, but it was the Rand's massive drop in value in 1985-86 that struck home and hard. It all of a sudden caused a big drop in the standard of living of South Africans, and that more than anything pretty much sealed the end of apartheid.

As for keeping it going as long as possible, the points about the homelands are one way of doing, but that in itself causes additional problems. South Africa's industries rely on cheap labor, which if you have deported black people to these township nations in such numbers, you no longer have, and trying to keep track of millions of temporary work permits borders on impossible. Long story short - if white South Africa was to occupy the Cape instead of the whole country, they would have an absolute majority. If they are thinking long-term with SA, they would make a "Us against Them" scenario, and grant citizenship and full civil rights to Coloreds and Indians, and use that as justification to claim all of the Cape, much of the Free State and a chunk of Natal for South Africa, giving the rest to the blacks. But this loses them the Witwatersrand and its mines, which isn't gonna help SA's economy.
 
I understand that financially the SA state was heavily indebted and getting near the end of its resources by the mid 1980s, so whether or not it had the desire to push the issue, it could not afford to do so for much longer
IIRC the only natural resource they were really short of was oil which they had to import, so as a PoD why not give them a mid-sized offshore oil deposit? Offshore means it probably wont be discovered or exploited until after they achieve independence and institute apartheid and if it's small enough to just about cover their own needs it would keep their economy chugging along nicely thanks to an improved balance of trade.
 
Another potential PoD is for the National Party not to be so anti-English in outlook and obsessed with Afrkaaner purity meaning that instead of restricting immigration after 1948 they make a big effort to attract European immigrants. This means another few million more whites whuch gives the state the manpower to keep things going for longer.
 
Another potential PoD is for the National Party not to be so anti-English in outlook and obsessed with Afrkaaner purity meaning that instead of restricting immigration after 1948 they make a big effort to attract European immigrants. This means another few million more whites whuch gives the state the manpower to keep things going for longer.

Yeah but the majaority of these immigrants will probably not support the Nats in elections.

The majority of immigrants will likely side with the United Party, in all likelihood. Increased European migration may also result in an overall more liberal society (not necessarily though, that's just speculation). This may in fact lead to an earlier end to apartheid, or perhaps things like the introduction of a qualified francise in the 1970s or '80s.
 
I'm not really a fan of geological PODs, but yes, I guess if SA was blessed with another valuable/strategic mineral like oil, then they could well have lasted a fair bit longer. Plenty of other nasty regimes have done similar tricks

The problem for SA though is that it is has a lot of special characteristics that make it unlikely to be ignored. Being part of the Commonwealth (e.g. Australia, NZ and Canada all sent troops to the 1899-02 war), its participation in the big wars, the English speaking White minority, the high profile politicians like Smuts (during both Wars), cultural and sporting links etc being examples of that. It isn’t a Nicaragua or Central African Republic so other countries or interests are going to interfere or take an interest regardless of what it does.

Here is a non exhaustive list of PODS that I've raised or seen suggested in previous threads:
1) Major global PODs – say no WW1, 2 or Great Depression (usual suspects)

2) Major local PODs – no 2nd South African War (or a different one – say, earlier, later, faster, slower, no concentration camps etc), no Jameson’s Raid, no re-election of Kruger, Britain convincing Portugal to sell or lease lower Mozambique before 1899 etc, no WW1 Afrikaner rebellion

3) Lesser pre Apartheid PODs – Different post War settlement leading to a different Union? There are all sorts of things like minor changes to electoral rules in the occupied Republics or the Colonies that could make a huge difference. Say for example the British (how I do not know) force the other three constituent members of the prospective Union to adopt the Cape Franchise or something more liberal. Or in a less radical change Britain not allowing the Afrikaner population quite such a generous allocation of MPs post peace/during the Union (Smuts & co managed to get a concession allowing the number of electorates to reflect total Afrikaner population as opposed to actual voter numbers (noting that women and some poorer or uneducated types had less or no voting rights, even if white), which would have given non Afrikaner white males a stronger or dominant position in the early, pre Suffrage Union). Or say no cutting back of the Cape Franchise in the 1930s (again not sure how)

4) The obvious – NP not winning the 1948 election – if they managed to stay out of office for even one term that could introduce sufficient butterflies as IIRC the next election was 1953. By that time a lot of things had changed – all traces of post War austerity would have long gone, the Korean War would have occurred (and Smuts would have got involved if he stayed PM and did not die), Eisenhower was President, Britain had started getting a lot of pressure to decolonise in Africa (noting India/S Asia’s earlier decolonisation in 1948-onwards) – see Gold Coast especially, or Kenya (Mau Mau rebellion started in 52 IIRC). Would a victorious 1953 NP still want to, or be able to implement their hugely ambitious OTL legislative programme?
 
^ Well, as for the obvious POD, if Smuts is still alive when the Korean War breaks out, South Africa would have probably dispatched greater numbers of troops to Korea, instead of just air force units as IOTL. That could go either way - Smuts gets another big victory against communists and uses that as a hammer to beat the NP into a loss in 1953, or its being involved in another of "England's Wars" and costs him. Would the NP still be wanting to enforce its agenda in 1953? Absolutely. Could they? Probably. It's also worth noting that the NP was run by Malan in 1953, he wasn't there for long afterwards, and both him and Smuts gone (likely by the mid 50s) changes much of the political climate.
 
I think that if Mandela was taken out in the 60’s, then rather than having the passive and mostly non violent/charismatic opposition that occurred, which defeated Apartheid on a intellectual basis, if the ANC would have went a more violent route, SA could have firmly cracked down and delegitimized black suffrage as being nothing more than a tool of international Bolshevism.

However, SA may at this point degenerate either into a Rhodesia (in a constant state of war), or may lean more towards a police state, to keep their people in line.

That being said, Apartheid may continue on into the modern era, but South Africa would potentially be universally loathed (even more so, than it was historically), but this may have also been a boon for them, since it would encourage disenfranchised whites from western nations to immigrate, creating a very angry and potentially dangerous pariah state.
 
The only way for Apartheid system to survive today is if South Africa became as repressive as North Korea. Eventually, the economy was going to crumble anyway due to sanctions, and with that, resistance to Apartheid would skyrocket.
 
I can imagine South Africa, if it becomes basically like North Korea, encouraging immigration from racist whites to come and move to South Africa. :(
 
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