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I was reading a textbook on South African history. Of interest was a story of the South African election of 1948 in which Prime Minister Jan Smuts turned back a challenge from the overtly racist National Party.

I was wondering what would have had to happen for Daniel F. Malan and his National Party to win that election. My personal opinion is that Malan becoming Prime Minister of that country would be totally ASB. His personal admiration for Adolf Hitler was well known to the public. And he wanted to codify the racial segregation that existed in South Africa and take the country out of the British Commonwealth.

A Malan- led South Africa would also be ASB because Smuts crafted the policy to liberalize the country's immigration laws after World War II and he encouraged many Britons to move to South Africa. After all, much of Europe was in economic dire straits after the war. For many out of work British including recently discharged veterans, the offer was too good to pass up.

Nearly 100,000 Britons moved to South Africa. Thanks to Smuts, they were granted South African citizenship and voted in those 1948 elections. This so-called "greatest generation" would contribute to the economic, cultural and political life of South Africa. In fact, one such immigrant would become Prime Minister of South Africa. The wave of immigration would continue into the 1950s as Poles, Hungarians, Russians, Yugoslavs, Indians, and Jewish survivors of the Holocaust settled in South Africa.

Now, can anybody even imagine a South Africa led by a political party dominated by Nazi sympathizing, rural redneck bigots?
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