DBWI: Non-democratic Rhodesia

[Francisco Cojuanco]

Now, as we all know, in Africa today most of the countries therein are one sort of dictatorship or another, or otherwise essentially an electoralist authoritarian state. The exceptions today are Cape Verde, South Africa, Basutholand, Bechuanaland, Mauritius - and (Southern) Rhodesia.

Your choice, if you choose to accept it, is, with a POD after the end of the Second World War - 1945 - to have Rhodesia, in 2014, not be considered a democracy. Communist, fascist, whateverist, doesn't matter.

 

[Delta Force]

OOC: Not sure if that's the tag for this, but it is in the nation sim RPs I do. Why isn't it Zimbabwe? Name doesn't change, Rhodesia doesn't unilaterally secede from the British Empire, the white-minority government goes democratic without rejoining the Empire? Something else?

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

OOC: Not sure if that's the tag for this, but it is in the nation sim RPs I do. Why isn't it Zimbabwe? Name doesn't change, Rhodesia doesn't unilaterally secede from the British Empire, the white-minority government goes democratic without rejoining the Empire? Something else?

OOC: If you mean the POD, one of them would be if the '62 election goes as predicted, with the UFP winning overwhelmingly, so no RF. Make of that what you will.

 

[CaliBoy1990]

Now, as we all know, in Africa today most of the countries therein are one sort of dictatorship or another, or otherwise essentially an electoralist authoritarian state. The exceptions today are Cape Verde, South Africa, Basutholand, Bechuanaland, Mauritius - and (Southern) Rhodesia.

Your choice, if you choose to accept it, is, with a POD after the end of the Second World War - 1945 - to have Rhodesia, in 2014, not be considered a democracy. Communist, fascist, whateverist, doesn't matter.

I dunno about Communist; Robert Mugabe may have had his share of followers, but most of them were actually in South Africa; In fact, Mugabe was actually killed in 1980 while leading an attack on several army bases north of JoBurg.....I guess it's possible he could somehow manage to take over Rhodesia with help, but you'd have to get Ian Smith in office if you wanted things to get really bad.....Smith was very much a hard-right authoritarian and had he won, could very well have started Rhodesia down a similar path that North Korea took in the '80s under Kim Jong-Il.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

I dunno about Communist; Robert Mugabe may have had his share of followers, but most of them were actually in South Africa; In fact, Mugabe was actually killed in 1980 while leading an attack on several army bases north of JoBurg.....I guess it's possible he could somehow manage to take over Rhodesia with help, but you'd have to get Ian Smith in office if you wanted things to get really bad.....Smith was very much a hard-right authoritarian and had he won, could very well have started Rhodesia down a similar path that North Korea took in the '80s under Kim Jong-Il.

I doubt Smith had the guts to go into full-blown dictatorship, though. Van der Byl, on the other hand, perhaps. The guy was a Rhodesian Mussolini, practically.

 

[Julius Vogel]

I think if Zionism had become more than a movement globally, the Rhodesian Jewish community might have faded away to nothing and their influence on civil rights negligible.

As it was, the growth (Mainly European refugees) of the Jewish community to 7,000 by 1939 inevitably meant that, despite wide spread anti Semitism, that they formed a substantial part of the white population and armed forces during the war. Then post war, it became hard to refuse entry to displaced peoples for the same reason.

This increased migration was a drop in the bucket compared to the majority black population, but it somehow seemed to take the edge off the nastiness of the minority race regime. Extremist parties tended to do badly as the white electorate was increasingly mixes, with many families having at least one refugee marry in. By the time Black citizens started organising for recognition in the 50s, the passion for discrimination seemed to have gone and the franchise was quickly expanded, although it would take a further 35 years before a non Ndebele /White person would be elected to the presidency.

 

[Julius Vogel]

OOC, I recently saw an article from 1957 which noted that 1 in 7 marriages in Rhodesia were between Jews and non Jews. So clearly not a particularly awesome agent of social change