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As we approach the 108th anniversary of the end of the second Boer War and the merger of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic into the Afrikaner Republic of Transvaal (ART). In 1910, the Cape Colony would merge with Rhodesia to form the Dominion of South Africa (DSA).

These two new nations would progress in differing paths. The DSA was overwhelmingly English-speaking with Dutch/Afrikaners making up 5 percent of the population. There was also mass immigration from India to the DSA. One such immigrant, Mohandas Gandhi became a prominent lawyer in Cape Town and the de facto leader of the Indian community (later becoming Attorney General in the 1930s and Chief Justice of the South African Supreme Court). The dominion developed into a liberal society as immigrants arrived from the UK, Greece, Hungary, Poland and Russia (most of the Russians and Poles were Jewish) during the 1940s. Today, the population of the DSA is split evenly between blacks and whites and Forbes magazine recently rated the DSA as the second best place to start a business.

The ART is overwhelmingly Afrikaans and heavily dominated by rural (Boer) interests. The country is overwhelmingly conservative and the Dutch Methodist Church is the official state religion. Historically, blacks in the country worked in the Boer farms and had very few rights (that is, those that remained after they were forcefully exiled to Southwest Afrika which is now an autonomous region of the Archduchy of Deutsch Afrika). In 1955, the ART granted limited voting rights to nonwhites and granted autonomy to KwaZulu where most of the black population lived. Mangosuthu Buthelezi is the Grand Chief of the Zulu tribes and Premier (head of government) of KwaZulu since 1975. Mangosuthu's cousin, Goodwill Zwelethini is the figurehead King of the Zulus. In 1976, blacks were allowed to vote in national elections for the Volksraad when KwaZulu was granted 3 seats (followed in 1980 with one seat given to the Ciskei region).

Nevertheless, there are still a few lines in the ART that blacks and whites do not cross, such as interracial marriage (legal in the DSA since 1962) and racially mixed neighborhoods. The professional rugby and soccer teams are still 100 percent white.

Had the British won the Boer War, could a merger of the Afrikaner and English speaking peoples have succeeded? Would such a merged country have succeeded in integrating the races and various ethnic groups?

Personally, I believe that it would be ASB as the British and Afrikaners have demonstrated that they cannot live together.
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