foreign relations of a surviving apartheid south africa

In any case, they would probably be forced to reform somewhat in order to continue surviving (either from threat of rebellion from within or worsening economic sanctions from without). Might even turn out better than the mess South Africa is today in OTL.

Apartheid South Africa was a fundamentally oppressive and deeply-mismanaged state, especially towards the end of its existence. The increasingly unstable state of the South African economy and looming financial problems that would have critically endangered the Apartheid regime's ability to function were one of many reasons that De Klerk and even Botha before him sought a negotiated solution to the conflicts with the ANC and others.

White minority rule was a brutal, damaging aspect of South African history that continues to leave deep and lasting wounds that last to this day in South Africa. The "mess" you are speaking of owes a large part of its existence to Apartheid: inequality of wealth, economic underdevelopment, shortcomings in education, infrastructure, and housing. There are issues beyond counting in contemporary South Africa that are the way they are because of the Apartheid Era. Because hardliners imposed a system that elevated their interests above those of all others and time and again proved willing to use violence to keep this system in place.

How is this system, in any way, a system worthy of preservation? Because actual South Africans, including white South Africans, ultimately rejected it historically.
 
I certainly didn't mean to insinuate that minority rule is better. States ruled by minorities tend to end badly.

What I did mean is that two decades of ANC rule probably haven't been the best for South Africa, what with the crime and corruption and all. Meant to imply that maybe different circumstances meant that someone else winds up in power in post-Apartheid South Africa.

So, yeah, sorry about that.

I don't see any way of avoiding it.

There's really no one person or party that has the kind of appeal that the ANC commands that could conceivably have replaced them. Plus the ANC was the party that spearheaded negotiations with the Apartheid government for a peaceful transition of power. Precisely because the ANC was the centre of resistance to Apartheid and there was really no alternative.

The problems the ANC has had are really not terribly dissimilar to those of other former liberation movements that have come to power in Southern Africa. It's actually surprisingly straightforward if you think about it in the right way: former liberation movements that started their existence as a resistance movement have now actually taken power. Whereas their history and foundation has been as a political and military struggle aiming to topple a ruling government, now these various parties such as the ANC in South Africa, SWAPO in Namibia, or the MPLA in Angola to name a few have now effectively become the government.

So there are problems with this because former military resistance movements don't always have capabilities for certain necessities of governance: administration, bureaucracy, the kinds of drudgery that governments function on. Plus if you come from a background of a wartime organisation where unity is key, it's harder for a party transitioning to civilian politics to perform the kind of self-criticism and internal opposition needed to have a vibrant, democratic party that takes misbehaving leadership to task.

To be fair Mbeki was pretty good actually. Economy was growing strongly and the ANC was at its zenith.

He had some blind spots (Aids, Zimbabwe) but it is unfair to lump him with Zuma in a league of shitty leaders.

Mbeki I think of as a profoundly complicated figure: he has his failures but he also has many successes that are not always acknowledged.

And to be fair on Zimbabwe, agree or disagree with Mbeki's approach, he did get Mugabe to agree to the first power-sharing arrangement that ZANU-PF has entered into since the 1980's, which is a pretty big deal considering the general trend of one-party rule that ZANU-PF has favoured since the end of the Rhodesian Bush War.
 
Would a surviving Portuguese Africa and Rhodesia help stabilize Apartheid South Africa? I know that the ANC and Namibian rebels had camps and bases in Angola, Zambia, and Mozambigue, etc. Perhaps if white rule continues to exist in Angola, Rhodesia, and Mozambigue, it would act as a buffer zone between Free Africa and South Africa. This would help the apartheid government deal with internal threats who wouldn't be able to get outside assistance.

That being said, economic sanctions from the west are still a problem. Of course, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia will no longer have real ties to 'communist' nations in Africa which might open up relations between the two nations. Also, a colonial Portugal and surviving Rhodesia would be friends with South Africa as well. Not only that but doesn't landlocked nations like Botswana and Zambia rely on South Africa for its ports?

Also, for a surviving Apartheid South Africa, perhaps the white government actually put a real effort into the homeland idea (which in reality was a farce). If they were to give each African ethnicity its own nation (and actual large swathes of decent instead of the worst land possible), Black Africans would be content?
Absolutely, with out Portugal helping South Africa is on its own, the problem is Portugal would have fallen into civil war itself if it kept fighting in Africa
 
Israel kept up relations to the very end. Is there any reason they'd change their policy for a surviving Apartheid South Africa?
No, in fact it is believed the 1979 nuclear test explosion was a joint Israeli-South African bomb and that the South African weapons are supposed to be what the Israeli weapons are close too. I would add Taiwan was also deeply involved in South Africa as an FU to China and that will not change. I think a surviving Apartheid South Africa will be friends with any right leaning dictatorships or government. Hell I could believe a Putinist Russia would have an ally in South Africa.
 
Absolutely, with out Portugal helping South Africa is on its own, the problem is Portugal would have fallen into civil war itself if it kept fighting in Africa

Past a certain point there's really no conceivable way for Portugal to continue the colonial war. Past a certain point it just turned into a stalemate where the only thing that the opposition had to do was not lose. They couldn't outright defeat the Portuguese, but the Portuguese were in a similar position vis-a-vis their opposition. One of the key reasons for the Carnation Revolution, which was led in large part by the Portuguese military, was that a lot of Portuguese soldiers and many officers saw themselves embroiled in a neverending conflict with no clear political or military resolution.

Portuguese colonialism, like that of other colonial powers, is living on borrowed time unless there is radical restructuring of the relationship between the metropole and the colonies: as in full political and legal equality between the Portuguese and the inhabitants of the colonies. Such proposals aren't without precedent historically, if I remember correctly, the nation of Gabon as a colony actually petitioned France for annexation as a full and equal part of France (so not a colony but basically another French territory), only for the French government to refuse.
 
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Past a certain point there's really no conceivable way for Portugal to continue the colonial war. Past a certain point it just turned into a stalemate where the only thing that the opposition had to do was not lose. They couldn't outright defeat the Portuguese, but the Portuguese were in a similar position vis-a-vis their opposition. One of the key reasons for the Carnation Revolution, which was led in large part by the Portuguese military, was that a lot of Portuguese soldiers and many officers saw themselves embroiled in a neverending conflict with no clear political or military resolution.

Portuguese colonialism, like that of other colonial powers, is living on borrowed time unless there is radical restructuring of the relationship between the metropole and the colonies: as in full political and legal equality between the Portuguese and the inhabitants of the colonies. Such proposals aren't without precedent historically, if I remember correctly, the nation of Gabon as a colony actually petitioned France for annexation as a full and equal part of France (so not a colony but basically another French territory), only for the French government to refuse.
I agree, and that is what I am trying to say, I have to wonder though if the Portuguese could have just handed South Africa control of those two colonies?
 
I agree, and that is what I am trying to say, I have to wonder though if the Portuguese could have just handed South Africa control of those two colonies?

It's not in the cards.

South Africa was already pushed to its limit fighting the Border War in Southwest Africa and Angola. The South African Defense Force was really structured to be a small, effective and professional force, not a massive occupying army.
 
It's not in the cards.

South Africa was already pushed to its limit fighting the Border War in Southwest Africa and Angola. The South African Defense Force was really structured to be a small, effective and professional force, not a massive occupying army.
Fair enough, Apartheid South Africa would have only racists as allies. Honestly I think an Apartheid South Africa that survives past 1994 means Nelson Mandela is dead, murdered by the government and is in the mists of a ethnic civil war on par with what happened in the Zaire/DR Congo. An Apartheid South Africa is small, racist and fighting for its survival surrounded by enemies only being backed by far right groups that only add bodies to the count. I can imagine internationally a lot of the far right coming to learn combat and fight for their beliefs and die in the process.
 
Fair enough, Apartheid South Africa would have only racists as allies. Honestly I think an Apartheid South Africa that survives past 1994 means Nelson Mandela is dead, murdered by the government and is in the mists of a ethnic civil war on par with what happened in the Zaire/DR Congo. An Apartheid South Africa is small, racist and fighting for its survival surrounded by enemies only being backed by far right groups that only add bodies to the count. I can imagine internationally a lot of the far right coming to learn combat and fight for their beliefs and die in the process.

Not possible IMHO. Apartheid was going to end, through one means or another. But there were a lot of long-term problems with the system, it wasn't just going to keep limping on forever. There were serious financial problems that, along with growing international sanctions, would have eventually collapsed the economy of the Apartheid regime. And that's a problem because once the economy collapses, the regime can't afford to keep supporting Bantustans and at this point the regime starts violently falling apart.

Also, the government of FW De Klerk or even PW Botha killing Mandela is extremely unlikely. Even hardline supporters of Apartheid didn't cross that line for a variety of reasons: namely that it would be the point of no return for the Apartheid regime and also because Mandela is the best chance the South African government has to make peace. In a way, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela as a political criminal actually played an instrumental role in the end of Apartheid because it gave the government a figure with whom to negotiate.

Even PW Botha, a hardline defender of Apartheid who declared a state of emergency and heavily intensified repression against the ANC and other resistance to Apartheid in the 1980's realised this. The curious thing about Botha is that his is a dual legacy: he is simultaneously a hardline figure who bears responsibility for intensifying Apartheid repression, he didn't earn the nickname "Die Groot Krokodil" (the Great Crocodile) for nothing. However, he also was crucially important in opening backchannel negotiations with the ANC and in the long-term paving the way for a peaceful transition of power in South Africa.
 
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Not possible IMHO. Apartheid was going to end, through one means or another. But there were a lot of long-term problems with the system, it wasn't just going to keep limping on forever. There were serious financial problems that, along with growing international sanctions, would have eventually collapsed the economy of the Apartheid regime. And that's a problem because once the economy collapses, the regime can't afford to keep supporting Bantustans and at this point the regime starts violently falling apart.

Also, the government of FW De Klerk or even PW Botha killing Mandela is extremely unlikely. Even hardline supporters of Apartheid didn't cross that line for a variety of reasons: namely that it would be the point of no return for the Apartheid regime and also because Mandela is the best chance the South African government has to make peace. In a way, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela as a political criminal actually played an instrumental role in the end of Apartheid because it gave the government a figure with whom to negotiate.

Even PW Botha, a hardline defender of Apartheid who declared a state of emergency and heavily intensified repression against the ANC and other resistance to Apartheid in the 1980's realised this. The curious thing about Botha is that his is a dual legacy: he is simultaneously a hardline figure who bears responsibility for intensifying Apartheid repression, he didn't earn the nickname "Die Groot Krokodil" (the Great Crocodile) for nothing. However, he also was crucially important in opening backchannel negotiations with the ANC and in the long-term paving the way for a peaceful transition of power in South Africa.
So what if the government had executed him in the 1960's? What happens then?
 
So what if the government had executed him in the 1960's? What happens then?

Although that's not beyond the realm of possibility, I fear that's something of a departure from the original topic of this thread.

That said, the Rivonia Trial resulting in a death sentence for Nelson Mandela is an interesting, albeit potentially very disturbing consideration.
 
I don't see any way of avoiding it.

There's really no one person or party that has the kind of appeal that the ANC commands that could conceivably have replaced them. Plus the ANC was the party that spearheaded negotiations with the Apartheid government for a peaceful transition of power. Precisely because the ANC was the centre of resistance to Apartheid and there was really no alternative.

The problems the ANC has had are really not terribly dissimilar to those of other former liberation movements that have come to power in Southern Africa. It's actually surprisingly straightforward if you think about it in the right way: former liberation movements that started their existence as a resistance movement have now actually taken power. Whereas their history and foundation has been as a political and military struggle aiming to topple a ruling government, now these various parties such as the ANC in South Africa, SWAPO in Namibia, or the MPLA in Angola to name a few have now effectively become the government.

So there are problems with this because former military resistance movements don't always have capabilities for certain necessities of governance: administration, bureaucracy, the kinds of drudgery that governments function on. Plus if you come from a background of a wartime organisation where unity is key, it's harder for a party transitioning to civilian politics to perform the kind of self-criticism and internal opposition needed to have a vibrant, democratic party that takes misbehaving leadership to task.

That's not really true and if there's one thing the ANC has done exceptionally well, is to frame itself as the only opposition to apartheid. By the 1970s, the ANC's internal resistance to apartheid was crushed. The vacuum was filled by organisations like the Black Consciousness Movement and people like Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Inkatha in KwaZulu-Natal, and even the white parliamentary liberal opposition. By the 1980s internal resistance had coalesced around the United Democratic Front (UDF) which had evolved without any assistance from the ANC.

The ANC did a fantastic job of doing a reverse takeover of the UDF once it was unbanned, and, at the same time, through propaganda and violence, setting itself up as the only legitimate opposition to apartheid.

The ANC emerging as this hegemonic opponent to aparheid was not inevitable, not by a longshot.
 
IMO Apartheid surviving requires the Soviet Union (and Cold War) to continue. The white regime heavily linked its struggle against the blacks with the struggle against Communism, and there is a slim but real chance that a continued Cold War (and continuing Soviet support for anti-Apartheid groups) would make it impossible to reach the peaceful resolution that occurred in OTL.

However, if that happens, things get real, real bad in SA. And they were already pretty bad in OTL (which we don't hear so much about in the US or UK since our countries were allies of the Apartheid regime for most of its existence). It becomes hard for anyone to avoid admitting that South Africa is in a state of civil war if Apartheid lasts longer. That's gonna hit the foreign relations.

My bet is that if Apartheid survives, it is with strong support by the US and probably UK government, much to the discontent of the citizens of the US/UK.

What I did mean is that two decades of ANC rule probably haven't been the best for South Africa, what with the crime and corruption and all. Meant to imply that maybe different circumstances meant that someone else winds up in power in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Let's be honest, the ANC had to clean up a massive mess. They're not anywhere close to being done and that's not surprising. Other regimes have indulged in similar misbehavior to that of the Apartheid government earlier in history, and the legacy is centuries of persistent inequality, violence and poverty.

It's hard to see any party doing much better in South Africa after you've read through what the white regime actually did in the Bantustans.

Also, for a surviving Apartheid South Africa, perhaps the white government actually put a real effort into the homeland idea (which in reality was a farce). If they were to give each African ethnicity its own nation (and actual large swathes of decent instead of the worst land possible), Black Africans would be content?

The problem is, the Bantustans are based on a flawed premise right from the start - people were ripped away from their communities, their families, their jobs and their familiar environment and dumped in barren wastes with no jobs and lots of strangers based on an "ethnic identity" which was close to irrelevant. Even if the regime didn't make the Bantustans giant prison camps and subsidize civil wars inside the Bantustans, there was no way they were going to turn out well.

White minority rule was a brutal, damaging aspect of South African history that continues to leave deep and lasting wounds that last to this day in South Africa. The "mess" you are speaking of owes a large part of its existence to Apartheid: inequality of wealth, economic underdevelopment, shortcomings in education, infrastructure, and housing. There are issues beyond counting in contemporary South Africa that are the way they are because of the Apartheid Era. Because hardliners imposed a system that elevated their interests above those of all others and time and again proved willing to use violence to keep this system in place.

And let's not forget the way the white regime encouraged divisions and political murders (while engaging in their own political murders) between the Apartheid opposition groups.

And people wonder why SA has a high murder rate now?

fasquardon
 
I don't see any way of avoiding it.

There's really no one person or party that has the kind of appeal that the ANC commands that could conceivably have replaced them. Plus the ANC was the party that spearheaded negotiations with the Apartheid government for a peaceful transition of power. Precisely because the ANC was the centre of resistance to Apartheid and there was really no alternative.

The problems the ANC has had are really not terribly dissimilar to those of other former liberation movements that have come to power in Southern Africa. It's actually surprisingly straightforward if you think about it in the right way: former liberation movements that started their existence as a resistance movement have now actually taken power. Whereas their history and foundation has been as a political and military struggle aiming to topple a ruling government, now these various parties such as the ANC in South Africa, SWAPO in Namibia, or the MPLA in Angola to name a few have now effectively become the government.

So there are problems with this because former military resistance movements don't always have capabilities for certain necessities of governance: administration, bureaucracy, the kinds of drudgery that governments function on. Plus if you come from a background of a wartime organisation where unity is key, it's harder for a party transitioning to civilian politics to perform the kind of self-criticism and internal opposition needed to have a vibrant, democratic party that takes misbehaving leadership to task.

On top of this, there are the problems always involved in transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. In a lot of ways, I think it makes sense to compare South Africa to post-Communist central and eastern Europe, or Latin America after the dictatorships. These countries were left with an impossible task of righting countries which have been badly mismanaged in the light of a mobilized and politically active population.
 
On top of this, there are the problems always involved in transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. In a lot of ways, I think it makes sense to compare South Africa to post-Communist central and eastern Europe, or Latin America after the dictatorships. These countries were left with an impossible task of righting countries which have been badly mismanaged in the light of a mobilized and politically active population.

Yeah, back during the death-throes of apartheid, you used to hear apologists say stuff like "Just you watch, when the whites are gone, the blacks will all start killing each other".

As most of these people were staunch anti-Communists, I can't help but wonder what they thought about post-Communist Yugoslavia.
 
My bet is that if Apartheid survives, it is with strong support by the US and probably UK government, much to the discontent of the citizens of the US/UK.
I dunno, sooner or later, the US public are going to be asking very bad questions about South Africa's necessity. And they can only wave the "AntiCommie" flag for so long.
 
On top of this, there are the problems always involved in transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. In a lot of ways, I think it makes sense to compare South Africa to post-Communist central and eastern Europe, or Latin America after the dictatorships. These countries were left with an impossible task of righting countries which have been badly mismanaged in the light of a mobilized and politically active population.

Yeah, back during the death-throes of apartheid, you used to hear apologists say stuff like "Just you watch, when the whites are gone, the blacks will all start killing each other".

As most of these people were staunch anti-Communists, I can't help but wonder what they thought about post-Communist Yugoslavia.

Just as true as 'when Saddam is gone, all the conflicts he kept frozen will thaw, all the conflicts he kept simmering will boil'. It's true without moral comment. Apartheid SA, and many regimes since forever, set things up just so.
 
Yeah, back during the death-throes of apartheid, you used to hear apologists say stuff like "Just you watch, when the whites are gone, the blacks will all start killing each other".

To be fair, with the whites gone, the blacks are killing each other. But they were killing each-other in regime-sponsored violence before Apartheid ended, and for my part, I'd rather live in a country with a high murder rate than a country with a high level of state-sponsored violence (for a bunch of reasons I won't go into, just so we don't derail the thread). I have to say, I've always been curious what the violent death rate during Apartheid was. I've never been able to dig up any good statistics for it.

I dunno, sooner or later, the US public are going to be asking very bad questions about South Africa's necessity. And they can only wave the "AntiCommie" flag for so long.

Agreed. But I think without the support of powerful foreign friends, the regime would fold like OTL (where the elite decide the regime is no longer in their interests) or in a more messy way (revolution, civil war etc.)

fasquardon
 
To be fair, with the whites gone, the blacks are killing each other. But they were killing each-other in regime-sponsored violence before Apartheid ended, and for my part, I'd rather live in a country with a high murder rate than a country with a high level of state-sponsored violence (for a bunch of reasons I won't go into, just so we don't derail the thread). I have to say, I've always been curious what the violent death rate during Apartheid was. I've never been able to dig up any good statistics for it.



Agreed. But I think without the support of powerful foreign friends, the regime would fold like OTL (where the elite decide the regime is no longer in their interests) or in a more messy way (revolution, civil war etc.)

fasquardon

Political killings only really became an issue in the late '80s and early '90s.

And S.A. crime rates are about where they were in the '79s.

https://theconversation.com/facts-s...not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444
 
Just as true as 'when Saddam is gone, all the conflicts he kept frozen will thaw, all the conflicts he kept simmering will boil'. It's true without moral comment.

Is it? I wonder. The shift to conflict in Iraq may have been overdetermined, what with hundreds of thousands killed in sectarian killings in the previous decades, but it is still possible to imagine different American policies which could have resulted in less radical instability post-2003.

More to the point, in thinking about South Africa and Yugoslavia and other like situations, it's worth noting that conflicts in these less dire situations only occurred (or not) because people made choices. In the case of South Africa, after doing their best to make things very bad for the large majority of South Africans, the apartheid state's rulers (and electorate) decided to stop else the whole thing backfire.
 
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