Internet sources, as well as a lot of history texts and autobiographies I've read throughout the years
New Deal Coalition Retained: A Sixth Party System Wikibox Timeline
shiftygiant
Gone Fishin'
Did you look these views up on Wikipedia? Because, and I'll be frank, you've made some very strange decisions and bizarre choices regarding certain figures and events. Even factoring in butterflies, it's just bizarre and often it gets mind boggling.
This is not to mention how there is a lot here that bears more than a passing resemblance to NSS.
This doesn't really give me any answers.
Now, I'm no expert on South Africa- I'll freely admit that- but @Marius (sorry for asking) but does the update make any sense to you? Because I'm struggling to really understand why South Africa would do what it's doing, or why Mandela would accept that deal, or how South Africa becomes prosperous through raw material exports.
And yet some of the changes are so wild and strange that I can't help but feel the sources you've used are critically flawed. Not to mention a habit I've seen of trying to justify leaps in logic with "butterflies"; obviously there will be butterflies, but you've made such leaps in logic over the course of all this it's honestly hard to see how the butterflies can lead to any of the situations unless your sources have been categorically wrong or misinformed.
Just to your one point about South Africa becoming prosperous through raw material exports, that actually makes perfect sense. Most African economies, if not all, are driven by commodity trading as they have little to no industry at all. Almost all of the economic growth in Africa atm (that is OTL) is driven by this trade, not by the production of industrial goods. So South Africa becoming prosperous through the exportation of raw materials is basically the only way it would become prosperous.
Uhura's Mazda
Banned
Is that 'Prosperous by comparison with the CAR' or 'Prosperous enough to maintain the regime'? And I would assume that even if the rich whites in SA were fantastically wealthy, that wouldn't exactly trickle down to the Blacks - so if anything, you've got more inequality, which means more violence.
You sure those two cannot be the same? I'd think it'd be prosperous compared to the rest of Africa. Also, I think that's sort of the whole point, though it appears that the South Africa government is going to invest some of that money in the black population through better education and more jobs, as well as better infrastructure. So you have that.
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He's currently the Commander and Chief of the Ubangi-Shari Military and the de facto ruler after the President suffered brain damage from a Communist assassination attempt bankrolled by Nigeria. Since Ubangi-Shari is a member of the French Community, he doesn't dare usurp power by coup - that would invite French intervention
Cold War period Africa is well outside my personal wheelhouse so I can't comment on the realism of the events. But it looks to me like Africa is going to turn out better than IOTL and I like that.
Regarding Africa's industrial development or lack thereof and dependency on export of raw minerals, I would think if Africa looks more stable and less inclined towards communism and nationalization, on the whole, there'd be greater foreign investment, which should help them develop faster than IOTL
Regarding Africa's industrial development or lack thereof and dependency on export of raw minerals, I would think if Africa looks more stable and less inclined towards communism and nationalization, on the whole, there'd be greater foreign investment, which should help them develop faster than IOTL
Plus the AIDS epidemic not developing - or being far less expansive, I'm still not sure as to what major disease I should have emerge from Africa - will really help Africa's development
The developments with AIDS actually gave me some ideas for a timeline idea I've been developing for a while-especially since I was inspired to research the history of the HIV virus itself and realized it split from SIV after my planned PoD
Lol. However it could still work if you have the disease burn itself out, like Ebola
Yeah, really a lot of things have to go right-from the pathogen's point of view-for a disease to become a massive continent spanning epidemic.
I could see Ebola being worse ITTL because AIDS being stamped out may reduce foreign interest in improving Africa's medical infrastructure.
I could see Ebola being worse ITTL because AIDS being stamped out may reduce foreign interest in improving Africa's medical infrastructure.
Just to add to this, most developing countries with the possible exceptions of South Korea and a very few really small countries that relied on trade because they didn't have natural resources pursued precisely this strategy, and Russia basically still is pursuing it. It's not sustainable in the long-run, but if commodity prices are good and the foreign aid spicket is turned on it can work in the short-term. They'll have to diversify, which means they'll need a larger educated work force.
As far as plausibility, this is basically the rational actor model taken to the Nth degree. I personally am not comfortable with that, but there's an entire subfield of rational choice scholarship in comparative politics for a reason.
South Africa banked on its natural resources to procure the capital needed to really modernize and become an economic powerhouse. To this they used the altered legitimacy and Rockefeller/Kennedy/Wallace Administration aid packages to good advantage, securing themselves as a top flight investment hub, tourist destination, and trade waylay point. Cape Town ITTL is Africa's Rotterdam in terms of trade.
As for the rational actor theory, I've explained why Treurnicht and the Pretoria government pushed this move and why Mandela accepted. Granted, by a flip of the dice it would be very rare to see it come up double six like it has here. However, in an alternate world one might think Nixon going to China would be just as unlikely, given the animosity between the two nations and Mao's... let's just say irrationality. OTL, around the same time - given South Africa isn't isolated and leveraged by the needed western aid and arms (and the known quantity of their nuclear weapons gives them a sense of security from foreign threats so that they don't become paranoid and overly closed off), we can say development is accelerated ITTL - P W Botha was already pushing for reform to stave off the destruction of the Apartheid state, so we already know there was a movement away from the harsh conditions Apartheid created. Sometimes, when the conditions convey themselves, it just works out.
Regarding South African economic growth, Apartheid itself has rather important implications for the dynamism or lack thereof of the South African labor market. A good source on this is William Harold Hutt's "Economics of the Colour Bar" which is basically a Liberty Conservative account of Apartheid.
Another reason for Truernicht to push his reforms. With South Africa's future tied to the world economy, if it cannot grow then it collapses. To co-opt Mandela and the moderate factions of the black population to this economic growth would get them into the system rather than going to war with it
It's frankly quite a rational thing for SA to have done, particularly if they're relying increasingly on finance and tourism, as well as western military aid. You'd need a critical mass of the leadership to come to the conclusion that moderation was essential to regime survival. My thought is that ideology might convince them that a South Africa that backs away from whites-only citizenship isn't really worth saving. Ideology makes people calculate their interests in ways that don't always make sense outside ideological constraints. But that's debatable, and identity/ideology can shift, or at least get reprioritized, due to circumstances. [See Laitin: Hegemony and Culture].
So for a Laitinesque decision, you'd need the elites to prioritize something else--anti-communism, Christian identity, affinity with the west, etc--over the idea they have of a purest white South Africa. It's not likely but it's certainly not as completely implausible as some here seem to be arguing, particularly if there's a survival imperative.
I do think, though, you need significant pressure from a liberty conservative Reagan administration, at least sufficient to let them know that any attempt to go in a harsher direction will result in SA getting cut off.
Pressure has been put on them since the Rockefeller Administration to reform in at least some way, but until Medgar Evers' sanctions bill passed the House it was never seriously considered by Pretoria that Washington would pull their funding. That and Soweto kind of served as the kick in the pants. They realized that the country couldn't survive a nationalist uprising and communist takeover (think what happened to Portuguese Mozambique) without them seriously cutting the support for revolution among blacks (the militant wings of the South African nationalists are much better armed and funded via multiple channels). Keeping a white supremacist South Africa took a backseat in Treurnicht's government to keeping them from being run roughshod by a communist black dominated government. Hence the quote at the top of the page.
Fantastic updates! Wow I loved every second of it
Ps. I hope you win!!! This TL is awesome and deserves all the votes
Ps. I hope you win!!! This TL is awesome and deserves all the votes