Now I'm wondering, are there any dog or cat breeds (either New England specific or not) that are unique to this TL?
What a beautiful cat!!
Outside of IRL breeds common to the region (eg, the Maine Coon cat) there are no new unique breeds to New England.
God, this is... awful. I don't know what to say.
It is quite bad.
Jeez, I knew South Africa was bad ITTL but I didn’t realise they were North Korea-esque...
Yeah. It should convey the horrific position that the country finds itself in, and how the ideology of the initial coup of the 1940s/1950s... really never left.
How would the international and investigative journalist fare or worse in TTL South Africa? I think sometimes there are journalists who are trying to report about the realistic conditions are suffered from getting harassed by the government.
They would be arrested for crimes against the Government of South Africa. South Africa officially bans all foreign reporters inside the country, and attempting to do so is a capital offence.
Really awesome work about a terrifying country.
Thank you!
What does the “younger” generation (those who didn’t know the war, so millennials and younger for a comparison with IRL America) of Afrikaners think about the government and policies of the country? I guess that most are aware of the brutality of the regime (although some may not know/accept the worst bits, a bit like among some Chinese Mainlander IRL), but surely many people would want to be able to speak against the regime and not like that prominent protesters are arrested, i can kinda see a mindset like
“Yeah democracy would be nice but it would weaken us and external power which refuse categorically to negotiate with us would take advantage of it, and even if we do democratize they wouldn’t recognise us until we end the bantustan/apartheid system which is incompatible with our current economy and would make ME poorer”
I can see many people being sympathetic to liberal and egalitarian ideas but preferring subsidised services, and once people start having families surely highly subsidised parenting services would make older people want to keep the status quo for sure.
The younger generation is mostly apathetic to the "cause." There isn't exactly a ton of support for the government, but they know to shut up and not speak out, lest the police show up at their door in the night, never to be heard of again. Young Afrikaners who do want to escape, sometimes find a way through Namibia or Natal and make their way to Britain or New Zealand. There is an active anti-Regime community outside of the country, and there is hope that the youngest generation will be the future of the country. While the results are skewed because it was only done by those that escaped, most young Afrikaners are staunch anti-Racists.
Still I wonder if there is a slow generational change, because while right now international dialogue seems impossible maybe 20 years in the future it will be.
This is very possible! The reality is that it will take an incredible long time for the people to change and for the new Government leadership to take hold that shakes off all the negative policies of the past. While each generation has been better than the last, they are still horrifically racist and totalitarian.
And the legalisation of overnight stay for Black South African is interesting, is it done on a more individual scale or have large slums and “townships” appeared already? I guess that before that black South African working temporarily outside of the bantustans were kept in camp?
It's been done nationwide. You legally need a reason to be outside of a Bantustan, but the government
does have a visa you can apply for that is generally a "free contractor" wherein you are allowed to linger around designated areas in cities during the day to offer your labour. This has created some slum areas outside the city where these people live (illegally). Sometimes "slum cleaning" takes place by the army.
Also were there any uprising in Bantustans? I remember you saying that South Africa used WMDs against its own people, is it true and was it used against bantustans?
There have been a few. The most major uprisings have been in the Bantustans, and it was at the "Request" of the Bantustan leaders that "all measures" be taken to ensure the "complete independence" of these "countries." Thus, South Africa treated all rebels like an enemy combatant force that was attacking a loyal ally, and most often simply used the chance to test any and all new weapons they had developed.
Wait, I hate being a shitty killjoy, but not 'all' non-white citizens were in Bantustans, the cape Malays, coloureds, and Indians were second-class citizens
Technically the truth. but many Coloureds and the Asian population were classified as "white, non-citizens" and afforded the right to live outside of Bantustans. Only recently was citizenship extended to them by simply reclassifying them as white. The South African government has, indeed, adopted an insane racial binary that there is no straying from.
What percentage of the South African population (including Bantustans) is White?
By the TTL South African government's estimation? Around 55%. What we would understand and reasonably call white? About 30%.
