South Africa: How Far Can the Situation Deteriorate?

South Africa had a long history of apartheid, and there was much abuse and heavy handedness involved in that and involved in maintaining it against assault. When Apartheid ended, I don't think many expected it to be like that. I think the assumptions were that it would end in violent civil war, and/or that the white South African government would become more and more a police state. And in Robocop for example, the city of Pretoria became a police state city-state which got a nuclear weapon to defend against the black South Africa around it.

Given the interesting times South Africa went through in the 80s and 90s, how much could the situation in that nation have deteriorated?
 
South Africa had a long history of apartheid, and there was much abuse and heavy handedness involved in that and involved in maintaining it against assault. When Apartheid ended, I don't think many expected it to be like that. I think the assumptions were that it would end in violent civil war, and/or that the white South African government would become more and more a police state. And in Robocop for example, the city of Pretoria became a police state city-state which got a nuclear weapon to defend against the black South Africa around it.

Given the interesting times South Africa went through in the 80s and 90s, how much could the situation in that nation have deteriorated?

South Africa beat the odds, with the very likely possibility existing that it would have turned into a massive civil war. How ugly is anyone's guess, but it turning not just into a black-on-white civil war but into a multiple-front war. The various ethnic groups in South Africa could have easily turned against each other just as much as against the whites.
 
The various ethnic groups in South Africa could have easily turned against each other just as much as against the whites.

It would have probably resembled the breakup of Yugoslavia or the Lebanese Civil War more than anything else.
 
... The various ethnic groups in South Africa could have easily turned against each other just as much as against the whites.

They did. Kwaza-Zulu (not sure if I spelt that right) vs ANC violence was endemic at the time. That's where "necklacing" or putting a tire over someones head and setting it on fire came out of.
 
They did. Kwaza-Zulu (not sure if I spelt that right) vs ANC violence was endemic at the time. That's where "necklacing" or putting a tire over someones head and setting it on fire came out of.

KwaZulu.

And no, necklacing didn't evolve there, it had been used as a way to punish collaborators in townships for some time before that.

In 1993 (I think) the South African military were very close to overthrowing the government through a coup d'etat.

If that had happened things could have got very messy, very quickly.

There would probably have been up to 10 factions fighting in the country. The fact that SA did not collapse into civil war is actually kinda ASB.
 
KwaZulu.

And no, necklacing didn't evolve there, it had been used as a way to punish collaborators in townships for some time before that.

In 1993 (I think) the South African military were very close to overthrowing the government through a coup d'etat.


If that had happened things could have got very messy, very quickly.

There would probably have been up to 10 factions fighting in the country. The fact that SA did not collapse into civil war is actually kinda ASB.

Do you have a link to a source on that?
 
There were some tense moments here and there:

1) The killing of Chris Hani. That was one of the days I went home early from the office. Nobody really understood it and what was going to happen

2) The "Battle of Llibrary Gardens" was another event where a Zulu march turned ugly

3) The AWB attack on the trade centre in Kempton park: the start at least. It turned into absolute farce later on

4) The incursion into Bop. If Viljoen had joined AWB, not sure what it would have ended up in

Despite all of it, I am somehow convinced that SA (even in 1994) had a too big and mature middle class, which is not particular into revolution.

Ivan
 
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