WI: No Apartheid

Czar Kaizer

Banned
It doesn't really matter. As long as the migrant labour system, urban segregation and land expropriation continue there will continue to be resistance to whoever is in power. Perhaps you might not get an armed struggle but as blacks continue to become more urbanised, whites will inevitably push back. I've never really bought into the idea that the UP getting elected in 1948 would inevitably lead to slow reform. There are a lot of factors to consider, would the UP risk alienating their white base by granting greater rights to non whites? Definitely not, they would quickly loose votes to the NP. What about the colour bar? No UP government is going to risk loosing the votes of poor whites by taking away their job security.
Any reform will be seen as selling out the white man, so even if apartheid isn't implemented in 48, the UP will be hurt badly in the next election if they take even a very moderate reform agenda. So no aprtheid means that either it get's implemented later when the Nats take the election after a huge backlash from the white population or the UP is so slow in reform that blacks will inevitably rise up against the state.
 
It doesn't really matter. As long as the migrant labour system, urban segregation and land expropriation continue there will continue to be resistance to whoever is in power. Perhaps you might not get an armed struggle but as blacks continue to become more urbanised, whites will inevitably push back. I've never really bought into the idea that the UP getting elected in 1948 would inevitably lead to slow reform. There are a lot of factors to consider, would the UP risk alienating their white base by granting greater rights to non whites? Definitely not, they would quickly loose votes to the NP. What about the colour bar? No UP government is going to risk loosing the votes of poor whites by taking away their job security.
Any reform will be seen as selling out the white man, so even if apartheid isn't implemented in 48, the UP will be hurt badly in the next election if they take even a very moderate reform agenda. So no aprtheid means that either it get's implemented later when the Nats take the election after a huge backlash from the white population or the UP is so slow in reform that blacks will inevitably rise up against the state.

But who knows what butterflies come from a UP victory in '48, especially if they expand the coloured franchise?
 
Without formal apartheid, South Africa might end up like Southern Rhodesia where there was a limited franchise for non-whites, and the legal segregation is not as strict. I imagine this would still result in some sort of struggle with the black majority demanding more rights, particularly by the 1970s, and this of course would create instability and resistance by the white minority. Whereas a limited franchise and some rights would have been viewed as "progressive" in the 1950s, by the 1970s it would have been criticized by nationalist groups like the ANC.

So without apartheid, you might not have mass resettlement of non-whites, meaning there are more non-whites living in townships around the cities. No tribal homelands, perhaps just land reserved for Africans, and blacks being limited to where they can own land. Rhodesia had a single university, and it was desegregated, but on the other hand Rhodesia had a much smaller white population (1/15th the size) than South Africa, making something as cumbersome and costly as a apartheid and the bureaucracy to go with it unfeasible.

Additionally, if you see an earlier transition to majority rule, you might have a larger exodus of whites from the country, as the spectre of Communism was still omnipresent before 1989. In Kenya around one-third of the country's white population had left the country by 1969 as land redistribution laws were put into effect. In Zimbabwe too, nearly half of the country's white population had emigrated by 1985, and this was long before the expropriation of white land. Much of the post-apartheid emigration that did occur IOTL was probably due to uncertainty about the future coupled with the declining rand in the 1990s. If such a change came about in the 1970s or 1980s, that uncertainty would have been multiplied, and would have also increased Asian emigration from the country too.
 
So without apartheid, you might not have mass resettlement of non-whites, meaning there are more non-whites living in townships around the cities. No tribal homelands, perhaps just land reserved for Africans, and blacks being limited to where they can own land. Rhodesia had a single university, and it was desegregated, but on the other hand Rhodesia had a much smaller white population (1/15th the size) than South Africa, making something as cumbersome and costly as a apartheid and the bureaucracy to go with it unfeasible.

Remember blacks had already their ownership of land restricted by the 1913 Land Act. Maybe without that (don't how to prevent it) butterflies from that prevent apartheid as we know it.
 
Given how distorted the FPTP system was (UP polled 11% more in the popular vote and still lost) I could see UP pushing electoral reform if they won. If they went for full PR I could see that having an impact on South African politics.
 
I agree with you re: the IFP-ANC, but you brought up in response to a question about whether a Mugabe-like figure could emerge in SA.

There was certainly a low-level civil war between the ANC and the IFP in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Johannesburg, which could easily have erupted into a bigger conflict. Jacob Zuma, for all his faults, played a major role in bringing an end to the violence between the IFP and ANC.

The coup is an interesting one. Constand Viljoen has some different stories but there have been claims that he was a few phone calls away from mobilising his men and overthrowing the government.

http://mg.co.za/article/2001-03-26-sa-came-within-whisker-of-civil-war

A coup by hardliners in 1993 would have been a disaster for South Africa.

Interesting. That would make a really intriguing if rather depressing TL if somebody decided to write it.

It doesn't really matter. As long as the migrant labour system, urban segregation and land expropriation continue there will continue to be resistance to whoever is in power. Perhaps you might not get an armed struggle but as blacks continue to become more urbanised, whites will inevitably push back. I've never really bought into the idea that the UP getting elected in 1948 would inevitably lead to slow reform. There are a lot of factors to consider, would the UP risk alienating their white base by granting greater rights to non whites? Definitely not, they would quickly loose votes to the NP. What about the colour bar? No UP government is going to risk loosing the votes of poor whites by taking away their job security.
Any reform will be seen as selling out the white man, so even if apartheid isn't implemented in 48, the UP will be hurt badly in the next election if they take even a very moderate reform agenda. So no aprtheid means that either it get's implemented later when the Nats take the election after a huge backlash from the white population or the UP is so slow in reform that blacks will inevitably rise up against the state.

I would actually disagree. The NP considered 1948 to be a CRUCIAL election to win because the UP was planning to end districting and representation rules that massively over represented rural whites (OTL the Nationals won a commanding majority with 40% of the vote as was mentioned earlier in the thread). Smuts winning, changing the rules, encouraging tons of immigration (that might be the biggest thing, those immigrants aren't going to vote for an Afrikaaner nativist party), and quite possibly expanding the colored franchise, even if only by one or two seats, would make it incredibly difficult for the National Party to get a majority in future elections.
 
I would actually disagree. The NP considered 1948 to be a CRUCIAL election to win because the UP was planning to end districting and representation rules that massively over represented rural whites (OTL the Nationals won a commanding majority with 40% of the vote as was mentioned earlier in the thread). Smuts winning, changing the rules, encouraging tons of immigration (that might be the biggest thing, those immigrants aren't going to vote for an Afrikaaner nativist party), and quite possibly expanding the colored franchise, even if only by one or two seats, would make it incredibly difficult for the National Party to get a majority in future elections.

Just one thing, the coloured franchise wasn't separate - expanding it wouldn't see more coloured seats - it would see more coloureds being allowed to vote. This would mean that marginal seats would become safe UP seats, and probably lock in a UP majority for the foreseeable future.

It would be interesting to see what parties would arise in this TL. The Nats would still be there, but would the Progs arrive? And would we see a coloured interest party form?
 
Given how distorted the FPTP system was (UP polled 11% more in the popular vote and still lost) I could see UP pushing electoral reform if they won. If they went for full PR I could see that having an impact on South African politics.

Perhaps but a redistricting to equalise urban and rural seats may mean you don't need to do that.
 
If the political reforms with no Aparthied were sufficient to prevent the arms embargo, would that mean South Africa would develop a less extensive arms industry ITTL? Here are a few examples of arms deals that I think would have gone through ITTL:
  • More C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. IOTL the South Africans bought the C-160 Transall instead. IIRC they bought 7 C-130B and 9 Transalls or it was the other way around;
  • 5 Oberon class submarines in place of the French Daphne and Agosta class submarines bought in the real world;
  • 20 additional Buccaneers plus some attrition replacements for the 16 that were sold;
  • In the 1970s they also wanted to buy some Nimrods to replace their Shackletons, but that was turned down too;
  • I think they would have bought some Leander class frigates from the UK to replace the Emergency type destroyers that they bought from the UK in the 1950s if the British Government had been prepared to allow the sale. Later on they bought some A69 corvettes from France, but the French Government cancelled the deal and they were sold to Argentina instead.
 
The united party advocated under jg Strauss, and Sir divillars graaf, 8 Bantu Seats in the house of assembly, elected by Africans who had the equivalent of a middle school education or owned property, in the amount of 850 rand, about 1500 Us dollars These were to be white representatives simmlar to the 3 cape representatives, between 1936 and 1959. Coloured would be allowed to vote for six members of their own race and or whites, provided they had paid a poll tax and were able to read and write in Afrikaans, Xhosa or English. Both races would have more members in the less powerful senate.
 
What effect would South Rhodesia joining the Union of South Africa at its birth have had on South African politics? Obviously there are pretty big butterflies involved, but in general would it have helped or hindered the NP and apartheid?
 
The NP considered 1948 to be a CRUCIAL election to win because the UP was planning to end districting and representation rules that massively over represented rural whites (OTL the Nationals won a commanding majority with 40% of the vote as was mentioned earlier in the thread). Smuts winning, changing the rules, encouraging tons of immigration (that might be the biggest thing, those immigrants aren't going to vote for an Afrikaaner nativist party), and quite possibly expanding the colored franchise, even if only by one or two seats, would make it incredibly difficult for the National Party to get a majority in future elections.
Combining those two would be interesting. They could easily argue that thanks to the expansion of the media in the forms of newspapers and wireless plus improved transportation links from the railways and increasing automobile ownership mean that the special rules for rural constituencies are no longer equitable and pass legislation to equalise the number of electors in constituencies by carrying out a boundary review. They run the subsidised immigration scheme heavily in the first three years or so to increase the, entirely coincidentally Anglo, white population, then have the boundary review take place to set the number and locations of the constituencies for the 1953 general election to take advantage of them whilst the number of rural constituencies is reduced.


NOM, whilst I enjoy the occasional military-related thread as much as the next man not everything has to revolve around tanks, guns, planes, and ships.
 
What effect would South Rhodesia joining the Union of South Africa at its birth have had on South African politics? Obviously there are pretty big butterflies involved, but in general would it have helped or hindered the NP and apartheid?

Southern Rhodesia would have supported Smuts most likely. Who knows, Rhodesia joining the Union probably butterflies away fusion in 1934, leaving the SAP and NP separate. We may also see a stronger Dominion party, as it is likely that a Dominion party would have support in Southern Rhodesia.

Southern Rhodesia being part of the Union butterflies away the '48 NP victory, so who knows where this could have led.
 
So what happens to all the racist whites if the UP wins in 48? Their feelings aren't going to go away and racists tend not to accept defeat/marginalisation gracefully.
 

Cook

Banned
Back to the OP it all depends how we avoid apartheid.

Perhaps Leander Jameson is killed during the raid; Cecil Rhodes is more severely censured for having organised a criminal enterprise against the governments of the Boer Republics and his career is destroyed?

Edit: typo corrected.
 
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Perhaps Leander Jameson is killed during the raid; Cecil Rhodes is more cleverly censured for having organised a criminal enterprise against the governments of the Boer Republics and his career is destroyed?

Perhaps - that may even butterfly away the Boer War, and then who knows what South Africa will look like in the next few decades.
 
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