WI :Rhodesia becomes an immgration paradise?

What if Rhodesia becomes a significant immigration destination, especially during the interbellum and immediately after WW2, ready to accept European emmigrants (be they Poles, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Greeks etc.), thus increasing the European segment of Rhodesian population two or threefold.

How would this affect the recognition of Rhodesia and the Bush War, considering that many of these people woukd have been emigres who escaped Nazism, Fascism and Communism?
 
Not interwar or just post ww2, but here is a take to have a rhodesia with 1 million+ people by 2000

No carnation revolution or Spinola takes and keep power and keep the colonies, there is partial decolonisation with portugal keeping southern mozambique well into the 80s, rhodesia survives for so long and doesn't fuck up too much - no anthrax attack or anything that could really infuriate the USA -.

Comes the 90s and the fall of the communist block, rhodesia is in trouble but offer a lot of immigration visas to eastern european, poles, hungarians, czech, ukrainians who have few job opportunities are now able to go to rhodesia and be treated as first class citizens just because of their skin colour, hundred of thousands take the offer and rhodesia quickle is swarmed, from 350-400k (extrapolation from IRL 70s figure into the 90s) whites it could reach a million within a decade, at this point they also democratize, although they offer a compromise more similar to rhodesia-zimbabwe that still give the whites over representation in the assembly, maybe the vice president has to be white or there are a dedicated number of white seats.

The place would eventually become one of the wealthiest state in africa and also attract some whites from south africa and the portuguese colonies.
 
Not interwar or just post ww2, but here is a take to have a rhodesia with 1 million+ people by 2000

No carnation revolution or Spinola takes and keep power and keep the colonies, there is partial decolonisation with portugal keeping southern mozambique well into the 80s, rhodesia survives for so long and doesn't fuck up too much - no anthrax attack or anything that could really infuriate the USA -.

Comes the 90s and the fall of the communist block, rhodesia is in trouble but offer a lot of immigration visas to eastern european, poles, hungarians, czech, ukrainians who have few job opportunities are now able to go to rhodesia and be treated as first class citizens just because of their skin colour, hundred of thousands take the offer and rhodesia quickle is swarmed, from 350-400k (extrapolation from IRL 70s figure into the 90s) whites it could reach a million within a decade, at this point they also democratize, although they offer a compromise more similar to rhodesia-zimbabwe that still give the whites over representation in the assembly, maybe the vice president has to be white or there are a dedicated number of white seats.

The place would eventually become one of the wealthiest state in africa and also attract some whites from south africa and the portuguese colonies.
And Blacks would just take that lying down? I mean you make it sound so rosy, that I can't help but feel it's glossing some major stuff.
 
A lot of the emigrants would be unskilled blue collar workers, and if they have to compete with cheaper native labor... (see all the bellyaching about what poor Russian refugees did to white prestige in Shanghai during the interbellum).
 
Same thing that happened in South Africa, where whites were 1/5 of the population when apartheid started.

Less than a quarter of the population can’t control the others as second class citizens indefinitely.
 
And Blacks would just take that lying down? I mean you make it sound so rosy, that I can't help but feel it's glossing some major stuff.

+1

If Rhodesia becomes an immigration paradise, white people will have to accept to mingle with Black people, otherwise the society will never even become fonctionnal. This ain't Afrikaners invading Black people's mountains to escape British oppression, if people immigrate to Rhodesia, already governed, they will probably have to accept the fact that they have to keep the most peaceful relationship they can with native africans. On the other hand, it will also be necessary to convince the Native Africans that this isn't your regular flavor of European immigration, and that will be hard to.
 
+1

If Rhodesia becomes an immigration paradise, white people will have to accept to mingle with Black people, otherwise the society will never even become fonctionnal. This ain't Afrikaners invading Black people's mountains to escape British oppression, if people immigrate to Rhodesia, already governed, they will probably have to accept the fact that they have to keep the most peaceful relationship they can with native africans. On the other hand, it will also be necessary to convince the Native Africans that this isn't your regular flavor of European immigration, and that will be hard to.
Also this isnt the americas, black peoples in Africa have ethnic identities just as strong as in Europe, and I not shure about the native actitud towards exogamy.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
There was another thread here on this subject and it was stated that the Rhodesians were WASP elitists. They didn’t want poor whites or non-British coming to Rhodesia.
It's worth noting that 95% of applicants to move to Rhodesia in 1948 were turned down.

There were strict quotas.

Firstly they didn't really want non british whites. Lots of Italian and Poles were refused permission to move there (and in the 1930s repeated attempts to settle European jews there were pushed back) and the post ww2 quotas explicitly said that of the 10,800 whites they would admit they would only accept a maximum of 720 non british subjects, 960 british subjects from outside the UK and South Africa and 4,560 each from South Africa and the UK.

The Rhodesian government's policy was that they did not want to "alter the social structure and weaken the British character of the country"

Secondly, they didn't want poor whites. In 1916 the figure of minimum capital for a settler was £1,000. And by 1948 any prospective settler needed to possess at least £1,500 in capital or have a regular income of not less than £500 per year.

The Rhodesian government's policy was that they had "no use for white peasants". They saw any Europeans who fell below the upper middle-class level as damaging to white supremacy.

Rhodesia repeatedly turned down offers for white immigrants during the 1930s when large amounts of Czechs and Hungarians were ready to move there. The problem is not on getting people who want to move, it's getting the Rhodesians to accept them.
 
There was another thread here on this subject and it was stated that the Rhodesians were WASP elitists. They didn’t want poor whites or non-British coming to Rhodesia.
Would delaying responsible government by a few decades change the demographics at all? If immigration policy is still in London's hands they might be less choosy with the people they allow to emigrate.
 
They could try 50/50 representation in Parliament, still unfair, but it might keep them around for a longer period of time.

If Rhodesia takes basically-unlimited white/European immigration, then that sort of thing might not even be necessary as the white people could naturally become a majority.

OTL Rhodesia in 1946 had 80,000 white people and 1.6 million black people... which isn't much for a country which is much bigger than the UK by area.
(Northern Rhodesia, which was much bigger still, had 22,000 white people and 1.6 million black people in 1946, for comparison).

So, like, it's very sparsely populated. If the country opened itself to fairly unlimited migration from Europe, the indigenous people would probably naturally end up becoming a minority anyway (and would probably be enfranchised in the end)
 
Not interwar or just post ww2, but here is a take to have a rhodesia with 1 million+ people by 2000

No carnation revolution or Spinola takes and keep power and keep the colonies, there is partial decolonisation with portugal keeping southern mozambique well into the 80s, rhodesia survives for so long and doesn't fuck up too much - no anthrax attack or anything that could really infuriate the USA -.

Comes the 90s and the fall of the communist block, rhodesia is in trouble but offer a lot of immigration visas to eastern european, poles, hungarians, czech, ukrainians who have few job opportunities are now able to go to rhodesia and be treated as first class citizens just because of their skin colour, hundred of thousands take the offer and rhodesia quickle is swarmed, from 350-400k (extrapolation from IRL 70s figure into the 90s) whites it could reach a million within a decade, at this point they also democratize, although they offer a compromise more similar to rhodesia-zimbabwe that still give the whites over representation in the assembly, maybe the vice president has to be white or there are a dedicated number of white seats.

The place would eventually become one of the wealthiest state in africa and also attract some whites from south africa and the portuguese colonies.
If the communists took over in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution, could the retornados from Angola and Mozambique end up moving to Rhodesia instead of Portugal?
 
The OTL Rhodesian leadership probably wouldn't have been open to immigration from South and East Asia, but large Chinese and Indian diaspora communities in Rhodesia seems plausible in an ATL. It could be just intra-African migration of Rhodesia taking in the Ugandan Asians, or people emigrating from China and South Asia.
 
If the communists took over in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution, could the retornados from Angola and Mozambique end up moving to Rhodesia instead of Portugal?

Main problem is that by the time portugal would turn commie - say late 75, most retornados would have come back, and those who were still there mostly went to south africa.

If you can somehow have a carnation revolution turn portugal commie (it wouldn't be IRL's revolution, but i'm sure you can find a way with a sufficiently early POD) within months, then they - and the soldiers - will just stay in portuguese colonies and declare an UDI like rhodesia, if necessary let off some parts (south-eastern angola and northenr mozambique). With two additional white led states around rhodesia likely won't collapse until at least the late 80s.

If the portuguese colonies then collapse at this point, then the settlers from angola will mostly go to the USA, non commie europe and south africa, with maybe some to brazil and a bit to rhodesia, those in mozambique will mostly go to south africa and maybe a bit to rhodesia, but the population center were just far from salsbury, i doubt more than 100k would move to rhodesia especially as it can't really accept as many people as south africa can.
 
What if Rhodesia becomes a significant immigration destination, especially during the interbellum and immediately after WW2, ready to accept European emmigrants (be they Poles, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Greeks etc.), thus increasing the European segment of Rhodesian population two or threefold.

How would this affect the recognition of Rhodesia and the Bush War, considering that many of these people woukd have been emigres who escaped Nazism, Fascism and Communism?

You'd basically have to change Southern Rhodesia so much, especially in turns of bringing the Africans on the table towards sharing power with the European population, that it would basically be not the Rhodesia that we know IOTL. There's a reason many of those potential European immigrants stayed away from places like Rhodesia and preferred other locations like Australia, Mexico, Venezuela, West Germany, the US, et. al., not to mention why Rhodesia had such a difficult time retaining White minority rule when it kept leaking people out of the country. You'd be better off having the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland become an independent Commonwealth realm from the get-go by preparing the region during the inter-war period for eventual self-rule (and do a better job of it than OTL in the area or even what happened during the Raj) as well as African majority rule. Furthermore, to make the Federation work would require reorganizing the constituent units to increase their number to make regional representation much more better and accountable - and more stable and more empowering for the African majority. (Also, for rule of cool, having Lusaka, not Harare/Salisbury, as the federal capital since Lusaka is more centrally located within the Federation.) Only once the structural issues are resolved within the 3 constituent colonies that would become the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland would the area be ready to accept more Europeans once again - and therefore the Bush War would not exist as a result of butterflies.
 
If Rhodesia takes basically-unlimited white/European immigration, then that sort of thing might not even be necessary as the white people could naturally become a majority.

OTL Rhodesia in 1946 had 80,000 white people and 1.6 million black people... which isn't much for a country which is much bigger than the UK by area.
(Northern Rhodesia, which was much bigger still, had 22,000 white people and 1.6 million black people in 1946, for comparison).

So, like, it's very sparsely populated. If the country opened itself to fairly unlimited migration from Europe, the indigenous people would probably naturally end up becoming a minority anyway (and would probably be enfranchised in the end)
That’s true, I just doubt they could attract enough people to get above 20-30% of the population. If you get the UK to recognize Rhodesia’s independence, then it might be possible, but without significant outside support, Rhodesia is doomed.
 
What if Rhodesia becomes a significant immigration destination, especially during the interbellum and immediately after WW2, ready to accept European emmigrants (be they Poles, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Greeks etc.), thus increasing the European segment of Rhodesian population two or threefold.

How would this affect the recognition of Rhodesia and the Bush War, considering that many of these people woukd have been emigres who escaped Nazism, Fascism and Communism?

I know Asians who left Rhodesia in the 1970's, it was no immigrants paradise unless you were very white.
 
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