africa

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It isn't a case of apartheid was linked to communism, the connection is that while apartheid was practiced by a Western government, those groups fighting against it were prime candidates for use by communist governments (i.e. specifically the Soviet Union) to destabilize the Western government with a view to installing a communist or at least pro-Soviet government.

Once the Soviet Union was no longer able to fund anti-Western organizations (whatever the aims of those organizations were, e.g. Greenpeace, ANC and dozens of 'social reform' groups throughout the West), those organizations had to look elsewhere for funding. The ANC launched a worldwide campaign for funds and members visited Australia, the US, the UK and so on. Since the threat of a communist or pro-communist South Africa was now a thing of the past (due to the collapse of the Soviet Empire), the US, UK, Australia et al no longer had to support the white (apartheid) South African government.
They in fact went about supporting the dismantling of white rule in South Africa, some of this was recognition that the Cold War threat was gone and some of it was guilt for supporting a racist regime.

The "end of communism" meant the end of Western support for South Africa, the only white ruled Western nation in Africa and the nation specifically in control of the strategic sea lane between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The US and UK had allowed white South Africa to continue a racist policy of government so as to ensure a non-communist control over that part of the world. With the end of communism, the chance of South Africa becoming communist became null and void and so they helped the black struggle groups by not helping the apartheid regime.

[Legbreaker]

It's worthy to note that political violence has decreased significantly during ANC rule, although not disappeared.

Perhaps that's due to the perpetrators moving from opposition into positions of power

[StainlessSteelCynic]

There was certainly an effort to include members of the various apartheid resistance groups into the social and governmental framework of post-apartheid South Africa and this has significantly reduced the political violence.
However political protests are still common and they are still protesting against corruption in government, the treatment of the poor, the lack of basic utilities, the lack of jobs and so on.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201007221026.html

http://links.org.au/node/1105

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.phpstory=2009040409223612

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,599010,00.html

Plus, there is still violence but it has become violent crime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_South_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_wars_in_South_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_security_industry_in_South_Africa

[Rainbow Six]

R6,

South Africa certainly could come apart for many reasons. While I understand the emotional linking of Apartheid to communism, I would like to understand what the reasoning is. This is a lot like the assertion that Pope John Paul II somehow caused the fall of communism... the two events (his becoming Pope and the end of the Cold War) may be directly linked, but it's hard to find a concrete connection or causal chain of events leading from one to the other.

I'm not looking for a debate on how Pope JPII caused or didn't cause the end of communism. I'm more wondering what the end of communism would have to do with the fall of Apartheid or the continuation of one somehow guarantees the continuing of the other. If anything, if we grant the KGB supported the ANC then in theory there should be an opposite effect. That is, if KGB support is withdrawn then the ANC should have collapsed, but it didn't.

How about for the v1 or v2/2.2 timeline Apartheid ends in South Africa, but the still-existing KGB prods the ANC into more of a revolutionary end-game. Land and businesses belonging to whites are seized, en masse, some kind of "African Socialism" is imposed. Splits appear in the ANC and their allies, perhaps Mandela declares himself "President-for-Life" or is ousted and/or assassinated for being too moderate (by hard-line Afrikaaner militia commandos or false-flag KGB operatives) and a race war erupts. As the events spiral out of control in the rest of the world and in South Africa, a "fortress Trasnvaal-Zulu" strategy is enacted, per Nate's post.

Tony

Tony, Stainless Steel Cynic has already pretty much summed up what I would have said here, namely that it suited the UK and the US to allow apartheid to continue as that gave the best possible guarantee against a communist South Africa and all that would entail - as well as the control of the sea lanes between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans that's been mentioned, it would also have given the Communist Bloc control of South Africa's substantial mineral resources.

That's why I think the two are linked...as long as there was a Soviet Union there was a threat of South Africa turning communist and becoming a Soviet client state, so the preferred outcome for western Governments was the continuation of apartheid Government in South Africa. Perhaps it was rationalised as being the lesser of two evils - equally you could call it "my enemy's enemy is my friend" - successive apartheid Governments were all rabidly anti communist.

However, when communism collapsed (at least as far as the Soviet Union was concerned) that removed London and Washington's fear of South Africa turning communist, so as far as the British and Americans were concerned it was no longer neccessary for an apartheid Government to remain in power.

That's why I think there's a high possibility of apartheid Government still being in place in a V1 timeline, but (not in a V2 or 2.2) .

However, that said a black majority Government in V1 is not impossible. The first direct talks between Nelson Mandela and President Botha took place in 1989, but both sides had been sounding each other out since 1986. I believe one of the main catalysts for these talks was Gorbachev's ascension to power, following which the Soviet Union made clear it wished to disentangle itself from the Southern African conflict zones of Angola and Mozambique. As a consequence of this, South Africa no longer felt as threatened by what the Government used to refer to as "Total Onslaught". So, if you have a V1 with Gorbachev in place for a period of time (until perhaps overthrown by a coup) then I think it's possible that you could have had a South Africa with multi party elections taking place at some point in the mid 1990's as happened IRL.

I hope that clarifies my thinking on this (and thanks SSC for putting it better than I probably could have done myself )

Cheers

Dave