Some thoughts about South Africa in the 50s-80s: Opposition to apartheid increased both internally and internationally. Nonwhites began terror campaigns against it, whites began to think of themselves as oppressors, and the international community imposed increasing penalties.
-
Show this thread
-
At some point it became clear that apartheid could not last. Costs from sanctions, terrorism, and conscience were just too high. What could be done? The easy path was to simply stop being the oppressors: democracy+equality under the law. That would appease the terrorists, right?
1 reply 1 retweet 11 likesShow this thread -
Nelson Mandela seemed to many to genuinely want peace between the races and vibrant rainbow nation multiculturalism (perhaps he believed it himself), so he was not too threatening to the whites in power.
2 replies 0 retweets 10 likesShow this thread -
So the majority of white people thought: 1. Oppressing people makes us feel bad and takes a lot of effort 2. Lifting sanctions will increase our prosperity 3. The nonwhites will be peaceful and not vindictive 4. Democracy would make everything work out
1 reply 0 retweets 14 likesShow this thread -
What else could they have done? They could have kept going as they were, but that was costing a lot of money. A minority of whites of course realized that democracy would result in them being permanently out of power and subhect to a hostile majority.
1 reply 1 retweet 14 likesShow this thread -
If they were oppressing the 85% nonwhite population while they were in power, why wouldn't the nonwhite population end up oppressing them with the roles reversed under democracy? Was democracy that magical? Why not cut losses and partition the country?
1 reply 1 retweet 14 likesShow this thread -
Let's say it's 1980 and whites are 15% of the population but hold 80% or more of the wealth and land. How do you partition the country? Can you keep 1/2 of the country for yourselves even though you're only 15% of the population? Maybe 40% would go over internationally?
1 reply 1 retweet 8 likesShow this thread -
Hard to say exactly what might have worked, but whites who might have gone for that strategy would have been looking at losing potentially half their property. Better to just blend into a rainbow nation and keep it all, right? (Also, partition is hard!)
2 replies 1 retweet 9 likesShow this thread
This is the point at which the thought-process you're so convincingly describing stumbles into madness.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.