Now it’s the first time in several months that I’m writing a post in this blog. I’ve had the topic I will write about in this post in my mind for several months, but only now do I have the time to write about it.
The topic consists of points of divergences (PODs) of various kinds that result in the different parallel universes that I have described in general in past blog posts. Some PODs exist in the context of alternate histories (e.g. battle victories), but many others are the everyday decisions (or, for that matter, life-altering ones) which people make literally every second. Yet other PODs derive from accidents or other (potentially) life-threatening situations, and PODs can also spring from any one of various moves in games or sports. Concerning the latter, they say that sports are like a peace-time war anyway!
I have already highlighted a few alternate histories, also known as counterfactual histories, in many of my previous blog posts. They range from the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka not being assassinated in 1959 - thereby butterflying away the eventual civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils - to Southern Rhodesia joining the Union of South Africa in 1923, forestalling later problems with apartheid, the post-2000 Zimbabwean crisis, etc. Of course, my website on British Argentina and Uruguay (http://www.britishargentina.com) is of the same alternate historical variety. What these all share is some POD for subsequent events to take place differently in each of the parallel universes than in our own universe. (I am especially interested in alternate histories with happy outcomes, as opposed to, say, if the Nazis win World War II.) These make by far the most interesting outcomes to PODs, for me anyway.
Another class of PODs transpires every single second as countless billions of people (not to mention a whole host of other creatures) make decisions big and small on what to do next. As an example, I may be talking about my friend and what I would do with him. When I talk to him on the telephone and we exchange “hi, how are you?”, I might then have the choice of asking him, as the first thing, “Could I hang out with you today?” or “Tell me about your day so far.” If I choose the former in this universe, I might choose the latter in another universe, and I can make a difference in the conversation but generally not more than that.
A bigger decision that I could make is whether on given day I could go to a travel-gear store (to buy accessories for some future trip) or just stay at home. If I choose to shop for travel gear in this universe, and maybe buy some travel accessories, I might elect to stay home in another universe. Then, that parallel universe would be different in that I don’t end up buying the travel gear like in this universe.
Finally, an example of a life-altering decision could be what university to attend after high school. In my case, I was looking for a reputable university, with a large enough Jewish community and a geography department, that wasn’t too far from where I’m from (Montreal). For the final three choices, I had McGill (in Montreal), Johns Hopkins (in Baltimore), and Rutgers (in New Jersey). I ended up choosing Rutgers, in this universe anyway. In another universe, I chose Johns Hopkins; in yet another, McGill. My subsequent life in each of those other universes became different from the one that I knew, because I would take different courses, meet different professors and university-mates, and more generally experience life differently because of the individual environments of Baltimore or Montreal relative to the New Jersey and New York metropolitan area.
Another rich source of PODs is, unfortunately, the myriad of life-threatening incidents that present themselves, like accidents, violent crimes, terrorist attacks, severe weather, and fires. Such situations, especially accidents of various kinds that result in injuries or deaths, bother me greatly especially when comparing such PODs to those for the alternate histories. Anyway, a good example could be the crash of TWA flight 800 in July 1996, in which everybody aboard was killed. On that flight, there was somebody who missed that flight, and as a result lived to tell the tale. The point is, in some parallel universe or another, that person did take the flight, and perished. Yet another parallel universe unfolded in which that TWA flight did not crash, and reached its destination without incident. The POD in this last case would be a catastrophic malfunction (or lack thereof).
The last major set of PODs involves the games and sports that people play. Just like with histories, everyday decisions, accidents, and the like, games and sports involve infinite sets of all possible outcomes - no matter how small. In fact, many sports and games are especially noteworthy for all the strategies that players use, or else sheer luck. For example, if I am playing Trivial Pursuit, if I roll the dice and I have three, I must think of which tile to land on from the tile that my game piece is on now. I then have a choice of whether to land on a history question or one on nature. If I end up moving my game piece to the history question in this universe, in another universe, my game piece ends up on the nature question. Another example of a POD in this category is a soccer match; for example, between England and Germany. Sundry factors will determine whether it’s England or Germany that wins, and any of these are different in various parallel universes than in our universe. In some of these universes (like perhaps ours), England wins; in others, Germany wins.
The point of mentioning all the above PODs is that there is such a diversity (and infinity) of parallel universe-forming PODs, some of which get along with each other but many more clash with one another. The categories I have outlined in this post are independent of one another; they are too different to compare one with the other. That’s not even covering all the various possible categories of parallel universes out there, including myriads of those that have more (or fewer) spatial and/or temporal dimensions than us, or different mathematical constants.
PODs come in all shapes and sizes; many PODs can be truly small-scale (involving only one person to a few people), while some others can be enormous in scope, and yet others in between. The small scale PODs include most of those connected to everyday decisions, small-scale incidents, and games and small-scale sports. Bigger in scale are local and regional alternate histories, major sport matches, and many major incidents (such as jet plane crashes). The largest PODs of all involve alternate histories on a continental or world-wide scale; those have the most far-reaching consequences. See the list below:
alternate history
small scale: Brooklyn remains a separate city from Manhattan to this day.
medium scale: The British keep Cuba after 1763.
big scale: The US South wins the Civil War in the 1860s.
everyday/life-altering decisions
small scale: I decide to order coffee at the café, as opposed to tea like in this universe.
medium scale: I decide to go to an art supply store next week, instead of today like in this universe.
big scale: I decide to become a professor, and not an urban planner like in this universe.
serious incidents
small scale: Due to fatigue, I sleep on the wheel on a highway and get into an accident with severe injuries, and not avoid such an accident like in this universe.
medium scale: In a hurricane, all the people living in a neighbourhood (e.g. in Houston, Texas) ignore warnings to evacuate and many get killed, versus just a few in this universe.
big scale: Bill Clinton beefs up air security in the late 1990s, thereby preventing the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington that took place in this universe.
games/sports
small scale: In a game of solitaire, I unearth a card saying 3 instead of a card saying 7 like here, with different eventual outcomes for the game.
medium scale: In the 13th season of the Amazing Race (a reality TV program), in the second Russian leg of the race, a guy named Dallas does not lose his wallet and passport. Thus, he and his mother are still in the race (unlike here).
big scale: West Germany wins the World Cup of soccer over Argentina in 1986, and not the other way around like here.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Greater and better-off South Africa
A couple of months ago, I read Andrew Roberts’ book “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900”. There, I intended to get additional insight into the AWW parallel universe where Argentina and Uruguay have been much more British than they have been in this universe. I did, but I also got to know from there, as well as subsequently from the soc.history.what-if group (in Google Groups) and others, about a South Africa without formal apartheid. Roberts, at one point, was talking about how South Africa would have avoided the full blow of apartheid along with its negative ramifications if the English-speaking whites had been in charge of the police, armed forces, and politics, or if Jan Smuts (an Afrikaner [=Afrikaans-speaking white] moderate) had won the election of 1948 instead of the National Party (a radical Afrikaner party).
In the various newsgroups, I realized that the best way to ensure both scenarios was with the whites in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) voting in a 1922 referendum for joining the Union of South Africa. (In our world, the majority of Southern Rhodesian whites voted to become a self-governing colony.)
In the parallel universe where Southern Rhodesia joined South Africa (which I will call Greater South Africa World or GSAW), the proportion of the white population of South Africa that was English-speaking increased automatically, since Southern Rhodesia’s whites were overwhelmingly Anglophone. That way, Southern Rhodesia (officially the Province of Rhodesia, and usually called just Rhodesia) became South Africa’s fifth province. (Until 1922, the Union of South Africa had consisted of just Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal.) This meant a lesser proportion of Afrikaners than in our universe’s South Africa. Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zambia and Malawi, respectively) became British protectorates in 1924, just like in this world. Also the same as in our world, South West Africa (now Namibia) became a mandated territory of South Africa but was treated as a province of South Africa. As for Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Basutoland (now Lesotho), and Swaziland, they eventually became tribal territories within the Union of South Africa, and remain so today.
Despite not as high a percentage of Afrikaners as in our own universe, James B.M. Hertzog won the elections in 1924, given that Jan Smuts (the previous prime minister) suffered in the polls due to a miners’ strike a couple of years earlier. Hertzog was able to designate Afrikaans as an official language alongside English, and to make a new, Dutch-type flag (the Prinsvlag). Whereas in our universe the Prinsvlag’s centre consists of a small British flag that is sideways in between the flags of Transvaal and the Orange Free State, in GSAW, the British Union Jack is more prominent in the centre and is right side up. A decade later, in 1933, Hertzog formed a coalition with Smuts and Smuts became the Prime Minister, with Hertzog becoming the Deputy Prime Minister. Hertzog stepped down as prime minister a couple of years after that (versus 1939 in this universe).
During World War II, South Africa in GSAW was an Ally even more than here, and participated more in the battles in Africa and elsewhere alongside the British, Australians, etc. This led to earlier victories against the Axis, and freed up forces from India, Australia, and New Zealand to fight against the Japanese in the Pacific Front more effectively.
In the crucial 1948 elections in South Africa, thanks in large part to the English-speaking and pro-British populations in Rhodesia as well as Natal and elsewhere, Jan Smuts (of the United Party) won the vote, against the National Party. Since Smuts was not a draconian racist, he did not lead South Africa to apartheid the way the National Party did in this world. Even so, he and his successors maintained the racial segregation that had always existed between the blacks and whites, even while gradually lessening it over the years (just like in the American South). Radical Afrikaner racism (i.e. apartheid) became more and more of a fringe movement. Because of the more liberal politics under Smuts and his ilk, South Africa admitted more European immigrants after World War II in GSAW than in our universe; these same immigrants in our universe went to Australia, Canada, or the United States. Due to all this, the protests by the non-whites (e.g. Sharpesville), along with the reactions of the security forces, were not as violent as the apartheid we have known of here, and the process of racial integration was quicker. From the 1950s to the 1970s, blacks gained more and more civil rights along with the franchise. The tribal territories of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, as well as black reserves (cf. “bantustans” in our world) won the right for their blacks to get control over local affairs in the 1960s.
After Jan Smuts died in 1950, Jacobus G.N. Strauss (also of the United Party) took over as Prime Minister. In 1956, yet another United Party member, David P. de Villiers Graaff, became Prime Minister; ten years later, also on a United Party ticket, Ian Smith from Rhodesia took over that post. In 1974, Colin Eglin from the more liberal Progressive Party became Prime Minister, and was instrumental in ending white minority rule six years later. Democracy was also quicker to making inroads in South Africa and neighbouring countries, and the various black African nationalist movements have been gentler than in our world.
A giant step towards majority rule in South Africa was taken in 1980, when Nelson Mandela was elected to be the first black Prime Minister of South Africa. After a couple of years of negotiations in the late 1970s, the white minority government was ready to hand over power to blacks, especially since they were clamouring for it for the previous 2-3 decades. This was the first time that non-whites could vote in South Africa without restrictions. At the same time, South Africa became a republic with a non-executive President as head of state and a Prime Minister as head of government. (South Africa, in GSAW, had still been a Commonwealth realm right up until the end of white rule.) Nelson Mandela remained Prime Minister until Robert Mugabe took over in 1985, who in turn reigned until Thabo Mbeki was elected in 1995. South Africa switched to an executive presidency on January 1, 1988.
South Africa in GSAW had a population of 51, 584,000 as of January 1, 1993, making it the 24th most populous country in the world. Its area is 2,240,496 square kilometers (or 865,098 square miles); that makes South Africa the 13th biggest country or dependency in the world, and the 4th biggest in Africa. In 1998, South Africa’s per capita income was $5600 US in real exchange terms, and $12,000 US in terms of purchasing power parity (versus half of each of these figures in this universe). That makes South Africa far and away the wealthiest country on the African continent. The crime rate is pretty high, but not as high as in our universe; even a place like Johannesburg isn’t so dangerous in GSAW like it is here. Basic demographic indicators like birth rates, infant mortality, and life expectancy are better off in GSAW than here. Also, there is not quite as much corruption and clinging to power in South Africa as in its neighbours or in the South Africa we know of. For example, in GSAW, there is none of the hyperinflation, famine, or repression that Zimbabwe has been famous for in our universe since the year 2000, because it is a part of a greater and wealthier South Africa in the GSAW universe. Thus concludes an abbreviated tour of the South(ern) Africa of the parallel universe where Southern Rhodesia’s white voters in 1922 decided to join South Africa!
In the various newsgroups, I realized that the best way to ensure both scenarios was with the whites in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) voting in a 1922 referendum for joining the Union of South Africa. (In our world, the majority of Southern Rhodesian whites voted to become a self-governing colony.)
In the parallel universe where Southern Rhodesia joined South Africa (which I will call Greater South Africa World or GSAW), the proportion of the white population of South Africa that was English-speaking increased automatically, since Southern Rhodesia’s whites were overwhelmingly Anglophone. That way, Southern Rhodesia (officially the Province of Rhodesia, and usually called just Rhodesia) became South Africa’s fifth province. (Until 1922, the Union of South Africa had consisted of just Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal.) This meant a lesser proportion of Afrikaners than in our universe’s South Africa. Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zambia and Malawi, respectively) became British protectorates in 1924, just like in this world. Also the same as in our world, South West Africa (now Namibia) became a mandated territory of South Africa but was treated as a province of South Africa. As for Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Basutoland (now Lesotho), and Swaziland, they eventually became tribal territories within the Union of South Africa, and remain so today.
Despite not as high a percentage of Afrikaners as in our own universe, James B.M. Hertzog won the elections in 1924, given that Jan Smuts (the previous prime minister) suffered in the polls due to a miners’ strike a couple of years earlier. Hertzog was able to designate Afrikaans as an official language alongside English, and to make a new, Dutch-type flag (the Prinsvlag). Whereas in our universe the Prinsvlag’s centre consists of a small British flag that is sideways in between the flags of Transvaal and the Orange Free State, in GSAW, the British Union Jack is more prominent in the centre and is right side up. A decade later, in 1933, Hertzog formed a coalition with Smuts and Smuts became the Prime Minister, with Hertzog becoming the Deputy Prime Minister. Hertzog stepped down as prime minister a couple of years after that (versus 1939 in this universe).
During World War II, South Africa in GSAW was an Ally even more than here, and participated more in the battles in Africa and elsewhere alongside the British, Australians, etc. This led to earlier victories against the Axis, and freed up forces from India, Australia, and New Zealand to fight against the Japanese in the Pacific Front more effectively.
In the crucial 1948 elections in South Africa, thanks in large part to the English-speaking and pro-British populations in Rhodesia as well as Natal and elsewhere, Jan Smuts (of the United Party) won the vote, against the National Party. Since Smuts was not a draconian racist, he did not lead South Africa to apartheid the way the National Party did in this world. Even so, he and his successors maintained the racial segregation that had always existed between the blacks and whites, even while gradually lessening it over the years (just like in the American South). Radical Afrikaner racism (i.e. apartheid) became more and more of a fringe movement. Because of the more liberal politics under Smuts and his ilk, South Africa admitted more European immigrants after World War II in GSAW than in our universe; these same immigrants in our universe went to Australia, Canada, or the United States. Due to all this, the protests by the non-whites (e.g. Sharpesville), along with the reactions of the security forces, were not as violent as the apartheid we have known of here, and the process of racial integration was quicker. From the 1950s to the 1970s, blacks gained more and more civil rights along with the franchise. The tribal territories of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, as well as black reserves (cf. “bantustans” in our world) won the right for their blacks to get control over local affairs in the 1960s.
After Jan Smuts died in 1950, Jacobus G.N. Strauss (also of the United Party) took over as Prime Minister. In 1956, yet another United Party member, David P. de Villiers Graaff, became Prime Minister; ten years later, also on a United Party ticket, Ian Smith from Rhodesia took over that post. In 1974, Colin Eglin from the more liberal Progressive Party became Prime Minister, and was instrumental in ending white minority rule six years later. Democracy was also quicker to making inroads in South Africa and neighbouring countries, and the various black African nationalist movements have been gentler than in our world.
A giant step towards majority rule in South Africa was taken in 1980, when Nelson Mandela was elected to be the first black Prime Minister of South Africa. After a couple of years of negotiations in the late 1970s, the white minority government was ready to hand over power to blacks, especially since they were clamouring for it for the previous 2-3 decades. This was the first time that non-whites could vote in South Africa without restrictions. At the same time, South Africa became a republic with a non-executive President as head of state and a Prime Minister as head of government. (South Africa, in GSAW, had still been a Commonwealth realm right up until the end of white rule.) Nelson Mandela remained Prime Minister until Robert Mugabe took over in 1985, who in turn reigned until Thabo Mbeki was elected in 1995. South Africa switched to an executive presidency on January 1, 1988.
South Africa in GSAW had a population of 51, 584,000 as of January 1, 1993, making it the 24th most populous country in the world. Its area is 2,240,496 square kilometers (or 865,098 square miles); that makes South Africa the 13th biggest country or dependency in the world, and the 4th biggest in Africa. In 1998, South Africa’s per capita income was $5600 US in real exchange terms, and $12,000 US in terms of purchasing power parity (versus half of each of these figures in this universe). That makes South Africa far and away the wealthiest country on the African continent. The crime rate is pretty high, but not as high as in our universe; even a place like Johannesburg isn’t so dangerous in GSAW like it is here. Basic demographic indicators like birth rates, infant mortality, and life expectancy are better off in GSAW than here. Also, there is not quite as much corruption and clinging to power in South Africa as in its neighbours or in the South Africa we know of. For example, in GSAW, there is none of the hyperinflation, famine, or repression that Zimbabwe has been famous for in our universe since the year 2000, because it is a part of a greater and wealthier South Africa in the GSAW universe. Thus concludes an abbreviated tour of the South(ern) Africa of the parallel universe where Southern Rhodesia’s white voters in 1922 decided to join South Africa!
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