AHC: Orthodox-phobia instead of Islamophobia

whitecrow

Banned
(Disclaimer: I do not support Islamophobia nor do I support fear of Orthodox Church. Somehow though, this AHC idea popped into my mind, wondering how such a bizarre scenario could arrise)

As I am sure we all know, there are fears in certain circles about “Islamazation”/“Arabization” of Western Nations – the idea that through immigration, higher birth rate and conversion Islam will overtake Christianity in the first world nations and Islamic/Arabic/middle eastern culture will become predominant in the western world.

Now the challenge is to come up with a timeline in which

  • the people that in OTL fear the “immigrant invasion” of Europe and U.S. by Muslims from Middle East and Africa who want to impose Sharia Law on everyone instead fear the “Slavic hordes from the East” pouring into the Western World and forcing everyone to join the Orthodox faith;
  • Instead of fears of Islamazation/Arabization, there are fears of Orthodoxzation/Slavicization of the free world;
  • Oriana Fallaci, Robert Spencer, Mark Steyn and Melanie Phillips rather than spreading fears about “Eurabia” instead talk about “Euroslovacia” or some-such;
  • Switzerland outlaw Orthodox onion-domes instead of Muslim minarets;
  • etc, etc, etc.
So, how can you get such an upside down world? Try to be creative in your answers – don’t just say “Orthodox Slavs carry out 9/11” or something.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Would the Independent State of Croatia's savage genocide against the Orthodox Serbs count? I'm not sure where the PoD starts, but a good one would be not having a rapproachment between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in 1965. That would be a good PoD and also adds a bigger conflict between the Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Another idea would be a mass Slavic migration into Europe and North America after WWII (Soviet DPs would be a good candidates) One of my TLs had a Slavic migration into the Philippines (Tubabao's Miracle), contributing to the Orthodox-phobia among the Catholic elite in Imperial Manila.
 
Petike

Petike

Somebody's been reading Mughal World way too much...

whitecrow said:
rather than spreading fears about “Eurabia” instead talk about “Euroslovacia” or some-such.
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Wouldn't Euroslavia be more appropriate ? I doubt our incompetent little country could pull off anything remotely resembling something out of you regular Eurabia nuttery scenario. ;)
 
Alex Richards

Alex Richards

Donor
I think you'd have to remove the Soviet Union, or at least the agressively Atheist part of it, for this to happen. It's just too much of a swing to go from seeing the Russians and eastern Europe as 'Godless Communists blowing up churches' to 'mad orthodox extremists trying to convert everyone' so quickly.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Alex Richards said:
I think you'd have to remove the Soviet Union, or at least the agressively Atheist part of it, for this to happen. It's just too much of a swing to go from seeing the Russians and eastern Europe as 'Godless Communists blowing up churches' to 'mad orthodox extremists trying to convert everyone' so quickly.
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To remove the Soviet Union's atheist attitude, Marxism in nature would have to be changed radically or have a non-Marxist Soviet Union with the Russian Orthodox Church as one of the main instruments of authority.
 

Johnrankins

Sibirskaya said:
To remove the Soviet Union's atheist attitude, Marxism in nature would have to be changed radically or have a non-Marxist Soviet Union with the Russian Orthodox Church as one of the main instruments of authority.
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Have WWI won early with the monarchy intact. There were a couple of Socialist revolts that were put down with the help of the Orthodox Church. The regime is unstable and has to rely on the church for support. The Church becomes very militant claiming to be the "One true church which needs to be spread throughout the world at all costs" .
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Johnrankins said:
Have WWI won early with the monarchy intact. There were a couple of Socialist revolts that were put down with the help of the Orthodox Church. The regime is unstable and has to rely on the church for support. The Church becomes very militant claiming to be the "One true church which needs to be spread throughout the world at all costs" .
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This would have to require a major radical change in Russian military doctrine. I can imagine anti-Catholic factions elsewhere to look up to the Orthodox Church. Also, I'm sure the Orthodox Church would distrust and hate the Uniate Church.
 

Johnrankins

Sibirskaya said:
This would have to require a major radical change in Russian military doctrine. I can imagine anti-Catholic factions elsewhere to look up to the Orthodox Church. Also, I'm sure the Orthodox Church would distrust and hate the Uniate Church.
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True enough, but there would be almost 100 years to make such changes.
 

The Ubbergeek

A Religious Communism movement could arise, and do.. 'wonders'. Or such.

Sadly, the rise of a fanatical anti-religious right would emergeate, and peoples like Ayn Rand may be REALLY popular...
 

Draco

With POD after 1900 I think the only way this would be plausible would be for Russia to avoid getting involved in a conflict of the size of WWI or WWII. Without the World Wars and it's Civil War Russia would have a much larger population. Combine that with a Surviving Czarist State that manages to lumber on but just barely and largely through the support of the Orthodox Church. Then simply have the Russian economy implode spectacularly later on down the road causing further repression and people seeking greener pastures elsewhere.
So you have a Russian Empire with a population of probably half a billion that's a basket case that makes our TL's North Korea look like Switzerland that's having a large amount of people trying to get the hell out of dodge whose only source of stability that they've been able to cling to is an extremely fundamentalist version of Orthodox Christianity. I think that would probably scare the hell out of a great many people.
 
Osakadave

Osakadave

Orthodox is easy - do away with Islam or minimize it. Slavophobiqa requires a bit more work. Maybe something along the lines of the Slavs dominating more in the East due to a lack of the Arab expansion.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Osakadave said:
Orthodox is easy - do away with Islam or minimize it. Slavophobiqa requires a bit more work. Maybe something along the lines of the Slavs dominating more in the East due to a lack of the Arab expansion.
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Minimize would be the best solution. For Slavophobia to work, that would be tricky since Poland, Croatia, Czechia and Slovakia are all Catholics. Perhaps some sort of Slavophobia that is restricted to just the Russians, Serbs and Bulgarians. Not sure if the Greeks, Armenians and Georgians would count as people to fear because they're Orthodox Christians.
 

B_Munro

Draco said:
So you have a Russian Empire with a population of probably half a billion that's a basket case that makes our TL's North Korea look like Switzerland that's having a large amount of people trying to get the hell out of dodge whose only source of stability that they've been able to cling to is an extremely fundamentalist version of Orthodox Christianity. I think that would probably scare the hell out of a great many people.
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I don't think you can have a country that makes North Korea look like Switzerland and still have any people left alive at the end of the century... :D

I mean, heck, if I had to choose a place to live, I'd pick Somalia over North Korea, there's some stable bits nowadays, it's always sunny, and the women are hot... :)

Bruce
 

The Ubbergeek

Would a 'fascist' White Russia dictature going Hitler-Mussolini and trying to make An Even Greater Russia work?

The WHites where mixed, some liberals in the european sense I think, monarchists, and far-righters I guess... Have a radical one win, reunite and stabilise Russia...
One possibility maybe, tied - maybe someone switching sides in this mess? Maybe a Red guy help?
 
Hrvatskiwi

Hrvatskiwi

Sibirskaya said:
Minimize would be the best solution. For Slavophobia to work, that would be tricky since Poland, Croatia, Czechia and Slovakia are all Catholics. Perhaps some sort of Slavophobia that is restricted to just the Russians, Serbs and Bulgarians. Not sure if the Greeks, Armenians and Georgians would count as people to fear because they're Orthodox Christians.
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There are quite a lot of Christian Arabs too, but the Muslim suicide bomber stereotype still exists. If we butterfly away Russia's defeat in WWI, with an exhausted France and UK unwilling to fight, we can have Russia becoming Slavia relatively easily. Then everyone will be scared shitless.
 

Johnrankins

The Ubbergeek said:
Would a 'fascist' White Russia dictature going Hitler-Mussolini and trying to make An Even Greater Russia work?

The WHites where mixed, some liberals in the european sense I think, monarchists, and far-righters I guess... Have a radical one win, reunite and stabilise Russia...
One possibility maybe, tied - maybe someone switching sides in this mess? Maybe a Red guy help?
Click to expand...

You get Slavophobia not fear of the Orthodox Church. What you need is a violent, fanatical, expansionistic Orthodox Church . The best way I can think of is some sort of Theocratic Russia but a monarchy more dependent on the church might get you close enough.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
I could imagine the Catholic Church being the number one religious group promoting anti-Orthodox sentiment. I mean, what happened in Croatia during WWII was definitely one of the main characteristics of Orthodox-phobia.
 
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