Historically, Authenticite was a policy enacted by Mobutu Sese Seko's regime in which the regime sought to eradicate what it saw as "lingering influence of colonialism" and "the continuing influence of Western culture" through a program of renaming cities, the country, and even the people (in this context referring to people being told to take up "African" personal names instead of Christian names) and a general program of emphasizing traditional African culture. While authenticite was done away after Mobutu's downfall, especially as it legitimized one of the most notoriously kleptokratic African regimes, it helped build some sort of national identity for the nation which has lasted to this day. With that in mind, what other countries could have seen policies akin to Mobutu's policy of Authenticite be enacted in a bid to build "post-colonial" national identities through similar policies and with comparable goals as Mobutu's Authenticite?
What other countries could have implemented Authenticite-esque policies?
- Thread starter Whiteshore
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North Korea has been aggressively purging loan words they received during the occupation - a lot of Japanese terms were the basis for academic terms in Korea and even China in the early 20th century, but North Korea has replaced them with localised terminology based on indigenous vocabulary. North Korea have even removed Hanja (Chinese characters for Korean words and grammar) from their textbooks. On top of that they famously restrict foreign media and fashions, and an even more vile policy is their Songbun system which punishes even the descendants of collaborators and reinforces the idea of a "pure" Korea.
That's both post-colonial and key to the North Korean militant isolationist national identity, which is tragically insular and increasingly divergent from the south.
That's both post-colonial and key to the North Korean militant isolationist national identity, which is tragically insular and increasingly divergent from the south.
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India has done this to an extent:
Renaming of cities in India - Wikipedia
List of renamed places in India - Wikipedia
Maybe, one of the post-WWI proposals for an Assyrian state goes through, and the leadership of the new country tries to roll back a thousand years of Arab influence in just a few decades, even though most of this new Assyria's populace would be Arabic-speaking and Muslim. Going back to an even earlier time period, one of the post-colonial states in South America becomes a monarchy under a descendant of the last Sapa Inca (I know Argentina, of all places, toyed with the idea), and things get weird from there.
Similarly, a Maronite-dominated Lebanon could similarly encourage the use of Aramaic as well to distinguish themselves from their Arab neighborhoods.