AH Challenge: Better Developed Africa

Using a POD no later than 1945 have Africa develop, not necessarily into a continent of first world nations, but one of developing nations, perhaps on a similiar level as South America, or Eastern Europe, or you could even have Africa nearly as well developed as say the west in the 1880's, with those standards of living with of course some modern day technologies.

You can't lump Africa all together as a continent like that. Some African countries are virtually stuck in the Dark Ages, like Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, others are pulling themselves out of the quagmire of poverty (Uganda, Zambia, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique), while others are as developed if not more developed than countries in South America and Eastern Europe, eg. South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius. Rather ask how can we have a first world nation in Africa, or have the majority of nations in Africa have relatively high standards of development.

The British and French win WWII in 1940 as the Germans launch their original plan of going through Belgium, which the allies had prepared for.

The British and French thus are not driven to total exhaustion or humiliation and their Empires are basically still in existence by the end of 20th century, but with wideranging autonomy. The biggest difference is however, that the investments from "mother" country to overseas areas does not decline drastically as they did in OTL after the Empire was abolished. So by year 2000 Africa has a connected and working infra structure and a fairly large and well educated middle class - something like India in OTL. India in this TL became the first non-white Dominion in 1948 after having supplied the British with millions of men under arms to overwhelm the Japanese in the war of 1944-47. The Indians have all the way been proponents for greater political autonomy, but quickly saw the economical benefits in keeping tight economical ties to the Empire and having access to a huge market for labour intensive products. The example of India was soon the great ideal for the African colonies, a number of which by 2000 have achieved Dominion status...

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

The Full Measure of Manhood

Is planned as one of the two sequels to my Operation Unicorn TL (Ramshackle Empire may come first though). It will be about an Africa that develops better. It features Casement, Lettow-Vorbeck, Schnee, Schweitzer, Garvey, Dubois, Iyazu V and Cornelius St. James.

Perhaps Biafra is allowed to secede? The country becomes an African Kuwait and proceeds to invest lots in its neighbors, helping them out.

WI somehow you get rid of all the dictators like Mobutu, Idi Amin, Mengistu, Samuel Doe and all the other clowns who squandered so much of their respective African countries' massive eco potential to line their own pockets ?

BTW, i recall reading somewhere many yrs back that during the 1950s and 60s it was expected that Africa would be the next big eco cornucopia.

What about the domination of the draka timeline, except that the domination loses and the serfs inherit the vast wealth of the domination.

African India? Instead of lots of countries based on British Colonial administration all the Southern and Eastern African countries, bar RSA are given independence as one large country? Less chance of domination by one ethnic clique and less problems with minorities straddling borders? Better chance for democracy? An African Zamenhof comes up with a Bantu Esperanto which is this new United States of Africa's national language alongside English (with the goal for English to be deomoted once this language is widely spoken). Colonies of other European nations join after gaining independence. Economy is somewhat dominated by raw materials export, is a bit bureaucratic and has quite a lot of unprofitable state owned industries but is nevertheless more advanced economically than most of the countries are now. Like India, the level of democracy is somewhat below that of the West but is nevertheless well established and reasonably fair.

I have a hard time seeing african develop on its own under any condition. While humans no doubt started there and developed as they walked out of it into more advanced cultures, it seems to me that most of african society stopped evolving after the late bronze age. The last hope of further natural deelopment died when the greeks came to egypt.

If Alexader had march south into africa instead of west india I think africa would have developed very differently.

How about the Soviet Union either liberalises or collapses after Stalin's death? With the Cold War over, neither side would need to support and arm nasty dictatorships in Africa and encourage them to fight proxy wars. Maybe the superpowers would turn their attention to tackling world poverty rather than spending money on putting people into space and developing new ways to kill each other?

BTD said:

I have a hard time seeing african develop on its own under any condition. While humans no doubt started there and developed as they walked out of it into more advanced cultures, it seems to me that most of african society stopped evolving after the late bronze age. The last hope of further natural deelopment died when the greeks came to egypt.

If Alexader had march south into africa instead of west india I think africa would have developed very differently.

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Ignorance and racism.

True.
But the discussion just leads to this point, as noone really has an answer to the initial question with out referring to something typical african.
I have my ideas, but i am not sure if I should talk about them.

I think we'd have to start with a warmer, wetter Sahara, or maybe no tsetse fly
Lets see, post 1945:

The colonial powers do a better job of preparing their colonies for independence.No fights to the death in the Portoguese colonies, or Algeria.Fewer charlatans like Nkrumah take over. Instead we get more moderate leaders who actually have some sense of how a modern economy works and are committed to liberal democracy, not kleptocracy.
The USA supports such leaders, instead of anticommunist stooges like Mobutu. The US advocates for liberal democracy in Liberia.
A moderate party wins in South Africa in 1948. and South Africa moves to a liberal democracy, instead of apartheid, and encourages the same for Southern Rhodesia.

The point is, Africa was not predestined to a be a basket case. It really could have ended up somewhat like SE Asia, or current Latin America.

mishery said:

Ignorance and racism.

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Not at all. There is nothing racist or ignorant about any part of my post. It also doesn't say they couldn't have evolved if they had wanted to, but they didn't which can only be from a desire to maintain the status quo. Even today with all the outside influence a good portion of native african tribes live the same way with the same level of technology they did 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, and many more still live in the same social confines of that era and have accepted very few modern conviences.

Africans developed some very good cultures on their own, but they somehow fell behind in the technological weapons race... if we can somehow get firearms far and wide across the continent (both manufacturing and development), then you give Africa a big boost for holding it's own against the Europeans. Another POD is that the Africans somehow obtain Meditteranean climate crops so they can settle S. Africa. In OTL, the Bantus ran into a climate barrier on their way south, in that their tropical crops would not grow in the southernmost parts of modern SA (Natal and such areas). When the Dutch arrived to colonize the cape, they found the area inhabited by various Bushmen type peoples who lived at a stone age level and are now extinct. Ironically, their typical European crops grew well in the climate there. So, if we can somehow get the Bantus some Meditteranean crops and get them into SA centuries before the Dutch, they would have every chance of finding the mineral wealth there first... add firearms to the area, and the Africans are going to have a powerful kingdom there when the Dutch arrive...

BTD said:

Even today with all the outside influence a good portion of native african tribes live the same way with the same level of technology they did 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, and many more still live in the same social confines of that era and have accepted very few modern conviences.

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How can you say that? 10-15.000 years ago Africans were everywhere stone age hunter/gatherers. That has ceased to be the case a long time ago.

JHPier said:

How can you say that? 10-15.000 years ago Africans were everywhere stone age hunter/gatherers. That has ceased to be the case a long time ago.

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It didn't cease to be, tribal africa, which makes up betwen 50 and 70% of the continental population (depending on what source you use) are still essentially hunter gatherers with some basic agriculture.

Hmm, all we really need is an African nation which does what Thailand and Japan did with much more success. Survive by bargaining with the European powers and playing them off against each other. If we can arrange for them to have some shreds of modernization and industrialization prior to WWI, then put them on the winning side AND have a border with German colonies(SPOILS OF WAR!) we can get them on the road to success.

Technologically and organizationally speaking, all Native American cultures were far less advanced than many west and north african cultures, all of which at the same time had true state-level kingdoms, sophisticated bronze and iron technology, the wheel, and effective animal husbandry - and in the Moslem states a fully literate elite with arabic script. Anyone who calls Africans "stone-age" is displaying some ignorance - although not necessarily racism.

Probably European colonialism and the Berlin conference partition of subsaharan Africa into European colonies irespective of native tribal or lingusitic units had a lot to do with the relative slowness of African development in the 20th century. Probably the next worse thing was the sudden European adandonment of their colonies in the 1950's - 1960's.

Given the POD of post WW2

The federation of Roedesia is a sucess. The British put more thought into it as it is being started, and invest more time and capital [main prob Britians lack of capital post war] Maybe get the US to put up funds as part of Marchal plan.

This Butterflies as more investment into british Tarzania & Kenya With strong vibrant ecomonies next door Angola & Mozambique stay stronger [no civil wars]