2020 AHFA World Cup Worldbuilding Thread
- Thread starter Baconheimer
- Start date
I haven't really though about it until now, but here's my take:
I think that the unitarian option is plausible, but takes time, and AH.com steers clear of it to avoid pissing folks from the Balkans off. Much more disparate groups have formed a united identity, and, if the government of this Illyria is anything like OTLs Illyrian movement, it would view all of the Serbocroatian speaking groups as one group, and attempt to foster a shared identity. It would also be more homogeneous than OTLs Yugoslavia but still fairly diverse. It would likely be majority Croat/catholic with the Serbs forming a huge plurality, and Bosniaks/muslim Slavs also making up a large part of the population. These groups are pretty similar but remained divided IOTL despite being part of a single state, so the Illyrian identity might not take hold.
The Serbs and Croats are the easiest to bring together. Both being Christian would help more than one might expect. IOTL, the Bosniaks were disliked by the Serbs in the early stages largely because their conversion to Islam was seen as a betrayal. The religious tension with the Croats existed, but wasn't super strong.
Other Serbo-Croatian tensions were initially pretty light. Croats and Serbs wanted to work together to gain independence and wanted to unite in order to be more powerful, pretty common stuff with independence movements. The problems, as I'm sure you know, arose after the state was created. The Croats feared Serbian domination, and the Serbs were worried that the Croats were trying to break the union (a simplified view, but I'm not gonna write a doctoral dissertation for an AH post). The genocide during WW2 only served to make the Serbs see the Croats as enemies, while the greater Serbia ideas of the Četniks made the Croats further distrust the union. After ww2, when Yugoslavia reunited, some (a small but pretty vocal minority) began to look back on the NDH as "the last time they were free from Serbian rule" (yes, despite Tito being a Croat, this was a common feeling to my knowledge) or "the last time they were free from Communist rule", which further made Serbs distrust them, thinking that most Croats wanted to go back to that genocidal regime. Then the '90s happened and everyone went apeshit on each other, and the trust was pretty much entirely destroyed.
These problems would be somewhat lessened in this case.
If the unifying force is like OTLs Illyrians and originates in Croatia, Croats would be more likely to support the union, not fearing domination by the Serbs. So do the roles just revers? Well, maybe... but I kind of doubt it. The Serbs were pretty well respected and involved in the Illyrian movement, so it might feel less threatening that uniting with a Serbian state was to the Croats. The lack of a monarchy helps. Yugoslavia being ruled by the Serbian monarch made it look like a continuation of the Kingdom of Serbia (though most Yugoslavists saw the Serbian king as the only option for the country's ruler). A republic removes some of this fear, meaning the Serbs don't look at the head of state and say "that's always gonna be a Croat, so we'll never really have a voice", they see maybe a Croat president and thin "that's fine, we can still run for office, this country might still be for all of us". No early tensions and no Nazis means no genocidal faction and no foreign power to support it even if it exists, so that doesn't heighten tensions. This leaves the Serbs and Croats feeling pretty good about each other, and with less beef between them, the government can try to focus the people on their similarities. So the Serbs and Croats largely subscribing to a common Illyrian identity is pretty plausible in this scenario.
But then there's the Bosnian question.
Bosniaks were less united in their national ideas initially, with some supporting Yugoslavism while others wanted independence. IOTL, pre ww1, many of the older Bosniaks considered Islam to be the primary aspect of their identity and identified closely with the Ottomans, under whose rule they lived well. The younger ones tended to be more Yugoslavist. At that point, the idea of Bosnian nationhood was still in its infancy, with a major debate over whether the Banate and later Kingdom of Bosnia had been a Serbian state, a Croatian state, or its own thing. Those who argued the former two claimed that Islam was the only differentiating factor and was introduced by the Turks. Those who believed in a separate Bosnian identity typically had one of two beliefs 1) the Bosniaks have always been a distinct group, even in the middle ages 2) the Bosniaks weren't a distinct group to begin with, but a separate culture has developed since the Ottoman conquest. IOTL, the Austro-Hungarian period was a time of increasing nationalism among Serbs and Croats (both yugoslavist and exclusionist), and in turn the Bosniaks, seeing that they don't fit either group's definition of "us" began to think about their own national identity.
The answer to the question of Bosnia depends on the manner, and particularly time of this state's creation, which in turn depends on the histories of Austria (in @Red Arturoist 's German union thing) and Greece/Macedonia/Byzantium.
Depending on its history, Illyria may use Bosniaks as an "other" to unite Serbs and Croats in opposition to or it may treat them as fellow Illyrians, or, Bosniaks may be given autonomy as a separate group (which may in turn push the Serbs and Croats to view each other separately (if they're different from us because they're muslim and have slightly different customs, then why are these people, with a different denomination of Christianity and slightly different customs the same as us), sort of the reverse of OTL . This would shatter any hopes of fostering a single identity). Hell, without an Ottoman empire (which would be the case if there's a surviving Byzantium), the Bosniaks might still be Bogumils, which could completely change the dynamic between them and the other groups. Hell, If Byzantium keeps Moesia Superior (roughly OTL modern central Serbia), the center of Serbian society may remain around Montenegro, southern Bosnia, and Herzegovina, totally changing the demographics here.
Now that I think about it, maybe I should consider each country existing in a historical vacuum, as it's impossible to cohesively put together the histories of all of these countries.
TBH, this is more like a Nationstates region than anything AH.com has produced.
I think I might consider Illyria in the same historical framework as the united neutral team and prometheist Poland, with Banat fitting fairly nicely into that (I mean, it's on Red's original map in a slightly different form, as is a state with basically the exact borders of my Illyria).
[edit: keep in mind all of the Balkan history and politics there is super simplified, and I probably got a few things wrong, so don't get too mad, just correct me.]
I strongly agree with this.
A little idea I had for a new African country:
Country Name: Republic of Zambezia
Capital: Whampula (OTL Nampula)
Government: Unitary dominant-party semi-presidential constitutional republic
Official Languages: Emakhuwa, Lomwe
Recognized Minority Languages: Cisena, Swahili, Chewa, Nyungwe, Makonde, Koti, Mwani
Major Cities: Whampula, Kuliamani, Nakala, Lichinga, Pemba, Mocuba, Gurue
A victim of its western neighbor during most of its modern history, many cynically say that every other generation of men born in Zambezia has got to take up arms and shed their innocence for the motherland against the bloodthirsty Rhodesians, and on face value alone, it seems a truthful enough statement. During the last border conflict alone (2003-2004) over three thousand soldiers and civilians lost their lives and just as many had disappeared in a sporadic Rhodesian carpet-bombing campaign. Despite these troubles, this rather impoverished nation and one of the poorest African countries (according to per capita GDP) still holds on, defending its part of the Zambezi river basin with everything that it's got. Many attribute the unlikely successes of the proverbial David against the racist Goliath to the Treaties of Friendship signed with Madagascar, in which Zambezia allowed the Free Malagasy Navy to "temporarily" occupy certain territories in the OTL Mozambique Channel (OTL Juan de Nova Island, Bassas da India and Europa Island) in order to protect them against the far more powerful Rhodesian navy while the Malagasy would freely trade the Zambezians valuable weapons and equipment to help them "beat back the white menace during this crucial time in African history", as many Malagasy government officials so eloquently put it.
In spite of it all, Zambezia still holds on, and while there is seemingly no hope for the advancement of their economy, the Zambezians still proudly volunteer for their nation's army so that their women and children may remain free from Rhodesian control, influence and widespread discrimination and violence that its government actively espouses against the Bantu peoples.
Country Name: Republic of Zambezia
Capital: Whampula (OTL Nampula)
Government: Unitary dominant-party semi-presidential constitutional republic
Official Languages: Emakhuwa, Lomwe
Recognized Minority Languages: Cisena, Swahili, Chewa, Nyungwe, Makonde, Koti, Mwani
Major Cities: Whampula, Kuliamani, Nakala, Lichinga, Pemba, Mocuba, Gurue
A victim of its western neighbor during most of its modern history, many cynically say that every other generation of men born in Zambezia has got to take up arms and shed their innocence for the motherland against the bloodthirsty Rhodesians, and on face value alone, it seems a truthful enough statement. During the last border conflict alone (2003-2004) over three thousand soldiers and civilians lost their lives and just as many had disappeared in a sporadic Rhodesian carpet-bombing campaign. Despite these troubles, this rather impoverished nation and one of the poorest African countries (according to per capita GDP) still holds on, defending its part of the Zambezi river basin with everything that it's got. Many attribute the unlikely successes of the proverbial David against the racist Goliath to the Treaties of Friendship signed with Madagascar, in which Zambezia allowed the Free Malagasy Navy to "temporarily" occupy certain territories in the OTL Mozambique Channel (OTL Juan de Nova Island, Bassas da India and Europa Island) in order to protect them against the far more powerful Rhodesian navy while the Malagasy would freely trade the Zambezians valuable weapons and equipment to help them "beat back the white menace during this crucial time in African history", as many Malagasy government officials so eloquently put it.
In spite of it all, Zambezia still holds on, and while there is seemingly no hope for the advancement of their economy, the Zambezians still proudly volunteer for their nation's army so that their women and children may remain free from Rhodesian control, influence and widespread discrimination and violence that its government actively espouses against the Bantu peoples.
To be honest, that is what I was going from when creating nations for the World Cup.
Here's my United Maghrebi Emirates. It started basically with a Marinid-Nasrid Union which succeded in stopping the Reconquista.
Country Name: United Maghribi Emirates
Capital: Fez
Government: Federal Republic
Official Languages: Maghribi, Arabic, Amazigh
Recognized Minority Languages: Hebrew, Mozarab
Major Cities: Fez, Marrakesh, Tangier, Granada, Oran, Sale, Tlemcen, Sevilla, Laayoun
Population: 67 million
Demographic: 50% Amazigh,
32% Arab,
10% Latin
4% Hebrew
4% Subsaharan
Religions: 88% Muslim
7% Jewish
4% Christian
1% Other
History
The United Maghribi Emirates is a federal rebublic situated in northwestern Africa and southern Iberia. The UME is the successor state of the Marinid Sultanate of the Maghrib and Granada. It was established when the last and childless Marinid Sultan Hassan X., abdicated in 1860. Fearing for the survival of the state after his death, the Sultan and the various Emirs agreed to turn the Sultanate from a heredetery monarchy to a electoral one. Every six years one of the Emirs would be elected to the position of Sultan. After the Great War, in which the UME was on the victourious side, and the economic crisis the population demanded more rights and representation. The Emir families were forced to abdicate and elections in the emirates where held.
Today the UME consists of six emirates: Emirate of Fez, Emirate of Alandalus, Emirate of Marrakech, Emirate of Laayoun, Emirate of Tafilalt and the Emirate of Tlemcen.
*: Sevilla was reconquered, "Königsberg style"
Football in the UME
Football is the number one sport in the UME. Tangiers as the gateway to mediteranean and a melting pot of ideas and cultures was the ideal place for the creation of the first maghrbi football club and first local league. Ittihad Albahara Almaghariba (United Maghribi Sailors) was the first club established by sailors in Tangiers in 1898. Rivalries with foreign sailors were then decided on the pitch. Today the club is called Ittihad Tanger and is one of the top teams in the Maghribi Premier League (MPL). Other top teams are Mouloudia Oujda, Marinids Fez, Maccabi Ronda, FC Sevilla, Nasr Gharnata, Raja Anfa and Shabab Oran. The second division is the Maghribi Championship. The Regional League is the third division, which consists of the six local leagues of the six emirates.
The United Maghrebi Football Federation, or Maghrebi FA, was established in 1910. When the European Football Federation was created in the 1930s the maghrebis tried to join it, but were vetoed by the their iberian neighbors. In 1935 the UME and ten other african nations established the African Football Union. In 1940 the first edition of the African Nations Cup was played in Fez and Tangiers and was won by the UME. Since then the UME won it five times. The UME made it eight times to the World Cup and reaching three times the quarter finals.
Best players in History:
Hadji, Bassir, Timoumi, Naybet, Benayoun, Mahrez, Madjer, Zaki, Herro, Belloumi, Gharsiya, Isa Nawaz, Ben Mbark
Current Squad:
GK: Rico, Bounou, Mbolhi
DEF: Ramos, Benatia, Mandi, Bensabaini, Da Costa, Mazraoui, Hakimi, Feddal, Saiss
MF: Ziyech, Bennacer, Isco, Ben-Qasi, S. Amrabat, Mahrez, Rayes, Taarabt, Dayan
FW: Armabat, Boufal, Nesyri, Diaz, Diouf
Major Stadiums and their capacity:
1. Marinid Arena, Fez - 90000
2. Al-Andalus Stadium, Gharnata - 80000
3. Assafina Arena, Tangiers - 65000
4. MaghribGaz Arena, Oran - 50000
Capital: Fez
Government: Federal Republic
Official Languages: Maghribi, Arabic, Amazigh
Recognized Minority Languages: Hebrew, Mozarab
Major Cities: Fez, Marrakesh, Tangier, Granada, Oran, Sale, Tlemcen, Sevilla, Laayoun
Population: 67 million
Demographic: 50% Amazigh,
32% Arab,
10% Latin
4% Hebrew
4% Subsaharan
Religions: 88% Muslim
7% Jewish
4% Christian
1% Other
History
The United Maghribi Emirates is a federal rebublic situated in northwestern Africa and southern Iberia. The UME is the successor state of the Marinid Sultanate of the Maghrib and Granada. It was established when the last and childless Marinid Sultan Hassan X., abdicated in 1860. Fearing for the survival of the state after his death, the Sultan and the various Emirs agreed to turn the Sultanate from a heredetery monarchy to a electoral one. Every six years one of the Emirs would be elected to the position of Sultan. After the Great War, in which the UME was on the victourious side, and the economic crisis the population demanded more rights and representation. The Emir families were forced to abdicate and elections in the emirates where held.
Today the UME consists of six emirates: Emirate of Fez, Emirate of Alandalus, Emirate of Marrakech, Emirate of Laayoun, Emirate of Tafilalt and the Emirate of Tlemcen.
*: Sevilla was reconquered, "Königsberg style"
Football in the UME
The United Maghrebi Football Federation, or Maghrebi FA, was established in 1910. When the European Football Federation was created in the 1930s the maghrebis tried to join it, but were vetoed by the their iberian neighbors. In 1935 the UME and ten other african nations established the African Football Union. In 1940 the first edition of the African Nations Cup was played in Fez and Tangiers and was won by the UME. Since then the UME won it five times. The UME made it eight times to the World Cup and reaching three times the quarter finals.
Best players in History:
Hadji, Bassir, Timoumi, Naybet, Benayoun, Mahrez, Madjer, Zaki, Herro, Belloumi, Gharsiya, Isa Nawaz, Ben Mbark
Current Squad:
GK: Rico, Bounou, Mbolhi
DEF: Ramos, Benatia, Mandi, Bensabaini, Da Costa, Mazraoui, Hakimi, Feddal, Saiss
MF: Ziyech, Bennacer, Isco, Ben-Qasi, S. Amrabat, Mahrez, Rayes, Taarabt, Dayan
FW: Armabat, Boufal, Nesyri, Diaz, Diouf
Major Stadiums and their capacity:
1. Marinid Arena, Fez - 90000
2. Al-Andalus Stadium, Gharnata - 80000
3. Assafina Arena, Tangiers - 65000
4. MaghribGaz Arena, Oran - 50000
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New Britain Mapping
Banned
Also I have added new nations: Sequoyah, Icelandia, Polish-Lithuanian Empire, Bohemia, Hungarian-Slovak Republic, Moldavia, Federation of Bosnia-Croatia, Zambezia, Belize and Basque-Aragon. Sequoyah was requested.
Gian
Banned
If there's one thing I should add is that Iran and Turkestan are not majority-Muslim, for one.
The basic timeline for them would pretty much be that Islam doesn't make as much headway into those countries as they did IOTL.
New Britain Mapping
Banned
I have added more nations:
Japanese Empire - Most of Japan, all of North and South Korea and parts of China.
Mesopotamia - All of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait and parts of Saudi Arabia and Israel
Beijing Republic - Parts of China.
Mongolian State - All of Mongolia and some of China.
Turkish Republic - Most of Turkey and parts of Georgia and (Armenia?)
New Britain Mapping
Banned
Beijing Republic in fact is a new state after the break up of China.
Peru-Bolivia will be added in a week.
Great, unfortunately though I had started mapping out North America on the worlda.
As an idea of what I'm trying to do, this is a map B_munro did of a world cup years ago. https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/map-thread-xix.470444/page-386#post-20488783
This is what I have right now. I'd like microworldas showing religion as well as which states were in the world cup.
