AH Challenge - Thriving Africa!

[WilyBadger]

So here's your challenge! Create a timeline with a POD between 1790 - 1810 that leads to a prosperous, successful Africa by 2010. By this I mean an Africa that has it's act together at least as well as, say, France. No ASBs are invited to the party!
Good luck!

 

[Valdemar II]

So here's your challenge! Create a timeline with a POD between 1790 - 1810 that leads to a prosperous, successful Africa by 2010. By this I mean an Africa that has it's act together at least as well as, say, France. No ASBs are invited to the party!
Good luck!

It is impossible, to get them to France niveau. But you can get to be as well adjusted as South East Asia by changing the way the Europeans colonized Africa, and making the Era of colonism last longer.

 

[Keenir]

So here's your challenge! Create a timeline with a POD between 1790 - 1810 that leads to a prosperous, successful Africa by 2010. By this I mean an Africa that has it's act together at least as well as, say, France. No ASBs are invited to the party!
Good luck!

wait, the African continent has to be on par with France? (Napoleonic? de Gaulle's? Caesar's?)

or do you mean that an African nation has to be on par with France?

 

[WilyBadger]

Naw, just get the whole of Africa to be basically about as successful by 2006 as OTL Europe is. Give or take.

 

[rewster]

Pretty sure he's looking for most of Africa's nations to be economically on par with today's France, by now or a few years from now.

Hmmm. Seems the best way is to knock France around a bit. That way today's France would be quite poor, and on par with most African nations.

 

[EvolvedSaurian]

Have a reactor meltdown a la Chernobyl.

 

[WilyBadger]

No, no. I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't specific enough. The idea is to get much of Africa to be as successful as much of Europe is in our timeline. Don't try to be sneaky and wreck Europe. That's cheating, and I'll take away your candy if you try!

 

[EvolvedSaurian]

Have the Euopeans actually try to improve the welfare of the people in ther colonies, instead of what happened in OTL.

 

[Lordkraken]

I don't suppose the discovery of some valuble substance in areas of Africa (that never were discovered in OTL) would be allowed?

It would be tricky to to prevent this from becoming just another thing for Europeans to plunder, but it might be doable.

 

[Glen]

So here's your challenge! Create a timeline with a POD between 1790 - 1810 that leads to a prosperous, successful Africa by 2010. By this I mean an Africa that has it's act together at least as well as, say, France. No ASBs are invited to the party!
Good luck!

Do you mean one predominantly with people of Subsaharan African descent? Because I can think of a couple pretty horrific timelines that still lead to a prosperous Africa by 2010...but the means are not good at all...

For example, would the Draka count?

That's not to say I can't think of the obverse, which is a prosperous INDIGENOUS people Africa, which is what I will aim at when I get an opportunity to answer this more fully.

 

[WilyBadger]

The POD has to be between 1790 - 1810. Just a twenty year gap that it can occur in. Perhaps someone discovers a cure for malaria in 1797 or something like that. And I'm picturing pretty much all of Africa, more or less, ending up doing well, not just northern Africa.

 

[Tom Veil]

Well, the POD is 2000 years too early, but here's a plug for Provincal Senatus et Populus Qua Khoi from YAME.

 

[Justin Pickard]

I suppose what would help would be the colonial borders being drawn along slightly more sensible lines with greater regard to indigenous tribal groupings. At the very least, this would mean slightly less messy and destructive conflict following decolonisation.

 

[rewster]

The POD has to be between 1790 - 1810. Just a twenty year gap that it can occur in. Perhaps someone discovers a cure for malaria in 1797 or something like that. And I'm picturing pretty much all of Africa, more or less, ending up doing well, not just northern Africa.

Cure for malaria?? But then white people have even easier access, and the African's higher natural resistance is moot.

A malaria mutation, on the other hand, which is contagious and kills white people by the millions, is possible. A mutation can happen any time, so why not that 20 year gap?

 

[EvolvedSaurian]

A major European war, sapping the major powers of troops, forcing them to use African troops, could work. When the soldiers return they would bring back what they learned and it could help a little.

 

[Glen]

Well, sort of a spin-off of an embryonic idea I had....

The French Revolution goes a bit more moderate, and though the Revolutionary fervor does result in several sister republics throughout the Mediterranean and Central Europe, the biggest change is that the Consulship and Empire are avoided. A more egalitarian and democratic spirit is born in the Western World.

This spreads to the New World as well. The Zeitgeist of Revolutionary France, which has stuck to ending Slavery infects Jeffersonian America and Slavery is outlawed in the West by one vote.

Without the bogeyman of Napoleon, discontent with the ruling class in the United Kingdom boils over and Great Britain and Ireland erupt in successful revolutions, ending the British Empire but increasing the forces of democracy in the world.

The relation between the European republics and peoples of Africa and Asia are gradually changing. The children of tribal chiefs and kings are brought on scholarships to Paris and Oxford to learn Western Enlightenment thoughts and ideals, which they take back to their homes.

Trade is more guided by laissez-faire and less by the idea of exclusive colonial trading partners. Several Afro-European joint partnerships are established to exploit the wealth of the continent. Profits from raw materials is reinvested in infrastructure and industry.

Though there is still racism, it is a much more subtle force and gradually fades as an anachronism. There are still wars, some terrible, but they are more between the upstart Republics and the last vestiges of the old, autocratic forces. Russia is one of the last to fall to Revolution.

By 2010, most of the world is united in a loose confederacy, with a very similar standard of living across the globe.

Vive le Revolution, Vive le Afrique!

 

[Smaug]

I suppose what would help would be the colonial borders being drawn along slightly more sensible lines with greater regard to indigenous tribal groupings. At the very least, this would mean slightly less messy and destructive conflict following decolonisation.

Excellent point, England in particular, had a nasty habit of doing this around the world. It would definitely alleviate some of the tensions later felt by Africa.

 

[At-Bari]

Must it be all Africa from Cape to Cairo and Senegal to Madagascar?

If not how about a powerful and progressive Zanzibar Empire in the east and a Greater Liberia in the West which USA supports?

 

[aware of emptiness]

Is this question about whether any African countries have industrialized through their own efforts (not by chance war or plaque making them lucky)?

Could they have industrialized in the manner of Japan, adopting Western technology fast enough when they meet and avoid becoming colonized?

 

[stevep]

Trade is more guided by laissez-faire and less by the idea of exclusive colonial trading partners.

That would be a good way of making things markedly worse for Africa! You need good government not a total lack allowing extermal forces to have even more weight.

Steve