AHC: Have the Central African Empire survive

OTL it was overthrown by a coup supported by the French, but what conditions would be needed to have it survive into the present day?
You need, as Seandineen said, to have a competent monarch not crippled by his personal eccentricities. The problem is that a more competent and restrained version of Bokassa probably doesn't create the monarchy in the first place. You need him to be nutty enough to declare a monarchy but sane enough to avoid being overthrown, and that's a difficult needle to thread.

What if Darco decides to seize the throne rather than set up an ordinary junta?
Why would he want to? The whole idea of having a monarchy was a personal eccentricity of the guy who overthrew him, there's no way he's going to keep it.
 
How could you have the coup fail, and then keep the monarchy in place long enough for it to become a fixture of the nation (I would say up until 1990s)
 
To quote Marcus Garvey. “who gave the white man, a monopoly on creating social order?”
The very idea of an African nobility particularly if the durg gave hailee salessie the gate, will inspire rising African youth. We can adopt the best of our ancient traditions.
 
You need, as Seandineen said, to have a competent monarch not crippled by his personal eccentricities. The problem is that a more competent and restrained version of Bokassa probably doesn't create the monarchy in the first place. You need him to be nutty enough to declare a monarchy but sane enough to avoid being overthrown, and that's a difficult needle to thread.

Why would he want to? The whole idea of having a monarchy was a personal eccentricity of the guy who overthrew him, there's no way he's going to keep it.

So your argument is that only someone exactly as insane as OTL Bokassa would ever create or retain a monarchy in the CAR? That seems rather simplistic. What's the association between monarchy and cannibalism, for one?
 
So your argument is that only someone exactly as insane as OTL Bokassa would ever create or retain a monarchy in the CAR? That seems rather simplistic. What's the association between monarchy and cannibalism, for one?

Didn't Idi Amin also do that?
 
How could you have the coup fail, and then keep the monarchy in place long enough for it to become a fixture of the nation (I would say up until 1990s)
Having the coup fail is difficult (I am skeptical the CAE's forces could provide credible resistance against the French military) and frankly, way too late--you need to avoid France wanting to overthrow Bokassa in the first place, because once they want him gone, it becomes very hard to keep him in power.

So your argument is that only someone exactly as insane as OTL Bokassa would ever create or retain a monarchy in the CAR? That seems rather simplistic. What's the association between monarchy and cannibalism, for one?
It is very hard to imagine a dictator who is good enough at statecraft to not only avoid being overthrown until his death or retirement, but also to successfully manage to pass power to his preferred successor, who at the same time is also eccentric enough to declare himself an emperor. The wacky dictators are very seldom the competent ones.

To quote Marcus Garvey. “who gave the white man, a monopoly on creating social order?”
The very idea of an African nobility particularly if the durg gave hailee salessie the gate, will inspire rising African youth.
I don't know what exactly you're suggesting the Derg do with Haile Selassie, but I doubt it's anything that would promote monarchism among Africans.

We can adopt the best of our ancient traditions.
At the time of the coup, the Central African Empire is a tradition dating back less than three years and associated entirely with a brutal spendthrift tyrant with delusions of grandeur. It's not going to inspire the rising African youth, and it's not going to inspire Dacko to honor the eccentricities of the man who overthrew him and who he has now overthrown in turn.
 
So your argument is that only someone exactly as insane as OTL Bokassa would ever create or retain a monarchy in the CAR?

I wouldn't go quite that far, but OTOH, the default since the early 1920s is for new nations to become republics. Other than Malaysia, which is an edge case because it incorporates several traditional monarchies, I can't think of a country other than the CAE that has become a monarchy since then without having a pre-existing dynasty. So, while it's not impossible for an African country without a traditional dynasty to become a kingdom or empire, it wouldn't be normal by 20th-century standards, which means that sort of thing would appeal mainly to those of a... grandiose turn of mind.

There are other possibilities. Brian Titley has argued that there was method to Bokassa's madness, and that his coronation as emperor was an attempt to unite the country and legitimize his rule by making him the Big Man over other local Big Men. If so, though, he was doing it wrong. For one thing, holding a coronation that costs more than the country's GDP isn't a way to win friends and influence people, and for another, there was little if anything about his monarchy that was African. The coronation ceremony and regalia were Napoleonic rather than drawing from indigenous tradition, and the coronation ode celebrated Bokassa as "the most illustrious of the French" rather than the most illustrious of the Central Africans. France was the abusive father whose approval Bokassa wanted, and from all appearances, his decision to become a monarch was more about that than about nation-building.

But maybe we could imagine a different ruler of the CAR, one who doesn't have Bokassa's grandiosity and capriciousness. This ruler - let's call him Kobassa [1] - takes a look at his patchwork country and really does decide that monarchy might be an effective unifying symbol as well as a clean break from French political tradition. He makes sure to get buy-in from the local elites first, has a lower-key coronation, and combines the customs and regalia of various pre-colonial kingdoms in the region (as well as the pre-state peoples) when he establishes his court. If Kobassa is an effective and even-handed ruler, then maybe his kingdom might last. But that's a very big "if," and any newly-established monarchy in 1970s Africa would be fighting against political gravity.

[1] His name certainly wouldn't be Barthélemy Boganda, given Boganda's attachment to French republicanism.
 
There are other possibilities. Brian Titley has argued that there was method to Bokassa's madness, and that his coronation as emperor was an attempt to unite the country and legitimize his rule by making him the Big Man over other local Big Men. If so, though, he was doing it wrong. For one thing, holding a coronation that costs more than the country's GDP isn't a way to win friends and influence people, and for another, there was little if anything about his monarchy that was African. The coronation ceremony and regalia were Napoleonic rather than drawing from indigenous tradition, and the coronation ode celebrated Bokassa as "the most illustrious of the French" rather than the most illustrious of the Central Africans. France was the abusive father whose approval Bokassa wanted, and from all appearances, his decision to become a monarch was more about that than about nation-building.
Perhaps Alexander Banza could be the key to having an empire survive. He was Bokassa's right-hand man and a capable diplomat who was able to gain early support for Bokassa's regime. However, when Bokassa realized a greater threat lay in Banza as opposed to Dacko, he distanced himself from him and weakened his power. An argument over Bokassa's extravagant budget spending kicked off a coup attempt by Banza. Say Banza wins the argument, and is not demoted from minister of Finance and the Economy. He could continue to improve the economy of the Central African Republic, providing for a more stable state, and gain necessary diplomatic support, and Bokassa could still proclaim his empire as his own attempt to unite the country. Maybe with the advice of a surviving and integral Banza, he would cut back on the cost of such a coronation and focus more on the traditional aspects.

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Photo of Alexander Banza
 
Perhaps Alexander Banza could be the key to having an empire survive. He was Bokassa's right-hand man and a capable diplomat who was able to gain early support for Bokassa's regime. However, when Bokassa realized a greater threat lay in Banza as opposed to Dacko, he distanced himself from him and weakened his power. An argument over Bokassa's extravagant budget spending kicked off a coup attempt by Banza. Say Banza wins the argument, and is not demoted from minister of Finance and the Economy. He could continue to improve the economy of the Central African Republic, providing for a more stable state, and gain necessary diplomatic support, and Bokassa could still proclaim his empire as his own attempt to unite the country. Maybe with the advice of a surviving and integral Banza, he would cut back on the cost of such a coronation and focus more on the traditional aspects.

A dictator who loses an argument to a cabinet member isn't a dictator any more, though, especially if the cabinet member is as ambitious as Banza. If there was one thing Bokassa knew in his bones, it was that he couldn't look weak in front of someone who might overthrow him, which means that if Banda picked a fight with him, he would have no choice but to win. If he did back down, Banza would pounce, and would either succeed (in which case he would become president for life, given that he had no apparent interest in being king) or fail (in which case we'd get the paranoid Bokassa we all know and love).

Maybe a more diplomatic and tactful Banza could persuade Bokassa to spend less money - but if Banza were that kind of person, would he survive as a member of Bokassa's cutthroat cabinet in the first place?

I just don't see any of Bokassa's cronies being able to make a monarchy work in the CAR. The only Central African politician who might have had the chops to pull it off - Boganda - would never have done it, and none of the others, especially those who gathered around Bokassa, were even close to Boganda's stature. There would have to be a POD much earlier than Bokassa, involving either a different method of colonial rule (say, if the French had used the precolonial kingdoms as a vehicle for indirect rule rather than suppressing them) or a leader unknown in OTL.
 
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