AHC/WI: Have Africa be partitioned by the Europeans based on ethnic lines?

CaliGuy

Banned
Here's an interesting AHC: During the Scramble for Africa, have Africa be partitioned by the Europeans based on ethnic lines rather than based on arbitrary borders.

Also, a good framework map to use for this would be our TL's 2017 borders in Europe, which in many cases are approximately based on ethnic lines.

In addition to this, what exactly would the consequences of such a move be?

Any thoughts on all of this?
 
Colinialism was fueled by 2 kinds of motivation, pure acquisition and religious/cultural bigotry. The first won't care about ethnic lines, the second will find them threatening.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Colinialism was fueled by 2 kinds of motivation, pure acquisition and religious/cultural bigotry. The first won't care about ethnic lines, the second will find them threatening.
Unfortunately, you are correct in regards to this. :(

Nevertheless, I have a question--wasn't French Emperor Napoleon III interested in the welfare and well-being of non-White peoples?
 
It would be unmaneageble hell. The French did try to divide Syria but without success. At the end of the day, African borders do follow the same patterns that borders have everywhere else in world, Most African borders (with some notable exceptions) follow rivers, mountains, etc. just like Europe.

Heck, European borders just don't happen to follow geography. It's a matter of centuries of nation building that Africa simply didn't have when the Europeans arrived there. Personally I don't blame imperialism for the ethnic conflicts in Africa.
 
Almost certainly terrible and inaccurate. This would be when Europeans were first diving into the realm of African anthropology--how would you expect them to know much? Linguistic lines aren't much better. So you'd be dividing up Africa based on late 19th/early 20th century European concepts of African ethnography and linguistics which are now rather outdated.

And why might these European colonialist politicians be that interested in listening to what some humanities professors have to say?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Almost certainly terrible and inaccurate. This would be when Europeans were first diving into the realm of African anthropology--how would you expect them to know much? Linguistic lines aren't much better. So you'd be dividing up Africa based on late 19th/early 20th century European concepts of African ethnography and linguistics which are now rather outdated.

Out of curiosity--when exactly did Westerners begin knowing much more about various ethnic groups in Africa?

And why might these European colonialist politicians be that interested in listening to what some humanities professors have to say?

Well, Europeans might view the support of nationalism as being an effective way for them to strengthen their rule in Africa. Indeed, think of the Soviet Union creating ethnicity-based SSRs in Central Asia.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
It would be unmaneageble hell. The French did try to divide Syria but without success. At the end of the day, African borders do follow the same patterns that borders have everywhere else in world, Most African borders (with some notable exceptions) follow rivers, mountains, etc. just like Europe.

Heck, European borders just don't happen to follow geography. It's a matter of centuries of nation building that Africa simply didn't have when the Europeans arrived there. Personally I don't blame imperialism for the ethnic conflicts in Africa.
Good points!

However, nation-building can sometimes come from above--for instance, take a look at Soviet nation-building in Central Asia in our TL.
 
Good points!

However, nation-building can sometimes come from above--for instance, take a look at Soviet nation-building in Central Asia in our TL.

But in Central Asia you have a very sparsely populated territory inhabited mostly by nomads. In more dense areas you can see some ethnic problems. Eg. The most important historical cities of the region such as Samarkand and Bukhara have(had?) a Tajik majority and are located in Uzbekistan.
 
Out of curiosity--when exactly did Westerners begin knowing much more about various ethnic groups in Africa?

The era I mentioned--late 19th/early 20th century, when anthropologists, ethnographers, and linguists began to conduct studies on various African peoples. As I said, many are very outdated, in particular the ones which were probably the most prominent which confirmed Europeans as superior to Africans (not that Europe needed that, of course). But I'm not too deeply familiar with the 150 or so years of serious scholarship done by Europeans on African cultures and languages, other than I can tell you that whatever information the scholars of the day present to the people actually drawing the lines will end up diluted at best, for one, and for two, is based on what we nowadays tend to recognise as dated at best.

But what I said is only if we're assuming that partitioning Africa on ethnic or linguistic lines is a good idea to begin with.

But in Central Asia you have a very sparsely populated territory inhabited mostly by nomads. In more dense areas you can see some ethnic problems. Eg. The most important historical cities of the region such as Samarkand and Bukhara have(had?) a Tajik majority and are located in Uzbekistan.

Central Asia was a cultural mosaic like Africa, with many overlapping ethnic groups. Isn't the relation between the Tajiks (Persian-speakers) and Turkic groups comparable to the relation between the Hausa and Fulani in northern Nigeria?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
But in Central Asia you have a very sparsely populated territory inhabited mostly by nomads. In more dense areas you can see some ethnic problems. Eg. The most important historical cities of the region such as Samarkand and Bukhara have(had?) a Tajik majority and are located in Uzbekistan.
Nationalism still became popular in Central Asian cities, no?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
The era I mentioned--late 19th/early 20th century, when anthropologists, ethnographers, and linguists began to conduct studies on various African peoples. As I said, many are very outdated, in particular the ones which were probably the most prominent which confirmed Europeans as superior to Africans (not that Europe needed that, of course). But I'm not too deeply familiar with the 150 or so years of serious scholarship done by Europeans on African cultures and languages, other than I can tell you that whatever information the scholars of the day present to the people actually drawing the lines will end up diluted at best, for one, and for two, is based on what we nowadays tend to recognise as dated at best.

But what I said is only if we're assuming that partitioning Africa on ethnic or linguistic lines is a good idea to begin with.

OK.

Central Asia was a cultural mosaic like Africa, with many overlapping ethnic groups.

To some extent, Yes, certainly.

Isn't the relation between the Tajiks (Persian-speakers) and Turkic groups comparable to the relation between the Hausa and Fulani in northern Nigeria?

Well, what exactly is the relationship between the Hausa and Fulani in northern Nigeria?
 
I'll just add my two cents on the colossal amount of ignorance Europeans had on African cultures at the time. I've been researching Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) for fun, and I've come across a .pdf of a grammar originally published in German in the 1850s. It makes claims like the Ethiopic writing system came from Greek, which is absurd for so many reasons, and classifies Amharic (Ethiopia's current official language) as a dialect of Ge'ez (they don't even form plurals the same way). Since Ethiopia was arguably one of the more culturally "Western" parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and had contact with the Portuguese and later the British, Russians, and Italians, one wouldn't expect that level of ignorance.

My point being, expecting Europeans to divide up Africa along ethnic lines at a time period where they knew so little about the continent will not end well. If anything, it might make Africa even more of a mess than it is today because certain groups would feel as though their land had been given to others by ignorant Europeans while those same others would see their "historical" claims legitimized. It might be harder for a lot of countries to get along. IIRC, one of the major agreements that led to the founding of the African Union was the decision not to mess with the fragile European-imposed borders. I don't know if that would happen in the scenario being proposed here.
 
Here's an interesting AHC: During the Scramble for Africa, have Africa be partitioned by the Europeans based on ethnic lines rather than based on arbitrary borders.
This idea has been suggested in previous threads and one of the major problems with it is that it post-independence it creates miniature states that probably aren't sustainable. Here's a map I dug up with a quick search to illustrate. Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and the Horn of Africa look somewhat manageable, Central Africa and the southern part of West Africa would be just a mess though.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
This idea has been suggested in previous threads and one of the major problems with it is that it post-independence it creates miniature states that probably aren't sustainable. Here's a map I dug up with a quick search to illustrate. Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and the Horn of Africa look somewhat manageable, Central Africa and the southern part of West Africa would be just a mess though.

Realistically speaking, you are absolutely correct. I do want to point out, however, that a century ago, if you divided Europe by the actually spoken languages, it would've looked the same. 100 years ago, most people in even the Netherlands (a rather small country) typically spoke the regional language. A country this small had multiple regional languages! Same goes for Germany and many other countries. Although the process was already underway (due to the centralising tendency of states), only the last century really saw the standardisation of language within European "nation"-states. It is theoretically conceivable that Europeans would try to do in Africa what they were (at the very same time) starting to do in Europe: unite an area they consider culturally 'united' or 'similar', determin which language/dialect is the most spoken or most prestigious, and make that the standard language of the region. (But of course, realistically, they'll try to force their own language on the native inhabitants of the region...)

As far as organisation goes, the might be better perspectives. Yes, Africa was a large quilt of relatively small cultural areas. Theorectically, someone interested in creating culture-baed borders could respect those small areas, but unite them into confederations. Essentially turn every colony into a decentralisad amalgation of tribal fiefs, princely states (possibly free cities)... that kind of thing. The small-basis setup for this might also make it easier for some, ah, 'misallocated' fiefs to secede and joing another confederation in the post-colonial period. (I'm assuming that even if this kind of division is done with the best of intentions, there are going to be mess-ups, and mutually hostile peoples are going to be put into the same confederation by sheer European incompetence.)

Although I do not find this realistic (because it doesn't fit with the main motivations of colonialism), it's conceivable that one European power, under an extrordinarily Englightened monarch or so, could implement a policy like this. If it works well, other might adopt (elements of) it. In any case, if done with honest intentions, and assuming all other factors remain roughly equal, I do think this will be an improvement over OTL. Anything that's based on existing tribal fiefs and decentralism is going to be better than "let's throw 'em all together within arbitrary borders, including people who speak utterly different languages and who totally hate each other, and then have them form a singe central government later, okay?"
 
In order to even remotely approach accurate lines you'd need to have a census of the entire continent asking for ethnicity and residence. And then you'd find out the borders would be remarkably unworkable as ethnicities mix and merge in settlements on the edges of regions.

That's ignoring nomads and a dozen other problems I can think of (like motivation).

So, to have something like this what you need is someone powerful with a really strong internal desire to do that. I find it hard to imagine someone wanting to respect ethnicities wouldn't just come up with different solutions than borders (like different parliaments/laws within one country for other ethnicities ala Muslims/Christians in Islamic states) so you've probably got to give them reason to doubt other solutions.
 
Biology is strongly against this, remember there is vastly more genetic difference in Africa than all the rest of the world, often there is more variation between next door villages than in the whole of Eurasia including Australia. Worse there are many languages and cultures that do not follow genetic traits. It is quite possible to have closely related people speaking very different tongues while two people speaking the same tongue may have very different genetic history.

In other words I am not at all sure you can even define ethnicity in any meaningful way in Africa let alone draw line on a map to reflect this. The closest I can imagine would be some arbitrary lines reflecting the political power of various people at the time the Europeans took over modified by practical politics and economies of scale between rival empires. Much like OTL I suppose!
 
Also, a good framework map to use for this would be our TL's 2017 borders in Europe, which in many cases are approximately based on ethnic lines.

Really? Ask the Basques, the jews, the Romani, the Sami, the Poles expelled from Germany, the Germans expelled from Poland, the Irish in Liverpool and Glasgow, the Bretons, the Welsh, the Lowland Scots, the highland scots, the Orkneys and shetlands, the Cornish, the Walloons, all the Swiss, venetians, Corsicans, Scicilians, Macedonians, Turkish Cypriots, greek Cypriots, and on, and on, and on. Notice I have not even started on Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary or Bulgaria let alone the Former USSR
 
Realistically speaking, you are absolutely correct. I do want to point out, however, that a century ago, if you divided Europe by the actually spoken languages, it would've looked the same. 100 years ago, most people in even the Netherlands (a rather small country) typically spoke the regional language. A country this small had multiple regional languages! Same goes for Germany and many other countries. Although the process was already underway (due to the centralising tendency of states), only the last century really saw the standardisation of language within European "nation"-states. It is theoretically conceivable that Europeans would try to do in Africa what they were (at the very same time) starting to do in Europe: unite an area they consider culturally 'united' or 'similar', determin which language/dialect is the most spoken or most prestigious, and make that the standard language of the region. (But of course, realistically, they'll try to force their own language on the native inhabitants of the region...)

Fair enough, but I can only think of one colonial example of this: The Dutch "promotion" of Bahasa Indonesia as a national language. That being said, I can't find an area in Africa just as dominant as Batavia/Jakarta over Indonesia.

The small-basis setup for this might also make it easier for some, ah, 'misallocated' fiefs to secede and joing another confederation in the post-colonial period. (I'm assuming that even if this kind of division is done with the best of intentions, there are going to be mess-ups, and mutually hostile peoples are going to be put into the same confederation by sheer European incompetence.)

Oh, genocide and population transfer always happens with the best of intentions...
 
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Here's an interesting AHC: During the Scramble for Africa, have Africa be partitioned by the Europeans based on ethnic lines rather than based on arbitrary borders.

Also, a good framework map to use for this would be our TL's 2017 borders in Europe, which in many cases are approximately based on ethnic lines.

In addition to this, what exactly would the consequences of such a move be?

Any thoughts on all of this?

As much as I like the idea, have you seen an ethnic map of Africa??!!?
murdockmapbound.png


Good luck putting all of that into colonies. Also how would the Europeans know the differences?
 
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