AHQ: Is a prosperous Congo possible with a 20th Century POD?
- Thread starter Texas Bulldog
- Start date
Best Case: Kenya or better if you get a stable period under a Kenyatta style strongman who is reasonably honest, tries at least in part to bridge tribal identities, and is not a hard-care socialist. Actually with Congo's resources I would say better.
Worse case: Tanzania level if you have Lumumba or another determined socialist like Nyerere.
Worst case: It could be worse than OTL, like Zimbabwe, if you end up with a Mugabe instead of Mobutu (not a defense of Mobutu).
Nightmare worst case: Bokassa was Congolese and becomes Emperor and makes it last!
Worse case: Tanzania level if you have Lumumba or another determined socialist like Nyerere.
Worst case: It could be worse than OTL, like Zimbabwe, if you end up with a Mugabe instead of Mobutu (not a defense of Mobutu).
Nightmare worst case: Bokassa was Congolese and becomes Emperor and makes it last!
I have heard some economists argue that if the Congo’s resources were managed properly and they had some sort of sovereign wealth fund that use the money gained from selling minerals to be reinvested back into the economy - then the Congo would not only become the richest country in Africa - but the richest country in the entire world.
Post Apartheid South Africa being better off than the rest of Africa probably fuels the paternalistic idea that Apartheid created a wealthy state for Africans to adopted instead of build themselves.
Considering that Portuguese and Spanish colonies had white rule for 10-15 longer than French/British colonies and still aren't any better I'd say the above mindset is a croc of shit.
The problem is that African nations didn't have a tradition of democratic norms to build upon/believe in and it was too easy for African leaders to fall to corruption.
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I'm not really romanticizing him. I specifically pointed out that since he wasn't exactly trained in diplomacy, administration, or statecraft, he was pretty constantly alienating people and that did not help him or his position.
I was more just writing it from the perspective of if he had already been elected as a nod to the success of a local democracy. To be clear, while I think Lumumba would in such a scenario be remembered fondly as a "common man trying his best", his best scenario is just getting his nation in the right position and then honoring term limits and someone more competent taking over afterwards.
On the other hand, I think you're idealizing what would probably happen for an anti-communist/anti-imperialist alternative, especially as you're just inventing a hypothetical person without any real historical backing to your proposal. As I mentioned, the US at the time was extremely jumpy and often presumed "anti-Imperialist" was "pro-communist". See: basically most of Eisenhower's foreign policy decisions in Latin America as democratically elected leaders did mild land reform against US-based companies and immediately got portrayed as "communist sympathizers", and any Congolese attempts to try and carve profits from Belgian-owned companies could easily fall afoul of that. Until Eisenhower is out, I don't think that offer from the US is really going to lead to a prosperous and democratic Congo, and at least in the 50s/60s/and possibly early 70s their best bet is to side in some capacity with the USSR, the biggest threat in that case being a Communist movement rising to power as a puppet of Moscow, but that wasn't always the case with USSR-aligned countries.
Now, longer term, that's open to change. If Nixon can exploit the Sino-Soviet Split, a lot of presidents could achieve rapprochement with Congo with the right terms. The best timeline is get the USSR to back them to the hilt in the early years, then exploit a moment in the 70s or 80s to realign as neutral or US-aligned and collect from both sides while building internal stability and prosperity to keep the government in control.
What was the development level of the former French Congo? I know they went conventional Marxist,
In theory looking at other examples of nations with similar geography a prosperous Congo might resemble Brazil in some aspects as a respected regional power some wealthy urban centers but with recognizable poverty still dotting some regions of the nation and much like otl Brazil i expect a prosperous Congo to engage in wide spread deforestation of the rainforest to free up land for development.
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I would second this interpretation. It will likely have to spend more on security issues (which is kinda a money sink) than the Brazilian government does but yeah similar. Definitely the west to east expansion of infrastructure would somewhat mirror Brazilian industry's expansion into its Western interior. I don't think plantation agriculture will quite be the massive industry that it is in Brazil (although it will probably still exist in some forms) but mining will be an even greater part of its economy than mining is in Brazil's case.
Sorry but there are 2 huge differences between Brazil and the Congo. Brazil has a long and well populated coastline, the coastal areas providing a solid basis for expansion into the interior, including the mineral regions. Congo has only a few miles of coastline scrunched between Cabinda and Angola proper and its mineral regions are far from that coast and Kinshasa. The Amazon is navigable by ocean going ships for a long distance to Manaus. The Congo is blocked by rapids and waterfalls around Kinshasa.
That is all true, but these obstacles aren't insurmountable ones in the mid-20th century. The long and accessible coastline of Brazil made it relatively easy to expand into by the Portuguese in the Age of Exploration, but there is no reason why the geography of Congo should inhibit international trade. I mean, as it was the Belgians managed to get minerals from Katanga to the world market.
That may be, but the challenges of geography to settlement and development are very distinct between Brazil and the Congo.