CH: Unite Africa into One Country

Yes, unite the continent of Africa into one country. How? I don't know, just find a way to do it by the year 2000 without ASB intervention, hence the thread placement.

Can you do it AH.Com? GO!
 
An earlier spread of Islam to West Africa? Say the Caliphate of *Cordoba does a Vasco De Gama a few hundred years early(they're having trouble with neighbors in North Africa and the Middle East, so they're paying too high a price for the riches of India and trading with the Sahel through grasping middlemen), and as in East Africa OTL a racially mixed trading culture arises along the coast. Islam spreads inland, and by 1400 a big-ass Islamic state emerges in what is central Nigeria. Uniting by religion tribes of savanna and jungle, the Sultanate (later Caliphate) of the lower Niger has the biological and immunilogical package to survive a March to the Southeast, and the Caliphate spends a busy 500 years doing a Reverse Draka converting the backwards heathens of southern and central Africa to Islam by Fire and the Sword, eventually hooking up with the Swahili on the east coast. Then the time comes to liberate their pasty-skinned co-religionists to the north from the oppressive yoke of Firanji rule...

Bruce
 
I honestly think that people need to respect that some things are impossible. Africa is larger than all of North America, which here includes both Greenland and everything you'd otherwise classify as Central America. Moreover, large parts of it is desolate, disease-ridden, or otherwise a large administrative strain. It simply isn't going to work without ASB interfering.

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Islam spreads inland, and by 1400 a big-ass Islamic state emerges in what is central Nigeria. Uniting by religion tribes of savanna and jungle, the Sultanate (later Caliphate) of the lower Niger has the biological and immunilogical package to survive a March to the Southeast, and the Caliphate spends a busy 500 years doing a Reverse Draka converting the backwards heathens of southern and central Africa to Islam by Fire and the Sword, eventually hooking up with the Swahili on the east coast. Then the time comes to liberate their pasty-skinned co-religionists to the north from the oppressive yoke of Firanji rule...

And how, exactly, would this state emerge, get the resources to conquer such a territory, and manage to stay together for five centuries?
 
I honestly think that people need to respect that some things are impossible. Africa is larger than all of North America, which here includes both Greenland and everything you'd otherwise classify as Central America. Moreover, large parts of it is desolate, disease-ridden, or otherwise a large administrative strain. It simply isn't going to work without ASB interfering.

EDIT:



And how, exactly, would this state emerge, get the resources to conquer such a territory, and manage to stay together for five centuries?
This. Such a state would be near-impossible to maintain even using modern technology, and going back into the past, Africa's large geographic size makes it an impossible place for a large state to be, especially as many areas are unsuitable for the horse. In addition to this, there are also huge cultural differences, etc...
 
Does the British Empire count? That could be one country that all of Africa might be in, although that might require an Anglo-German alliance (so Britain gets all the French, Spanish and Portuguese territories). Then *WWII where Imperial Britain takes on Germany and takes her colonies? ??

Near-ASB, but easier than a single country essentially coterminous with the continent.
 
If even the United States could not unify North America from Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama, then Africa is even harder.
 
If even the United States could not unify North America from Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama, then Africa is even harder.

Well, the whole Under the Protection of the Strongest Power on Earth Until Maybe the 1880s thing for Canada was a bit of a discincentive in one direction, as was the What the Hell Do We Do with All these Icky Brown People problem in the other...

Bruce
 
This. Such a state would be near-impossible to maintain even using modern technology, ...

I'm skeptical of that statement - China has more people than all of Africa, and the USSR+Mongolia and Eastern Europe was almost as large in terms of area.

(Admittedly, it's a wee bit harder in a pre-modern era. That was just a tossaway TL there)

Bruce
 
I'm skeptical of that statement - China has more people than all of Africa, and the USSR+Mongolia and Eastern Europe was almost as large in terms of area.

(Admittedly, it's a wee bit harder in a pre-modern era. That was just a tossaway TL there)

Bruce

The difference is population density. China has most of its Population in cities, and then the cities are near one another, plus they have centuries of national culture unifying them. Somewhere close to 90% saying they are Han Chinese. the USSR had proxies doing work which by definition is not one country, they too also have Population density mostly in Eastern Europe with the rest of the country near deserted till they got to the other side. Plus the USSR fell apart partly due to demographic reasons with only 50% seeing themselves Russian. Any Pan-African Nation will have the most far flung population, along with a any one culture being a minority that is would fall at a moments notice.
 
USSR+Mongolia and Eastern Europe was almost as large in terms of area.

Mongolia-Eastern Europe has a) horses b) ideal habitat for horses c) ideal habitat for horses that consists of flat open plains- making vast swathes of the territory easily conquerable for anyone willing to climb on a horse and get reasonably organized, which makes pre-modern conquest a cakewalk.

Africa, by contrast, has sleeping sickness which effectively kills horses dead south of the Sahel, as well as jungles, mountains and deserts that make any pre-modern conquest of the whole area by foot impossible.
 
Hard but not ASB.

As we all known most of the borders between African countries were arbitrarily set by their former colonial masters and as such, very few African countries qualify for the European notion of nation-state. Being "African" is one of the less confusing identities to lean on.

So one could see pan-Africanism being an even stronger ideological force in the independence process as it was IOTL. A political movement may encourage African nationalism and discourage ethnic nationalism and land/colony/country nationalism.
As such, one could see the final goal of the freedom fighters not just liberate their own Land but integrate it in a larger African Confederation, loose and inefficient as it may be.

Granted, even though North Africans had a common enemy with the rest of the Africans, this confederation could probably just be a Sub-Saharan-only club, unlike OTL's African Union.
 
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Africa's topography makes overland travel very difficult and the cost of providing a coherent transport network would be prohibitive. Without that it's difficult to create a national identity as there is little contact between the various regions. Even if you managed to meld everything together the chances are it will break up again in the medium term.

Now if you could create and maintain a United Africa, it would probably be the biggest economic power on Earth with just about every valuable resource going and with the right government it's people would be very well off!
 
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