DBWI: The USA = United States of America (instead of Africa)

With the beginning of the Spring season, we are a month away from celebrating the bicentennial of the United States of Africa. the USA has emerged in the top five of industrial and agricultural powers. And cultural attitudes have changed in the last ten years. President Bjoernd Olofssen recently asked Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (Six states already passed gay marriage into law). Five years ago, he was the first non-black person to win election as President (well, his mother was a black woman from Congo and his father was of mixed Cherokee-Norse heritage from Sequoyah).

Bordering the USA's north is the Dominion of Sahara. The mostly desert country is a parliamentary democracy as opposed to the USA's separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Saharans are subjects of the Ottoman Empire and cherish the traditions of democracy. Sure it has gone through a lot. A decade ago, the indigenous Tamazight were granted local self government in the northwest part of the country. The Tamazight speak primarily Berber while the majority of Saharans are bilingual in Arabic and Coptic.

90 percent of Sahara's Copts live in the province of Egypt (which is under 60 percent Coptic). In the past, the Egyptian Copt Party has advocated independence from North Africa. The provinces of Sumeria and Puntland have threatened to become separate dominions of the Ottomans if that had happened. I don't know why the Copts are complaining. A few Copts became Prime Minister of Sahara. Boutros Ghali was Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003. Before that, Michel Shalhoub was Prime Minister from 1970 to 1985 and he had a penchant for the ladies (and his gambling jaunts to the casinos of Bophuthatswana).

I am thinking of writing an alternate history where Africa is a third world continent of multiple independent countries while America is democratic and a first world power in which Indeans are a minority of the population; Vinland, the Aztec Empire and the Arawak Federation do not exist; and the white descendants of Dutch settlers (known as Boers or Amerikaners) do not settle in southeastern America. I just need to come up with a good POD.

Would such a scenario be ASB?

OOC: inspired by Misswhatsitoya's excellent story of the Reverse Cold War.
 
I'm not so sure I'd call it ASB, but it's definitely a challenge. Granted, I can see how having a unified, first-world Africa south of the Sahara might've been seen as ASB as well (were it not for the huge liberalization movement of the myriad nations in the region, the gradual shift of government from tribalist kingdoms into federalist-republican provinces from WITHIN the native communities, and the steady immigration of educated and/or wealthy Europeans and Indians to help develop capital and infrastructure in the region).

One possible POD would be the delay of the discovery of quinine until the 19th. century (instead of the 17th.), which would prevent large-scale immigration to Africa outside of the southernmost savannahs and temperate grasslands. This, plus smaller-scale interaction between the West African kingdoms and Portugal or England, and much smaller exploration of the Americas by the Swedes and Dutch, may help set up your POD.

One possible consequence of your POD would be the reversal of race relations in the Americas. IOTL, whites have had a somewhat spotty history with Native Africans; while there's a sizable minority (minority-majority in some areas) of Luso-African and Brittano-African whites in the USA, they've had to deal with discrimination the further away from the coasts one goes (I was born in the mountains of Drakesboro, and whenever visiting my kin, the racism against whites there was immediately noticeable). It's only been in the past half-century that racial mingling has become non-taboo in large parts of the country. ITTL of yours, I could see the situation being a flip-flop due to a greater number of whites living there, and either "Native Americans" or Africans (how they'd get there, I'm not so sure...indentured servitude, maybe?) being the not-so-accepted minority.
 
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With the beginning of the Spring season, we are a month away from celebrating the bicentennial of the United States of Africa. the USA has emerged in the top five of industrial and agricultural powers. And cultural attitudes have changed in the last ten years. President Bjoernd Olofssen recently asked Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (Six states already passed gay marriage into law). Five years ago, he was the first non-black person to win election as President (well, his mother was a black woman from Congo and his father was of mixed Cherokee-Norse heritage from Sequoyah).

Bordering the USA's north is the Dominion of Sahara. The mostly desert country is a parliamentary democracy as opposed to the USA's separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Saharans are subjects of the Ottoman Empire and cherish the traditions of democracy. Sure it has gone through a lot. A decade ago, the indigenous Tamazight were granted local self government in the northwest part of the country. The Tamazight speak primarily Berber while the majority of Saharans are bilingual in Arabic and Coptic.

90 percent of Sahara's Copts live in the province of Egypt (which is under 60 percent Coptic). In the past, the Egyptian Copt Party has advocated independence from North Africa. The provinces of Sumeria and Puntland have threatened to become separate dominions of the Ottomans if that had happened. I don't know why the Copts are complaining. A few Copts became Prime Minister of Sahara. Boutros Ghali was Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003. Before that, Michel Shalhoub was Prime Minister from 1970 to 1985 and he had a penchant for the ladies (and his gambling jaunts to the casinos of Bophuthatswana).

I am thinking of writing an alternate history where Africa is a third world continent of multiple independent countries while America is democratic and a first world power in which Indeans are a minority of the population; Vinland, the Aztec Empire and the Arawak Federation do not exist; and the white descendants of Dutch settlers (known as Boers or Amerikaners) do not settle in southeastern America. I just need to come up with a good POD.

Would such a scenario be ASB?

OOC: inspired by Misswhatsitoya's excellent story of the Reverse Cold War.

OOC: I'm sorry, but this scenario itself, is pretty much ASB.....especially if you intended a POD after 1900, let alone 1800.
 
With the beginning of the Spring season, we are a month away from celebrating the bicentennial of the United States of Africa. the USA has emerged in the top five of industrial and agricultural powers. And cultural attitudes have changed in the last ten years. President Bjoernd Olofssen recently asked Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (Six states already passed gay marriage into law). Five years ago, he was the first non-black person to win election as President (well, his mother was a black woman from Congo and his father was of mixed Cherokee-Norse heritage from Sequoyah).

Bordering the USA's north is the Dominion of Sahara. The mostly desert country is a parliamentary democracy as opposed to the USA's separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Saharans are subjects of the Ottoman Empire and cherish the traditions of democracy. Sure it has gone through a lot. A decade ago, the indigenous Tamazight were granted local self government in the northwest part of the country. The Tamazight speak primarily Berber while the majority of Saharans are bilingual in Arabic and Coptic.

90 percent of Sahara's Copts live in the province of Egypt (which is under 60 percent Coptic). In the past, the Egyptian Copt Party has advocated independence from North Africa. The provinces of Sumeria and Puntland have threatened to become separate dominions of the Ottomans if that had happened. I don't know why the Copts are complaining. A few Copts became Prime Minister of Sahara. Boutros Ghali was Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003. Before that, Michel Shalhoub was Prime Minister from 1970 to 1985 and he had a penchant for the ladies (and his gambling jaunts to the casinos of Bophuthatswana).

I am thinking of writing an alternate history where Africa is a third world continent of multiple independent countries while America is democratic and a first world power in which Indeans are a minority of the population; Vinland, the Aztec Empire and the Arawak Federation do not exist; and the white descendants of Dutch settlers (known as Boers or Amerikaners) do not settle in southeastern America. I just need to come up with a good POD.

Would such a scenario be ASB?

OOC: inspired by Misswhatsitoya's excellent story of the Reverse Cold War.


The North
America you describe in this scenario is plausible with a POD before 1000 AD, though I have my doubts.

Oops. Can the administrator move this to After 1900?

OCC: This Africa - North America reversal of fortunes scenario would be 100% ASB in the After-1900 forum. As it is, the world you describe is highly implausible given the nature of butterflies and all.
 
OOC: Well ASB or no, I thought it was a neat concept anyway :(. Maybe it should be moved there instead?

Well, to be honest with you, I think it's a pretty neat idea, too, and it could be doable with an early enough POD; just not in the time frame that Glenn67 originally suggested, that's all. :)
 
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