For Freedom, Sultan and Africa; or Zanzibar-wank!

rebeu

Banned
If anyone has other versions of precolonial Africa on the eve of the Berlin Conference that would be great. One with Somali sultanates and a more intricate detail of East Africa would be fantastic.

Honestly, I've been developing the TL for a Zanzibar that expands into Katanga and inland at the expense of Belgians and Germans and in cooperation with the British, but the idea about expanding up the coast with the Somalis is an idea; however there is the fundamental Ibadi/Sunni(Shafi'i) divide that would have to be explained. Thoughts?
 

rebeu

Banned
How far in the Congo are you talking about?

That's something I haven't thought of. I liked the idea of a Zanzibari Katanga to see a more stable power controlling its minerals. (Nuclear Zanzibar à la South Africa or India i.e. uranium produce par rapport SA and indigenous intelligence par rapport India with Britain perhaps playing the role of France in the France-Israel deal.) Of course this would require an early civil war of probably Soviet-supported non-Muslim black communists perhaps in the 60's? I like the ideas I've had many, but it will take a firmly capitalist and pro-British and pro-West government to maintain support. A firmly Western Muslim minor power?

katchen said:
And how far down the Nile? Could Zanzibar take on the Madhi?
This was another idea I liked. I also like the idea of an Egypt that retains the Sudan and stretches to Lake Victoria. With Zanzibaris nearing the Buganda areas, we could see them used to help suppress the Mahdists. I have thought of this idea too. But I doubt an expansionist Anglo-Egyptian administration would like the idea of an expansionist Zanzibar. Then again, with separate priorities and both British protectorates, we could see an agreement (to the scourge of Ethiopia) of East Africa being under two spheres of influence, one from Cairo and one from Zanzibar, both under British tutelage. I have to find some more OTL examples to see how feasible and realistic this all is....
 

Deleted member 14881

Rebeu, when decolonization happens how about Zanzibar leading the other Central African States towards a sphere of influence?
 

rebeu

Banned
Rebeu, when decolonization happens how about Zanzibar leading the other Central African States towards a sphere of influence?

Really possible, I have many ideas that shake up the world as we know yet make it recognizable. It's these crucial years leading up to the 1880's and figuring out the colonial situation to make it last that are the hardest but most important to shake-out.

Any chance a Zanzibar that had already abolished slavery can escape the Berlin Conference as nominally independent followed by an "Exclusive Agreement" with the UK similar in OTL to the Trucial States?
 
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