Malê Rising

[Faeelin]

You know, one thing which occurs to me about futurism is that in OTL a lot of Europeans saw America as the wave of the future, for better and worse. (Often worse, what with their crash consumerism, bad music, lack of manners, and uneducated masses).

I wonder if that's still prevalent here, if hte US remained neutral in the war?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Is Diagne an alternate sibling of Blaise Diagne?
EDIT: Nvm, a quick check shows that that is the case.

He's an ATL half-sibling - same father, different mother, and he stayed Muslim.

He was at the university in Paris when the Great War started and enlisted as an officer in an engineer regiment, rising to the rank of major during that war and lieutenant colonel during the civil war. He returned to Senegal in 1901 and became involved in local politics. He teaches history, which is his first love, although his experience in the engineers and in postwar Paris have given him an abiding interest in technological progress and urban design.

All good, pacifist futurism, colonies increasingly turning into parts of a federal empire... oh, and HIV/AIDs . A fly in the ointment.

To be sure, France is overextending itself - the current levels of public investment aren't sustainable in the long term - and the uneven treatment of the colonies will have consequences.

HIV certainly won't do anything good, and it will be decades before medical science succeeds in getting a handle on it. Fortunately, the high-risk sexual behaviors that led to OTL's high infection rates in southern Africa are less prevalent in Europe, East Africa and India, so we'll probably see infection rates similar to OTL Uganda rather than OTL Swaziland. On the other hand, those behaviors do still exist in southern Africa.

Futurism seems like High Modernism without quite so much soul-crushing.

It's also more participatory than High Modernism, although it shares some of the same flaws - for instance, it's mentioned that Diagne's conception of urban communities is uncommon in European futurism. One of the contributions that African futurism will make in TTL is the notion that it's important to keep some aspects of the gemeinschaft even in cities (or maybe especially in cities).

Diagne thinks of cities as a collection of small towns, which is how precolonial West African cities were traditionally organized, but as a futurist, he conceives of transportation networks and architectural design as enabling "towns" based on shared interest or spiritual need as well as geography. BTW, if you've read Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, you'll have more idea of where some of my inspirations for TTL's futurist urban design come from.

Seems that the general mood is a lot more optimistic than post-WW I IOTL...

Not in Hungary or India...

But generally, yes.

OTL had the Roaring Twenties/Jazz Age in the United States, the années folles in France and the later 20s in Weimar Germany. The mood in TTL's postwar France is somewhat similar to that, with the added factors of (a) hegemonic ideologies that encourage optimism, and (b) the fact that the postwar period is occurring during the rise of the progressive era rather than its decline, at a time when there is still great faith in technological progress leading to social progress (albeit tempered by the experience of industrial warfare).

Futurism as a serious ideology- I like it. It's a pity that the sexual revolution failed to take on, but that happened with Socialism IOTL. Socialists tended to view sex scientifically from a practical standpoint rather than as something to be opened up and celebrated- an approach more likely to result in a Ministry of Sex rather than a real liberalism in values.

Yeah, pretty much. Early socialism will involve people like Kollontai, who thought of the family as an oppressive economic unit and who wanted to divorce (pun intended) sexuality, child-rearing and work from family life in order to make women independent of men. Women's independence isn't a bad goal, of course, but that kind of outlook misses a lot of the things that marriage, family and sexuality are about.

In any event, the appearance of HIV will do a number on any incipient sexual revolution, and will force the French equivalents of Kollontai to change their emphasis. TTL's sexual revolution, when it comes, will start with the anarchists. Eventually.

Great update as always. Just how much will the Trans-Saharan railroad impact France and her colonies?

Quite a bit, and it will impact the Toucouleur empire even more. The railroad will go through Timbuktu, both to take advantage of the existing railhead at Ségou and to fulfill the commercial treaties made during the civil war. This will help make the Toucouleur rich and give them a connection to the French economy to offset their dependence on the Malê, but will also tie them to the outside world in a way that doesn't make Aguibou Tall entirely happy.

I expect that the Kingdom of the Arabs will undergo some profound changes as well - less isolation, more movement to settled towns, and lots of young men leaving their tribes to get construction jobs.

Question. Will Verne be interred in the Pantheon for his achievements after his death?

He will be, although I'm not sure how he would feel about that.

A Futurist France.. what a strange world you have created, Jonathan. I hope this means we can see some crazy building designs being proposed during this time.

I don't have the artistic skill to draw them, but they'll certainly exist. These renderings of Kigali in 2050 or Nairobi in 2030 might give some idea of what the African futurist architects will build.

I know this is way off topic to the timeline, but I was wondering just what is going on in Siam during this time. Islamic Reformism has largely passed on there due to it being mostly Buddhist, and with the country under British control I wonder if it could have ever modernized as per OTL . Would King Mongkut and Chulalongkorn be able to modernize the country, even though they are now under British rule? I don't know much about Thai history to figure this out.

I'd assume no, given that if they're under the British, there's no need to modernise; so they're sort of confirmed in their power.

They're a British client rather than a British protectorate, but Badshah is correct - the connections to the British Empire will enforce the status quo. When modernization eventually comes to Siam, it will be more of a bottom-up process.

It's a shame that France's socialists seem to be semi-authoritarian in nature, though it's not too bad when you compare it to the post-war world in OTL.

It's rather like Progressivism OTL being a top-down, elitist nanny-state alternative to and prophylactic against bottom-up neo-revolutionism as foreshadowed by the OTL Populists and underscored by Wobblies and the Socialists in the USA. Sure, a deep and sweeping social revolution that, its proponents claim anyway, is the only real way forward for true democracy has been diverted. OTOH, a mainstream society that is protected from sweeping revision is revised piecemeal, retains continuity, and seems on the whole definitely better off for it--having both more potential for future development and yet on the whole more humane. If not compared to the utopian dreams of the hard-core revolutionaries, at least compared to projected business-as-usual.

They've been through the Leclair semi-dictatorship and a civil war, they want to make sure neither one happens again, and to some extent they believe that utopia justifies the means. Fortunately, France hasn't experienced anything as long and bitter as the Russian civil war or the extremities of War Communism, and the largest socialist parties haven't adopted a vanguard-party ideology, so the socialist parties' democratic sensibilities haven't been eroded as much as the CPSU - they're more than a bit on the overbearing side, but they respect constitutional rules and value participatory democracy.

As Shevek23 says - and as the in-universe works hopefully show - most Frenchmen in later times will look upon the Red Twenty as a "world half full," a period that was somewhat (albeit not very) repressive but which brought in many things that were good for France and made people feel good about being French. (They'll like the feminism and syndicalist self-management a lot more than the central planning and half-baked colonial policy.) Those on the right will have more of a sense of grievance, but that's to be expected.

1. Is TTL seeing the development of new literary standards which weren't seen IOTL? With a more developed Africa, I could surely see a push to standardize various dialects into something cohesive. I could also see some knock-off effects in Europe - for example, given the Dalmatian dialects of Serbo-Croatian are quite divergent from those spoken in most of Serbia/Bosnia/Croatia, the creation of a distinct "Dalmatian" language.

We've already seen the growth of Sudanic (the Portuguese-Fulfulde-Arabic creole of the Malê) as a literary language, and I'd expect that Yoruba and the languages of the West African princely states will be standardized somewhat earlier. This won't happen quite as much in the French parts of West Africa - most of their authors will write in French - but the peripheral cultures such as the Toucouleur might also develop literary standards.

Dalmatia - well, it does have its own army and navy.

2. The other side of the same coin is language revival. I wonder if we might see it in a few places we did not IOTL. For example, the Ottomans might actually find it worthwhile to support the revival of the nearly moribund Central and Western Aramaic dialects among Christians in the Levant, in order to put a brake on pan-Arabism.

The Ottomans, I think, will want to reduce language diversity in their empire rather than increase it - they'll want to be able to do official business in a few standard languages. They'll encourage the minorities to adopt Turkish.

There will be Venetian and to some extent Friulan, although these will be more preservationist movements than revivalist ones. There are some Hebrew revivalists in Salonika - it's the only common language shared by the immigrant Jews - and probably a stronger Irish revivalist movement.

While it might be the case for some, the differences between dialects of many West Africans are so great that they may as well be seperate languages, even today their's ALOT of confusion, debate and disagreement over what is a dialect and what's a language among linguists in many places there and in some cases whether languague or dialect groups are even related to each other (for example their are about a dozen languages with between 50,000-1 million+ speakers that have major disputes between what language groups they're part of).

Although if one particular dialect becomes the literary and governmental standard, then it will have a head start in being recognized as "the language." See, e.g., Tuscan/Florentine.

You know, one thing which occurs to me about futurism is that in OTL a lot of Europeans saw America as the wave of the future, for better and worse. (Often worse, what with their crash consumerism, bad music, lack of manners, and uneducated masses).

I wonder if that's still prevalent here, if hte US remained neutral in the war?

Hmmm. On the one hand, neutrality has been very profitable for the United States, and it will develop quickly during the early twentieth century; there are also the immigration and frontier narratives to make it seem new. On the other hand, this America is more isolationist, meaning that there would be less awareness of and contact with American culture in the rest of the world. I'm guessing the view will be mixed - that the United States will still be seen as something new and unprecedented, but that Europe's reinvention of itself will be seen as equally futuristic.

 

[eschaton]

HIV certainly won't do anything good, and it will be decades before medical science succeeds in getting a handle on it. Fortunately, the high-risk sexual behaviors that led to OTL's high infection rates in southern Africa are less prevalent in Europe, East Africa and India, so we'll probably see infection rates similar to OTL Uganda rather than OTL Swaziland. On the other hand, those behaviors do still exist in southern Africa.

I wonder if someone will notice that Senegalese contract AIDS much more infrequently, and draw a conclusion about circumcision, with circumcision ultimately becoming a social norm among the French as it is in the U.S. IOTL?

 

[Iori]

I wonder if someone will notice that Senegalese contract AIDS much more infrequently, and draw a conclusion about circumcision, with circumcision ultimately becoming a social norm among the French as it is in the U.S. IOTL?

The use of Circumcision to fight AIDS really only works in High-Risk populations in which the sexual practiced that spread it are practiced, in the developed world theirs really no point since those kinds of sexual practiced are very rare and their's things like condoms as well, which incidentally I think might see faster development (Condoms have existed for centuries, but it was'nt until the 20th century they began being really developed) now that their's a need beyond keeping from getting a woman pregnant.

 

[Hnau]

Futurist-socialist France, huh? Fascinating as always! I can't wait to see the effects of that Trans-Sahara railroad, it's a shame there still isn't something like it in 2013!

Once again, I'd like to share my thoughts on Mormonism in this timeline.

So, we've removed the menace of atheistic Marxist communists bent on world domination thanks to Tolstoy taking Lenin's place in the Russian revolution. The peasant farmers have taken the place of the proletarian factory workers as the agent of change in the country and they are doing some things which have never been done before on such a scale: the creation of thousands of democratic agricultural communes.

IOTL the Red Scare after the Great War caused the leadership and membership of the LDS Church to take a turn towards economic conservatism. Before 1919 Mormons had experimented with collectivism multiple times, first in the 1830s during the genesis of their movement and then several times again in Utah once they had established themselves there. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were looking to build on the ideas of earlier Christian socialists of the 19th century, and such communalism was discussed frequently among the leadership. Evidence of this is found in Mormon scripture and sermons from Mormon leaders. Many socialists outside of Utah came to the state to investigate the collectivist United Order communities that had been organized there and many Mormons were elected as socialists in local governments. But then the Red Scare came at a time when the first generation of non-polygamous Latter-day Saints were becoming adults and when Utah was becoming ever more integrated economically and socially into the United States. There was a lot of new pressure to conform to American society. And Latter-day Saints didn't want to do anything to associate themselves with the evil atheist revolutionaries that in the early 1920s seemed to be lurking in every corner. In wider American society, Mormons were already seen to be strange, unpatriotic, and even dangerous. This image had to be corrected.

At first, the church leadership simply demonized Marxism and international communism. For this reason Utah voted Republican in the presidential elections of 1920, 1924, and 1928. Mormons were taught to be anti-communist but there was still discussion of LDS communalism and mainstream American socialism wasn't seen as so bad. During the Great Depression socialism was popular among the Mormons, and Utah voted every time for Roosevelt and again for Truman. Then came the Cold War and the communist menace seemed ever more dangerous. It wasn't enough to vilify the Marxists themselves, but their entire philosophy.

As such, the leaders did the best they could to glorify the free market and convince the membership that the United Order, the future collectivist society of the Millennium, was only possible under the direct leadership of Jesus Christ. Until he personally came to reign, the governments of man couldn't be trusted to manage any market and getting rid of private property was unreasonable. So strong has this drive been, that since 1952, Utah has voted for the more conservative presidential candidate every election except when it voted against Goldwater. And the more time that has passed, the more Mormonism has entangled itself with American paleo-conservatism. These ideas pass from American missionaries out to congregations throughout the world, so that even in Brazil local Mormon leaders rail against socialism and champion the free market.

Now. In this "World Half Full", the situation is very different. The Tolstoyists are religious agrarian communalists. They have more in common with the American Latter-day Saints than even the urban socialists of the United States. Not only will there be no atheistic movement to react against, the Mormon Church will be actively interested in the philosophies and political programs of this New Russia. LDS cultural norms that keep political and religious discussion separate will continue thanks to pressure from the membership. Mormon liberals won't be vilified in their congregations as being sympathetic to an atheistic movement. With black Mormons remaining an important sector of the LDS Church, there will be even more of a reason to remain politically diverse. And above that, the leadership of the LDS Church may once again push for experiments in United Order communities, as they did under Brigham Young in the 1870s and 1880s, only now they may adopt some ideas from the Russians, once they discover what is being done out there.

With continued political diversity there will also likely be more theological diversity. Starting in the 1960s the LDS Church leadership began a period of "correlation" in which many diverse beliefs held by lay Mormons were addressed specifically by the leaders to unify the Latter-day Saints under a single doctrine. Dissent meant excommunication. They were largely successful, eliminating many theological divergences that had developed over the decades. I see this as a consequence of decades of political correlation, which made the same process only logical in the theological dimension. If there is less pressure to correlate Mormon theology in the later 20th century, there will be much more wiggle room to make reforms and changes, which there is little of in the early 21st. I can discuss this later, but it is exciting stuff.

And now to another divergence, which will involve Samuel the Lamanite. In the early 20th century local Mormon leaders in southern Utah were still performing polygamous marriages and letting polygamous families continue in good standing, even though polygamy had been renounced by revelation in the First Manifesto of 1890. There is some evidence that even some higher Mormon leaders continued to quietly support the practice in the early 1900s. This necessitated the Second Manifesto of 1904 which reconfirmed the position that polygamy was no longer authorized by the Lord and would not be tolerated among members of the LDS Church. This caused many groups to splinter off from Salt Lake City and claim their own prophetic mantle, and that revoking polygamy constituted apostasy. The church was slow to deal with fringe polygamous communities, until finally in the 1930s mass excommunications were issued to eliminate all those who still practiced polygamy. The fundamentalist polygamous groups that had been establishing themselves since the Second Manifesto gladly brought them in.

In your timeline, this reaction to the termination of polygamy will probably happen just the same. But here, we've seen that Mormon leaders have become aware of the heretical Congolese Mormons led by Samuel the Lamanite, who most likely has maintained his polygamous practices. And here, black Mormons have been included in Mormon communities since the very beginning... it is likely some fundamentalists in southern Utah are also black (though they would take the immorality of miscegenation even more seriously than SLC). We also have the peculiar situation of Samuel declaring his prophetic mantle even sooner than the fundamentalists in southern Utah, very shortly after the 1890 Manifesto. Samuel the Lamanite very well could be seen by many polygamists as a better candidate to the "One Mighty and Strong" than their own leaders (claiming the current prophet is fallen and that there is a new prophet to replace him is based on an 1832 prophecy by Joseph Smith which can now be found in the Doctrine & Covenants, Mormon scripture).

So I think it is inevitable that, sometime during or after the 1930s, we're going to get at least some Utah polygamists organizing and moving off to the Congo where they will seek the sanctioned Prophet of the Lord. Black Mormon polygamists in Utah will probably have even a greater motivation to emigrate than the whites, as they will be escaping their racial disadvantages in the United States or even those still in the church, and may leave even sooner. But even the white Mormon fundamentalists will have an incentive to do so. After all, polygamy won't be punishable by imprisonment in the Congo. Those who take on the task of moving to an entirely new continent will probably be somewhat different than other fundamentalists in Utah... they will be more likely to be affluent, so as to afford the Transatlantic passage, also more well-read and educated to have learned of Samuel's kingdom and understood the implications, and they'll exhibit an even higher dedication to fundamentalist Mormonism similar to those early Latter-day Saints who followed Brigham Young into the far west. They would be a very interesting injection into whatever society Samuel is building out in the Congo, if they can get there.

I'd like to write a story about it some time! When we get to the 1930s or 1940s, perhaps?

 

[St. Just]

Can we get a fuller picture of Dietmar Kohler and Sud-Kivu? I'm very intrigued by the place.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I wonder if someone will notice that Senegalese contract AIDS much more infrequently, and draw a conclusion about circumcision, with circumcision ultimately becoming a social norm among the French as it is in the U.S. IOTL?

The use of Circumcision to fight AIDS really only works in High-Risk populations in which the sexual practices that spread it are practice

I doubt that connection will be made in any event, because there will be cases among the Omani and Indian Muslim soldiers who fought in the Congo, and they're circumcised.

Then again, since it's a disease no one really understands, there will be all kinds of theories about what causes it and how to prevent it. Doctors might suspect that it's a virus - viruses were already theorized in the 1890s in OTL - but they won't be able to prove it until the 1950s or so, which means that there will be plenty of superstitions and folk cures. Hopefully these won't be as destructive as some of the rumors that exist in OTL South Africa.

Now. In this "World Half Full", the situation is very different. The Tolstoyists are religious agrarian communalists. They have more in common with the American Latter-day Saints than even the urban socialists of the United States. Not only will there be no atheistic movement to react against, the Mormon Church will be actively interested in the philosophies and political programs of this New Russia. Pressure from the membership will continue to continue norms that separate political and religious discussion.

That's... fascinating. I had no idea that Mormons were so open to experimental politics in the early years, although I probably shouldn't be surprised. Given the history you laid out, it seems natural that the Mormons of TTL would continue to be politically diverse, and that some of them would be attracted to Tolstoyan/narodnik ideas. Maybe a few Mormons would go to Russia; even if not, there might be groups who adapt narodnik practices to Utah and interpret them in terms of Mormon theology.

In your timeline, this reaction to the termination of polygamy will probably happen just the same. But here, we've seen that Mormon leaders have become aware of the heretical Congolese Mormons led by Samuel the Lamanite, who most likely has maintained his polygamous practices. [...] Samuel the Lamanite very well could be seen by many polygamists as a better candidate to the "One Mighty and Strong" than their own leaders

This would also be an interesting, and quite possible, development. If the FLDS decide that Samuel is the true prophet, I wonder how far they'd go in assimilating to Afro-Mormon practice and culture.

I'd like to write a story about it some time! When we get to the 1930s or 1940s, perhaps?

By all means do. Like I've said before, anyone is welcome to set stories in this world - just run your idea by me first.

Can we get a fuller picture of Dietmar Kohler and Sud-Kivu? I'm very intrigued by the place.

There will be one either two or three updates from now - the next update that deals with eastern and central Africa will discuss postwar developments in Sud-Kivu.

 

[Al-numbers]

Wow, never thought those Rwandan architects were so ambitious.

Jonathan, I don't know if you can squeeze any more cultures into this timeline, but I just realized that my mother's side of my family can influence South East Asian events a lot and dammit if I don't try persuading you on this!

The Minangkabau peoples of Sumatra are one of the most fascinating cultures in all of Indonesia.The culture is strongly matrilineal and males are generally more loyal to their mother’s and sister’s clans. Even their land was passed from mother to daughter while the men handle the religious affairs (Wikipedia says it is the world's biggest matrilineal society). Also, due to history a part of their noble families in Sumatra has intermarried with the noble houses of Negeri Sembilan in Peninsular Malaya (which has an interesting system of rule itself and served the basis for Malaysia's OTL elected monarchy) and by the POD there was already a large community across the Straits.

Given that their culture is generally the opposite of what others think of women around the region, they would have strong incentive to modernize and reform to protect themselves. On the other hand, if Indonesian nationalism is as strong as OTL, then they might end up siding with the greater independence movement.

Given Sultan Abu Bakar's reforms next door and the growing jaji movement in Java, this can have very interesting effects on the Minangkabau heartland in the coming decades.

Minangkabau men are more likely than other cultures to travel to seek their fortunes, and from this, they could get into contact with Hadrami and Bugis merchants and their version of reformist Islam. At the same time, they could also pick up the “Ottoman Constitutional” style of reform by being eyewitnesses to Johor’s modernization or by way from the Acehnese up north, or by the grapevine from their Negeri Sembilan relatives; Sultan Abu Bakar was widely respected around the Peninsula and other rulers often go to him for guidance, so there could be some drive by the nobility and royalty to reform just as Johor did (although since he’s in London ITTL his presence might be less felt around the archipelago. How long does he stay in London ITTL?).

At the same time, the women could get into contact with the jaji’s of Southern Sumatra and may decide to educate their children the same way, although this would definitely get them into conflict with the imams of their region, who cling on to their adat and culture as the last line of defense and power. Minangkabau imams are also the traditional tutors of young boys, so a jaji system would definitely send some sparks flying.

Bring these different forms of Islam into the heartland and they would form the most potent of mixes. Minangkabau culture – regardless of gender – stresses the importance of learning and education and if Indonesian nationalism is weaker than OTL, then I can see a strong regionalist movement coming out of this, just to oppose the Dutch or the Javanese. If we are really pushing the butterflies, then I can see an independent Minangkabau state with close ties to Aceh and Malaya.

EDIT: Now with more info.

DOUBLE EDIT: Now with a map!

.

 

[B_Munro]

Jonathan, have you read "A Labyrinth of Kingdoms" by Steve Kemper? It's about the Sahel explorations of one Heinrich Barth in the period 1850-1855, fairly early in the "Male Rising" period. It emphasizes the importance of slavery in the economies of several African kingdoms and the destructiveness of slave-raiding (which was as likely to sweep up Muslims from other kingdoms as the pagans which were supposed to be the only ones legally enslavable) rather more than this TL: it also emphasizes the cultural vibrance, the complexity and wide commercial and travel links of this world, but it also makes it seem dangerously unstable and often self-destructive. (I'm about halfway through so far: it's fascinating how Barth keeps running into Muslim travelers who have covered thousands of miles in their travels, without any expectation of Royal Geographic medals. )

Bruce

 

[Badshah]

Jonathan, have you read "A Labyrinth of Kingdoms" by Steve Kemper? It's about the Sahel explorations of one Heinrich Barth in the period 1850-1855, fairly early in the "Male Rising" period. It emphasizes the importance of slavery in the economies of several African kingdoms and the destructiveness of slave-raiding (which was as likely to sweep up Muslims from other kingdoms as the pagans which were supposed to be the only ones legally enslavable) rather more than this TL: it also emphasizes the cultural vibrance, the complexity and wide commercial and travel links of this world, but it also makes it seem dangerously unstable and often self-destructive. (I'm about halfway through so far: it's fascinating how Barth keeps running into Muslim travelers who have covered thousands of miles in their travels, without any expectation of Royal Geographic medals. )

Bruce

Is it on Kindle?

 

[B_Munro]

Is it on Kindle?

On Amazon, yeah.

Bruce

 

[Shevek23]

Futurist-socialist France, huh? Fascinating as always! I can't wait to see the effects of that Trans-Sahara railroad, it's a shame there still isn't something like it in 2013!

I'm a little giddy and nervous because I responded at some length about airships, and then simply sent it as a PM to Jonathan because it got lengthy and kind of obsessed and now there's an airship line running from Marseilles to Dakar via Algeria.

Which by golly I do think is sort of possible, except the trans-desert part is a bitch because of turbulence from the hot desert during the day. I tried to see if an airship making 60 knots could cross the whole length from the southern Atlas mountains to Dakar in just 12 hours--so they could do that part at night--but no go, they'd get caught by the Sahara mid-day heat no matter what.

But you know what? The "Afrika-Schiff", LZ--I forget the exact number, the one trying to send aid to Lettrow--oh you know who I mean, the German general in southeast Africa in the OTL Great War--they didn't like traversing the Sahara, but they did make the crossing--two ways, since a British black op on the radio convinced them the German general had surrendered and they were called back. And they didn't get caught (on that epic journey). So yes, I suppose a suitably engineered French airship of some kind could make the crossing despite the challenges of the Sahara in the day, routinely. Especially if relations with the desert people below were good.

So it will take time to get the railway built. Airships couldn't generally compete with well-developed railway routes overland since their speeds were about 60 knots and high priority passenger through lines could just about match that, with extra benefits from serving many points on the route and not just a few airports. But until it is built--either airships or airplanes would dominate the route, and airplanes would take until reaching around 1935 OTL state of the art (DC-3 levels) to be overall superior to airships, over routes over sea or over desert. Airships would be better over sea than hot-and-often -high desert.

By the time the railway is done, airplanes, given the better logistics of provisioning many airfields along the route, could become superior to airships along its route. But by then the French (and foreign competitors') state of the air of LTA flight might have moved the airship lines on to long overseas routes, which would require post-1945 tech (OTL standard) for airplanes to be able to compete on.

In aviation we are very roughly between 5 and 15 years ahead of OTL, call it a decade. Airships can dominate global long distance overseas routes until 1925 or so, and by then they might develop synergies with airplanes that extend their lives further. Remember, OTL WWII led to a massive binge of constructing airfields that literally paved the way for postwar landplanes to form a global network. Without that binge, airplanes are often going to be diverted toward flying boat types, which are inherently somewhat slower and less economic than long-range landplane types, so the airships still have a bit of an edge for a bit longer. This means more LTA infrastructure, perpetuating them a bit more--with synergies such as by then very big airships incorporating hook-on airplane operations, and niches remaining even after the airplanes pretty much take over the main market of carrying people fast, such as cheaper hauling of medium-priority cargoes and economy rate air transport over shorter ranges, I suppose some airships might keep operating indefinitely.

But anyway, before the railway is done--French airships ply the route to Dakar. I'm still a little giddy, but I think this is sensible. Then they might reach south across the Atlantic where it is thinnest, to Brazil and French Guiana, then along the Antilles to the north (hey, does France still have island possessions like Martinique and so on after the Great War? No matter, Spanish Puerto Rico and Cuba remain reasonably cordial destinations, and beyond, the USA never took sides in the War...) so a gradual French transAtlantic loop could form by say 1910-15, unless the British want to aggressively pre-empt it with one of their own.

At any rate we have the ambitious start, airborne travel from the south of France (and surely a spur will run to Paris?) to Dakar, before thinking of crossing the open ocean.

OTL a British airship crossed from Cardington (in SE England) to Long Island and back again, in 1919, just weeks after an airplane beat them for first transAtlantic flight ever. But the airship carried many people, a dozen or more, two ways. The airplane crashlanded after a minimal and harrowing flight of just 2 men the minimum distance from Newfoundland to Ireland.

Someone, French or otherwise, should make the crossing by the early 1910s in this timeline, and probably by some kind of airship. I think the prospects are good for it to be a French dirigible, going to South America from West Africa, early in the decade.

So, we've removed the menace of atheistic Marxist communists bent on world domination thanks to Tolstoy taking Lenin's place in the Russian revolution. ...

Well, OTL Marxists were widely established on the Left long before the October Revolution. I personally crossed the Rubicon of calling myself a "Marxist" around the time of collapse of the USSR, and I did so mainly because I became impressed with the depth and utility of Marx's economic theory. Here, Marx did live and work, and it may be that his stamp is not as deeply impressed on Social Democracy in general. But I think there will be Marxists of various kinds...pretty much indefinitely, even if there never is any flagship mainly Marxist revolution anywhere.

I think what you are reasonably getting at is that "Marxist" won't be the movement reactionaries fear, whereas various forms of collectivism--mostly in moderated forms--will beguile many otherwise conservative people, given the numerous connections between radical populist alternative economics (generally subsumed into activist/alternate society in general) that merge with religion. That would certainly make it harder for secular reactionaries to shut them down root and branch!

"Marxism" would probably tend to be a wonky academic school, with a Futuristic aura of hard science applied to social studies in general. Marxist theory would probably be peripheral to the hearts of most effective large left-populist movements.

Ironically, in my humble opinion, the place where Marx and Engels most spectacularly missed the boat in their theorizing was politics! On the political front they've often been terribly wrong. But I believe on the analytic front of foreseeing what a fully developed capitalist society would be like, they were dead accurate. It's ironic because modern scholarship tends to argue the reverse, that Marx was some kind of poet/prophet in subjective politics but rubbish economically.

So--not a lot of movements paying more than partial and token respect to Marx as their founder by the first third of the 20th century. But a great many, spanning a really wide political spectrum (sometimes I think it is the champions of rampant capitalism who have indeed read and thought the most about what Marx was saying, only to roadblock anticapitalist populism and maximize the dominance of property, OTL by the end of the last century) will find Marxist critiques useful.

So--Worker's Republic stronghold somewhere or no, I think Marxist movements as such might conceivably flare up again any old time or place.

But in this timeline--I don't expect it. Simply because I think Jonathan is a man of faith, if of the very best kind of faith--and Marxism is indeed basically atheist. So--it will serve, but won't get traction in its own right, because the reason this world is "Half-full" rather than half-empty is because people still have faith, and it makes a difference.

So yeah, it has plenty of room for Mormons being known generally as some kind of progressives, and all kinds of deviations from the sort of total convergence on a secular-capltalist model we know in our world.

I still think the general tide will empower a global market society that pretty much follows the mechanisms Marx analyzed, and that entities big enough to seriously deviate from it will draw fire as radical extremists and suffer for their stand, even if on the whole they remain convinced they are doing right.

 

[Hnau]

Maybe a few Mormons would go to Russia; even if not, there might be groups who adapt narodnik practices to Utah and interpret them in terms of Mormon theology.

There are two developments that are possible in the United Order once LDS leadership has been exposed to narodnik ideas. The first is that the commune should be run by democratic consensus. The Latter-day Saints in such communes preferred to put faith in their local bishop to determine who did what and where resources were allocated, and he did this mostly through revelation after spiritual reflection. A new series of experiments in the 1910s or 1920s may give the heads of families greater say, and making voting integral to decision-making in economic matters, while leaving the bishop responsible for mostly spiritual matters. The second is that there is now a model for industrial development, through the factory cooperatives, which were not thought possible in Mormon theology. It was imagined that communes had to be purely agricultural. With this change, it becomes probable that the LDS Church could have a factory or workshop built in these communes to experiment with these new models.

By all means do. Like I've said before, anyone is welcome to set stories in this world - just run your idea by me first.

My idea is to write a series of vignettes of the voyage of the first fundamentalists to Samuel's kingdom. I don't think movement from Utah to the Congo will be huge, but surely a handful of special individuals will be attracted there for different reasons. There are a couple characters I'm already spinning up. I'll keep you updated!

Ironically, in my humble opinion, the place where Marx and Engels most spectacularly missed the boat in their theorizing was politics! On the political front they've often been terribly wrong. But I believe on the analytic front of foreseeing what a fully developed capitalist society would be like, they were dead accurate. It's ironic because modern scholarship tends to argue the reverse, that Marx was some kind of poet/prophet in subjective politics but rubbish economically.

In this timeline, I think Marx will be seen as a pioneer in socialist thought, but with successes in France and Russia under different versions of the socialist premise, it will be hard to keep the workers under the illusion that Marx represents the only pathway to a future utopia. Surely it will be evident that other socialist movements have been at least mildly successful and even easier to accomplish. This is why I agree with you that Marxism will be pushed to the side, to remain an influence on other movements and an important subject of interest for academics, but lacking a flagship party that could actually put Marx's ideas into practice.

 

[wannis]

In this timeline, I think Marx will be seen as a pioneer in socialist thought, but with successes in France and Russia under different versions of the socialist premise, it will be hard to keep the workers under the illusion that Marx represents the only pathway to a future utopia. Surely it will be evident that other socialist movements have been at least mildly successful and even easier to accomplish. This is why I agree with you that Marxism will be pushed to the side, to remain an influence on other movements and an important subject of interest for academics, but lacking a flagship party that could actually put Marx's ideas into practice.

Keep in mind that many of the French Socialists or the Social Democrats in Germany had very influential Marxist roots IOTL, and I'd assume that this is the case in TTL as well. The big difference that I see ITTL is that the identification of Marxism with Communist one-party rule and the state-ownership central planning economy won't happen, contrary to what happened IOTL due to the results of the October Revolution. Due to the Communist denigration of more moderate Socialists as class traitors and the stand-off between Soviet Communism and the West, Socialists and Social Democrats started to play down their Marxist roots; paradoxically, due to the absence of the "Soviet menace", Marxism may be more respectable and accepted in even bourgois liberal circles ITTL than it was IOTL.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Wow, never thought those Rwandan architects were so ambitious.

Rwanda is an ambitious country. There are a lot of unsavory things about the Kagame regime, but lack of development ambition isn't one of them, and the country has pretty good infrastructure and a sound economy. Whether the proposed buildings actually get built - well, I guess we'll see in 37 years.

In TTL, Dakar and Ilorin will look something like that in 2013.

Jonathan, I don't know if you can squeeze any more cultures into this timeline, but I just realized that my mother's side of my family can influence South East Asian events a lot and dammit if I don't try persuading you on this!

There's always room for more cultures.

The Minangkabau certainly sound like a people that could make things happen in TTL. One thing that might complicate matters, though, is that 1900 is only two generations removed from the Padri War. How open would they be to new religious movements in light of that history, especially if those movements are being brought in by the strict Javanese santri? The Javanese jajis will probably go there, and in a culture where women have relatively high status, they'd be able to gain entry, but they might have to compromise their religious views in order to be accepted. Maybe Abu Bakar's reforms, which use religion mainly as window dressing for the politics, would be a better point of entry - or, as you say, the reformist ideas could be something that traveling men bring back and which are combined with the adat over time.

If that issue can be overcome, I could imagine a Minangkabau diaspora much like OTL, with young men and eventually families moving to the cities for work and having influence in both the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. They've stayed relatively loyal to the Dutch, so they'd probably have good access to education and administrative jobs, but that very access would eventually bring them into the nationalist movement, as would their connections with Bugis merchants and the political exiles in Malaya. They'll figure into events in the 1910s-20s and beyond.

Jonathan, have you read "A Labyrinth of Kingdoms" by Steve Kemper? It's about the Sahel explorations of one Heinrich Barth in the period 1850-1855, fairly early in the "Male Rising" period. It emphasizes the importance of slavery in the economies of several African kingdoms and the destructiveness of slave-raiding (which was as likely to sweep up Muslims from other kingdoms as the pagans which were supposed to be the only ones legally enslavable) rather more than this TL: it also emphasizes the cultural vibrance, the complexity and wide commercial and travel links of this world, but it also makes it seem dangerously unstable and often self-destructive.

I haven't read that book, but I've read other accounts of the Sahel at this time, and slave-raiding in the area is certainly well-attested (in OTL Adamawa, it continued to the early twentieth century).

The Sahel in the middle 19th century was in a formative period - empires were rising and fighting among themselves, long-established regional political systems such as the Hausa city-states were being overturned - so instability was practically inevitable. That's one reason I picked this region for the Malê conquest - aside from the resonance that Usman dan Fodio's theology would have for Paulo Abacar, the insertion of new ideas, peoples and tactics during such a formative period would have immediate and widespread effect. By the 1850s, TTL's northern Nigeria is already a very different place.

I'm a little giddy and nervous because I responded at some length about airships, and then simply sent it as a PM to Jonathan because it got lengthy and kind of obsessed and now there's an airship line running from Marseilles to Dakar via Algeria.

Which by golly I do think is sort of possible, except the trans-desert part is a bitch because of turbulence from the hot desert during the day. I tried to see if an airship making 60 knots could cross the whole length from the southern Atlas mountains to Dakar in just 12 hours--so they could do that part at night--but no go, they'd get caught by the Sahara mid-day heat no matter what.

There's another option, which I believe you mentioned - to bypass the Sahara by going west from Algiers to Morocco and then south along the coast. It would add some time to the journey, but the flying conditions would be better, not to mention that (a) a stop in Casablanca or Tangier could be added, and (b) this route wouldn't compete directly with the trans-Saharan railroad. Maybe Paris-Marseilles-Algiers-Casablanca-Dakar would be the regular route.

An air route would also have the advantage of being easier to protect if relations with the Toucouleur, the Kingdom of the Arabs or the Bambara deteriorated.

The most obvious overseas extensions from Dakar would be to Grand Bassam and Libreville (neither is economically important enough yet, but Libreville is getting there) or across the Atlantic to Rio, which is an important French trading destination and which should be feasible sometime in the 1910s. TTL's golden age of airships will probably last from the late 1900s into the 1930s - possibly, as you say, with niche markets afterward.

Well, OTL Marxists were widely established on the Left long before the October Revolution... I think what you are reasonably getting at is that "Marxist" won't be the movement reactionaries fear, whereas various forms of collectivism--mostly in moderated forms--will beguile many otherwise conservative people, given the numerous connections between radical populist alternative economics (generally subsumed into activist/alternate society in general) that merge with religion. That would certainly make it harder for secular reactionaries to shut them down root and branch! [...]

So--not a lot of movements paying more than partial and token respect to Marx as their founder by the first third of the 20th century. But a great many, spanning a really wide political spectrum (sometimes I think it is the champions of rampant capitalism who have indeed read and thought the most about what Marx was saying, only to roadblock anticapitalist populism and maximize the dominance of property, OTL by the end of the last century) will find Marxist critiques useful.

In this timeline, I think Marx will be seen as a pioneer in socialist thought, but with successes in France and Russia under different versions of the socialist premise, it will be hard to keep the workers under the illusion that Marx represents the only pathway to a future utopia. Surely it will be evident that other socialist movements have been at least mildly successful and even easier to accomplish.

Keep in mind that many of the French Socialists or the Social Democrats in Germany had very influential Marxist roots IOTL, and I'd assume that this is the case in TTL as well. The big difference that I see ITTL is that the identification of Marxism with Communist one-party rule and the state-ownership central planning economy won't happen, contrary to what happened IOTL due to the results of the October Revolution. Due to the Communist denigration of more moderate Socialists as class traitors and the stand-off between Soviet Communism and the West, Socialists and Social Democrats started to play down their Marxist roots; paradoxically, due to the absence of the "Soviet menace", Marxism may be more respectable and accepted in even bourgois liberal circles ITTL than it was IOTL.

Marxism certainly cannot be discounted in TTL - not only do many of the French and German socialist movements have Marxist roots, but there are also plenty of Marxists among the urban trade unions in Russia. The Russian government isn't a completely narodnik affair; it's a big-tent coalition in which other socialist and center-left groups are represented, and there was cross-fertilization between the Marxists and the narodniks during the war. I don't think. given the circumstances of TTL, that Marxists can be kept from being prominent on the left.

What's different in TTL is that socialism is more pluralist - the two socialist-governed states that have emerged thus far are both based on coalitions rather than a single party. Neither the Marxists nor anyone else will have things all their own way, and everyone has to compromise and engage in political sausage-making in order to influence policy. So we may see a situation where Marxist influence is broader, in that it will play a part in the political compromises reached with fellow socialists and be more respectable among non-socialists, but not as deep.

There are two developments that are possible in the United Order once LDS leadership has been exposed to narodnik ideas. The first is that the commune should be run by democratic consensus. The Latter-day Saints in such communes preferred to put faith in their local bishop to determine who did what and where resources were allocated, and he did this mostly through revelation after spiritual reflection. A new series of experiments in the 1910s or 1920s may give the heads of families greater say, and making voting integral to decision-making in economic matters, while leaving the bishop responsible for mostly spiritual matters. The second is that there is now a model for industrial development, through the factory cooperatives, which were not thought possible in Mormon theology. It was imagined that communes had to be purely agricultural. With this change, it becomes probable that the LDS Church could have a factory or workshop built in these communes to experiment with these new models.

Hmmm. Interesting. So, decentralized industrial development with factories as an integral part of rural communes and small towns rather than being concentrated in cities? I could see some problems with the logistics, and this kind of development would lose out on many economies of scale, but it could work in some niche industries, especially if they're intended primarily for local consumption and the transportation network is good.

Would this kind of local democracy eventually filter into spiritual matters as well, with an emerging norm of doctrinal issues being decided by consensus?

My idea is to write a series of vignettes of the voyage of the first fundamentalists to Samuel's kingdom. I don't think movement from Utah to the Congo will be huge, but surely a handful of special individuals will be attracted there for different reasons. There are a couple characters I'm already spinning up. I'll keep you updated!

Please do, I'm looking forward to it!

Britain and India next, followed by (probably) eastern and central Africa, then a narrative interlude.

 

[Al-numbers]

The Minangkabau certainly sound like a people that could make things happen in TTL. One thing that might complicate matters, though, is that 1900 is only two generations removed from the Padri War. How open would they be to new religious movements in light of that history, especially if those movements are being brought in by the strict Javanese santri?

Hmm. I believe that, so long as the role of the women within the society are secure, then the Minangkabau will be willing to experiment with the new ideas, or at least learn them slowly. They will be hostile to the Javanese though, as they are more orthodox towards the role of women and the adat. Abu Bakar's reforms would sound much better to them, and with some strains of Bugis/Hadrami reformism mixed with traditional adat, I think they could come up with their own version of matrilineal reform, mixed with a little bit of here and there. It's going to need an educated populace though, to realize these changes.

As for the jaji's, it really depends on how flexible are they in trying to educate the Minangkabau. There will certainly be disagreements, and I can see some Javanese Jaji's not going to the heartland because of thinking they are incompatibile. Maybe the Minangkabau women would indirectly observe the jajis and decide to do it on their own? A parallel jaji force working alongside those from Java, letting the jajis teach by day and educating the children on adat by night? Alternatively, if some of the jaji's lean more towards education rather than the faith, then they could make some concessions and tone down the religious part, though I'm thinking the alcohol and opium are non-negotiable for the Javanese jajis. If both sides can compromise yet gives more power to the women, then the worst is over.

Whatever the case, I have great hope you can spin something out of this. Keep being awesome, Jonathan.

P.S: That's gonna be TTL Dakar in 2013?

P.P.S: Whatever happened to the Zoroastrian Ainu?

 

[Hnau]

Hmmm. Interesting. So, decentralized industrial development with factories as an integral part of rural communes and small towns rather than being concentrated in cities? I could see some problems with the logistics, and this kind of development would lose out on many economies of scale, but it could work in some niche industries, especially if they're intended primarily for local consumption and the transportation network is good.

The transportation network is adequate, at least by the early 1900s. And yes, I think these "rural factories" would have to manufacture specific products that avoid problems of scale in order to be successful. I'm not suggesting this would lead to mass industrialization, but some successful experiments, which could lead to opportunities in the late 20th for expansion. At our most optimistic, we might expect this to lead to worker's cooperatives becoming a viable alternative in the Intermountain West to the classic business or corporate model, which is something to say the least.

Would this kind of local democracy eventually filter into spiritual matters as well, with an emerging norm of doctrinal issues being decided by consensus?

That's going a bit too far in my opinion. Since the beginning Mormonism was a very hierarchical religious movement and the experience of having Brigham Young as the prophet for a few decades by 1900 would have already reinforced this concept a couple times over. There's really no room for voting and elections in the spiritual process as defined in the Book of Mormon... spiritual matters are to be left to authorized revelators to decide, and the institutional church is responsible for deciding who receives revelation, what kind of revelation, and how it is to be interpreted.

What I'm suggesting is an earlier and more widespread development of different theological interpretations within Mormonism and a more tolerant church leadership in Salt Lake City. For example, you might see the creation of a group favoring a return to giving women the priesthood and involving women in church leadership in the 20th century instead of the 21st. Or when the gay rights movement picks up steam in the US, a faction that seeks to end hostility to same-sex marriage. And in the LDS Church, the way the base usually affects doctrine and policy is first by discussion and coalition-building outside of the chapel, then by voicing their positions as loudly but carefully as they can until the leadership adapts by sanctioning changes with authorized revelations. This is the model than IOTL led to the black priesthood ban being overturned. So by the 21st, maybe some of these more progressive groups, having been allowed more space and freedom to develop their ideas, will be successful in this "World Half Full" where in ours, they haven't yet.

By the way, miscegenation being grounds for excommunication will probably be dropped shortly after the rest of American society stops making a fuss about it. That's, at least, what happened in OTL, even though when it happened the Mormon church was still very predominately white. Here, with more black members, it'll happen even more quickly. It's not something the church is committed to by any piece of doctrine, it was more of just a cultural bias that was perpetuated by the leadership.

 

[Gwenc'hlan]

This France is very different from OTL France : it may be the place outside Africa that changed the most.
The Verne government and what follows is really interesting in the sense it seems to have shaped the French psyche like the Front Populaire did in OTL. However with two decades of red France I can imagine quite a few intellectuals to advocate a return to the community and traditional values : a good part of France was quite conservative in that period to say the least. People like Charle Maurras, Alphonce de Chateaubriand are likely to exist in this France even if discredited by the civil war. And what about regionalism? If people like Mistral and Anatole le Braz are around they could lead left (or right) wing autonomist movements.
The futurist movement will certainly leave an architectural movement in Paris (and France as there is a Front Populaire style after all) with a metro and monuments.

 

[Shevek23]

This France is very different from OTL France : it may be the place outside Africa that changed the most.

Indeed! One thing I forgot to consider in talking about the alt-Marxists is---as the Franco-Prussian war was not a defeat for the Second Empire (more of a draw, for both sides) there was no Paris Commune. This is really important; not only do we not have a Bolshevik Russia, but the OTL Bolsheviks, and pretty much the entire European radical left, was greatly affected by the drama of the Paris Commune. At the same time, they celebrated it as a moment of glory--and resolved not to be defeated by making the same mistakes the Communards did. It was considered very instructive, both about what revolutionaries should do--and what they should not do.

For French society too of course the trauma of the Commune (whichever side you were on--Communards and their most active supporters tended to be traumatized to death of course) was also very defining. Here there is no Third Republic baptized in the blood of their own French people who were too Republican. I daresay a fair amount of the OTL reactionaries of the first generation of the Third Republic--the various monarchists, the Bonapartists, the neo-Bonaparte wanna-bees--was an expression of repulsion by the threat of the extreme left the Commune had manifested. Here that never happened, and the House of Bonaparte continues to be the established monarchy, which ought to pretty much put all the other monarchist factions in the shade, and divert those who just plain support monarchy as such into mainstream French society where some of them will moderate.

Here it wasn't the far left that took a dramatic step away from the mainstream of French society--it was the reactionaries, and they did it in diverse if still generally treasonous fashions.

But right-wing treason tends on the whole to be much more easily forgiven and forgotten than leftist!

I guess, if I can be forgiven my own little partisan rant there, the divergent outcome of the Franco-Prussian war is the place where a mix of purely chaotic butterflies and the small but pervasive influences of a different French Africa (and Africans in France) combined to put the nation onto a drastically different path than OTL. France between 1870 and the start of the Great War does not look that different at a glance to modern, OTL readers, because what happened ITTL was a mere continuation of the Second Empire, evolving on a path that roughly paralleled the evolution of the Third Republic--it all sort of blends together and camouflages what a different France this nevertheless is, having arrived at places that look superficially like OTL--but by a different, and on the whole much gentler, path. The last time this France was shaken by deep revolution was 1848, and the House of Bonaparte symbolizes both authoritarian continuities with Ancien Regime monarchial history and yet also embraces the revolutionary heritage of '48 and indeed 1789. France's most radical communists and most fusty aristocrats, along with her most arrogant capitalists, are all quarreling cousins in a family with Napoleon Bonaparte as their great-grandfather. Much of the Kinslaying (from the view of this somewhat poetic fancy of mine) of OTL has been avoided.

I've described all this as though the African influence is irrelevant, at best incidental; I suspect it would not have happened this way without it catalyzing and midwifing key events, but that's an intuition, not something I can tease out with analysis.

One thing that is clear though is that French hegemony in what parts of Africa France still holds is much less dependent on raw imperial power; it has another leg to stand on, and that is that much of northwest Africa has been drawn into French society on a deeper level than OTL. In a moment of international weakness such as the first decade of the 20th century, French Africa tends to stay with France more voluntarily, less force or threats of force are needed. The project of France extending far beyond the European metropolis is less an exertion of power from that center, and more an organic expansion of some degree of French identity shared by Africans. That certainly has an effect on national priorities!

This probably explains the gut feeling I had before France was drawn into the Great War, that things were going remarkably well in France and her territories; I was fearful the war would either shatter it or divert the nation in a darker direction, and very worried to hear about the upcoming "Time of Troubles." The actual outcomes of both leave this basically less traumatized and more continuous France pretty much intact.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Maybe the Minangkabau women would indirectly observe the jajis and decide to do it on their own? A parallel jaji force working alongside those from Java, letting the jajis teach by day and educating the children on adat by night? Alternatively, if some of the jaji's lean more towards education rather than the faith, then they could make some concessions and tone down the religious part, though I'm thinking the alcohol and opium are non-negotiable for the Javanese jajis.

A local adaptation is possible - given the Minangkabau habit of sending young men abroad, they'd certainly learn of the Javanese jajis and might see them as a good way to promote rural education. They might end up being divorced from the religious role of the Javanese and West African jajis, providing basic education while the imams continue to train children in the Koran and the adat. That way they'd pick up and incorporate new ideas at their own speed, and would any fears of a renewed Padri conflict or Javanese domination.

BTW, Negeri Sembilan has a very West African way of choosing its king - Nigerian kings and chiefs also tend to get chosen by a council of aristocratic "kingmakers." If any West Africans travel that way, they'll find the politics strangely familiar.

P.S: That's gonna be TTL Dakar in 2013?

The richest West African cities will be about as developed as Kuala Lumpur, so the center cities could look pretty flashy.

They won't look exactly like the Kigali master plan, but bits and pieces will exist - the twin towers and concourse in the bottom panel, for instance, will definitely get built.

P.P.S: Whatever happened to the Zoroastrian Ainu?

Like I said, he'll have a cameo in the postwar Congo. (I still can't believe I actually agreed to it, but in OTL, even stranger things have happened.)

What I'm suggesting is an earlier and more widespread development of different theological interpretations within Mormonism and a more tolerant church leadership in Salt Lake City. [...] And in the LDS Church, the way the base usually affects doctrine and policy is first by discussion and coalition-building outside of the chapel, then by voicing their positions as loudly but carefully as they can until the leadership adapts by sanctioning changes with authorized revelations. This is the model than IOTL led to the black priesthood ban being overturned.

That makes sense - the church would remain hierarchical, but there would be more room for dissent and debate among the base and for reformist ideas to filter up to the top. I wonder if a more pluralist rank and file would also lead to more factionalism in the top echelons, given that members of the high-level councils might have varying opinions about the ideas that are being kicked around. Also, with a larger population outside the United States (Samuel the Lamanite may be heretical, but the Mormons in southern Africa and the western Congo basin are orthodox), would the intra-church debates be less synchronized with American public opinion, or would political considerations in SLC ensure that they stay closely intertwined?

This France is very different from OTL France : it may be the place outside Africa that changed the most.

It has some stiff competition from Russia, Germany and India, but it's certainly up there.

The Verne government and what follows is really interesting in the sense it seems to have shaped the French psyche like the Front Populaire did in OTL.

It was the government that set the tone after the war, and it did so very consciously - it made a clean break from the political swamp of the 1880s and the horrors of the war, and offered the public the sense of optimism it was looking for. As such it will have a very lasting effect on the national consciousness.

However with two decades of red France I can imagine quite a few intellectuals to advocate a return to the community and traditional values : a good part of France was quite conservative in that period to say the least. People like Charle Maurras, Alphonce de Chateaubriand are likely to exist in this France even if discredited by the civil war. And what about regionalism? If people like Mistral and Anatole le Braz are around they could lead left (or right) wing autonomist movements.

There'll certainly be some movement back toward traditional values after the end of the "red" period, but the *Action Française types, although they'll exist, will still be discredited. The Leclair period and the civil war won't be forgotten during that period. The French center-right in the 1930s will be somewhat Toryish, and will accept many of the economic reforms of the socialist period while emphasizing more traditional concepts of community and family. I haven't worked out the 30s and beyond in any great detail, but I'm thinking that the right, the center and the socialists will all govern within a broad consensus for a while.

Regionalism probably will be a factor - given that some of the backlash will focus on central planning, there will be movements on both the right and left for decentralized government and local autonomy. After all, Alsace is already there as an example. I expect that these movements will be very strong in Brittany and Corsica.

The futurist movement will certainly leave an architectural movement in Paris (and France as there is a Front Populaire style after all) with a metro and monuments.

Yes, I should have mentioned the metro - it opened about this time in OTL, didn't it? And monumental architecture will be big among the futurists and the futurist-influenced socialists - this Paris has no Eiffel Tower, but might have some Verne-era landmarks that are just as spectacular.

Indeed! One thing I forgot to consider in talking about the alt-Marxists is---as the Franco-Prussian war was not a defeat for the Second Empire (more of a draw, for both sides) there was no Paris Commune.

Yes, TTL's left won't have this example of heroic failure, defeat and martyrdom. The fall of the Hungarian republic in Budapest comes closest, but that happened after two countries had already installed socialist governments, and was a more obviously flawed enterprise than OTL's Commune was. TTL's left will have more diverse examples to draw on in seeking power, and probably find electoral politics less threatening and alienating.

I wonder if TTL's right might develop attitudes similar to OTL's left, given that the French right's experience in the civil war was roughly equivalent to that of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War of OTL. Probably not, though, because the right will always have institutional bases to draw on.

The last time this France was shaken by deep revolution was 1848, and the House of Bonaparte symbolizes both authoritarian continuities with Ancien Regime monarchial history and yet also embraces the revolutionary heritage of '48 and indeed 1789. France's most radical communists and most fusty aristocrats, along with her most arrogant capitalists, are all quarreling cousins in a family with Napoleon Bonaparte as their great-grandfather.

There was the civil war, although that was an attempt at deep revolution by right-wing radicals rather than the left. But yes, the Bonapartist presence definitely makes a difference - it's a legitimating and stabilizing factor that tamps down some of the more rabid extremism that existed in the OTL Third Republic, and it's also a legacy that both left and right claim.

The African influence is definitely there, via Napoleon IV's early interactions with Senegalese leaders and the presence of West Africans in politics and culture - it's subtle on a macro level, but it exists. The 1920s and 30s will show some of the limits of the African-French identity, though - some parts of West Africa are much better integrated than others.