Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I just hope whoever sets the standard for such a movement is less Mugabe and more Mandela, for whatever that's worth.

You're assuming there will be one person to set the standard. That's never a safe assumption here.

There will be several flavors of pan-Africanism, as well as other governments or political parties that borrow from it to suit their interests. They'll range from democratic and progressive to... not so much.

But your point about Zanzibar is well taken. Would the aftermath of the war in India possibly make waves in that particular bee's nest, perchance?

Quite possibly - Indians have a long history in Zanzibar, after all. The Zanzibari empire won't be the only place they show up during the 30s and after, either.

It's been building for a while, but I love the direction South Africa is going. It's such a lovely hodgepodge, with all the good and drawbacks of such a union. I like too how the Boers are expanding into a multiracial entity. Besides the Griqua, this seems pretty sharply the opposite of OTL as far as I understand the racial and ethnic politics/identity formation of OTL's Boers.

Boers aren't becoming multiracial, but Afrikaners are - by this time in TTL, the two haven't been synonymous for a generation. The Boers are the white Afrikaners, but the Coloureds and Cape Malays have also been brought under the Afrikaner umbrella at this point. "Afrikaner" has become a linguistic and cultural term, not an ethnic one.

There were hints of this in OTL - some nineteenth-century Coloureds called themselves Afrikaners, and I've seen it claimed that Abdullah Abdurahman (who served on the Cape Town city council from 1904 to 1940) had the tacit support of the Afrikaner Bond. The difference in TTL is that rather than retreating into cultural isolationism, some forward-looking Boers saw the advantage in this alliance and ran with it. And yes, this means that both Afrikaner identity and the part of it that is Boer identity will be very different from OTL.

Natal though, that place sounds like a text book example of that phrase,"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

It might also become an example of that classic phrase, "karma's a bitch."

The post did say per capita, guys. Mind you, with such a big population, Germany's per capita GDP is very, very high.

"Per capita" means "per person." A small country with a per capita GDP of (say) $30,000 is as rich as a large one with the same figure. There are some advantages small countries often have, though - the capital city is often a relatively greater proportion of the population, and there's less of a poor hinterland. To take an extreme example, Singapore probably doesn't have that much higher a living standard than Kuala Lumpur, but it has a much higher one than Malaysia because it doesn't have poorer country areas bringing its numbers down.

This is before the OTL massive population explosion in Asia and Africa (though with better agriculture and access to medicine, and a more developed economy, it may happen rather earlier ITTL. )

On the other hand, the back end of the demographic shift - urbanization leading to smaller families - will also happen sooner. The population of Africa (and especially West Africa) in the 1930s is higher ITTL than IOTL, but by 2014, and probably well before that, it will be lower.

I do hope the Orange Free State's confessionalism ends up better than OTL Lebanon's...

Well, the fact that religion is only tangentially involved, and that the parties mostly don't hate each other like poison, will help. But you're right that consociational politics aren't always the most stable (Switzerland excepted) and that the Bloemfontein Pact is likely to come with an expiration date.

And on a slightly related note, it was decided that there's a Malagasy diaspora currently in Germany for work right now, correct? I'd really like to see somebody paint us a picture of that particular mixing.

Watch this space.

Ah. Makes sense. I assume that they're also growing in other regions of the copper belt then?

Yes and no. They're there, but the German mining companies actually prefer Africans who can speak German and were educated in German-sponsored schools. The Portuguese will fit in mostly as small merchants, and many of them will move beyond the Copperbelt into the hinterlands of Kazembe and Barotseland.

And yes, another potential vector for Congo fever, although public health programs are starting to bite by this time.

Yeesh. That's worse than I expected.

But not all that surprising - I did mention OTL Swaziland as a model, and most of the Indian princely states in OTL were like that pretty much to the end. In TTL, the Indian Congress party was more aggressive about promoting democracy in the princely states, but in South Africa, the African political movement is still finding its feet and the common people of the protectorates aren't yet politically mobilized. By the 40s or 50s, though, it will be another story.

 

[Huehuecoyotl]

It was a Herculean effort, Jonathan, but I read through your entire timeline. I'm delighted with everything I've read. Looking forward to more!

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Graça Simbine, Africa Under the Novo Reino (Lourenço Marques: Estrela, 1995)

… The colonial reform talks that convened in Lisbon in 1929 had all the solemnity of a Church council, and in some ways they almost were one. With Augustin Cardinal Dias leading the African delegation, and with the memory of the papal sanctions against Portugal still fresh [1], it was clear that the Church had a close eye on the negotiations, and both the Portuguese clergy and the Curia in Rio were represented. At times, it seemed that the aim of the talks was not so much to resolve disputes over the administration of Portuguese Africa but to determine how a Catholic colony ought to be run. And in keeping with the magnitude of the occasion, nearly everything was on the table: not democracy – no one in Portugal had that – and not the principle of Portuguese sovereignty, but nearly everything else.

The end result, though, proved to be a triumph of pragmatism and political compromise. Much as the Church might want a model Catholic colony, Portugal needed colonies that it could rule, and it had to balance the desires of powerful interests. By promoting Africans to high clerical ranks, the late Pope Celestine had made them one of those interests, but there were others that also had to be placated, and although the Church was a key underpinning of the Reconstructionist regime, it was not the only one. The new colonial law announced in 1930 was a substantial change, but not a revolution.

It was agreed that forced labor would be abolished immediately rather than in 1935 as scheduled; however, cash taxation, which had forced many Africans to work in the formal sector, would still be levied. Racial distinctions would not be abolished entirely, although Catholic Africans would have the vote and the right to hold elected and appointed office, and all Africans would have recourse to the Portuguese courts. The colonial governors were made responsible to executive councils on which African clergy and businessmen would sit along with Portuguese officials and leaders of the local European communities, but moves toward independence or autonomy were firmly ruled out.

Half-measure though it may have been, the Foundation Law of 1930 would have profound effects. The prominent African and mestiço families who had been shunted aside during the previous decade were now bought off with appointed offices, which placed them in a position to distribute enormous patronage. Through them, many Africans – and more than a few Europeans – would get jobs as government clerks, police officers, or employees of companies who needed political favors. Taxes also became a matter of patronage, especially after the Novo Reino instituted municipal elections in 1935: although the elections were open only to candidates approved by the government, they were keenly competitive, and wealthy businessmen would pay the taxes of entire neighborhoods or villages in exchange for votes.

By the end of the 1930s, both white and black Angolans and Mozambicans were invested in the patronage game, and although officials’ favors were distributed mainly to those of their own race, the value of African votes and the growth of mixed working-class neighborhoods meant that some clientage bonds crossed racial lines. It was not unusual for a white official to sponsor Africans for jobs or scholarships, nor for poor Europeans to look to their black councilman for aid. The system was enormously corrupt, with the Church’s charitable and mediative activities among the few leavening factors, but as similar corruption had done in Liberia, it gave many marginal communities an entry to the system.

This is not to say that Portuguese Africa became an oasis of racial harmony overnight: far from it. The simultaneous influx of rural Africans and Portuguese settlers to the cities – both of which only increased in the 1930s – meant that relations between communities were often competitive, and intercommunal fights and riots would break out regularly. Colonial authorities were still heavy-handed in suppressing political dissent, which fell most heavily on Africans. In the interior, most villages remained outside the patronage system, forcing them to work for concessionaires in order to pay their taxes, and although the 1930 law set a minimum wage and required improvements in labor conditions, these were often ignored in practice and abuses remained. The situation had improved enough, and the African elites were sufficiently placated, that the armed rebellions of the 1920s lost steam, but discontent still simmered, and labor disputes were always potential flashpoints.

Another thing that did not subside was the pressure on rural Africans to adopt Catholicism. If anything, that pressure became greater, now that the most important legal distinction in Portuguese Africa was between Catholic and non-Catholic rather than between European and African. And with this came increased pressure against unorthodox forms of Catholicism that had taken root in parts of the hinterland, to the point where some folk-Catholic congregations crossed over into neighboring colonies to escape persecution.

But at the same time, the Church was beginning to meet rural Africans halfway, and its inspiration came from an unusual source: the kingdom of N'Délé far to the north. Although it had been founded by a Catholic Buganda prince after his defeat in the Eight Kings’ War [2], Catholicism had no historic presence, and while the king and his court wanted a Catholic realm, they realized they could not impose their religion without provoking rebellion among the people and even the army. Instead, African priests, far from the nearest bishop, attempted to make Catholic doctrine more palatable by incorporating elements central to African worship: dance, drums and choral singing, invocations of the ancestors and saints, and ritual dress adapted from traditional authority figures. Most notably, vernacular prayer was incorporated into the Latin ritual. [3]

These adaptations, which began soon after the Great War, proved remarkably successful in spreading Catholicism across N'Délé; although still a minority in 1930, Catholics were now a substantial one. But by this time, the N'Délé usage had also come to the attention of Rio, and the conservative Curia was much conflicted about it: on the one hand, it promised the winning of a continent, while on the other, it violated the unity of ritual and risked opening the door to heterodox folk religion. From 1918, when the Curia first dispatched an investigative mission to central Africa, until 1936, the usage remained in a state of limbo, without sanction of canon law but also not forbidden.

The breakthrough came in a series of sessions between N'Délé’s bishop – a diocese had been instituted in 1924 – and the parish priests. The bishop was a Brazilian with an interest in experimental ritual, and the priests persuaded him that their doctrine was conservative and only the rites were radical. After further discussion, they agreed to make adaptations – conforming the rite more closely to the Ordo Missae, omitting African names of God until the theological overtones of those names could be determined, and emphasizing that ancestors were not worshiped in their own right – in exchange for his recommendation of approval. This led to a final commission visiting N'Délé in 1935 and to the following year’s decree approving the rite for use in that kingdom.

Church leaders in Angola and Mozambique, including the politically astute Dias, had closely followed the progress of the N'Délé Use, and saw its potential in bridging the gap between orthodoxy and folk religion in their own regions. Dias himself, although a stalwart of the conservative party of the Curia, believed that Catholicism could not prosper in Africa if seen as a foreign imposition, and that while erroneous folk doctrines should be opposed, there was no justification for persecuting folk practice. He and other clergymen in Portuguese Africa, including several Europeans, had been quietly working on an adaptation of the N'Délé rite for some time – or more accurately, several adaptations, to conform to different local customs – and issued their report within a year after the approval of the Central African use.

By decree of 1938, the Church accepted this usage for Portuguese Africa, and moreover gave committees of bishops the power to approve rituals for their countries. This power was subject to the Curia’s veto and, of course, contained the proviso that no unorthodox doctrines could be proposed. But something profoundly unorthodox – not theologically, but politically – had arguably come through the door already. The rite of N'Délé had been influenced not only by local custom but by Belloist ideas of community that had filtered in from the north, and neither the bishop of that country nor the authorities in Portuguese Africa would notice until much later…

… The Novo Reino’s sponsorship of African settlement continued unabated, and the colonies were all the more attractive now that they were free of insurrection. By 1940, the number of Portuguese who had emigrated to Africa was an incredible 390,000, and with natural increase, the total population was well over half a million. Along with them came several thousand Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. The whites of Portuguese Africa were a distinct society at this point, speaking a version of Portuguese that included African words and adopting many local foods and forms of design, and had begun to think of themselves somewhat like the Boers did.

But the presence of so many Europeans also strained the colonial economy. With the concord of 1930, it was no longer possible to give them farmland by evicting Africans, and in the cities, competition for jobs was increasingly intense. Although the Portuguese had more reliable access to patronage than Africans did, both Angola and Mozambique during the 1930s could boast – if that is the word – of Europeans who lived in poverty.

Many, even most, simply made do as best they could. But the more enterprising settlers began what is often described as the Portuguese Great Trek. This most often took the form of moving to the hinterland and the princely states (the latter of which had hitherto had virtually no Portuguese settlement) as small merchants: in Mutapa, for instance, there were enough Portuguese by 1930 that they were designated the Rooster Clan alongside the Boer Springbok Clan. In that particular case, Portuguese settlement led to a virtual enforced union of the two European communities, with each finding that the easiest way to follow the prohibition against same-clan marriages was to marry each other, although many Portuguese men there as elsewhere took African wives and mistresses.

Other Portuguese crossed the border: to the Transvaal where land was cheaper, to the Cape where industrial wages were higher, or to rural South Africa and the Congo where they could fill the small-merchant niche that they did in the Katangese princely states. Some also crossed to the German side of the Copperbelt, although they found that the mining companies there preferred Africans who spoke German and had been educated in German schools to Portuguese immigrants, and most ended up moving on to southern Kazembe or Barotseland where they found work as peddlers, small farmers and handymen. They too sent for brides from home or else married Africans, sent remittances to family in Angola and Portugal, and in time great dynasties would arise from their humble beginnings.

In the meantime, another influx of settlers was beginning to arrive in Mozambique, from the other side of the Indian Ocean. With coastal planters no longer having access to forced labor, and with patronage decreasing tax pressure and driving wages higher, many of them began to recruit contract laborers from in and around Portuguese India. They labored under harsh conditions, but about a third of them would stay after completing their contract term, becoming small farmers or moving to the cities as shopkeepers and workers. At the same time, wealthier Indians settled in the Mozambican ports as merchants, just as a smaller number of African businessmen had set up shop in Goa. By 1940, more than 20,000 Indians lived permanently in southern Mozambique, becoming the third pillar of the tripartite mestiço society that would determine that region’s destiny…

_______

[1] See post 4110.

[2] See posts 1044, 1770 and 3402 (briefly).

[3] This is modeled on the Zaire Use of OTL, which aside from being the most divergent Roman Catholic ritual currently in existence, is one of the few respects in which the name “Zaire” is still relevant. A more in-depth discussion of its historical roots and theological basis can be found here.

 

[St. Just]

A nice look at the changes in Portuguese Africa. Any chance of a loose Pink Map kind of union (in the same loose sense as the other transnational organizations)?

 

[Haaki]

Great as always. At this point, roughly what percentage of Africans living under Portuguese rule would be considered 'real' catholics?

 

[Falecius]

A note: in Post-Tridentine Catholic Church, there should be, technically, no such a thing as an unorthodox rite. Orthodoxy is, in my understanding, exclusively a matter of doctrine (and especially theology).
Rite is a matter of tradition and acceptance and, of course, this is by no means an anything goes attitude.
But indeed, outside Europe the Catholic Church was almost always very willing to experiment - meeting the natives halfway had been standard missionary (particularly Jesuit but this varied a lot) practice since, well, the very beginning of the whole thing, although, again, with considerable variation. The whole emphasis on Latin had no theological basis and, AFAIK, never pretended to have any. There was, to my knowledge, no doctrinal impedement ever to vernacular rite or vernacular Scripture, as long as it did not threaten doctrine. Therefore, in Europe and very emphatically in Italy, vernacular Scripture was generally banned on the point that it led to Protestant free interpretation - a mortal danger in political terms for the Church.
Outside Europe, however, the point was not fighting the heresy but spreading the faith - therefore, the evangelized had to be put in the position to understand what was preached to them. Scripture and ritual in native, extra-European spoken languages blossomed at the very same time they were severely repressed and standardized into Roman practice in Catholic Europe.

Specifically, mass in vernacular was explicitly permitted and even encouraged by a Papal bull in 1629 (IIRC, I may be wrong of some years) for missionary purposes. In Indonesia, for instance, Latin was basically never the main ritual language of local Catholics, who largely used Portuguese or local languages like Tetum (there was a later movement toward Latin about 1850-1950, but I don't think it ever went very far). I am less informed about Africa, but I tentatively recall that the Catholic Bible was translated in some Bantu languages earlier than in, say, German (I am fairly sure that Bibles in some American Native languages existed decades before any Italian one, and of course the earliest Italian versions were Protestant, printed in Geneva, and they were thoroughly burned everywhere in Italy they appeared with extreme prejudice).
So, the N'Délé usage is nothing particularly revolutionary and is even unlikely to be very controversial - although I find your path to official sanction, marked by a cautious approach by the central Curia, fairly plausible.

 

[othyrsyde]

Great update. The Portuguese clan in Mutapa is an interesting development, along with a greater influx of Goan Indians. And the links you provided are going to be very helpful with my own TL, thanks

Boers aren't becoming multiracial, but Afrikaners are - by this time in TTL, the two haven't been synonymous for a generation. The Boers are the white Afrikaners, but the Coloureds and Cape Malays have also been brought under the Afrikaner umbrella at this point. "Afrikaner" has become a linguistic and cultural term, not an ethnic one.

There were hints of this in OTL - some nineteenth-century Coloureds called themselves Afrikaners, and I've seen it claimed that Abdullah Abdurahman (who served on the Cape Town city council from 1904 to 1940) had the tacit support of the Afrikaner Bond. The difference in TTL is that rather than retreating into cultural isolationism, some forward-looking Boers saw the advantage in this alliance and ran with it. And yes, this means that both Afrikaner identity and the part of it that is Boer identity will be very different from OTL.

I see. Something told me I messed up when I wrote Boer instead of Afrikaner, but dismissed it . Need o listen to my gut like my mamma taught me.

Anyways, so Boers and Afrikaners will not be synonymous like in OTL (again, as far as I understand SA). Insteresting development, and makes me wonder if this will cross over into the greater Coloured identity there, or make splinter the identity into many facets similar to how Afrikaners and Boers are. Either wayit's going to be fascinating to see develop further.

It might also become an example of that classic phrase, "karma's a bitch."

And there you go ruining my attempt at sounding well read.

 

[Ganesha]

OTL's Zaire Use and TTL's N'Dele Use are really fascinating - I'd never realized the Catholic Church before Vatican II allowed such variations officially - obviously unofficially there were always plenty of variations. Great update!

Cheers,
Ganesha

 

[Falecius]

OTL's Zaire Use and TTL's N'Dele Use are really fascinating - I'd never realized the Catholic Church before Vatican II allowed such variations officially - obviously unofficially there were always plenty of variations. Great update!

Cheers,
Ganesha

Zaire Use OTL was fully sanctioned only after Vatican II, but variation was generally accepted everywhere it was deemed that it would have helped the spread of the faith without endangering doctrine (a famous case where it was decided against it was in the Chinese Rites controversy - where the Chinese rites where considered too much Confucian for Rome's liking, although a big part it internal power play, mostly between Jesuits and Franciscans).

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Any chance of a loose Pink Map kind of union (in the same loose sense as the other transnational organizations)?

That could happen, as might an attempt to make Portuguese Africa into integral provinces as was done in OTL. On the other hand, any such attempt would have to contend with the Katangese princely states wanting to stay separate, and with the economic factors pulling parts of the empire toward South Africa, Germany or even Zanzibar. A loose union might come out of it eventually, overlapping with one or two other unions, but the path won't be a smooth one.

Whatever happens, though, the Portuguese will be one of TTL Africa's major white tribes - they, the Boers and the Indians will be all over the place.

Great as always. At this point, roughly what percentage of Africans living under Portuguese rule would be considered 'real' catholics?

Most of them, in the coastal provinces, especially in the parts of Angola that have been Catholic since the 16th century. A growing minority in the interior, and relatively few in the princely states (with the partial exception of Mutapa, although more Shona are Dutch Reformed at this point than Catholic).

A note: in Post-Tridentine Catholic Church, there should be, technically, no such a thing as an unorthodox rite. Orthodoxy is, in my understanding, exclusively a matter of doctrine (and especially theology)... But indeed, outside Europe the Catholic Church was almost always very willing to experiment

I hadn't realized that, and wasn't familiar with the Asian examples - thanks for pointing them out. At the same time, there are aspects of African worship that might be dangerous to doctrine: for instance, the line between veneration of saints and ancestor worship can be a thin one, and if the name of an African supreme creator deity (which most Bantu religions have, although they often aren't focuses of worship) is substituted for God, can the Church really be sure that the right God is being worshiped? The second linked article indicates that these were concerns with the Zaire Use and similar rites, which may be why it took until 1988 for the ritual to be approved. I figured that a similar process would occur in TTL, but that the Church would be fine with it once the doctrinal concerns were addressed.

Great update. The Portuguese clan in Mutapa is an interesting development, along with a greater influx of Goan Indians.

I should add that Indians have come and gone from Mozambique for centuries, and that there was a fairly large twentieth-century community in OTL; the difference in TTL is the mass recruitment of agricultural labor, and also the fact that the colonial government doesn't periodically expel them. Southern Mozambique will essentially be a tri-racial society, and is likely to have a different development path from the rest of the colony.

Anyways, so Boers and Afrikaners will not be synonymous like in OTL (again, as far as I understand SA). Insteresting development, and makes me wonder if this will cross over into the greater Coloured identity there, or make splinter the identity into many facets similar to how Afrikaners and Boers are. Either way it's going to be fascinating to see develop further.

I'm guessing the default will be one overarching identity with several subgroups within it, and in fact, the umbrella "Afrikaner" category might help distinct mixed-race groups (like the Griquas) stay distinct.

Also, "Boer" will never become an insult in TTL as some people consider it in OTL - it will simply be a term for white Afrikaans-speakers, used neutrally by them and everyone else.

OTL's Zaire Use and TTL's N'Dele Use are really fascinating - I'd never realized the Catholic Church before Vatican II allowed such variations officially - obviously unofficially there were always plenty of variations.

As Falecius says, the Zaire Use is post-Vatican II, and Vatican II documents were part of its legal foundation, although its antecedents predate the council and there's always been some local leeway. The timing of TTL's N'Délé Use as opposed to OTL's Zaire Use is due to the existence of an independent African Catholic state. In OTL, colonial authorities would have suppressed any attempt to Africanize the Congolese rite - they would have considered such a thing nearly as dangerous as Kimbanguism - but once the Congo became independent, its clergy could experiment and begin the process of creating a national usage. In TTL that necessity exists earlier - there's probably also a Burundi Use by this time, and the Baganda Catholics are likely to have a typically idiosyncratic ritual.

BTW, the South Africa and Portuguese Africa updates were supposed to go together, which is why they appeared so closely in time, but both of them got away with me. The next one will involve German Africa and the Congo, which I've been sketching out along with the other two; after that, there will be a narrative set in Western Europe, and then Russia/Central Asia.

 

[Falecius]

I hadn't realized that, and wasn't familiar with the Asian examples - thanks for pointing them out. At the same time, there are aspects of African worship that might be dangerous to doctrine: for instance, the line between veneration of saints and ancestor worship can be a thin one, and if the name of an African supreme creator deity (which most Bantu religions have, although they often aren't focuses of worship) is substituted for God, can the Church really be sure that the right God is being worshiped? The second linked article indicates that these were concerns with the Zaire Use and similar rites, which may be why it took until 1988 for the ritual to be approved. I figured that a similar process would occur in TTL, but that the Church would be fine with it once the doctrinal concerns were addressed.

Well, in Latin Tridentine Rite and many European vernacular rites, God is named after a European creator deity.
Ancestor worship however is indeed problematic, and had a been a sticking point in the debate over the Chinese Rites (IIRC, the main problem was Confucius' veneration though).

 

[Sulemain]

An awesome update, as per usual. Portugal seems to be quite interesting, and it's strange to read about a modernish state defining itself by religion.

 

[Al-numbers]

Hmm... I feel a bit ambivalent towards Portugal in this update. On one hand, yay street fighter Church! On the other, boo Novo Reino!

That last bit with the Indians is interesting though. I'm guessing these workers and traders would bring in new ideas from the Subcontinent?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Interlude: No island is an island

Near Bremerhaven, January 1936

​

In eleven years in Bremerhaven, Rakotomalala had learned there were things the Germans liked. Eating and drinking, being outdoors, singing, working hard, gardens, neighbors, rules – oh, yes, they loved their rules. And if you liked the things they liked, then they liked you.

Rako did like most of the things Germans liked. But he couldn’t fathom why anyone, German or not, would want to hike down country roads on the coldest day of the year.

It’s an honor they still invited you even after you quit the shipyard, his mind told him, but his body said something different, and he went looking for a cart. “Chiluba!” he called. “Hand me some of that schnapps, will you?”

Thomas Chiluba, Rako’s foreman before he’d left to open his store, looked around with the eyes he’d inherited from his German mother. “We haven’t even started!”

“I come from a warm place, Thomas. I’m not made for German winters.”

Chiluba laughed and opened the bottle. “My father says the same thing.”

“I noticed he’s too smart to be here,” Rako said, feeling the schnapps’ welcome warmth as he drank. The elder Chiluba had retired the previous year; he’d been a soldier in the Great War, and one of the first Africans to find work in the shipyard afterward. Just as Rako had been the first from Madagascar.

“They’ll meet us for dinner.” The foreman waved over a young German who Rako didn’t recognize. “This is Lammers. He joined the crew after you left – general labor, but we’re training him for your job. Lammers, this is Rakotomalala.”

“Rako-to…”

“Come on, his name isn’t hard. We had one a few years ago, what was his name… Razafindrandriatsimaniry. We just called him Helmut.”

“Germans string words together, we do it with names.” Rako remembered Helmut well. His birth-name had marked him as a nobleman, and Rako had wondered what he was doing on a Bremerhaven work crew until he’d explained the scandal that had sent him into exile. He hadn’t thought anyone could be that creative…

He smiled at the memory, and so did Lammers when he realized he was being teased. “It’s good to meet you, Rako, Frau Rako…”

“Ilse.” Rako’s wife had taken an actual German name, rather than shortening her given name as he had done. Everyone in Germany had to have two names, and he hadn’t been able to think of another one at the customs house, so for the past eleven years, he’d been Rako Rakotomalala.

Lammers smiled again at the familiar sound, and was about to say something else when last year’s Kohlkönig signaled everyone to form up and get started. Ilse went off in search of some of the German wives she knew, and Rako fell in with Chiluba’s crew.

The assembly was what would be expected for Bremerhaven shipyard workers: six parts German, two parts Slavic, and the other two parts made up of central Africans, Indians, Malagasy and a few Kalderash Rom. A few of them, Chiluba included, sang old army marching songs, but the pace was far from military and no one was in any hurry. A Kohlfahrt wasn’t a serious hike; the point was to socialize, play games and get drunk, and if they only covered ten or twelve kilometers in four hours, nobody would care.

And that was how it happened. They stopped for a drink at every crossroads or bridge along the way, played road-bowling or Bosseln where the road was straight, offered drinks to the motor-wagon drivers who pulled aside to let them pass and jeered those who didn’t. Rako caught up on happenings at the shipyard, which he only heard at third-hand these days from his customers, and everyone argued over the elections and planned their summer trips to the mountains.

About two thirds of the way along, Rako decided it was his turn to add to the entertainment, and he untied the valiha he carried on his back. He’d made it himself in Madagascar, from a single piece of bamboo, and arranged the strings around the outside, although he’d had to restring it several times since he’d come to Germany. The strings he had now were made from a bicycle cable. He called to Ilse, who emerged from the group of women with a sodina flute in hand, and began to sing.

They expected a rowdy German drinking song, no doubt, as he’d played in the past. He gave them the Ibonia instead, plucking out the melody on his valiha as his wife joined in on the flute. “My wife has been stolen from me, and I go to bring her back from Stone Man… If Joy-Giving Girl dies, I will not leave her in the earth; if she lives, I give her to no man.”

The Malagasy on the crew knew the song – every Malagasy did – and they joined in as he described the tests of Iboniamasiboniamanoro, how he was made to stay under water all night and fight crocodiles and bulls. The Germans didn’t understand, but it was something they’d never heard before, and they clapped their hands for rhythm and cheered at the end.

“I needed to practice,” he told Chiluba and Lammers as they walked on. “There’s a hiragasy tomorrow, and I have to play. A gathering,” he said, noticing Lammers’ confusion. “Music, dancing and kabary – speeches.”

“Who’s it for?” Chiluba asked. He’d been to one or two, for weddings in the crew.

“Helmut, believe it or not. The Christian Democrats are running him for council.”

“Helmut? Do they know what he used to do on his days off?”

“They know he’s got that ‘andria’ in his name, so the Malagasy will vote for him. Well, some of them.” Rako wasn’t voting for Helmut, for all he’d been hired to play at the hiragasy.

“Couldn’t run a drill, and now he wants to run the city.”

“He’s a nobleman, and he speaks good German.” In fact, Helmut’s speech was almost as free of accent as Chiluba’s, and more so than Rako’s children. His grandchildren, when he had them, would sound like Chiluba’s sons – Bremerhaven born and raised on its streets. “You should come. There’ll be plenty to drink, and it’ll look good for Helmut if there are Germans there.”

“Sounds like fun, even if it’s for Helmut,” Chiluba said. He showed little surprise at being called a German. “Come on, Lammers, you’ll see how they drink in Madagascar. Some of the others might go too, if they aren’t in church.”

“Good. I’ll make sure you get a good place.” Rako wondered why he was going to such trouble for a man he opposed, and suddenly realized how German he’d become: if I’ve got a job to do, I’ll damned well do it right. He leaped over a bowling ball just in time and laughed along with the Polish worker who’d rolled it; it might not have been funny if he’d become the tenth pin, but they’d all had enough schnapps by now that a near-miss was hilarious.

That probably meant it was nearly time to come inside, and indeed, they covered ground more and more slowly for the next hour. Even the sight of the tavern, with its welcoming warmth and smell of Kohl und Pinkel, made them pick up the pace only a little. The conversations and songs were the important thing, and they continued as the wayfarers took their places at tables already set.

“You’re playing at the hiragasy tomorrow?” Rako turned at the words and saw Kolo, another Malagasy worker who’d taken the seat next to his. “I need to talk to you before. About the day for my daughter’s wedding. And other things.”

“The wedding, certainly.” As the first Malagasy in Bremerhaven and the first to open a business, Rako had become the community’s mpanandro, its maker of days; everyone came to him to choose auspicious dates for ceremonies, even those who were lowlanders like Kolo rather than Merina like himself. “The other things…”

“Helmut.”

“After the hiragasy, then.” Kolo was an exile like Helmut, but for a different reason: he opposed the royalty and nobles in Madagascar, and didn’t want them to sew things up here too. Rako was a Social Democrat, and he sympathized… but he’d save that conversation until the gathering was over and he was no longer under contract to provide Helmut’s music.

Kolo nodded, evidently satisfied, and they both joined in the singing at the table. This gathering was a much simpler one: dinner and dancing, the crowning of this year’s Kohlkönig, and drinking long into the night.

Rako tucked into his food: this was one of the things the Germans liked that he liked too, and after all this time, he was still amazed by how much of it they took for granted. He looked forward to dancing with Ilse, and taking a turn on the valiha later in the evening. He’d have to be careful, though, if he wanted to be in shape to play at the hiragasy.

Part of him hoped he wouldn’t be in shape. But the other part, the German part, knew he would.

 

[Shevek23]

An awesome update, as per usual. Portugal seems to be quite interesting, and it's strange to read about a modernish state defining itself by religion.

But OTL it has been happening, or threatening to happen, more and more often nowadays, since the 1970s. On one hand the first reaction in the secular west was to characterize them as "backward" by definition, but how rational a reaction is that when it seems to be the trend, perhaps the wave of the future?

From my point of view these regimes and proposed ones (say by certain factions of the Christian Right in the United States) are indeed dystopian, but I'm not sure I can call them backward.

In this other timeline on the other hand, the flag of religion is not held by right-wing authoritarians only, and the agnosticism and atheism of OTL has not been nearly as popular, and quite a few governments do associate with some particular doctrine or family of doctrines. This is not only true of the various states, traditionalist or revolutionary, outside the European tradition but also of Tolstoyian Russia, a revolutionary state and a European one too.

In Europe a strong association with a particular denomination does tend to signal a reactionary bent of government--in Belgium, in Hungary I presume, whereas France's left is more secular (but often still includes pious Catholics) and the Italians drove the Pope out of Rome--then the Spanish, in rejecting an ultra-rightist putsch, threw him out too and on to Rio. I am hard put to point to a strongly Protestant state--except Britain of course, depending on how mild Anglicanism might have become and how fiery the various Low Church Dissenters may be at this point. So state/religion alliances are common but mainly for Catholic reactionary countries--except now the Church, especially the Curia, with Celestine and his successors, is emerging as populist and crusading for justice which puts the old-fashioned ultramontanes on uncertain footing.

And again looking outside Europe, but in the European colonized Americas, we have the interesting contrasts of a lefty socialist (on a communal level, and more culturally conservative) alliance with populist clergy in Mexico, versus a harsh oligarchy that got into a conflict with the Church in El Salvador. The Empire of Brazil remains strongly Catholic. We haven't looked much at the religious aspects of Natal's white supremacist setup, but I'd guess the English rulers there are all Anglican, so there's an example of an ultramontane type of authoritarian state that isn't Catholic, though perhaps the Natalians are more like OTL secular racists, not caring much for religion at all--they aren't Boers and they aren't Dutch Reformed at any rate.

The United States itself may be the outlier here, the leading one of very few states that is secular--but even OTL Americans have almost always been among the more Godbothering offsprings of Europe; the secular American setup is because we can't agree on a single denomination to establish, not because most Americans are atheist! ITTL we've seen plenty of evidence of the active presence of religious motivations in American life.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Portugal seems to be quite interesting, and it's strange to read about a modernish state defining itself by religion.

The "ish" part of "modernish" is important here - this is the period of the Salazar dictatorship in OTL - but as I've mentioned before, one of the Legion's legacies has been a family of Catholic political movements similar to OTL Islamism. These movements reject national and racial distinctions among the faithful - the incumbent Pope has gone so far as to call nationalism a sin - which leaves religion as the primary defining factor. The anti-racist and anti-nationalist ideology isn't always observed in practice, but many of these movements do make an effort - and when a regime that falls short, such as the Novo Reino, is caught out, then it will tend to fall back on religion as the ultimate marker of citizenship.

Keep in mind, also, that with the exception of Belgium, these movements have come to power in countries that haven't quite got the hang of democracy. Some of the religious boundaries may erode as the states' politics mature and as Catholic Liberalism competes more with Catholic populism. This has already happened to some extent in Brazil, and interesting things may happen in Iberia and the remainder of Latin America during the 1940s and 50s.

Hmm... I feel a bit ambivalent towards Portugal in this update. On one hand, yay street fighter Church! On the other, boo Novo Reino!

That last bit with the Indians is interesting though. I'm guessing these workers and traders would bring in new ideas from the Subcontinent?

The Novo Reino won't last forever, any more than Salazar did. And yes, the Indians will bring new ideas and blood to the mix, although with Portugal having owned a piece of India for centuries, they won't be all that new.

In this other timeline on the other hand, the flag of religion is not held by right-wing authoritarians only, and the agnosticism and atheism of OTL has not been nearly as popular, and quite a few governments do associate with some particular doctrine or family of doctrines. This is not only true of the various states, traditionalist or revolutionary, outside the European tradition but also of Tolstoyian Russia, a revolutionary state and a European one too.

I wouldn't say it's true of all the states outside the European tradition. India, for instance, is a large and important secular republic: some of its ideals are informed by revolutionary Islam and Hinduism, but there's no way it could give preference to either without alienating the other. I suspect South Africa as a whole will be secular, for much the same reason - the Cape certainly is by this time - although individual parts of it might not. More to the point, there are competing secular traditions out there, and although there's a much stronger religious left in TTL, it isn't the whole of the left by a long shot.

I am hard put to point to a strongly Protestant state

There's Ankole, for certain values of "Protestant," but as in OTL, the best candidates are probably those parts of the United States where church politics is prominent. The Natalians use religious justifications when they feel like it, but for the most part, given their Imperial Party leanings, religion isn't a strong influence in their state.

 

[Sulemain]

I'd argue that the most obviously Protestant state would be TTL's Ulster.

And an interesting look at the new, multicultural Germany. I was in Berlin this weekend; it's a city that shows the benefits of a multicultural society like no other.

Africa influenced schnitzel is an appealing concept.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I'd argue that the most obviously Protestant state would be TTL's Ulster.

Yes, how could I forget the Dominion of Ulster?

And an interesting look at the new, multicultural Germany. I was in Berlin this weekend; it's a city that shows the benefits of a multicultural society like no other.

Jord839 requested a scene showing how Malagasy and German cultures were mixing, and the idea intrigued me.

Keep in mind that this is Bremen, though - the Hanseatic cities and the Ruhr are ground zero for labor immigration, and they've had 40 years to get used to foreigners. A southern German country town, or even a southern German city, wouldn't be as casual, and there's still resentment even in the Hanseatic states.

Africa influenced schnitzel is an appealing concept.

Some kind of curried sausage might be more likely - maybe curried pinkel will be an option for the next Kohlfahrt. (A Kohlfahrt is a Bremen thing, BTW; I've never been on one, but I know a couple of people who have.)

 

[Julius Vogel]

Well, wouldn't all of the white component parts of the Australian federation be pretty Protestant? Certainly NZ was, I think only a couple of districts IOTL had a Catholic plurality. Certainly the lower South Island from about Timaru was very Presbyterian, the rest being Anglican. The West Coast was almost Irish Catholic.

Given the darker events in Ulster I'd suspect parts of *NZ would not be a particularly nice place to be Catholic. IOTL anyway, PM William Massey (Non conformist born in Norn, Orangeman and anti Catholic) was quite close to Craig, PM of Ulster at the same time.

 

[Falecius]

An awesome update, as per usual. Portugal seems to be quite interesting, and it's strange to read about a modernish state defining itself by religion.

Saudi Arabia, which is as "modern" as you can get in some ways, is very much defined by religion
(More precisely, it could be argued that Saudi Arabia is where modernity explodes - metaphorically of course)