Hey Everyone,
Well, I've finally decided to start working on an idea I've had for a new TL. After the end of the First World War, the idea of Closer Union in British East Africa was thrown around and attracted a great deal of public attention. Only after a Joint Parliamentary Commission was convened in 1930 and its official findings published in 1931 did the idea of an East African Federation die.
What if this idea of East African Federation did not die in 1931? What if beginning in 1919, a concerted effort by the European settlers to attract immigrants from post-war Europe took shape and convinced the British government to embrace an East African Federation? How would a white minority-run state in East Africa fare in the post-war world?
Here's what I've written so far. Comments and questions welcomed. Thanks!
The Conscious to do what is Right: Britain and the East African Federation, 1919-Present
Introduction-
It is said that some of the best ideas come with the worst of intentions. The East African Federation can be categorized as one of those ideas. At no time between the founding of Britain’s East African colonies in the mid-1880s and the end of the First World War were there not calls, petitions, or rallies in the East African territories aimed at gaining attention and publicity for this cause. These early ideas were always unrealistic because of the German presence in East Africa. After the end of the war, these plans formally seen as unrealistic became realistic to many forward thinking MPs and administrators alike.
Like many ideas spawned in the headwaters of colonial rhetoric and drawing strength from the swamp of racial intolerance, the Closer Union movement put on a public façade of progress. It was declared that the founding of an East African Federation would herald a new age of progress in the African territories, that British settler and African citizen alike would reap the benefits. Publicly, it was said that the settler population would work hand in hand with the administration to bring the disenfranchised African population into the political process. Privately, the leaders of the settler communities and their allies in the territorial governments would speak of white minority rule and pushing the African citizens off to the wayside. They would be left to rot in government sponsored ghettos and slums while the settlers would live in high rises, and rake in profits from the vast natural resources of the area.
No one could have foreseen what was to come. European immigration to the East African Federation was heralded, embraced, encouraged, even, by the colonial overlords who did to so to ensure their place in the new order of things. They would ensure future votes 10 years down to the line by encouraging post-war immigration from Central Europe and the Dominions. They would ensure future profits and economic prosperity for their people by securing lucrative mineral extraction contracts from foreign investors, and the expansion of the Kenyan plantation system into the surrounding regions. When the E.A.F. and its leadership followed the South African model and openly broke with the Commonwealth, the nation was transformed from a melting pot of Europe and Africa heralded as the vision for a new tomorrow, into an Apartheid state just as vile, cruel, and self-serving as the South Africans.
We must now, today, live with the repercussions. Though white minority rule has given way to universal enfranchisement and the social, economic, and political inequality of the past has been swept aside, for much of the population inequality still exists. The booming East African economy has benefited some, even helping to line the wallets of its former racist overlords, but many have yet to see a penny’s worth of profit. Political intrigue still racks the national and regional governments. Corruption, vice, graft, all still plague the nation’s politicians and law enforcement agencies. Leaders like Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere have come and gone, showing their peoples the path to freedom. This path has been a long and hard one.
Even today, their people still walk this path…
Well, I've finally decided to start working on an idea I've had for a new TL. After the end of the First World War, the idea of Closer Union in British East Africa was thrown around and attracted a great deal of public attention. Only after a Joint Parliamentary Commission was convened in 1930 and its official findings published in 1931 did the idea of an East African Federation die.
What if this idea of East African Federation did not die in 1931? What if beginning in 1919, a concerted effort by the European settlers to attract immigrants from post-war Europe took shape and convinced the British government to embrace an East African Federation? How would a white minority-run state in East Africa fare in the post-war world?
Here's what I've written so far. Comments and questions welcomed. Thanks!
The Conscious to do what is Right: Britain and the East African Federation, 1919-Present
Introduction-
It is said that some of the best ideas come with the worst of intentions. The East African Federation can be categorized as one of those ideas. At no time between the founding of Britain’s East African colonies in the mid-1880s and the end of the First World War were there not calls, petitions, or rallies in the East African territories aimed at gaining attention and publicity for this cause. These early ideas were always unrealistic because of the German presence in East Africa. After the end of the war, these plans formally seen as unrealistic became realistic to many forward thinking MPs and administrators alike.
Like many ideas spawned in the headwaters of colonial rhetoric and drawing strength from the swamp of racial intolerance, the Closer Union movement put on a public façade of progress. It was declared that the founding of an East African Federation would herald a new age of progress in the African territories, that British settler and African citizen alike would reap the benefits. Publicly, it was said that the settler population would work hand in hand with the administration to bring the disenfranchised African population into the political process. Privately, the leaders of the settler communities and their allies in the territorial governments would speak of white minority rule and pushing the African citizens off to the wayside. They would be left to rot in government sponsored ghettos and slums while the settlers would live in high rises, and rake in profits from the vast natural resources of the area.
No one could have foreseen what was to come. European immigration to the East African Federation was heralded, embraced, encouraged, even, by the colonial overlords who did to so to ensure their place in the new order of things. They would ensure future votes 10 years down to the line by encouraging post-war immigration from Central Europe and the Dominions. They would ensure future profits and economic prosperity for their people by securing lucrative mineral extraction contracts from foreign investors, and the expansion of the Kenyan plantation system into the surrounding regions. When the E.A.F. and its leadership followed the South African model and openly broke with the Commonwealth, the nation was transformed from a melting pot of Europe and Africa heralded as the vision for a new tomorrow, into an Apartheid state just as vile, cruel, and self-serving as the South Africans.
We must now, today, live with the repercussions. Though white minority rule has given way to universal enfranchisement and the social, economic, and political inequality of the past has been swept aside, for much of the population inequality still exists. The booming East African economy has benefited some, even helping to line the wallets of its former racist overlords, but many have yet to see a penny’s worth of profit. Political intrigue still racks the national and regional governments. Corruption, vice, graft, all still plague the nation’s politicians and law enforcement agencies. Leaders like Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere have come and gone, showing their peoples the path to freedom. This path has been a long and hard one.
Even today, their people still walk this path…