The Footprint of Mussolini - TL

[Sorairo]

The Fall of Fascism

Extract from ‘The New Roman Empire’ by David Lassinger​

It would be no surprise to anyone that it would be King Juan Carlos of Spain who would begin the downfall of Fascism. His private antipathy towards the system would result in his planning all throughout 1978 to launch a clean break with the Roman Alliance altogether and to join ITO. On Easter Sunday in 1978, Carlos announced that by Royal Decree, Spain was leaving the Roman Alliance and requesting to join ITO, promising elections within the year. This announcement sent shockwaves throughout the entire Roman Alliance, who had never seen a member apply to leave before. While it may have been imaginable back in the days of Mussolini to have violently crushed potential defectors, by now there was no strong leadership or belief anywhere within the group to justify such an action. Instead, Italian troops based in Spain meekly left their positions and flew home. ITO enthusiastically embraced Spain and promised integration into Europe. The most immediate knock-on effect was in Morocco, where King Hassan was now without an immediate patron but still retaining a lot of enemies. A coup quickly resulted in the mutilated monarchy, with a Republican government soon established under respected military leader Mohamed Oufkir. In return for continued good relations between Spain and Morocco, King Carlos would hand over most of the annexed Moroccan coastline, which had only been a boondoggle in terms of resources and maintenance. At the same time, the major coastal cities would remain under Spanish control as independent islands (given that they were overwhelmingly Spanish. Agadir, Safi and Casablanca would stay under Spanish rule. Transport between the cities was guaranteed and Morocco swore to forsake all territorial claims on Spanish Africa (which was of substantial size, even excluding Equatorial Guinea). To this date, despite misgivings among more nationalistic groups, Morocco has made no further progress in retaking land from Spain - its unwieldy democracy seemingly always on the verge of tottering over but never entirely. Its politics is mainly divided between poorer ‘Arabs’ and richer and more cosmopolitan ‘Berbers’ - with the latter pursuing closer relations with the West. Spanish Morocco has been well integrated with French Algeria through road and rail, and the two mother nations have gone on to have a close economic relationship. Despite misgivings, Spain also retained Equatorial Guinea and refused to readmit the vast majority of the population it had expelled to Cameroon – a fact that was overlooked due to Western ingratiation.

The sudden announcement of Spain’s departure rocked the entire Roman Alliance, but once again hampered by a populace that was sick of war and a King who was sick of Fascism as an experiment, Ciano had no choice but to make do with a stinging diplomatic rebut. One of the more immediate effects of Spain’s defection was to officially light a fire in the hearts of the mainland Portuguese to enact their own changes – perhaps not one the ruling party would gladly accept without force. Duarte had naively excepted the end of the war and full integration of the colonies to mean the end of most of the grievances against his state. However, the full integration of these territories only continued to cycle of more attention and funds being seen as spent on a borderline foreign entity while the mainland continued to suffer. On May 2nd 1978, protests and strikes all across mainland Portugal brought the country to a total standstill. There was no way of using the army against protestors now, and King Duarte (despite immense popularity in Portuguese Africa) found himself faced with an outpouring of popular anger. Fleeing to Luanda, the Portuguese army on the mainland knew the time had come and laid down arms. Mário Soares, who had been the unofficial leader of the General Strike, was now in the bizarre position of being the de facto ruler of Portugal, if only its mainland while Portuguese Africa stood firmly behind the King. Soares was no extremist and was worried that if he pushed his luck too far he would invite Roman Alliance retaliation, which had only been stayed due to Spain, France and Britain refusing transit to Roman Alliance troops to get to Portugal. Soares offered Duarte a way back to the mainland. He would become a ceremonial King for now, with a later referendum to determine whether he would keep even that. At the same time, full democracy would be restored to Portugal for the first time in living memory. Duarte, who was always opposed to bloodshed though attached to the notion of Divine Kingly Right, reluctantly accepted the terms. Rumours suggest that even Ciano demand he accept it to avoid another potential conflict. King Duarte returned to his Palace on May 24th, now under effective house arrest. He would not even be allowed to campaign on his behalf during the referendum, being told he could not leave the Palace. Mainland Portugal proceeded to undo the legacy of the regime, with unions forming in every quarter openly, schools being secularised, and status of Salazar torn down. By contrast, Portuguese Africa stuck doggedly to their old ways, with regional leaders assuring the locals that the Church would maintain its role in society no matter what happened in the mainland.

Iberia’s sudden crash out of the Roman Alliance made the urge for reform across the rest of the Bloc almost impossible to ignore. By now, it was obvious a tidal wave was rolling over the entire Fascist world and there was little if anything their leaders could do to stop it. In Latin America, the effects of the fall of Franco and his regime would be particularly strongly felt due to language and shared history. Carlos Andrés Peréz would lead the calls in Venezuela to enact reform, which was particularly disturbing to world Fascist leaders as Venezuela had prospered greatly under its dictatorship due to OPEP’s global stranglehold on oil. Yet here too, especially due to British pressure in Guyana (that would force Jenkins to finally accept the admittance of Guyana into the United Kingdom) and the American Navy alongside the Brazilian army, the Junta in charge of Venezuela accepted their time had come and agreed to reforms and amnesty for the old regime. Argentina by contrast, under the Fascist dictatorship of Isabel Peron in the image of her late husband (as well as the only female leader of the Roman Alliance), was not ready to go gently into the night. After losing in the final of the 1978 World Cup, held on her home ground no less, against Anti-Fascist Brazil, a crippling sense of anger and frustration had poured from the pitch onto Peron herself. Her own regime was desperate to hold onto power, and both her and the Junta that surrounded her were sure they knew just how. There had negotiations at the time with President Salvador Allende in Chile over the status of the islands of Picton, Lennox and Nueva at the Beagle Channel. This was a longstanding dispute between the two powers with both claiming sovereignty over the islands (Argentina also has a lesser known claim to the Falkland Islands but their full annexation into the nuclear weapon-owing UK made any talk of return a useless quest). As protests began in Buenos Aires, Peron ordered her generals to take evasive action and to save the fortunes of the regime. On June 3rd 1978, Argentine troops under the command of General Galtieri occupied the entirety of Tierra del Fuego (not simply the three islands) while threatening to invade the rest of Chile unless Allende surrendered his claims. It certainly had the intended effect at home – protests against the regime stopped and joyous, patriotic marches crying ‘Isabel!’ began to bring life to a halt. As Chile was not formerly an ITO member, no one was obligated to come to its side in the event of conflict. Instead, the Chilean Navy began an almighty bombardment against the Argentine forces while American and Brazilian aid came rolling in. As Argentina began the war, the Roman Alliance was not obligated to come to her defence. General Pinochet, the head of Chile’s armed forces, announced that there would be a ‘War to the Death’ with the Argentines. President Brooke spent little time, with the support of his Foreign Secretary Henry Kissinger, in funding Allende’s government and ensuring the vast undertaking of a war stretching across their entire border would not overwhelm them. The Beagle War would be technically fought along the vast breadth of the Chilean-Argentine border, but fighting was overwhelmingly concentrated in the far south, where naval power was almost as important as the ground operations. With British help from the Falklands (mainly in terms of reconnaissance), the Chilean Navy was able to identify and overwhelm Argentine formations before they knew what hit them. While initial enthusiasm for the war had aided Isabel Peron’s government, this quickly petered out as multiple military setbacks began to be circled around the rumour mill. On the other hand, Chileans on both wings of politics united against the common menace – following the conservative Pinochet’s election in 1980, he would specifically thank and salute his predecessor and Social Democrat electoral rival Allende for “Refusing to let partisan politics hold back the partisans in the field”.

Most other countries in the Roman Alliance went through a similar wave of reforms. In Bulgaria, King Simeon II declared on September 2nd that he would maintain his membership of the Roman Alliance while instituting a broad range of democratic and liberal reforms in response to protests. In Croatia, the protests were quite different from the rest of the Roman Alliance. Here, the main Faultline was among the Bosnian population who had slowly seen their culture get erased and neglected by the dominant Croat majority and the Ustache’s unwritten but obvious favoritism for Catholics. King Timoslav III was faced with protests in Sarajevo demanding more rights for the Bosnians while these groups were often attacked by Croat extremists. Finally, on September 10th, in response to ethnic violence that left thirty dead across the country after rioting, Timoslav announced wide-reaching reforms of Croatia, the largest of which would be the creation of the dual-kingdom of Croatia-Bosnia, in the mould of Austria-Hungary. The rights of both groups would be guaranteed but both would be self-governing within their own territories. The hardliners of the Ustache were outraged and called it treason by a ‘Foreign King’. On September 22nd, a badly organised coup was attempted by Ustache hardliners and was almost immediately put down by forces loyal to Timoslav. In response, Timoslav went even farther than most Roman Alliance countries in their transition – he outright abolished the Ustache and called for elections in both Croatia and Bosnia for that November. Though Timoslav is often portrayed as altruistic and enlightened for the move, he would go on to tell King Simeon in 1983, “I did it so my descendants could be kings”. Regardless, he was quite victorious in his efforts, as the Ustache’s popularity had never recovered from the disaster of the Croat-Serb War and the people did not much miss them. Croatia-Bosnia would go on to be officially formed at the end of the year as a democracy, albeit one with an exceptionally powerful monarch who justified his power in the name of keeping harmony between the two nations. The monarch of Croatia-Bosnia indeed has more power in practice than any other monarch in Europe today for that very reason, and not for a lack of kings in Europe.

Of course, in the midst of all the tumult of change in Europe was Italy. The end of the Ethiopian War bought barely any time for the regime, if at all. There was still a gigantic problem of reintegrating a traumatised workforce, not to mention the costs of continuing to occupy East Africa. With change now happening on all sides, it was inevitable it would start to reach Italy. The inciting incident was actually the death of Pope John Paul I on September 28th, whose sudden death had led to an outpouring of rumours within the country that the government had a hand in his death for his supposed opposition to the regime. Fearing he had been poisoned or assassinated, the Vatican closed ranks and proceeded to finish the funeral as quick as possible, which only caused further rumours. Eventually, false rumours of the Pope’s murder (false in that no definitive proof was ever found of Fascist involvement in his death) led to Italians finally losing all patience for the regime. It began with student protests in Rome, Milan and Florence on October 11th 1978 that were quickly joined by the underground trade union Solidarietà, which had united many of the warring, disparate trade unions that had been ravaged in the aftermath of Fascism’s ascendency. On October 13th, Solidarietà called for a nationwide, general strike with the demand of restoring democracy to Italy, legalising trade unions and allowing freedom of expression. Life in the world’s second largest nuclear power was brought to a firm halt. The trash rotted in the streets, blackouts were commonplace and, yes, even the trains stopped running on time. Protests were most intense on mainland Italy, as those in Libya were generally more supportive of the regime. At the same time, the industrial north was affected particularly hard, with the economic impact soon sending shocks right through the entirety of the Roman Alliance. The Blackshirts had long come to be a drinking club of scoundrels who were often too fat to fight, while the army was so livid with the regime for its pointless waste in Ethiopia that Ciano knew they could not be trusted to end the stalemate on their terms. The Grand Fascist Council was consequently locked in an interminable deadlock between those who wanted to crush the protestors and those who wanted to come to an accord with the strikers. On October 15th, however, Ciano would be absolved from making that decision.

King Umberto II had never been a fan of Fascism, tolerating it to a large degree owing to Mussolini’s evident success in making Italy an international power as well as giving leeway to Balbo and Ciano for their respect of the Royal Family. But he had always been aware of Mussolini’s attempts to install a Republic and consequently knew that Fascism could be a long-term threat to the Monarchy. At the same time, he had a strong working relationship with Ciano, who had helped Umberto receive the reins of power after his father’s death. It cost Ciano his chance of being Duce after Mussolini’s death, but he was still ultimately Duce nonetheless. By this time, Ciano would later confess that he was confident Fascism was doomed and that the only question was the method with which it was doomed – violence or transition. Dino Grandi, one of the older members of the Fascist Council, outright stated he would launch a Second March on Rome if Ciano announced an election. On October 15th, he received a visit from King Umberto. Umberto explained to Ciano that the One-Party system could not survive the current economic contraction and that the time had come to “End Fascism to save the Fascist Party”. Umberto said he would take the decision out of Ciano’s hands and announce it himself on national television that the government would be dissolved with new elections to come thereafter. Umberto was deeply worried that he had pushed Ciano too far with the order, but hearing that the King was working over his head came as an immense relief to Ciano, who said, “You’ve finally paid me back from when I helped you be King”. Thus, King Umberto made a televised address on the evening of October 15th 1978, announcing that the ruling government was abolished, an official inquest would be made into the death of Pope John Paul I, that a caretaker government was to be formed between leaders of the Fascist Party and the opposition (in which he explicitly mentioned Berlinguer) and that the first multi-party elections would take place in Italy that December for the first time in nearly sixty years. Dino Grandi, himself an ardent monarchist, took the decision with good faith as it had come directly from the king. To that extent, there was no coup or any major form of Fascist paramilitarism in the coming days and weeks. Enrico Berlinguer found a jail officer unlocking his cell, into the wide world where he was now free. Before an ocean of international photographers, Berlinguer’s first words to the press upon his freedom would be, “I better go home – I think I left the gas on”. Privately, of course, he was being briefed by the King about other political leaders who had been released from prison and ordering him to come to Rome to deal with the consequent issue of forming a new government. When Berlinguer asked if it was okay if he could form a government for the King as he was a Republican, Umberto replied, “And so was Mussolini”. Berlinguer would arrive at the steps of the Italian Parliament on October 16th to shake hands with Count Ciano with King Umberto standing in between. Some on the Left were appalled that Berlinguer had sought dialogue with the Fascists, others on the Right were appalled that a ‘One-time Communist’ was standing on the steps of the Italian Parliament. However, most were simply impressed at how extraordinarily bizarre the scene was. The sight of these three men, representing the Populist Right, Socialist Left and the Liberal Aristocracy standing together in unity produced one of the most surreal images in all of human history.

Berlinguer and Ciano began an intensive ten days to agree on the terms of transition. The first and foremost was that Berlinguer had to accept amnesty for all acts of violence committed by the Fascist Party, army, Blackshirts or anything else. In return for releasing a number of Socialists from prison (including several who had shot and killed Fascists), this was granted. This one act ensured Berlinguer was considered ‘Just another Italian’ by Ethiopians who hoped for a level of retribution to come on those who wrecked their country. Upon his arrival in Ethiopia in 1980, he was hit by a stone from angry demonstrators who felt he had betrayed them by not arresting Ciano and others. When Berlinguer was asked why he had given amnesty to those who had locked him away and imprisoned him, he replied, “Prisoners think about vengeance – freed men do not”. The Fascist Party would likewise be allowed to contest elections, though rules were put in place to ensure they could never become a new dictatorship, mostly by ensuring the veto power of the King over any such government. The Parliamentary system would be open to any and all parties with the exception of those who ‘vowed violent overthrow of the Italian government’. This was to rule out Communists from taking power, but it also forced the Fascist Party to put in their manifesto that they would always adhere to democracy in future. The Social Democrat Party and the Christian Democrats soon came into the open and began to canvas their people to spread the word on their campaigns.

In the subsequent elections that December, the Social Democrats won a landslide 52% of the vote. To this date, it remains the only time in history any party in the Italian Parliament won an outright majority of the vote. Even more surprising, the Fascists were beaten by the Christian Democrats, with the later taking 25% of the vote and the Fascists taking an astonishingly meagre 17%. This was far lower than what polling experts around the world had predicted. To the jubilation of the West, Enrico Berlinguer was now the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Italy in living memory. Many (over-confidently) predicted that Fascism would wither into nonexistence after a few elections. While not exactly accurate in Italy, it would certainly prove the death-knell of many budding Fascist parties throughout Free Europe, particularly in Poland, where there was still some debate as to the direction the new state would go. With the originator of Fascism having pulled the plug on the project, continuing it in other countries proved a much trickier ask.

The first victim would be Austria, which had devolved into a military Junta after President Schuschnigg’s death in 1977. The reason the unpopular regime hadn’t completely collapsed at the beginning of Juan Carlos’s first flick of the domino was simply that the opposition was too broadly divided. There were traditional Social Democrats who wanted a simple Austrian state, those who wanted union with Hungary’s King Otto to recreate the Hapsburg regime and those who wanted reunion with Germany. The latter in particular had encountered a surge in popularity due to the broad outrage against Italy for publicly denying the democratic call of East Germany for reunion to the West. East Germany by now had fallen into total disrepair, with more than half of its 1970 population having moved to the West and its government a self-confessed proxy for West Germany’s own decisions. The stupidity of denying East Germany’s re-admittance to the Kaiser’s domains when the state was, in the words of Roy Jenkins ‘Begging for death’, had allowed the Pro-Anschluss Austrian Freedom Party (who had more than a few former SS members in their ranks) to become the vanguard of the Austrian resistance. Austria declared elections for the same day as Italy soon after Umberto had made his pronouncement. However, these results were much less clear-cut. The largest individual party was the Austrian Freedom Party at 28%, with the Social Democrats on 27% and 23% for the Pro-Hapsburg Austrian People’s Party. The unnerving results would ultimately lead to a Grand Coalition between the Social Democrats and People’s Party, with the Austrian Fascist Party and Austrian Freedom Party serving as awkward opposition bedfellows. The results put a dampener on the news of moderation’s triumph in Italy, and quickly forced Berlinguer to make a decision: East Germany would be allowed to unify with the West. Britain, France and America, who had all privately supported the division of Germany had made broad public statements in support of union while Italy called off the remarriage. When Berlinguer changed Italy’s tune, they awkwardly supported the move, not wanting to re-empower the Fascists within Italy by undermining her new democratic leader. Thus, on the night of December 24th, 1978, to cheering crowds across Germany, the East German Parliament officially voted for their Frankenstein country to finally be reunited under the reign of King Ferdinand V. On January 1st 1979, the thirty-five year long division of Germany finally came to an end to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Whether Berlinguer’s gamble that this would dissolve support for the Freedom Party in Austria was still to be proven.

One further development that aided in the fall of Fascism was the rise of Pope John Paul II that October. He was considered something of a compromise between warring camps within the Vatican, as his Polish ancestry had made him quite resistant to Communism while he had aided many Christian dissidents within Fascist Italy during the lighter days of the regime in the early 1950s and early days of the Balbo Era. He came to power amidst incredibly uncertain times, coming to power on the same day that Berlinguer came to the steps of the Italian Parliament. The two would meet on October 17th, with Berlinguer beginning by joking, “I’m sorry Father, but I must confess I’m an Atheist.” The Pope replied, “Mr. Berlinguer, if I only had to talk to those who were true Catholics then I would have to throw out most of the Vatican”. The two would go on to have a very strong relationship, with the Pope publicly supporting the wave of democratic reforms sweeping across the Roman Alliance. His first major acts were to broker peace in the Beagle War between Chile and Argentina. By now, a white peace was something the Argentines were quite looking forward to, as their armies had been forced into retreat by Pinochet’s rebuffs. On October 31st, the guns fell silent on Patagonia in time for All Saints’ Day. The second came that November in Portugal. In early September, Portugal held her referendum on the Monarchy, which the governing Social Democrats expected would be an easy victory owing to their dominance over the airwaves on the mainland. Much to their horror, the results gave a narrow victory to the Monarchy owing to the overwhelming support Duarte III had in Angola and Mozambique, even among Black Portuguese for his insistence that they would be counted as full citizens to despite pressure from more reactionary quarters to expel or discriminate against them. This had created a constitutional crisis where the African tail was wagging the mainland dog in a complete reversal to the traditional situation where colonial outposts are at the whim of their mainland leaders. Now came a bizarre situation where the mainland was planning on declaring independence from … itself. As the questions began to escalate, the Pope was soon dragged into another diplomatic storm that November. In discussions with the King, Soares and the Pope, it was agreed that Portugal would become a federal state with the country divided into the three territories of the mainland, Angola and Mozambique – all of whom would now have their own Parliaments. King Duarte himself would move to Luanda in more hospitable company. He was given unique privilege over the Parliaments of Angola and Mozambique in terms of their opening ceremonies, but he would have a borderline non-existent role in mainland Portugal for everything but state visits. Needless to say, he would not have the same powers he once had over government policy. Restrictions were put on place with respect to how much state support any one region of the country got to stop inter-communal tension. These changes were able to quell the calls on the mainland, at least for the time.

The effects of Fascism’s downfall had primarily affected the European and South American states, at least initially. But after the Italian reform, the speed of reform soon reached Asia and Africa. Each Roman Alliance member would now be forced to make a slew of changes to their government. But five years from the dawn of 1979, many would have very different futures indeed. But of particular interest to Berlinguer, who agreed to stay in the Roman Alliance while 'demanding the internal reform that this Bloc needs to survive' was negotiating an amicable solution to the Rhodesian and South African dilemmas. In early 1979, Argentina descended into riots, with the Peron regime doomed to fall that March as rioters engulfed Buenos Aires, leading to the arrest and death of most of the military leaders of the country and the creation of a relatively stable government after elections by the end of the year. Peron herself attempted to flee to friendly Paraguay, only for Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner to be deposed while she was flying over the border and replaced by the unsympathetic General Andrés Rodríguez, who ordered her arrest and announced the recreation of Paraguayan democracy. Berlinguer was determined to bring about peaceful change within the Roman Alliance, but he could not be sure it could always be peaceful, or even more uncomfortably, sure it could always change.

 

[Sorairo]

Hello everyone!

This is the last in-story post. There will be an update next week bringing you up to speed with TTL's 2020 (including the fate of South Africa). There are also a few omake's that I'll be polishing up as well before letting them go ahead. After the 2020 post, I'll try answering your questions as best I can. And without further ado, the timeline is finished.

Only History

Extract from 'The Making of Fascist Bloc' by Jodie Rutkins​

To Chiang the Younger, Italy’s reform proved an able time to implement his own. In February 1979, Chiang announced that China would soon transition to democracy, and that the first nationwide elections in the Middle Kingdom would occur in early 1980. But to Chiang, leaving the Roman Alliance like Iberia and South America had was unthinkable. Chiang was hoping to become the dominant power of the Roman Alliance, as it was rapidly becoming owing to China’s lightning economic growth, with extreme poverty proving to be a memory in China by the end of the 1980s. With Italy’s lower population base, China was confident that it would soon overtake the Italians as the leaders of the Bloc. However, all this ensured that Thailand had their own ideas. When faced with the prospect of China becoming the dominant power of the Roman Alliance with Italy slinking into a still pacifism, Thailand announced their own reforms, pledging to leave the Roman Alliance to become observers of the Francophonie. This of course required some level of democratic reform, although the Monarchy retained significant powers just like Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. As South-East Asia, particularly Vietnam, were more developed than anywhere in Asia outside of Japan, the Philippines or Hong Kong (and even then not far behind), Thailand’s joining the Francophonie was an economic bonanza. Furthermore, Thailand could finally get along without having to pretend to like China as part of their awkward alliance. With Thailand’s economic unity with the rest of Indo-China, the region continued to evolve into a fabulously developed region, even by the impressive standards of late 20th Century Asian growth. The Francophonie would soon make increasing overtures towards Japan and the Philippines to coordinate their economies to ensure they were not overwhelmed by the gigantic Chinese and Indian economies. Afghanistan and Burma would be so dominated by India economically, with most of Central Asia likewise dominated economically by China, that zones of influence were increasingly carved out of the Asian continent, with the parties vying for influence, even to the outside world. Much to French discomfort, the Francophonie would soon evolve into one increasingly dominated by Vietnam, with more Vietnamese companies growing in the West African Federation than French by the 1980s. At the same time, the new, liberalised China (dominated by the KMT despite the transition to democracy owing to its recency in defeating the Communist menace, as compared to the ancient menaces the Italians and Spaniards had forgot) would find its economy growing to unprecedented highs at the same time as the Japanese and Indian, with all three contributing together to make the continent significantly more economically powerful than Europe by 2000. With East Asia overwhelmingly democratic, the much slower transition to democracy in the Middle East became much more obvious.

Some countries in the Middle East already were democracies, like Israel, Kurdistan, the Druze and Alawite Republics and Assyria. But by the late 1970s, the first serious reforms were underway elsewhere. In 1979, the Arab Federation was given full independence owing to Britain’s reduced dependence on foreign oil due to the discovery of the North Sea Oil alongside their extensive nuclear energy development. The country was effectively an oligarchy of Emirs, with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman (finally given relief from their restrictions with Israeli Prime Minister Frank’s blessing) united into a single, sprawling country that was forced into close military ties with Britain as a default. While undemocratic, the Emirs knew full well that they were at the mercy of the Iranians and needed close relations with Britain to maintain their power. Radical Arab and Islamist groups were banned everywhere they could be found. In Lebanon, the ruling Phalangist Party agreed to elections in early 1980, with dictator Pierre Gemayel agreeing to step down in favour of his son Bachir becoming the leader of the Party. However, despite the relinquishing of the one-party state, the Phalangists would go on to win the election, promising to maintain the status quo. As Lebanon was by far the most developed ‘Arab’ state in the Middle East, its population had some degree of warm feelings towards the regime. In the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Saba, however, the reforms would be mainly cosmetic, with ultimate power still resting with the ruling monarchs – though few Western groups were willing to challenge their rulers for fear of what should happen if they came toppling down. Iran, Turkey and their occupied puppets of Iraq and Syria would be the real test. Turkey agreed to some level of democratic reform, with President Evren going on to win the 1981 election that re-established Turkish democracy. But at the same time, the military would be so thoroughly baked into the country’s government, its funding constitutionally assured to the extent that to even openly call for its removal would declare the party ineligible for government, that it would turn Turkey from a state with an army to an army with a state. Turkey remains by far the most militarised of any of the initial Roman Alliance states. Such was seen in Iraq, where Turkey adamantly refused to end the occupation of Syria despite even Israel pledging that they would incur no more punishment on the region. The Turkish occupation of Syria would finally end in 2002 for economic reasons far more so than military. This hasn’t stopped occasional re-occupation whenever Turkey feels like Syria hasn’t lived up to its side of the bargain. Their close ally Iran, close owing to their mutual fear of an Arab revival, would be somewhat kinder to Iraq and the Arabian Kingdom. This was somewhat due to a more thorough democratic reform that occurred following Karim Sanjabi’s ascension to power in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which had already broadly restored normalcy to Iranian life, certainly after the reunification. Once the Shah had died, Iran announced their own elections for early-1981, which resulted in the election of the Iranian People’s Party, a religiously themed Social Democrat Party inspired by the Tolstoyists in Russia. North Iran was far more religious than her south, and this more religious-themed government would raise the ire of thoroughly secular regions like Bandar Abbas. The new Shah, Reza Pahlavi, would affirm that he would defend Iran from any form of religious takeover that would discriminate against any of her groups, be they Jews, Sunni or anyone else. As Iran democratised however, calls for reform were quickly suppressed in Iraq and the Kingdom of Arabia owing to the sheer economic importance of oil production and fear of Arab revival. As time went on, and the West was increasingly free of influence from the oil market, the pressure would continue to build on those regions for some level of independence. It would finally be agreed in 1984 that some levels of constitutional government would be instituted in return for the ultimate veto power of the ruling Pahlavi monarchs, who would still have ultimate authority over oil policy. At the same time, the regions were nowhere near as resentful against the Iranians as the Syrians were for the Turks, as the Iranians were seen as having in some way freed them from historical Sunni abuse, while Syrian Sunnis did not see anything to like in a government they regarded as atheist. When it came to the Egypts, what was striking was the complete absence of calls for reform in North Egypt. Pope Cyril continued to rule with a clear preference to affirming Coptic values and traditions. To a people who had spent centuries seeing her people slowly get ground away under Islamic and secular dictators, to have their own power was a chance they would never want to waste under the assumption it would never come again. Tellingly, in 1978 and.1979, when the streets were swelled across the world with people demanding the fall of their own regimes, the North Egyptians were swamping the streets to demand the Theocratic government stay in place. South Egypt by contrast would be far more troubled, with riots and protests against leader Anwar Sadat rocking the country throughout 1979. Finally that August, he would announce his resignation after a stressful two decades as leader of one of the most unstable states in the whole Middle East. His successor, Yasser Arafat would prove far better at PR than his predecessor while continuing to have positive relations with the West, especially Israel. Sadat would die of a heart attack in 1990 to mixed reception in Egypt but general sympathy among historians and westerners. Arafat’s negotiation with North Egypt to have joint-tourism packages would greatly increase tourism to the travel-starved south and bring the ‘Full-Egypt Experience’ back to many world travellers. While South Egypt would always lag behind their northern comrades, Arafat would at least begin to set the country on a course out of the nightmare they had found themselves in.

But it was Africa where most of the intractable problems remained. While Biafra’s transition to democracy was relatively tame (though maintaining membership of the Roman Alliance due to their work in OPEP), the Luba Kingdom was another story. God-King Kalonji had increasingly squandered his country’s diamond wealth on his own person, to the extent that the term ‘Kalonji Economics’ became a pejorative among Africans for kleptocracy. His once intelligent figure that had charmed Mussolini during the Congo Crisis had now been reduced to a clownish buffoon prone to ludicrous proclamations that ‘Should I so order it, Jesus Christ will return to Earth and smite the usurper King Selassie!” While amassing power at a totalitarian rate, neighbouring Katanga was increasingly tired of Kalonji’s stupidity. In May 1979, King Umberto sent a letter to Kalonji to request democratic reform within his country. Kalonji reportedly tore up the letter because the letter began ‘The King of Italy sends his greets to the God-King of Luba’, which infuriated Kalonji as it acknowledged some form of king other than himself. Kalonji closed his borders to Katanga (the pathway for his minerals into Italy) in spite, despite almost all of his country’s wealth needing to be processed through neutral Katanga to reach the world markets due to Katanga’s immense economic outreach program. Diamond companies within the Luba Kingdom (by far the biggest being De Beers) were already angry with how much money they were spending on trying to bribe Kalonji (with rumours suggesting Kalonji ordered a car made entirely of diamond). Finally, De Beers decided that now was the time to act. In conjunction with Tshombe (and astonishingly, according to recent documents, proud Social-Democrat Enrico Berlinguer, who so detested Kalonji that a coup by a diamond company was preferable) De Beers sent a mercenary force against Kalonji in his palace. Kalonji attempted to escape in a Ferrari he had recently bought from Italy but ended up crashing into the gate in his attempt to escape, dying almost instantly. With his death, the impoverished Luba Kingdom was left without its founding figure. Ultimately, it was decided to hold a two-round, three-way referendum to determine the fate of the small nation. The choices would be to maintain independence, join the Republic of the Congo or join Katanga. In September 1979, the first round of elections revealed that the least popular of the three options was to keep the state going. Going into the second round of elections in October, 63% chose to join Katanga, thus ending the relatively short but infamous existence of the Luba Kingdom (South Kasai). De Beers would continue their operations in peace, but at the same time the actual social situation of the workers greatly improved with the superior health and educational services that Katanga provided. Kalonji’s name would live in infamy while Tshombe continued to grow in popularity in his native Katanga (though he remained despised throughout most of Africa for his cooperation with the Roman Alliance and his accommodation with native Whites).

Extract from ‘The Screams of a Continent: Africa after WW2’ by Ayaan Ferguson​

When it came to Africa, Berlinguer was more focussed, not on the relatively easy cases like South Kasai or Biafra, but on situations that had become synonymous with intractable negotiation. Despite having already won the Nobel Prize for his peaceful transitioning of Italy from Fascism to Democracy, he wanted to do something tougher in solving a great, international problem, either Rhodesia or South Africa. Berlinguer loathed racism with every fibre of his being, having spent time communicating with former ANC leader Nelson Mandela to guage the situation in the country, which infuriated the Right of the South African National Party. He would privately tell South African dissident and Bishop Desmond Tutu that “My mission on Earth will not be completed until the people of Rhodesia and South Africa are as free as any Italian”. Rhodesia, however, was less impossible to resolve than the South Africans, and was consequently given undivided attention at the beginning in the hope momentum would spill into reform of its hardline, southern neighbour. Still riding high on the death of ZANU’s Robert Mugabe, Smith was enjoying a new wave of popularity among the White population, who by now made up roughly 40% of the country, though their growth had cooled considerably as the Bush War escalated in the 1970s. At the same time, the Black population of Rhodesia was seemingly undeterred, with more support growing for the rival revolutionary movement in ZAPU (the Zimbabwe African People’s Union) who were more closely aligned to the EAF than to the former Zaire. After ZANU crumbled in the late 1970s by the combined effort of Rhodesian and Katangan fighters, the EAF-backed the non-violent United African National Council, led by Abel Muzorewa. Muzorewa was an African nationalist, but was also a Bishop and condemned violence, thus turning him into an international superstar among those who opposed racism around the world. His name is frequently cited as one of the transformative anti-racist figures of history. While the ZAPU movement under Joshua Nkombo supported violent resistance, Muzorewa’s UANC supported peaceful transition. The EAF found that privately supporting both worked to their advantage. With the rise of a Black American President, Rhodesia found itself casually lumped in with South Africa once again, with President Brooke suspending diplomatic ties with both Rhodesia and South Africa in early 1979 for their policies of state racism – notably, Italy remained quiet. Put together, all of these things put considerable pressure on Ian Smith. Smith had, through his diplomatic games in the Roman Alliance, befriended the elites of Biafra, Mozambique, Angola and especially Katanga. He had developed a strong friendship with Tshombe due to their cooperation in defeating ZANU, despite Tshombe pleading with Smith to extend suffrage equally to natives as well as settlers (Rhodesia having strictly forbidden racial terminology in its policy despite its obvious existence). ZAPU had once again scared off immigrants from coming into the country, and the existence of new Western sanctions on Rhodesia threatened to strike a serious blow to the country’s economy, one of the most developed in Africa. Smith was informed a major sanction hit could see White emigration outstrip immigration, thus ensuring the elusive White Majority target could not be reached. For that reason, some in the cabinet argued it was best to set up the long-term structure of the country while Whites had a strong 40% of the citizenship (not to mention some 70% of land and almost all of the major industries and farms). It was this argument of relative strength that finally won Smith over. Finally, on May 23rd, 1980, Smith would deliver a televised broadcast to the nation’s citizenry to say, “Rhodesia stands at a crossroads – whether to stand proudly among the nations of the world or spiral into infamy.” He announced that talks would be commenced with Black opposition leaders to ensure the rights of the Black citizenry without threatening the White minority with pogrom and expulsion, as had happened in Zaire. The move was greeted with great approval from Rome and Élisabethville, icy silence from Pretoria, cautious optimism from America (who reduced sanctions by a small amount) and ‘grave concerns’ from the EAF as these talks did not include ZAPU. Smith had passed the first test, but many more were still to come.

British, American, Italian and Katangan diplomats would convene in Salisbury on September 9th, 1980 to begin the Rhodesian Peace Process. The dictatorial Smith government represented the White community while the Black community was represented by the UANC under Muzorewa. Complicated compromises were crafted and disposed of almost as soon as they began. The Katangans and Italians did all they could to pressure Smith into a deal with the British and Americans doing much the same to Muzorewa. An additional spanner was thrown in the works with the machinations of the EAF, whose support for ZAPU held the negotiation at their mercy. The conference was soon conducted as much behind closed doors in Nairobi as closed doors in Salisbury. Finally, a deal was reached that all parties could agree with. Full democracy would be granted to Rhodesia, giving both Whites and Blacks universal suffrage over the age of 21. The Presidency and Prime Ministerial roles would be once again separated with their own clear roles. However, it would be mandated that at any one time, the holders of the two roles could not be of the same race. Similarly, no cabinet could consist of less than a third of their members being from one of the major racial groups. Property laws vigorously protecting the land that whites owned were enshrined while Smith committed to spending then unprecedented sums on educating and modernising black communities much like the Arlington Agreement from the United States – which was cited frequently in the Peace Process. Parliament would have two major Blocs, ‘The Rhodesian Bloc’ (which de-facto represented Whites) and ‘The Zimbabwean Bloc’ (which de facto represented Blacks). At the same time, political parties were not required to join these groups – certain political parties refuse to sit in either Bloc today on the basis of being cross-community parties. Certain resolutions had to receive cross-community support, or the support of a minimum number of MPs from both communities, to be passed by Parliament. The election of the Speaker, approval of ministers, any changes to Parliamentary proceeding and the vote on certain budgets all needed cross-community support. Any vote taken by Parliament could have been forced to need cross-community support if a large enough petition was sent to the Speaker. If enough MPs thought it was discriminatory, a vote on proposed legislation would only pass if supported by a weighted majority of three-fifths of MPs voting, including at least 40% of each of the Rhodesia and Zimbabwe Blocs. This meant that if enough MPs from one Bloc could agree, the Bloc they could exercise a veto over the Parliament. For good measure, the country would change its name from ‘Rhodesia’ to ‘Rhodesia-Zimbabwe’. Of course, even today, most Whites in the country simply refer to their homeland as ‘Rhodesia’ while Blacks call it ‘Zimbabwe’ – the name is mostly used in diplomatic and official capacity. Often the term is colloquially shortened to ‘Rhobabwe’. Rhodesia-Zimbabwe was affirmed to be a ‘Christian country’ (and a mainly Protestant one at that), thus mandating prayer in school, with exemptions granted solely to Jewish students – it was hoped that creating a common religion among the people would be conductive to the long-term prospects of the region. This move was similarly to assure the White community that their traditional culture would not be uprooted in the coming years, and as a Bishop, Muzorewa was more than happy to endorse his religion. Moves would be undertaken to ensure half of the police would be Black by the new millennium, and that extreme poverty among the Black population would be defeated. Conscription would be extended to include the Black population, on the basis that it would help social mixing. The cultures of each major ethnic group were declared worthy of respect and veneration, with racial violence carrying a strong sentence. An intra-racial murder typically carried a life sentence while a racially motivated murder would almost inevitably lead to a death sentence (in a mixed-race courtroom) on the basis of maintaining social order. Much like Italy, the Rhodesian army was absolved of all its past deeds, with ZANU and ZAPU prisoners being granted the opportunity of release as well if they swore an oath to the new, mixed-community state, much as all new soldiers were forced to do so. Naturally, America and Britain promised not just an end to sanctions but a whirlwind of new business deals, not to mention re-admittance into multiple sports that Rhodesia had been barred from. That the Rhodesian Rugby team could play against Commonwealth teams once again, was a delight to long-term fans. Italy and Katanga further swore to protect all communities from violence in the event the Rhodesia-Zimbabwean state would prove insufficient. Under the table, the EAF agreed to cancel support for ZAPU (who condemned the treaty for enshrining Smith and his Party in power) and throw their support behind the Remembrance Day Agreement (so named due to the decision to hold the referendum on November 11th). Without sponsors, ZAPU found itself adrift and quickly overwhelmed, with the Rhodesian army quickly exploiting tribal divisions in order to limit its appeal to a small handful of native Blacks. By 1985, dissidents in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe would be reduced to a nuisance.

For the referendum, it was agreed that any deal would need a majority in both communities to pass. The settler community was divided between those who supported Smith and those who felt like he had sold Rhodesia out, looking longingly at South Africa’s inflexible racial tyranny. At the same time, Muzorewa was condemned in some Black circles for accepting the legitimacy of Smith and his regime. With the help of President Brooke in America and Prime Minister Thatcher in Britain, PR firms the world over descended on the region to endorse the Remembrance Day Agreement. Ultimately, with Smith’s credibility after having defeated Mugabe’s ZANU and Brooke’s credibility as the first African-American President, the polls decisively turned around in favour of the deal. The Settler community would ultimately vote some 70% in favour of the agreement, with 60% of the Native Community doing likewise. With that, Rhodesia had finally and successively transitioned to majority-rule without substantial brain-drain or economic implosion. Though White emigration spiked in 1981, it began to return by 1984 when it became clear that the state was still functioning. In May 1981, elections began to determine the Prime Minister and President. Muzorewa was elected President with Smith becoming Prime Minister (the former having more de jure power with the latter having more de facto). Smith’s Rhodesian Front became the largest individual party among Settlers at 75%, with 20% voting for the avowedly White Supremacist ‘Rhodesian Conservative Party’. The UANC won roughly 60% of the Native population, but tribal rivalries (stoked by quiet but shrewd politicking from Smith and others) would cause the Native Bloc to increasingly break along tribal lines. This would allow Smith significant leeway to run the country, as he was able to strike and break alliances almost weekly with the various parties in the Native Bloc. All the same, Smith was true to his word, with his first Cabinet after the Agreement being 40% Black, including the positions of Justice and Education Ministers. For this, he began a period of international rehabilitation, aided substantially when both he and Muzorewa won the Nobel Prize in 1981. Smith consequently has a mixed legacy in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, with the Settler community giving him near idolatrous praise, with most Natives being more nuanced, with a typical sentiment being “He was no Treurnicht”. For their part, the South Africans remained icily quiet with respect to goings on in Rhodesia, with President Botha saying that the country had a ‘Wait and See’ policy when it came to the implementing of new reforms in his own country. Berlinguer offered further help to speed the transition in South Africa, but soon real life got in the way. [1]

Extract from ‘The Two Suns and the Eagle: Italy and Asia’ by John Landing​

The Roman Alliance was faced with crisis in 1981, crystallised when China’s GDP figures overtook Italy and continued to rocket upwards. This was seen as the moment when the Chinese became seen among many Italians as actively jostling to replace them as the main influencer in the Bloc. The difference was made stark at the annual convention of the Alliance leaders that Summer in Rome, with President Chiang making clear that while he supported democracy (and had indeed implemented it in China), “We cannot cast out and revile people for having the policies we had but five years ago”. This was in stark contrast to Berlinguer’s speech at the same event where he said, “There can be no delay on justice. If this Bloc is to survive, it cannot exist with the support of the few, but with the many”. More liberal members of the Roman Alliance (notably the Iberian and South American nations) had left while the Bloc was now increasingly influenced by the more hardliner members, notably those in the Middle East. In the backroom jostles, a new fault-line was emerging between those countries who urged immediate, democratic reforms and those who felt unprepared for the change. The Bloc was increasingly broken into two halves, with Austria, Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, Croatia-Bosnia, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Biafra and Italy on the more liberal side, with Turkey, South Africa, North Egypt, China, the Kingdom of Hejaz, Iran, her puppet states and Saba on the other. An economic war began within the Roman Alliance, with China increasingly trying to flood the other members’ markets to increase her own influence. South Africa in particular relished the opportunity, hoping to find new support now that Italy and even former Rhodesia was turning against her. This gave South Africa renewed economic prowess coming into the early 1980s, which Mandela said, “Gave them just enough breathing room to implement what they wanted”. China had also managed to influence multiple states in Central Asia to accept Roman Alliance wares at cheaper prices, thus making members of the Bloc even more dependent on her. The Chinese charm offensive had by now thoroughly thrown Berlinguer off his original plan of entering negotiations with Botha to end Apartheid. In 1982, this came to a head in astonishing fashion, when Berlinguer announced that the Roman Alliance would formally change its name to ‘The Community of Independent States’ (CIS). He argued that as Iberia had left and half of its members were never under Rome that the title of ‘Roman Alliance’ made no sense in light of the developments. The plan was to symbolically reduce Italian dominance in the Bloc to stop a serious real reduction if China gained too many allies. Thus, in August 1982, the Roman Alliance was officially renamed ‘The Community of Independent States’. Furthermore, while traditionally there would be annual conventions in Rome of Roman Alliance leaders, rules were changed to ensure a rolling schedule, with new countries getting it every year until all had been exhausted and the cycle restarted. Berlinguer hoped this would make his fellow members more comfortable about transitions. But as the countries of the CIS continued to do nothing, there began a debate within the Berlinguer government that was once considered unthinkable – should Italy leave the Bloc?

In Italy, despite widespread support of Berlinguer personally, there was a widespread sense that Italy was fading back into history. When rumours floated that Berlinguer was planning on dropping out of the Roman Alliance, the once routed Fascists soon reasserted themselves. The Blackshirts in particular led the reform, going from a gang of violent street thugs to a drinking club and then to something new entirely. It expanded into a form of a personal development group steeped in tradition and reverence for Italy. A new generation of Fascist leaders understood the challenge Fascism had in presenting itself as relevant to the modern era, and so took a new course. It argued that modern Capitalistic democracy was too individualistic to give deep meaning and value to people’s lives, and that there was a gap in the political market for a group that could instil young men with a sense of worth and community. The Blackshirts set up suicide hotlines, gyms and charity events for men (even today the Blackshirts are a male-only organisation albeit partnered with female-only groups as well). The brutal past of the Blackshirts was whitewashed into bands of free-wheeling, wild-west heroes who kept the Reds off the streets. Of course, as Communism was extinct in Italy, it was claimed that the Blackshirts now had no need to resort to such measures. In 1983, Ciano made a speech to leading Blackshirts, saying that,” “The time for war is over – the time for peace is now, and forever.” That same year, all Blackshirts who signed up to the organization were forced to follow a strict code that forbade them from physical violence unless their life was in danger. It was a remarkable turnaround for such a violent organisation, but for a new generation of Italian youth, these were simply the legends of the past and not a beating reality. The new Blackshirts did much to improve the reputation of the Fascists, while more violent members of the organisation were expelled. The Italy by the end of Fascism’s reign was full of drug and alcohol addiction, ensuring a long line of desperate applicants hoping to get clean and find friends along the way. It paid off in a big way in 1983, as the Fascists, still under Ciano rebounded to second place at 24% of the vote, with Berlinguer forced into coalition with the Christian Democrats under Aldo Moro. The Fascists had slammed Berlinguer for reducing Italian influence in changing the name of the Roman Alliance and demanded Berlinguer stop trying to impose his liberal politics on the rest of the Bloc. Privately, Berlinguer had already decided that it was time to leave the community and join ITO to try and increase the pressure on the few remaining dictatorships of the world to reform.

But it was never meant to be. In June 1984, the world woke up with horror to discover that Enrico Berlinguer was dead. He left the stage on June 7th complaining of a headache, before checking into hospital and being declared dead on June 11th. Naturally, the hand of the Fascists was suspected, but nothing was ever proven. Indeed, Ciano would even help carry Berlinguer’s coffin at his funeral, visibly in tears. When asked later what had brought him to cry, he said, “I cry for everyone who never had to die because this man succeeded me”. Berlinguer’s funeral in Piazza San Giovanni was attended by more than a million people, second only to Mussolini’s (and that employed state bussing). Berlinguer had helped heal the deep wounds that Italy had in the late 1970s and helped bring the downfall of dictatorship and restoration of democracy to his native land. His defiance of Tyranny, his good humour and unbending pursuit of justice have ensured his name lives forever, not just in Italy, but all around the world. If he had lived longer, perhaps the Homeland War could have been prevented, or Italy might have fully left the CIS to join ITO, but none of this can be known with certainty. What was for sure, with the assent of Aldo Moro to the Prime Ministership, was that Italy had entered an era without great charismatic leaders who boasted or had their supporters boast grandiose claims about how everything would work perfectly in their new worlds. The gritty business of deal-making and balkanisation of great parties from personal squabbles led to the Fascist era being looked upon with a period of rosy nostalgia, particularly the Mussolini years.

Extract from 'The New Roman Empire' by David Lassinger​

All in all, modern Italians are of two minds about Fascism. While Mussolini (and to a lesser extent Balbo) is looked back on as one of the great, defining figures of Italy, for whom even the Left would invoke when it suited them, that same mystique does not extend to current Fascist politicians, who are generally regarded as corrupt as their Centre-Right and Left peers. Many outside Italy (perhaps excluding places like Israel or Katanga) are often full of people asking how such a tyrant could retain so much love and adoration among Italians, despite the war crimes, imperialism and naked thuggery? But to Italians, Mussolini is no more than an Italian Napoleon, or an Italian Henry V, or an Italian Bismark. He was the man who made the difficult, bloody choices so they didn’t have to. He was the man who righted the wrongs done to Italy, put the country on a standing in the world not seen in two thousand years and made it a place that millions can be proud to call home. Didn’t all the great men of the past have a skeleton in their closet? Would it have been better to curse them for the skeleton in the closet, at the cost of a graveyard? Think of the millions of Jews who are alive today because Mussolini was the one and only man in the world who decided to help the Jews at risk to his own country. Think of his relentless stand against Communism, when all the rest of the West stuttered around and fooled themselves into making deals with Stalin. Think of his unrelenting opposition to Aflaq, and how he helped save Israel from a third and surely final Holocaust. Only one man on Earth fought all three of those great evils with all his strength without pause – how then can we condemn him?

But think again. Think about the workers with batons slammed on their heads for daring to strike for decent wages. Think about the young men beaten to death in jail cells for daring to make jokes about the regime. Think about the Slovenian nation being dashed to pieces against chemical bombardment, dissolved into the void of the world. Think about the Libyans, Yugoslavians, Greeks and Ethiopians he slaughtered for no other reasons than wishing their own freedom, which he offered to others. Think of the support he gave to Franco, Pavelic and the Turkish Junta, and how he helped spread the tendrils of tyranny across the globe. Think about how no man on Earth ordered so many nuclear detonations as he, often on civilian centres, and all his subsequent terror bombings and chemical weapon attacks on a people who were for all intents and purposes finished. Think of his support and endorsement of Rhodesia and South Africa, and their racist despotisms. Think about the corrupting intoxication that young boys in Italy were spoon-fed, that encouraged them to have untimely graves in the vast emptiness of Ethiopia. Are these to just be forgotten? Forgiven?

It’s hard for us to say, even if we could somehow excuse his injustices, whether Mussolini’s reign was ‘justified’, as we’ll never know what would have happened if he never came to power, or if Isaac Carpi had failed to save him, or indeed if Isaac Carpi had merely been another Catholic. Circumstances have bent fates before, writing great men out of history by chance accident and keeping fools on their thrones until a ripe old age. As Nazism proved, decent men can become savage monsters when placed under extraordinary circumstances, but as Israel proved, people who were mercilessly degraded without end can still have the strength to make a strong, powerful and tolerant nation. Who is good? Good compared to who? Why are they good? These questions will all depend on individuals to make the final decision. So when someone asks, ‘What sort of a man was Mussolini’, perhaps the final answer is ... that there is no final answer. Only the endless debate of scholars and writers. In short, only history.

THE END
​

[1] - The set-up of the Rhobabwe Parliament is identical to the modern Northern Irish Devolved Assembly. The Northern Irish Troubles ended ITTL in 1974 with the Sunningdale Agreement, as the more muscular British state was far less willing to put up with Loyalist intransigence. The violence was essentially finished a few years later, with Sinn Fein never successfully breaking through.

 

[Kotka]

A world map in 1984 after the Fall of Fascism and the death of Enrico Berlinguer.

 

[Sorairo]

Hello all! Final update from myself from the perspective of 2020. There are a few omake's I've been sent that I'll work on at my own pace, but if you want to send something in, I'd say I'll probably stop putting up anything by the end of June. I'll stay for a time longer to answer questions but I'm honestly hoping to fully focus on editing my latest novel so I can't guarantee how long I'll be here.

And so with that, here is the global low-down as of TTL 2020 (and God almighty did it take time to write).


North America:

America: After Brooke’s extremely narrow victory against Jesse Helms in 1980 (often described as the dirtiest election in history), the Freedom Party recognised that such open racial antagonism was only going to play against them. Luck came in the form of Pat Robertson, who had led the charge against Brooke’s social liberalism on things like abortion and homosexuality. His essentially raceless critique of Brooke, especially as the Televangelist phenomenon was hitting its peak, led to the victory of the Lebanon Lobby (a shorthand for the Evangelical wing of the Freedomites) taking over. Robertson successfully beat Bob Dole in 1984 and would expound on the virtues of Christianity around the world, despite countless scandals consuming him and his allies. This rebranding of the Freedomites made them vastly more acceptable to Northern Whites who were not particularly rich. As of 2020, America is divided between the populistic-leaning Freedomites (who have huge support among the White-Working Class) and the Libertarian-leaning Republican Party (who have support among the rich, Non-Whites and educated). A more developed Latin America substantially reduced the number of Hispanic immigrants up north, meaning America is more like 70% Non-Hispanic White in 2020 than 60%. The Democrat Party occasionally flares up again and have become something of a ‘Lucy’s Football’ in that they never quite become fully relevant again despite always seeming on the edge. Due to substantially increased funding for education and increased voting rights in their community (as a result of the Arlington Agreement that forbade any discrepancies in school-funding, unlike OTL) as well as a stronger sense of optimism and trust in diligence alongside education in the mould of Booker T. Washington, African-Americans are better off than in OTL in terms of relative economic positioning with Whites, especially in the South (believe it or not OTL South has less racial disparity than the rest of the country in many ways, albeit often because Whites are worse off rather than Blacks better). In some Southern states, Black Americans actually outperform White Americans in terms of average income and High School dropout rates. White supremacists who argued that Blacks were inferior on account of their failings in these two regards have quickly scrambled to explain the new information by arguing that those two figures never mattered in the first place. After a brief souring of race relations in the late 1970s due to the Brooke Presidency, race relations mellowed out again, even as Alabama forbade interracial marriage into the early 2000s, and ‘Whites-only’ signs could be found in many Southern establishments as late as the 1990s. However, it seems that this antiquated displays ironically had the opposite of their intent, as it made the threat of racism more real to onlookers and triggered a broad sense of solidarity against the display. In the South, Whites and Blacks still live very separate lives with large levels of self-segregation on both sides. But while the Black community has grown from strength to strength in recent decades, Southern, rural Whites have been badly hit by opioid drugs while cocaine never devastated Black communities to the degree it did OTL. In other social issues, the battle for gay rights was recently won by the Republicans while the Freedom Party continues to dig in for a bloody trench war on abortion, which like OTL hasn’t had a big opinion swing. Without the nightmare of crack, drug liberalisation silently swept the US just after the millennium with little incident. Corley (Wallace) was able to implement Medicare nationwide, with Robertson successfully getting Medicaid over the line. Little more has been done federally, though universal healthcare has become a thing in many Southern states especially in light of the Opioid nightmare (it embarrasses the Freedom Party when it is pointed out they initially strongly opposed it). America is nowhere near the hyper-power status of OTL but it remains the world’s cultural hegemon, as well as English-speaking, as well as having the best army on the planet. As the world’s second largest economy, it also packs a significant fiscal punch.

Cuba: Pleasure Island is considered the loosest, craziest place on Earth and full of every party and pleasure you can imagine. It has become a hot immigration destination for countless Latinos around Latin America for its roaring economy and highly relaxed attitude to almost everything (to the extent ‘Cuban Values’ has become an insult among Freedomites against the Republicans). Las Vegas consequently is the Atlantic City of TTL, a cheap imitation of Havana that is mocked as an inferior product. It is the most developed country in all of Latin America, with equally fantastic social services. Cubans are proud of their status, as they have every right to be. Living standards are OTL Spain.

General: Without Communist insurrections and with Fascism having been essentially kicked off the Continent early, North America had a substantially quieter 20th Century. Mexico became a functioning democracy again as early as the 1960s, and thus the pull of Narco culture was never big enough to consume it. Mexico is generally a pretty safe place to go with living standards at about OTL Polish levels. Papa Doc fell in the 1970s when his Afro-Fascism fell out of favour with everyone, ensuring that Haiti is on a long and sober road to recovering after a frightful history, with living standards of OTL Bolivia.


South America:

Venezuela: The richest state in South America, where democracy is upheld and sane, constitutional government triumphs. Extreme ideologies of any kind are frowned upon, and the stores still have basic goods. The Far Left is laughed out of the building. Living standards of OTL Chile.

Brazil: Despite having less overall bloodshed, the brain-drain following OPEP’s ravaging economic war and the exodus of leading industrialists to Angola has ensured that Brazil is little better off than OTL. That said, extreme poverty is extinct owing to the stronger economy across the whole continent.

Argentina: After its humiliating loss in the Beagle War, democratic Argentina was able to mostly put its past behind it and move on. With the Falklands thoroughly off the radar as they are fully British territory, Argentina has mainly focussed on being a regional economic power. Living standards are OTL Chile, with TTL Chile ironically having the living standards of OTL still since Allende’s brand of economics was not fully discredited. All in all, no one in Latin America is worse off, and with Communism thoroughly discredited, the Pink Wave would be unthinkable ITTL. Paraguay followed a broadly similar path.

Middle East:

Lebanon: Despite being a relatively small country, particularly one with a strange fixation on Christianity, Lebanon has a special relationship with America in how it successfully influenced multiple leading Evangelicals in the 1960s and 1970s, just in time for the Moral Majority to become a thing. It also has a not insignificant Black population escaping persecution in Majority-Muslim states for their Christianity, with Lebanon using this to promote a sense of collective solidarity and anti-racism (which is less true in practice, as the Maronites still have a highly disproportionate control over society). With train lines running through it between Israel and Europe, it has become a significant economic player despite its size, with a gigantic exchange program with Christian institutions in America, some of whom grow up to be businessmen and consequently do business in the small Mediterranean state. Socially, its somewhat backward despite the living standards, with homosexuality only being legalised in 2010 and little indication of further rights being granted anytime soon (forget gay marriage since you have to have it recognised by a major Christian church and forget adoption for gay couples since you need a church certificate to apply). Different denominations have different levels of power, with the Maronites and Catholics having the lion share of power and minor Protestant sects being stigmatised as troublemakers, especially Mormons, for whom a significant movement exists to deny them citizenship and significant violence is perpetrated against them for being ‘Fake Christians’. Likewise, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Adventists are looked down on. Living standards are OTL Israel.

Israel: Can be described as a Sweden on the Mediterranean and boot camp in the desert. Israel enjoys living standards as good as the best in Europe, a massively disproportionate presence in the world science and culture scene and is by far the most important player in the Middle East with the possible exception of Iran. It’s more liberal than OTL without the constant threat of war and less Hasidic Jews, not to mention the smaller threat of Arab demographics. Gay marriage can be performed in the country and is considered normal, while Sabbath laws in most cities are no stricter than Sunday trading laws in England. Getting out to the desert, we see harder living and more religiously strict communities which look down on the current Israel. They often colonise the border regions of neighbouring Arab regions despite the risk of paramilitary attacks from Islamists and Arab revivalists. The Frank Prime Ministership was instrumental in calming the country down from its near permanent war-footing from birth, much to the anger of the Far-Right. Frank was succeeded in 1988 by the Herut leader, Elie Wiesel, who was succeeded in 1995 by Yitzhak Rabin, ensuring a healthy back and forth between the left and right that has kept Israel a strongly democratic enterprise. Tourism is, well, at near Biblical levels for its sheer breadth and size. Israel is far more beloved than OTL due to the lack of occupations and general exile of nationalistic leaders. No Middle Eastern leader dares challenge Israel, or even denies recognition since to deny that ITTL is to invite sure destruction for being considered friendly to the Pan-Arabists and Islamists. Living standards are OTL Sweden levels.

The Druze Republic: The Switzerland of the Middle East, the Druze Republic is a quiet, sleepy backwater with a solid economy and good relations with Israel in particular. It respectfully conducts itself in world affairs and keeps out of any and all fracases. Immigration is near impossible to non-Druze and the country is rigidly run on the ground of the Druze identity, but any and all tourists are welcome, much like OTL Japan. Living standards are OTL Israel.

The Alawite Republic: After Israel withdrew their occupation substantially in the 1960s and entirely in the 1970s, the state has slowly crawled back on its feet as one of the few truly democratic Arab states. Damascus has been mostly rebuilt as well, though with only a fraction of its past glory. Living standards OTL Jordan.

Kurdistan: The traditionally Socialist country has been forced to make more enterprise-friendly laws in the modern world, with many of the old communes having shut down. However, it still remains a very secular state by Middle Eastern standards, albeit quite a militaristic one for fear of their being surrounded by the CIS. Quite tolerant to their Arab minority. Living standards OTL Jordan.

Assyria: Assyria is still occupied by the UN, as their politicians thumb their nose at both the Kurds and Turks. True neutrals in the most defiant sense of the word. Living standards OTL Jordan.

Turkey: An authoritarian ‘democracy’ much like OTL, with the ruling Party being more nationalistic than Islamic. Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is far more restricted owing to Turkey’s stronger power base. They have spread their tendrils across the Caucasus and are currently extending influence into Central Asia with Chinese permission in order to win over the Muslim populations of the world. They partner with Iran to exert influence over Sunni and Shia respectively, with Turkish troops still administering the Islamic sites of Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina. Turks are very boisterous about their country’s strength and are consequently considered one of the worse tourist groups. They are also the most hated group among Arabs in the Middle East (outdoing both Jews and Italians) according to Gallup polls. There is now much debate as to whether Turkey is the new number two power in the CIS behind China, debating whether Italy or Iran deserves the spot more so. Armenia is currently embargoed by her Caucasian neighbours due to Turkish pressure while Armenia has struck up relationships with Israel and Kurdistan to keep the lights on. Nevertheless, TTL’s Turkey is nothing to be taken lightly. They are regularly condemned in. the UN for their actions in Syria, but they have veto power (with occasional support from Italy and China), thus meaning the UN is powerless to do anything. Living standards OTL Greece.

Syria: By far the worst country to live in within the Middle East. Israel may be laxer on her restrictions but Turkey sure isn’t, enforcing the conditions of the 1956 peace with full gusto. Industry is non-existent, living standards are effectively as they were back in the 1950s and periodic rebellion constantly draws Turkish soldiers back in. A musical chairs routine has been established where the Turks leave, an Islamist or Pan-Arab group gets strong and launches a missile or two at Israel or Turkey, which allows Turkey to launch a mass carpet bombing and reoccupation that keeps the country thoroughly in the dirt. Sort of like Israel and Gaza OTL but where the hypothetical Israel actively, malevolently enjoys coming back in again just to show who’s boss and test out their tech (as TTL’s Turkey does). Kurdistan and Israel plead for better treatment of the local population but ultimately the extremism of the locals does them no favors. I hope you don’t have dreams in this country, because none will find you. Living standards OTL Gaza.

Iran: One of the premier members of the CIS and perhaps the single largest determiner of oil prices on Earth if you take into account their Iraqi and Arabian puppets. While mostly democratic, it maintains its undemocratic control of her neighbours without blushing. The Pahlavi family have little day to day power in Iran but are grateful to have been spared the fate most Sunni Monarchs have. Iran is in the top ten nations of the world by GDP and has substantial immigration issues from its neighbours. With Persians on the brink of becoming an ethnic minority, a more reactionary form of politics is coming into vogue, with the Pahlavis now using the unrest to argue they need more power to defend the interest of ethnic Iranians. Living standards OTL Italy.

Iraq/Kingdom of Arabia: While there’s much anger at Iran for controlling their oil production, many of their residents recognise that they could easily be influenced by more unsympathetic Sunni and Jewish rulers if they go independent. The Iranians have done a good job portraying themselves as defenders of the Shia in a majority Sunni Middle East. Power is slowly being clawed back by democratic means but there’s still a long way for both countries to go. Living standards OTL Lebanon.

Kingdom of Hejaz: Without oil wealth, but still getting money from the annual Pilgrimage to Mecca. The horrendous destruction of historical Islamic sites never happened as the Wahabi are nowhere near power and can’t be attacking ‘idolatry’. No crazy hotels or anything like that – much more austere and traditional, which a lot of tourists are looking for. Initial tourists to the region were pelted with eggs and stones, but ruthless crackdowns by King Hussein have finally resulted in a region where a substantial tourist base exists. The Hashemites are resentful to Westerners demanding more democratic control, as they feel they are being asked to end all their accomplishments and throw them down the drain. The Hashemites have made what is OTL Saudi Arabia more liberal, but they did it at a severe cost they don’t want to repeat. Living standards OTL Egypt.

Kingdom of Saba: A pious, Islamic population (with the strictest Islamic laws in the Middle East – albeit nowhere near as bad as Saudi Arabia) and playboys for rulers. The arrangement is well known but generally tolerated by all parties. The Kings of Saba successfully use this to their advantage to argue against more democratic rule. Saba boomed due to their support of Italian shipping during the Ethiopian war though it has since been quieter. It remains one of the more traditional Arab countries in the Middle East (don’t use the ‘A-word’ when you’re there, though – they’re Sabans, as they will quickly remind you). Living standards OTL Jordan.

The Arab Federation: The only country who openly states they are proud to be ‘Arab’. Effectively an oil oligarchy, the Federation still remains beloved by her people for being a truly independent Arab state not beholden to a religious minority (like the Alawites). Travel between their regions is quite awkward and so de facto most of the regions govern themselves. The Queen of England is the de jure head of state, but this means little on the ground. They are enthusiastic supporters of the Commonwealth to ensure they don’t get invaded. They are still Islamic but pretty relaxed about it compared to OTL, especially since they want to be considered worth saving to the British. Living standards OTL Bahrain.

North/South Egypt: North Egypt is a happy, conservative Coptic state … and dear God do they want to keep it that way. The Coptic faith is thoroughly enshrined into every facet of government – one must make an oath of allegiance to the Coptic Pope as both their spiritual and national leader. The Muslim minority has been thoroughly cast out of any semblance of power and has mostly gone southward. North Egypt is the transportation hub between Israel and Libya, thus making it crucial in the regional economy. Cairo is overwhelmingly Muslim at this point with minor Christian holdouts, the city still seething with sectarianism. South Egypt has had a far more troubled existence between constant civil insurrection and integration to the global economy, but its slowly getting on its feet. The Arafat Years were great for the normalisation of relations between South Egypt and the North, with tourism now pretty effortless. Living standards are OTL Greece for North Egypt and OTL Egypt for South Egypt.

Libya: Thoroughly Italianised, even if you can find some traditional tribes in the desert. The Haredi also make up a growing presence in the country which is starting to tick people off. Libyans are renowned for ‘Living like Northerners and acting like Southerners’ with respect to their high living standards and overt masculinity. ‘Pheocenians’ are as Italian as the Italians, with the Muslim population as areligious as OTL Albania. However, as oil is more and more being phased out, serious long-term questions about Libya’s economy are being asked. Tourism is still good, either for relaxation or culture. Mussolini Sea brings in the crowds for its being the only human-made Sea on Earth. Living standards OTL Germany.

Tunisia: Poor Tunisia, constantly torn between the French and Italians. They get a lot of money from both sides, but the internal situation is still very messy. The Berberisation campaign was always going to be a lot harder than Algeria or Morocco, and the emigration of the French, Italians and Jews over the latter-half of the 20th Century didn’t help matters. The country finds itself a weak kingdom staffed by people who know the economy is finished without French or Italian help, but a populace who hates them so much that they don’t mind. Around 30% of the population could be considered ‘Beber-ised’, with near political-monopoly. Fear of Arab revival is more than enough to allow Western opinion the benefit of the doubt to France and Italy. Living standards OTL Turkey.

The Berber Republic: Owing to its ruthless determination in enforcing the Berber culture and language, the Berber Republic has succeeded in Berberising some 75% of the population, but at the cost of a thirty-year Civil War and many thousand dead. It was so brutal in fact, that many Arabs moved to French Algeria to escape the Berber atrocities, kickstarting an Anti-Arab backlash there as well. Its oil and gas economy is enough to make sure the French will keep supporting it, but everyone is starting to notice the presence of more and more Vietnamese firms as well. Living standards OTL Turkey.

Morocco: The Coup in the 1970s brought an end to the harsher practices of Berberisation, but it had already left a mark, with a similar level of 75% Berberisation having been achieved. The new Republic has been lucky enough to have a relatively smooth transition to democracy, being quite condemnatory of the CIS though running far away from any attempts to reaffirm Arab culture. Spain resolutely refuses to return any more territory to Morocco, which irks Marrakesh (the capital) though they know there is nothing they can do. Living standards OTL Turkey.

Africa:

Sudan: The domination of the Black, Christian South in Sudan finally grew too wearisome for their Arab, Muslim North. In 2003, a referendum was held among the North of the country on whether it wanted independence, which was successfully voted in. There is now consequently a North Sudan and a ‘Sudan’ (occasionally referred to as South Sudan) on the OTL borders. There is some discussion about North Sudan joining South Egypt but this is a long way away yet. Sudan, by contrast, benefits from strong relationships in Africa, including and especially with the East African Federation. North Sudan living standards are OTL Egypt and Sudan is OTL Tanzania.

The West African Federation: Ground zero in the new economic war within the Francophonie, with East Asian businesses from Vietnam and Cambodia slowly muscling out the French from the region to the extent many French have sardonically called the Francophonie the ‘Vietnamophonie’. All the same, the increase of these businesses has proven quite helpful to such a formerly poor region of the world. The country is primarily Islamic and maintains a moderate Islamic form of government similar in laws to Jordan. Living standards OTL Algeria.

Biafra/Nigeria: The oil centre of Africa and constant OPEP member, Biafra is quite developed for the region and has become one of China’s main trading partners in Africa. The country has maintained a strong sense of independent identity by contrasting itself against the coup and unrest-ridden Nigeria up north – so destructive that Nigeria dropped out of the Commonwealth. In 2012, Nigeria threatened to invade neighbouring Benin due to border disputes, before the Biafran military launched a pre-emptive strike on Nigerian forces assembled on the Benin border, obliterating almost the entire effective military strength of the Nigerian military. This ended the Benin Standoff, but the subsequent weakening of Nigeria led to a situation resembling OTL Nigeria, except about half the country is constantly run by Islamists. While these would traditionally have been defeated with British help, Nigeria has burned too many bridges and faces serious long-term issues which their Southern Neighbour is indifferent to. Living standards for Biafra are OTL Portugal, for Nigeria OTL North Nigeria.

Ethiopia: Ethiopia has more unexploded land mines per capita than any country on Earth, with an economy still recovering from the abominable cost of their independence war. At least they’ve finally been able to rebuild Addis Ababa, but their hatred of Italy (and Eritrean/Somalians) is still at an absolute fever-pitch. They have no official trading links with Italy (though the connected and the black market still have their ways) and Ethiopia is notorious for putting their hatred of Italy above long-term planning, notably saying silent when terrorist attacks or natural disasters occur in Italy and everyone else in the world expresses sympathy. The Afro-Fascists have been co-opted into being fervent supporters of the Selassie Dynasty, which continues to rule Ethiopia with an iron but popular fist. There are Indian military bases in the region to ensure Italy never gets ideas again. Every Ethiopian is rigidly trained for war almost from birth with aid earmarked for food often sold off for guns. Living standards OTL Angola.

Italian East Africa: The region can be divided into three parts – the Eritrean, the annexed Ethiopian, and the Somalian. The first is quite developed, albeit quiet, with decent relations between settlers and natives, united in their common disgust against Ethiopia, with Settler-descendent people making up roughly 60% of the region. The annexed Ethiopian region are nearly 100% White, often populated by those who settled the region before the pull-out started by the Ethiopian War. They are notoriously bigoted against almost everyone and have developed an extremely negative reputation amongst their internal neighbours as a result. It’s not unheard of for Somali travellers to be told to leave town when they are travelling through the region, even if they want to stay at a hotel for the night. Perhaps partly as a result for this, some 66% of ethnic Somali want to join British Somaliland, though they are outweighed by the near 100% of settlers to Italian Somaliland who want to stay in Italy, who make up roughly 33% of the region. Somali independence got a strong boost in the arm after their land was so casually given to Ethiopia in the peace treaty without their consolation. The existence of British Somaliland also makes arguments about the necessity of the union much harder. The Italians are desperate to keep Somalia for its oil and that it is where their space program is located. It is one of the great questions as to whether Somalia will go independent in a few years – no one is quite sure if it’ll happen. Overall living standards OTL Poland.

Djibouti: The Hong Kong of Africa, France relaxed import and trade rules in the 1950s, just in time for the mass traffic of settlement and the Ethiopian War to move in. Djibouti soon became the port of choice for anyone moving in and out of the Red Sea, which quickly became an international salad bowl of sailors. Among the West, it quickly developed a mystical reputation as something lively yet mystical, magical yet seedy. The gambling parlours certainly kept the money coming in, with Djibouti in the 1980s soon attracting scores of illegal immigrants from Ethiopia and elsewhere to staff the bottom-tier jobs. It is described as one of the Economic Lions of Africa, and for good reason. Its port is a world-beater and the sailors are guaranteed to spend serious money. Overall living standard OTL Macau.

Somaliland: Independent Somaliland is only remarkable in how quiet it is. It maintains the Common Law, Commonwealth membership, has British military bases where most of the forces know it’s a holiday and not a dangerous assignment and keeps her democratic institutions intact. An almost forgotten country only really brought up due to talk of Italian Somaliland going independent. Living standards are OTL Botswana.

Katanga: Considered the premier African country, Katanga has grown into the jewel of the continent, with Tshombe University in Elisabethville teaching the leaders of 21st Century Africa and leading the continent in technology and banking. Katanga is a fairly lasses-faire sort of society (though obvious not at An-Cap, Recreational Nukes level). Gay marriage is legal (one of the very few countries in Africa with this distinction) and social mores are broadly similar to Europe. Whites (who make up about 7% of the population) still generally live among themselves but the idea of a pogrom against them would inspire laughter from both Whites and Blacks as to how absurd the idea would be. The mining companies started to fold in the 1980s and 1990s, but by then the country, under the inspired leadership of Tshombe, had already diversified into the tech sector and banking. Katanga leads Africa in IT and it isn’t even close. Tshombe resigned as PM in 1985 and died of a heart attack in 1993, leaving a legacy of having created the most successful Black-run state in all of Africa, though his cooperation with Europeans ensured he would be hated by other African nations. Katanga has massive problems with illegal immigration from neighbouring African states which it is trying to fix, while slowly improving their relations with the leaders of those countries as colonialism only becomes a legend. Living standards OTL Belgium.

The East African Federation: A regional powerhouse, and dread of the Roman Alliance in its heyday, the EAF has struggled to identify itself as Fascism receded into memory. It has been the main leader on the continent in terms of rallying support for maintaining restrictions on South Africa, but that is hardly enough to distract from the internal situation. The EAF has certainly developed, but substantially less than neighbouring Katanga, and quiet pangs of jealousy are felt as a result. It is increasingly questioned why their living standards are so behind the hated country even though they have more material resources. It has played an increasingly important role in ITO as an African player, rallying the continent against China and the CIS. Living standards OTL Serbia.

Portuguese Africa: Continuing tensions with Portugal reached their zenith in 1995 when Portuguese Angola and Mozambique were able to muster enough votes in conjunction with the few remaining conservatives in Portugal proper to constitutionally define life as beginning from conception, consequently outlawing abortion even in the case of rape and incest while even making the case of saving the mother’s life a tricky one. Mainland Portugal was quite outraged by the law, especially after the liberalisation of the late 1970s, leading to a renewed push for a referendum on mainland Portugal’s independence, which was narrowly voted for in 1997. Portuguese Africa (including the Azores and East Timor) were consequently renamed ‘The Holy Lusitanian Kingdom’ owing to their being a highly Catholic state, a monarchy and retaining the traditional Roman name for Portugal to give both a traditional flavour alongside an acknowledgement that Portugal itself was no longer part of their domain. In 2000, the HLK resubmitted its membership to the CIS and returned to the fold, with all its Angolan oil wealth intact. The HLK has the world’s highest fertility rate at 6.2, and that in spite of being materially better off than most of Africa. Most of its oil wealth is spent desperately trying to build enough accommodation and educational facilities for the new children. A woman having less than three children is almost unheard of and would get a knock on the door from the local priest asking if something was wrong in the marriage. The Church dominates the country in ways unthinkable to modern Europeans, with the local Priest having the ability to walk into a local store, say he doesn’t like something and then have not just that store but every store on the street changing things around. The scandals regarding the abuse and rape of young boys did not occur in the HLK, which is proof, so they say, of the morality of their state (and not the obvious fact that the church is still so powerful that these crimes are still being covered up). A highly traditional society, the King has as much power as he did during the early 1970s, with a bevy of feudal lords (often Brazilians) to watch over the land. The state is as close to a modern medieval society as you are likely to see, but unlike the ISA, it has modern technology, good relations with neighbours outside their religion and the death penalty is only used sparingly (though it does exist for most murders and some rape). The churches are packed to the rafters every Sunday and you had better not have shopping to do that day. The only time everyone really lets their hair down is the Luanda Carnival, though Easter and Christmas also attract pilgrims around the world owing to the extent of services practiced. The HLK is also the only country in the world where Latin (alongside Portuguese) is an official language (not even Vatican City has that honour) with a Latin-language news service. Owing to high birth-rates among the White population, the HLK is about 66% White (75% among children). Free Angola and Mozambique still have their independence bar having Duarte III – yes, he’s still around – be the head of state. There was some discussion about dumping that deal when Portugal went independent, but Portugal’s avowed break from traditionalism and low economic importance compared to the HLK kept off a breakaway. Living standards of the HLK are OTL Poland. Living standards of Mozambique and Angola are OTL Botswana.

Rhodesia-Zimbabwe: ‘Rhodesia’ to Whites, ‘Zimbabwe’ to Blacks and ‘Rhobabwe’ to the tourists. The Remembrance Day Treaty has stood the test of time (although bitter racial divisions resurfaced while the Homeland War was going on in their southern neighbour that threatened to tip over the cart). The Native Bloc has long since fragmented among the various tribes while the Settlers have kept a mostly united opinion behind the Rhodesian Front. Rhobabwe is a curious place to see, where Whites and Blacks walk around the cities by day and decamp to their monoethnic communities at night. Those who try and disturb the peace, such as KKK revivalists or South-Africa supporters, are ruthlessly hunted down by the security services and thrown into prison before they disturb the fragile peace. The Protestant churches play a strong role (with state support) in attempting to close the racial gap with overtures about Christian brotherhood, but this hasn’t seemed to work. Conscription has done much to help, on the other hand, with those coming of age in the 90s being significantly less bigoted than their forebearers due to being effectively forced to work alongside the other community. The only major political group that doesn’t have monolithic race support are the Tolstoyists, who are now the third largest party in the Rhobabwe Parliament. That said, Rhobabwe’s agricultural achievements have done more than almost any one state on the continent to help alleviate extreme poverty, with the very concept now mostly forgotten outside of a handful of African states (mostly the creations of the Treurnicht Regime). There is hope around the world, as protests have been launched recently in Rhobabwe related to poor maintenance of natural wonders like Victoria Falls, which has had cross-community cooperation that many are hopeful signifies an end to the old model of racial divisions in politics. Living standards OTL Italy.

South Africa: In 1985, President Botha announced that he planned to phase out Apartheid before the Millennium. He based this on the idea that South Africa would be majority White by then and that White Rule could therefore continue. But this was met with outrage by hardlienrs in the National Party, who feared this invited inevitable destruction due to the higher birthrate among Blacks. As a consequence, the arch-hardliner in Andries Treurnicht convinced Chief of the SADF, Magnus Malan, to stage a coup against Botha. That October, Botha was put under house arrest (where he would spend the rest of his life) with Treurnicht becoming the new President. Treurnicht swore eternal opposition to ending White Rule, telling his cabinet, “We have as much right to rule over the Keffers as they had to rule over the bugs and snakes”. In 1986, Treurnicht announced that South Africa had completed its ICBM program and was now capable of sending nuclear weapons (of which it was estimated South Africa had nearly 100) anywhere from Washington to Tokyo. ITO was simultaneously horrified and revolted, announcing a complete trade and travel ban on the region which even China was now uncomfortable with, but the worst was yet to come. Daily violence had been quite extreme all throughout the mid-1980s in response to Treurnicht’s ascension, which Malan cracked down on with unprecedented ruthlessness, regularly employing jets and helicopters to machine gun crowds of Black protestors, violent or not. Then in 1987, the massacre of dozens of children in the Langa township in commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre led to the critical mass of outrage being reached among the Black population, who were by now murderously incensed by the atrocities committed by the Apartheid government. However, Treurnicht had secretly been waiting for just such a thing to happen.

Claiming that the uprising in the Eastern Cape proved that it was impossible for the races to be reconciled, the South African army was put on full alert and ordered to ‘Bring a humane conclusion to the race problem in South Africa’. Blacks and Coloureds across the country (Asians had long since been deported and repatriated) were consequently marched out of their homes in resettlement programs, all while resistance groups fought it out with the government, who responded with all the fury they could unleash, often involving chemical weapons. Treurnicht warned the West that any intervention would result in a global nuclear strike. Thus, the West could only watch in horror as Treurnicht began his murderous resettlement campaign that would become known as the Homeland War (or Bantustan War). Even the CIS was disgusted, voting late in 1987 to expel South Africa from the organisation, with the most moving condemnation coming from none other than Ian Smith, who pleaded with Treurnicht to end the carnage both privately and publicly, but Treurnicht wouldn’t listen. Ultimately, as Whites made up some 45% of the population (with Blacks making up an equal amount and Coloureds making up the remainder), and the White population was fully conscripted to deal with the outbreak (as they full well knew genocide awaited them if the Central government fell, regardless of their feelings against Treurnicht), the war could only go in one direction. After White communities fell back on redoubts, the overwhelming material superiority (not to mention exclusive command over the air and chemical weapons) ensured that the resistors had little chance. The MK (who ironically hated the Coloureds almost as much as Whites by this point) may have wanted to be as ruthless as the Apartheid government, but they had little chance to reach that point. The Apartheid government even left Coloured communities to be overrun by MK militias and subsequently massacred to scare other Coloured communities into peacefully surrendering to the SADF and accepting being placed in concentration camps. The South African army ‘helpfully’ reminded their troops that as the MK were not a national army, they could do whatever they wanted to prisoners as they were not protected by the Geneva convention. Surrendering MK soldiers were consequently typically shot whenever they showed themselves, while it was not uncommon for military age males as a whole to be massacred in villages before the remaining women, children and old were forcibly put on trucks to concentration camps before they were subsequently relocated. By the end of 1988, the Homeland War was declared over with some 100,000 dead, of which roughly 75% were Black, 10% Coloured, and the remainder White. As further incitement, Coloured and Black populations were often mixed in local concentration camps, leading to conflicts and riots between the two groups before finally being stopped by White guards before things got too out of hand.

Over the course of 1988 and 1989, the final arrangements were made to ensure South Africa would remain a permanently White nation. First, a full list of the Bansutans in both South and South-West Africa was made. The Xhosa people (including Nelson Mandela) were forcibly relocated to the Transkei region, with the Ciksei Bantustan being abolished altogether, and Transkei given formal ‘independence’ (although entirely at the mercy of Treurnicht). The KwaKwa region was unilaterally given to Lesotho and the KaNgwane was unilaterally given to Swaziland after any and all Swazi were deported there. The Tswana people were brutally funnelled into only the regions of Bophuthatswana that were along the Botswana border, leading to horrendous overcrowding. To add insult to injury, the Bushmen were likewise forced into the overcrowded region. Lebowa, Venda and Gazankulu were likewise consolidated exclusively into their largest regions, with the members of those communities in smaller regions being forcibly funnelled in at horrific cost. Finally, KwaNdebele was given standalone ‘independence’ in the middle of a brutal South African surrounding. In South-West Africa, Hereoland, Tswanaland, Bushmanland Kavangoland and East Caprivi were unilaterally given to Botswana while Owamboland, Kaokoland and Damaraland were unilaterally given over to Free Angola. Rehoboth and Namaland were likewise both granted ‘independence’ amidst the uncaring sea of South Africa. The Zulu nation was a much more difficult question, but Treurnicht was surprisingly relaxed on this front, offering an interconnected Zulu state to Chief Manggosuthu Buthelezi on the condition that major coastal towns like Durban and Stephen’s Bay be maintained as White outposts. Recognising that he was getting a far more liberal deal than most of his brethren, Chief Buthelezi took the deal, creating a consolidated state keeping most of its territory bar far off outposts in the Natal region. This move, as it turned out, was devised to further divide the tribes of South Africa from uniting, as the Xhosa accused the Zulus of being collaborators with the regime. This is an unfair assessment, but the reputation of the Zulus has suffered in Africa regardless (to the extent that the film ‘Zulu’, detailing the British victory at Rourke’s Drift, has become a favourite in Africa as it shows the Zulus being killed). That only left the Coloureds, with Treurnicht simply stating in April that they would be ‘expelled’ within 90 days. There were roughly four million Coloured People in South Africa, so no one country could take the strain. Countries around Africa scrambled to accept them (and accept the brightest and best of the bunch). Katanga accepted 300,000, Rhodesia-Zimbabwe 50,000, Portuguese Africa 800,000, the EAF 1.5 million, the various French African states at 800,000 and Western countries collectively some 500,000. It was an unprecedented transfer of human beings, at appalling costs on every level. Coloured citizens soon faced discrimination in White majority countries for being seen as Black and Black majority countries for being seen as White. Thankfully, the Coloured population has proven highly conductive to most of the African countries they’ve settled in and few dream of going back to the nightmare South Africa has become.

The country is without doubt or exception the most loathed country on the face of the Earth. Casually bring up that you’re South African in a bar in Europe and the whole establishment goes quiet before kicking you out. South Africa is 100% White according to census reports and has been that way since 1991. The neighbouring countries are forbidden from raising arms in any way against the Ethno-state, with new leaders in the small enclaves reportedly told how powerful South Africa’s nuclear weapons are and how few it would take to wipe their enclave off the face of the Earth if they challenge them. Whether true or not, leaders in the Zulu Kingdom or Transkei never publicly breathe a word against South Africa for fear of retaliation. But Treurnicht’s obsession did not stop with just creating a 100% White state. He feared that the influx of so many recent European migrants had diluted the culture of the Afrikaner people. To that end, he began a harsh campaign of ‘Afrikanisation’. This consisted of making Afrikaner the only official language, removing English from as many points of life as possible and making Calvinism the state religion. White immigration was brought to a standstill with the exception of the Dutch, Germans and a handful of other ethnicities. South Africa itself is essentially where it has been since the 1990s in terms of economics – it is economically shattered with very little outside trade. Treurnicht intimidated (sometimes outright executing) industrialists who complained that ridding South Africa of its Black workforce was economic madness. As a result, White middle-managers were now often forced to do the hard, dangerous work in the mines instead. Upon Treurnicht’s death in 1993, Magnus Malan became leader of the National Party and began the process of reintroducing democracy to the country, ironically now more democratic than it was in the 1950s, if only because those who had been denied a vote for being Black were now denied it for being deported. Political control oscillates between the National Party (who are seen as being Pro-Afrikaner) and the United Party (who are primarily supported by the ethnic British and other White immigrant groups). Smaller parties lobby to readmit expelled Blacks and Coloureds to the country, but they are scoffed at and without power, despite supporting the only remedy for South Africa’s abysmal economic embargo. OTL’s South Africa’s notorious levels of crime aren’t replicated here, but mainly because there’s nothing worth stealing from anyone. There is no such thing as a rich person in South Africa anymore, outside of criminals running diamond trades with the outside world, with the government typically getting their cut. Thus South Africa is happy in its new ethno-state status, and it only cost their economy, human decency and reputation of their children’s children who will be tarred by their grandfathers’ actions. South Africa has the living standards of OTL Ukraine. The surrounding Black homelands have living standards equivalent to OTL Congo – even to get to that point was an astonishing achievement given the horrendous overcrowding that plagued their early days.


Asia/Oceania:

Afghanistan: Still ruled by the Shah Dynasty, this once quiet, rural country has started to teem with life in being wedged between Iran and India. Kabul is a place of fun and frolic for businessmen going back and forth between the two giants and has become a bit of a quiet getaway. The girls wear skirts that are chic, unique and quite adorable while the countryside says it’s Sodom and Gomorrah-ble. Despite the differences between CIS Iran and ITO India, both are absolutely determined to keep the Shah Dynasty going to stop the Islamists getting any grip on power. Under their religiously tolerant rule, Afghanistan is simply another place on Earth few people could point out on a map. Living standards OTL Jordan.

India: Earth’s second largest economy, it maintains a unique relationship with both the Commonwealth and the United States, in that it has the most exemptions out of any nation in the former, allowing favourable trade deals with the latter. Cowboys and Indians is the term everyone uses, with the Amero-Indian alliance being set up to counteract China and the CIS. India is about thirty years ahead of OTL, with extreme poverty stamped out, Bollywood now as serious a Box Office phenomenon as Hollywood and a military second only to the United States in terms of veritable strength. Its absorption of Pakistan has still caused significant societal friction, with the outposts still lagging miles behind in development compared to the more Hindu interior. Terrorism is a minor annoyance and ruthlessly stamped out. The Hindutva is still a serious political ideal and not to be mocked. Living standards OTL Poland.

Central Asia: The great game has restarted, but it’s not between Britain and Russia anymore, it’s between China, Iran, Turkey, and India. Afghanistan’s strict monarchy has led to the country slowly depending more on the CIS over time, while the more democratic Nepal and Tibet have fallen in the Indian orbit. East Turkestan joined the CIS in 1987 for of being absorbed by China, feeling that China couldn’t attack a nominal ally. Tuva would join one year later on similar grounds. This angered ITO, but there was nothing in writing forbidding a country from joining the CIS if they really wanted to. This began a dash to sign the post-Soviet states up under the questionable logic that the verbal agreements not to expand their Bloc only were valid as long as the Stalingrad Pact existed. The Central Asian Stans (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkemistan, Tararstan and Bashkortostan, Dagesgtan, Chechnya and Azerbajan) were all in the CIS by 1991. Now another game of influence is being played within the CIS, as Turkey, Iran and China all consistently lobby these countries for votes on key matters within the organisation to support their own ends, which are often at odds. Afghanistan plays nominal neutrality though everyone knows they sympathise more so with the CIS than ITO. Living standards are OTL Romania.

Indo-China: A shining jewel in a region full of them, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have shone in the Francophonie to dazzling heights, hitting their full stride in the 1980s, the Vietnamese especially. Their electronics industry is one of the best on Earth, and their constitutional monarchical governments have proven exceptionally strong over time. They are also regional leaders in sounding the alarm bell against China, maintain their relations with France more so to keep them safe against the northern menace (even as they continue to outmuscle French companies all-throughout the Francophonie). Vietnam is also the tenth largest economy on the planet, just behind Iran, and thus it has serious say in almost everything to do with world economics. Living standards OTL Japan for Vietnam, South Korea for Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.

China: Numero-uno in terms of the GDP on Earth, having overtaken the US around the turn of the millennium, with India recently knocking America to third. They are a fairly authoritarian democracy much like OTL Hungary, and they have used that to contrast themselves with the West. The modern divide between ITO and the CIS is far more of a difference in opinion as to what democracy should be, rather than a question of being a democracy. China argues that the Western democratic model cannot be applied to all states and that some countries need a more restrained democracy (though still a democracy), particularly in the Middle East, which the West just sees as an excuse for violation of human rights. China has spread its influence far and wide across the global economy and culture, particularly in West Asia and the Middle East, where it has almost as much say on oil production as any actual member of OPEP. China is a lot more traditional than OTL, with the old haircut seen at the turn of the 20th century stil around, but Western culture has totally permeated it. Gay marriage was recently approved (even ahead of India) and you can protest the government whenever you want, though the ruling KMT know how to put their thumb on the scales when its needed. Hong Kong and Macau were handed over without their having their own separate arrangements as there was considered no risk to the locals. Living standards OTL South Korea.

Korea: A strange state, very introverted and distant. It is resolutely nationalistic and tries to minimise the competing influences of both China and Japan. To much of the world’s disgust, Kim Il-Sung is still held in admiration as a man who stood up to both China and Japan. As a result, the region has economically suffered, not to mention been racked with scandals related to Samsung’s control of the political system. The lag on development caused by Communism has been quite devastating and it hasn’t been resolved, unlike North China for the most part. K-POP is a hyper-specific cultural phenomenon with as much cultural resonance as Philippine Pop OTL. Ultimately, no one really cares about Korea on an international scale. Living standards OTL Poland.

Japan: It’s OTL Japan, but it can kick your ass. It has all the same pop-culture pull, all the same economic development (in fact even higher than OTL due to the rising tide of Asia as a whole) but has a badass army to match. Naval restrictions were lifted by the Americans following the reconquest of Hokkaido, meaning Japan has man-for-man the finest army in Asia, though India and China affirm that quantity is its own quality, as Stalin once said. Western Anime-fans moan yearly about the amount of ‘Gun-Anime’ (Military Anime) every season, as society as a whole is much more nationalistic. Denials of atrocities in Korea are on the same level ITTL as Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. The more traditionalist outlook has ironically helped the birth-rate some amount, so that isn’t as bad. The great economic crash of the early 1990s never happened either, thus giving the country a continued shot in the arm. Japan’s living standards are OTL … Japan, I guess.

The Philippines: Doing quite well for itself as a halfway house for American presence in Asia, it never fell into dictatorship since it was too entangled in the ITO framework (which mandated that you had to be a democracy). This stopped the worse economic fallout and ensured the state was for the most part able to stand on its own two feet soon enough. The minor Islamist threat subsided after the 1960s and the global boom of the 1970s and 80s brought the country into the developed world. Living standards OTL China.

Indonesia: This unfortunate country had to deal with the devastating effects of continued, cross island Civil War against countless enemies from Islamists to Communists, all the while being taken advantage of by both ITO and Roman Alliance. It maintained neutrality in the intervening years, but the lack of economic development (which was going to far more stable states in the region) ensured that something had to be done. In 2009, the country formally joined the CIS, much to the chagrin of almost everyone in the region. This has been of help to their economy for sure, but it has also given them many enemies in the region who fear they’ve let China get the slip on them. Living standards OTL Indonesia.


Europe:

The United Kingdom: In 1985, Prime Minister Thatcher, in conjunction with the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, announced Britain’s long-awaited response to the EEC, which became the Imperial Federation. This meant that there would be a single market, free movement of labour and some level of common government (which has since expanded over time). This meant that Britain, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Belize, Guyana, the Falklands, Singapore and a host of other island chains around the world now had full access to the markets of those three great expanses. The Commonwealth was maintained as a supporting organisation but was simply a trading and cultural group, as opposed to the near union that was promised in the Imperial Federation. Labour despised the deal and called it an assault on democracy by having a Parliament higher than Parliament, while Thatcher argued for it in economic terms. Thatcher would ultimately triumph and the Tories have been seen as the defenders of the Imperial Federation ever since. They would also keep referring to the UK as the ‘Kingdom on which the Sun never sets’, which is literally true and is used to invoke their mighty, imperial past. The UK jostles with Italy about who is the stronger, with Britain increasingly relying on the IF to project power. The close culture, shared history and shared language have caused the IF to be loved in a way OTL’s EU never was. The EEC, dominated by the French in the 1950s and the Germans from the 1970s onwards, did not want a powerful nation like Britain upsetting the power-balance, which is what led to Britain going down the path it did. Ireland has a supporting deal with the IF to keep open borders in return for joining the Commonwealth (an arrangement that temporarily made Sinn Fein the second largest party in the South). Living standards are about OTL.

Portugal: If Cuba is Pleasure Island, the Republic of Portugal is a part of OTL’s Netherlands and then some. Portugal imitated France’s harsh separation of religion and state and went beyond. Church funding can only be done by money from inside Portugal, marriages in a church have no legal meaning and no government employee can wear any visible religious symbols. The Church went from monolithic to non-existent in daily affairs, the complete opposite direction to the Lusitanian Kingdom (where most of the religious have immigrated to). Drugs are all legal, brothels are commonplace, abortion is as easy as in California. Portugal legalised gay marriage in 2000 and has been one of the most socially liberal countries on Earth since. It is a stalwart ITO member and outright proud of its poor relations with the Lusitanians, whom they consider lunatics. Living standards about OTL.

Spain: Very similar to OTL, with the added change of swapping to ITO. Despite some sympathy by King Carlos to further territorial changes in favour of Morocco, he knew any more than what he already gave was suicide and prized the maintenance of Spain’s fragile democracy. The subsequent left-wing government abolished Spain’s nuclear arsenal in the early 1980s, only the second country on Earth to do so outside of Russia (and to this date the last). This change infuriated the Right and has since meant that the Right has constantly teased about joining the CIS while in reality only using as a way to get better terms at the negotiating table. The fear among Western leaders is what happens when a Right-Wing leader in Spain finally decides to join the CIS for real. Living standards OTL Spain.

France: Relatively gloomy compared to most countries in their position, France left the EEC (by then EU) in 1992 due to the increasing dominance that Germany displayed in the Bloc. A referendum had been called in 1992 for a new European constitution which would have drastically increased the power of the Commission. Jean-Marie Le Pen led the ‘Non’ Campaign, arguing that Germany had taken over the Bloc and would use it to dominate the continent. To much shock, Le Pen’s campaign was victorious, leading to France refusing to join the new European Union, forcing them to focus much of their time on the Francophonie. But here too was trouble, as the Vietnamese were increasingly becoming the real power-brokers of the Francophonie, until the Vietnamese were de facto running the bloc in Paris’s stead. There is now a serious discussion in the Front National to even leave the Francophonie, and to join the CIS. Though that option remains broadly unpopular with the French public, ironic fears about becoming a plaything of a far-off Capitalist interests are increasing by the day. Living standards about OTL.

Germany: The largest economic power on the European continent and de facto leader of the EU, which includes Iberia (France awkwardly making a deal to ease transit between Iberia and the rest of Europe), Scandanavia and almost everyone in Eastern Europe. Germany is quite resentful at the French and Italians for denying their reunion for so long and is far more assertive in personality than OTL. Sights like a German Chancellor being uncomfortable at waving their flag would be unheard of. WW2 education distances the Nazis from Germans and effectively argues that the Nazis never had broad support, most Germans deplored them and that the Valkyrie plotters were overwhelmingly supported by the populace. The Clean Wehrmacht Myth is national legend. Their army is not huge but it’s nothing to be sneezed at. They are something of ITO’s right hand man in Europe, with the power to bulldoze the rest of the EU into their way of seeing things. Living standards are about OTL.

East Europe: Here, the economic pull of China was nowhere near as intense, but the British, American and Germans were. Poland, Moldova, the Baltic states, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and Armenia all joined ITO and have much stronger democratic institutions than OTL on all sides. As a result, economic power is a lot stronger too. There is relatively little fear of Russia TTL, but there is fear of the economic influence of China and their ‘agents’ in Europe, specifically Italy and Turkey. Living standards are French levels for Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltics and Finland (as well as Romania and Hungary). The Romanians and Hungarians continue to maintain their independence from any alliance Bloc. Living standards for Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus are about OTL Poland.

Russia: The gentle giant of the world has sworn off all international allegiances and has become something of a Switzerland spanning continents. The Orthodox Church had some trouble adjusting to the new Pro-Tolstoy outlook, considering they had called him a heretic, but were more than fine to go along with it, even granting him Sainthood in 1983, along with Malenkov in 1999 (defending his prior atrocities under the excuse of Saul’s trip to Damascus). The country is overwhelmingly agricultural and has sworn off conflict, with most social issues, such as alcoholism, being significantly reduced by the end of the 1980s. The cities are significantly smaller than they were in 1960s, as urbanism in general smacks of the old Soviet regime. Russians are well fed, but have little serious ambitions in their lives, which revolves mostly around their villages and communities. The ‘Back to Basics’ program of the Tolstoyists has proved quite enduring, and their support of religion has ensured a strong sense of community among the masses. Russia constitutionally forbids itself from pursuing things like space programs or weapons programs while there is any social issue that needs solving (which is typically constantly changing). Russia provides more immigrants than any country on Earth, as ambitious young men flee to more individualistic societies to strike it big (the Rhodesians in particular being desperate to get them for electoral reasons). They hunker down, even as ITO and the CIS play their economic chicaneries around them. They are quite strict in their implementation of religion, being quite akin to OTL’s early 20th Century Russia in those respects, though not as corrupt and hypocritical as the reactionary’s paradise of the Lusitanian Kingdom. Russia is still a democracy, but the Tolstoyists have so thoroughly taken over the Orthodox Church that they would outright demand their flocks to vote for the Tolstoyists on election day. The Old Believers have become a highly important Bloc in this respect. This means that any victory of the other parties is usually an unwieldy coalition that accomplishes little, though increasingly there are communes being developed within Russia with a Fascist tendency, though mainly against the Chinese, which would make this Fascism more akin to Afro-Fascism than anything else. Living standards are a bit difficult to describe. It’s basically an agrarian country where no one starves but no one is really rich. It’s the closest thing to a truly Socialist country on Earth, but the will to sustain it can only be done with intense Christian religiosity, which is rigidly used as indoctrination from birth.

Austria: The victory of the Austrian Freedom Party (in terms of having the most seats in their coalition with the Christian Democrats) at the 1990 election finally woke the Social Democrats up to the real danger of being absorbed into the German Reich. To that end, they reluctantly agreed to have a referendum on allowing themselves to be part a Twin-Crown with King Otto in Hungary. When the coalition collapsed in 1993, the Social and Christian Democrat restarted their own and the referendum was held in 1994, King Otto was finally triumphantly returned to Vienna as head of state, though he had almost no acting authority. The recreation of Austria-Hungary was considered one of the many strange events of a strange 20th century, but one that was at least quite benign. But if the Social Democrats thought this would end the threat to Austrian independence, this would be quite mistaken. The Freedom Party remains committed to re-joining Germany, and their victory in the 2019 election has once again raised the prospect of a second Anschluss. Time will tell if they will be successful. Living standards OTL.

Greece: ITO’s most committed member, Greece contributes 8% of its GDP to the military due to the terror of being the plaything of Italy and Turkey once again. Greece regularly protests the Turkish presence in Crete and demands the return of all the territories it had lost from it, but everyone knows that’s not going to happen. The Greek Monarchy has been able to restore a sense of basic pride in Greek-ness to the masses and has slowly clawed back their lost economic potential while being a slave of the Roman Alliance. Living standards OTL.

Italy: The Fascist regained power in 1992, and after fears Italy would slide back to dictatorship, things thankfully turned out for the best as the Fascists were content to peacefully relent power when they lost the elections in 1999. Italy remains a member of the CIS, though they are well aware that they are the second tier this time around behind China. OPEP is being increasingly reduced to irrelevance due to the push to renewable energy in response to Climate Change concerns, which came after they already lost a lot of power in the 1970s and 80s due to the mass push in America, Britain, Germany and France to go nuclear (their handful of scares being quickly squashed with reminders of the political necessity to break free of Fascist OPEP). Italy is perhaps the most liberal member of the CIS (with fraternal relations with ITO Israel), but German push and Chinese pull stop anyone from making the push to leave the Bloc. Italy’s harsh crackdown on Somali independence groups has also led to concerns among Europe as to whether Berlinguer’s legacy has been undone. But that is the relatively minor nature of the political differences of TTL, between Liberal and Authoritarian Democracy, but at least still democracy.

 

[Kotka]

Ladies, gentlemen and others: Here it is, the world of 2020, with the footprint of Mussolini stamped on it.

 

[AK47Productions]

@Sorairo Two questions. What's the situation with Austria like it said that Austria-Hungary has returned though Pat's map has them seperate also please tell me I got the South Africa homelands right.

 

[Kotka]

While I try to figure out the issue with the infoboxes here are the flags of this world.
Yes, this is what quarentine does to one.

 

[Sorairo]

Hello all, I finished the extract and realisd that I would probably go crazy trying not to post it for a while, when I need time to write the new draft of my novel. So without further ado, here is the fate of South Africa and her successor Bantustans in further detail.

I horrified myself more in this update than I did during the Second Arabian War posts. Frankly, it just makes me thank God Mandela existed. So, if you're interested in being traumatised, step right up!

Epilogue: “Hate us and See if we Care”

Extract from ‘Life After The End: South Africa since 1990’ by Walt Steiner​

After the expulsion of the Non-White population of South Africa (which became known as the ‘Reshuffle’) and creation of the One Race Country clause of the new constitution, South Africa prepared itself for the inevitable and awful diplomatic and economic reckoning. This was the ‘Special Period’ as Treurnicht declared to the population on December 16th, 1989 (the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River which is seen as the battle which allowed the creation of an Afrikaner state). The Special Period is considered as lasting between 1989 and 1994, the year when the first democratic elections since the 1960s happened in South Africa. While it had slowly been the victim of boycotts and disinvestment, South Africa had always been kept afloat in the Roman Alliance and subsequent CIS. Once it was expelled, even losing diplomatic recognition from almost the entire world, the sudden contraction of living standards was unprecedented. South Africa in the 1980s (for the White population) had a higher living standard than Australia or New Zealand, the Rand was stronger than the dollar and one was free to travel to most of the world as they pleased. Suddenly, there was rationing, breadlines and indeed in the rural regions there were cases of starvation. Many had been traumatised in the war, and much of the East of the country lay in ruins with no money to rebuild.

Pretoria especially had been devastated owing to its proximity to the older borders of Bophuthatswana, whose battle was fought with a level of visceral hatred, evil and sheer desire to inflict suffering on human beings of all ages (all ages) with a lighter or darker skin on both sides unmatched in any capacity perhaps since time began. It was so horrifying that Western television stations refused in some cases to show any footage of the Battle of Pretoria for fear of inciting racial division at home. Large parts of Pretoria even today remain in ruins, though mostly to strike terror into schoolchildren on field trips to warn them of what would happen again if South Africa removed the One Race Country clause from its constitution. These trips typically end with a group prayer at the Voortrekker Memorial (damaged by mortar fire during the War) where the children recite prayers ascribing the victory of the Apartheid government in the Bantustan War to God and thanking him for it. For groups from more Conservative areas of South Africa, addendum prayers are added where the children are indoctrinated to say, “Thank you God, for sending Andries Treurnicht to save us.” It is that intense, literally religious sensation that was able to make the South Africans – Afrikaners especially – endure through perhaps the most sudden and total national collapse in living standards in modern history.

Despite abysmal economic conditions, in the early days there was a sense of community due to the collective desire for survival in the face of the MK given that the group had openly expressed its desire to expel the entire White population (at least officially, given their rallies usually involved invoking ‘killing’ instead) and at best ‘cull’ the Coloured population’s ‘influence’ (which also likewise manifested itself in rallies as simply wanting to kill Coloureds). That said the MK was always doomed to fail in the Bantustan War and mainly fought simply because events swept the movement along with it – such is the consensus of historians. Once the MK inevitably lost in the absence of airpower and roughly equal numbers of Blacks and Whites in South Africa following decades of the Salisbury plan’s immigration policy (a task made doubly impossible when the Zulus declared peace with the Whites and broke from the Black population as a whole), White South Africans were harshly defiant of Western sanctions. The word on the street was skilfully captured for propaganda purposes by Treurnicht in the same 1989 speech, saying, “They are punishing us for having survived”. Most South Africans were infuriated at the West, who they blamed for the MK uprising and wanting to wipe out their entire society since they knew the MK didn’t threaten them. Ultimately, since the South African government didn’t actually commit an intentional, mass slaughter of its Black population (despite doing pretty much everything else including many things just as bad), South Africans still insist with 100% certainty that the MK was vastly eviler than the Treurnicht government and are as outraged when they are compared as British people would be to hear Churchill compared to Hitler. The South Africans had come out of one of the most horrifying wars in human history as a solid, loyal group.

However, despite the fact that this vastly reduced tension in the country, vastly eased the people’s suffering and vastly lowered crime rates, Treurnicht would infamously decide to trash one of South Africa’s few positives in the Post-Homeland years. He announced the policy of ‘Afrikaner Action’ at the beginning of 1992, a move to shore up the Afrikaner identity of South Africa, which he felt had been diluted by waves of immigration from White in Europe. To that end, Afrikaner became the only official language in the country, with Namibia consequently losing her autonomy and German language rights. The Union Jack was removed from the South African flag, people were pushed to live out in the country and most infamously, no one would be promoted in government or have a top military position unless they were members of the Calvinist Church. These new laws were met with outrage among the Non-Afrikaner population, who made up an outright majority of Whites in the country (though the Afrikaners had always had disproportionate power since the 1961 Referendum). While the Cape British population were outraged, there the SADF were more brutal with dissent and imprisoned many who condemned Treurnicht’s attempt to legitimise only one of the White ethnicities in South Africa. But it was Namibia where some of the most infamous resistance happened. On December 24th 1992 (the anniversary of East Germany voting for unity with the West), 50,000 ethnic-Germans walked down the streets of Windhoek singing ‘Die Gedanken Sind Frei’ in protest of the forbidding of the teaching of German. The protests repeated every few weeks, gradually growing, until finally on February 3rd the SADF began arresting demonstrators (some of whom had actually been arrested by the Stasi in East Germany) killing two and further embittering resentment in the country. In response, ethnic German farmers announced that unless German once again become an official language in Namibia that they would refuse to work the soil that year, which would almost certainly cause a famine. The turmoil gave many hopes that it would lead to intelligent reform in South Africa, and for many, something even better happened.

On April 22nd 1993, Andries Treurnicht died during a heart operation, throwing South Africa into an even greater mess than before. His death was met with global celebrations, but especially in Africa. Including the Bantustan War and subsequent deaths and starvations in the successor states, he has been accused as having led to the deaths of roughly five million people. This is roughly the same as the Holocaust, though trying to come up with a precise number of deaths in the Bantustans was hard work at best given the lack of organised information gathering, difficulty of access and the question of how much of the deaths can be explicitly blamed on Treurnicht. Though he regularly graces the top ten lists of most evil dictators in history alongside Hitler and Himmler, Stalin and Mao, Aflaq and the Mad Mufti, unlike the aforementioned he remains on average relatively popular in South Africa now that Federal Afrikaner Action has been consigned to the dust bin of history. Among those on the Cape, a typical refrain is that they’re alive today because of him so that they have to give him a modicum of respect. In the East of the country among the Afrikaners, he is deified as the man who fulfilled the predictions of the Boer Prophet Siener van Rensburg, who predicted an ‘Uhuru’ or ‘Night of the Long Knives’ where Blacks would rise up in an attempt to kill all Whites before being beaten back due to the faith the Boers would have in almighty God. It is strongly believed in the rural Afrikaner areas of the country that Treurnicht was literally a divine prophet sent to save the Afrikaner people from extermination. It isn’t rare to see his visage in churches as if he were a literal Biblical prophet. These areas are a favourite of documentary filmmakers coming to South Africa (the only excuse to travel to South Africa that will result in you still having friends when you get home) simply due to the surrealism of seeing so internationally reviled a figure treated like a divine saint.

Treurnicht did not have a clear successor beyond various toadies within the National Party, which he had purged once he took power to remove anyone open to peace and negotiations with Black representatives like in Rhodesia. Magnus Malan, who had become a war hero among South Africans (and war criminal among Westerners) for his ruthless bombing campaigns and use of chemical weapons in the Bantustan War had little interest in party politics but could see that the internal situation was deteriorating dangerously. Thus, within hours of Treurnicht’s death, the SADF seized key areas of the country and put the National Party leadership (long since hollowed out into Treurnicht’s sycophants) under house-arrest like the coup against former President Botha, who died in 1988 under mysterious circumstances that many believe indicate Treurnicht murdered him. Malan was one of the few truly popular figures left in South Africa and sought to leverage that in his campaign to restore order the country. Ironically enough, Malan believed that it would be in South Africa’s best interest if it moved away from dictatorship, both in terms of reducing international pressure and having a government that was more stress-tested against popular uprising. To those ends, Malan and others began formulating a new constitution in 1993 and finished in 1994, though carrying over the racial policies of the 1989 Constitution. This would make South Africa a country with a strong presidency and a strong parliament with Prime Minister in tow. It would also enshrine regionalism as a guiding principle of the new South Africa, with Namibia being granted all its old privileges of German identity. Afrikanisation policy continued full steam in the Orange Free State and Transvaal regions (down to only Calvinists being given any government jobs) while the Cape region was granted full reprieve, turning Cape Town into the most multicultural location in all of South Africa. The Old Union Jack was likewise restored to the South African flag and Afrikaner Action was explicitly forbidden at the federal level. In government, the two main parties were the National Party, who primarily represent the Afrikaners and more conservative elements of the other ethnic groups, and the United Party, primarily based on those of the immigrants who came in the latter half of the 20th Century to South-Africa who had a more nuanced view of South Africa’s place in the world. The National Party was more agrarian and working class, indifferent to South Africa’s image to the rest of the world and supporters of autarky and state involvement in the economy along Fascist lines, while the United Party was the party of the former Middle Classes (considering almost everyone had been impoverished due to the war and sanctions) who favoured a more free market approach to lifting South Africa which would be leveraged by trying to play nice with the rest of the world within reason. Some Afrikaners have floated the idea of another partition of South Africa, perhaps with a German Namibia, multi-ethnic (all-White) Cape Republic and Afrikaner state in the remainder. One of the big reasons this arrangement has never been seriously pushed in government is due to significant fears of how the nukes would be divided, since everyone knows this is the one thing keeping South Africa as it presently stands from being invaded.

Malan, perhaps taking inspiration from Hindenburg, feared that South Africa could not stand without strong leadership for the short-term and ran for President in 1994, winning 80% of the vote against a handful of straw-candidates as no one in the United or National Party wanted to oppose him. Notably, the United Party were back in power for the first time in more than thirty years after having been banned since the 1960s following the new elections. The new Prime Minister was Alwyn Schlebusch, who had been purged (not Soviet style, fortunately) from the National Party due to his dislike of Treurnicht and suspicion over his German surname, who subsequently became the face of the re-established United Party. But any hopes for a mass diplomatic reappraisal were quickly shot down when Schlebusch affirmed the One Race Country policy (with only a handful of dissenters on the party fringe), given that the policy remained extremely popular in the embittered, shaky country – with Malan telling him that any attempt at removing the policy would lead to his dismissal. Though there were diplomatic successes among some of the Middle Eastern autocracies, these were only just enough to keep the show on the road, not to recreate the economic bonanza that South Africa was in the 70s and 80s. Malan would continue as President until 2009 when he finally stepped down and died two years later. Many believe a second Homeland War would have occurred, if not for him, in both the Afrikaners and the remaining White population, making him a more revered figure in most of South Africa than Treurnicht himself.

Extract from ‘The Warrior Race: The History of the Zulus’ by Peter Skowland​

Across the remains of the conflict, Zululand remained the only fully South African Bantustan to have had a relatively prosperous existence compared to the nightmare that had befallen its neighbours, managing to snag the vast majority of the Natal region save a handful of White cities like Durban, which now resemble military ports far more than civilian centres. Infamously, the Zulus participated in the rounding up and expulsion of ethnic Xhosa in the Natal/Zululand region to create a pure Zulu state (save for marriages) during the Bantustan War. South Africa did little to trip up or harm Zululand and the Zulus are the only Bantustan to have still had peaceful transitions and continuance of government since Zululand was founded in 1988. They were and are still run by President Buthelezi, over 90 years old - the oldest President in the world - in a constitutional monarchy with the Zulu King Goodwill acting as head of state. Buthelezi attended every anniversary for the Battle at Blood River, constantly preaching the need to reconcile the nations of Africa as separate but still friendly. His campaign has meant that South Africans typically have a stronger opinion of Buthelezi than their own Prime Ministers. Due to their strong, independent identity, international brand as legendary warriors and a stable, homogenous society, they have been able to set up a functioning society that cooperates with the West on relatively friendly levels. Though full recognition is denied by almost every country on Earth, trade still occurs with the rest of the world on a regular basis, certainly much more than South Africa. However, to announce oneself as Zulu in a café in Nairobi would lead to you being kicked to death on the floor, such is the African animosity towards the Zulus both for their historical campaign of conquest in the 1800s against African tribes and their current status as traitors. That status was eternally cemented during the early years of the 1990s, and all for a war they didn’t even start.

The seeds of the Zulu-Xhosa War of 1992-1994 were naturally sown long ago due to the longstanding hatred between the two ethnicities, but internal realities in the Bantustans forced quick decisions. Chief Kaiser Daliwonga Matanzima, the long-time leader of Transkei, was overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of almost a million people from Ciskei, not to mention wayward Xhosa from elsewhere. Even though they were all Xhosa, the Transkei locals were desperate for all the resources they could get and saw the arriving Ciskei as too many mouths to feed, given that the aid wasn’t enough for them as it was. From 1990-1991, some of the most horrendous xenophobic violence occurred in Transkei, with some reports saying as many as 10,000 died in the fighting. In order to try and create unity, Matanzima came up with the idea of invading Zululand, since attacking South Africa itself would lead, so the South African ambassador said, ‘To a nuclear strike over Umtata’. However, South Africa had no pledges to protect the Bantustans – though the Bantustans were pledged to protect South Africa if it had been hit. Many believe the Zulu-Xhosa War was deliberately engineered by Treurnicht and others using this one-way clause to further divide and weaken the Bantustans. If that was the intention, it was masterful. On July 17th 1992, Xhosa forces invaded Zululand, much to the shock and anger of Buthelezi and the Zulu people. The two largest Bantustans were now at war, and perhaps the two with the most historical bad blood between each other.

While the Zulus had been somewhat uneasy with their neutrality during the Bantustan War, this was the event that solidified their drift away from the other Bantustans in South Africa. The Xhosa received large amounts of covert aid from the EAF and Ethiopia, but they remained outnumbered and outgunned by the Zulus. Buthelezi was given only moral support from South Africa for propaganda purposes both at home and abroad, but what the Zulus had was enough. Though all Bantustans were forbidden from having an air force, navy or WMDs, the Zulus had a moderately sized and decently equipped army that was likely the finest among the Bantustans simply owing to the superior quality of life in the region. Thus, the initial thrusts into Zululand were quickly isolated and picked off, with the Zulu army now revving up for its first major armed campaign as an independent nation in over a century. The occasion excited the Zulus and brought a unique sense of nationalism that the Zulus were the strongest native African race. One Zulu politician would infamously say during the conflict, who has since been quoted by disgusted Afro-Nationalists ever since, “It is a lie that Whites and Blacks are equal. Whites and Zulus are equal. We are above the common tribes of Africa like a king is above paupers.” Inspired by the legends of Shaka, Zulu forces adorned their gear with symbols of the old Kingdom as they began to move into Umtata. Guns were blessed by witchdoctors, hallucinogenics were given out to troops before battle and guerrillas were killed by spears as opposed to bullets once captured – that is to say, impaled and left to die from their infections over the course of several days. As Treurnicht commented to his cabinet, “It appears the conflict has reawakened the long-dormant fury of that great warrior race: thank goodness for the Atomic Bomb.”

The Zulus pillaged their way across Transkei like the days of yore, burning down and obliterating city after city with ferocity akin to savagery. Killing was common, rape even more so with the subsequent surge in HIV and AIDS thereafter. Eventually anti-rape measures were better enforced because the Zulus were worried that their soldiers would return and import an epidemic with them, rather than any humanitarian concerns for the women and children who were the victims in the onslaught. The Battle of Umtata began in September 1992 and lasted until the next February. By the time the battle was done, the whole city had been reduced to ruins for a second time after the SADF had pulverised it from the air in 1988. The conquering Zulus treated the Xhosa with equal detestation as the South Africans did, making sure to raze what little remained, leading to yet another famine that year. Chief Kaiser Daliwonga Matanzima was killed fleeing between cities on February 9th by common bandits, who robbed the car for its fuel, rubber and the dead men’s pockets without realising who he was. This led to eight days of no one knowing where the Chief was that ultimately culminated in his being found by famished peasants looking for food, deciding to feast on the bloated corpse they found in the car before recognising who it was and turning the corpse over to the Zulus in return for guaranteed food for the year. Once this was discovered, the Zulus contacted the three most prolific Xhosa generals and asked them if they would consequently surrender. All three quickly agreed, again in return for guaranteed food for themselves and their families. The Xhosa surrender was met with thunderous chest-pounding in Zulu media, who proclaimed that the results had made them rediscover their heritage and reassert their supremacy over the tribes of Africa. What little food the Xhosa had was handed over to the Zulu, leading to the single worst famine in the region’s history, with nearly 800,000 people perishing due to famine on top of the 75,000 who directly perished in the war. The former ANC leader, Nelson Mandela, successfully escaped the country during the bedlam and made his way to the West for asylum - nearly perishing on multiple occasions. Though the UN did their best, the subsequent total breakdown of order in the Transkei made any attempt to govern, improve people’s conditions or help practically anyone was almost impossible. This remains the last major war fought between the Bantustans (though Venda and Ngwaneland have had numerous low-key conflicts complicated by neither side being strong enough to invade the other).

President Malan sent Buthelezi a letter after news of Xhosa surrender was announced:

“Mr. President, the people of South Africa would like to extend their congratulations, from one warrior race to another.”

Extract from ‘Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth: The Fate of the Bantustans’ by Lin Choi​

It wasn’t only Transkei who suffered grievously during the same time period. For example, the Ndebeleland Bantustan was estimated to have lost 22% of its entire population due to disease and starvation during the Special Period. Many scholars believe this to be an act of outright genocide owing to the level of restrictions South Africa gave to the UN to allow them to give aid to the Bantustans, especially states entirely surrounded by South Africa. Treurnicht is rumoured to have told one army official that the deaths in Ndebeleland were an ‘Excellent opportunity to deal with the overcrowding situation’. In contrast to Zululand’s order, Gazankulu has the record for most violent upheavals, with 13 coups in the space of a single year in 1994 – including three in a single week. Lebowa was in a state of Civil War essentially since its founding but the SADF did not intervene to favour a side until a year in when local government official complained that farmers near the border could hear gunshots on the other side of the border which was interrupting their sleep patterns and wanted it stopped.

Since the 2001 intervention from the SADF in Transkei to deal with yet another MK revivalist group – typically religious mystics promising to lead Blacks to victory over the SADF – the South African playbook for the Bantustans is typically to simply give diamonds, money and advanced weapons to crime leaders in the Bantustans to let them take over the country. The crime leaders are surprisingly effective (from South Africa’s point of view) since they have no interest in doing anything to offend their patrons and simply enact their psychopathic wants on the public at large. These have included one temporary leader of the Transkei literally ordering his guards to abduct any person off the street to see him get eaten by a lion since he had ‘never seen a man get killed by a lion before’. Another in Venda made Prima Noctus the official law of the country after he had seen it in a movie from the main villain and thought it was a brilliant idea. Not only did he legalise it, he mandated it – saying men could not have sex with their wives until they had been raped by him first – for the entire country. He was killed on the seventh woman, who held poison in her mouth and kissed him, breathing it down his throat and killing both of them. The dictator’s entourage quietly dropped the policy. Politics and violent crime in the Bantustans are inseparable, with the Bantustan governments being run more in line with gangs in urban turf wars than national governments. Some have literally become leaders by shooting their predecessors in broad daylight in the throne room if the President/King/Emperor/Prophet/Führer (yes all of these names have been used by at least one Bantustan leader since 1989) was sufficiently unpopular. From 2008-2018, not counting Rehoboth, Nambaland and Zululand, the average length of time a government lasted in a Bantustan was two years before some kind of violent upheaval. This may sound horrifying, until you realise the average was under one year in the 90s. The crime leaders are brilliant at keeping things relatively quiet while also ensuring the Bantustan is worse off than when they began, and are thus South Africa’s favourite people to do business with, especially since they are so astonishingly corrupt that they would often sell off UN aid for more diamond money from South Africa.

Then comes the AIDS statistics, which are more horrifying than almost any other. In Venda for 2018, it was estimated that 40% of the population had HIV. Whistle-blowers in South Africa allege that the South Africans deliberately tainted water supplies and sent poisoned equipment to the Bantustans to produce these kinds of results, which in many cases has simply led to the near total breakdown of society. Despite Katangan scientists having discovered the cure for AIDS in 2018, South Africa continues to deliberately hold back treatment in its internal Bantustans, while seafaring Bantustans like Zululand are better able to work their way around any issue. On general environmental issues, the trees have all been cut down, native wildlife has nearly perished and the rivers are poisoned. It is normal to see children smoking, eating garbage or even eating human flesh simply to survive. Conditions are going, in other words, exactly as planned.

When the Bantustans were made, they were typically surrounded on all sides with barbed wire and fences, with border-guards who were in no mood to let a soul outside of the living hells that had been created by Treurnicht. Millions of people were dumped completely clueless in land they did not recognise and had nowhere to stay in, and on top of that, they would be packed like sardines into these miserable failed states, all the while mocked by the yawning acres of one of the least densely populated countries in the world in South Africa. Further grief awaited UN aid workers as any and all White aid workers were simply attacked on arrival in many of the non-Zululand Bantustans, no matter how many times they were informed that they were not like the Treurnicht Government, they would not listen. After a Japanese aid-worker was killed in 1990 in Transkei because he ‘looked White’ – the UN made the decision that only Blacks could deliver UN aid to the affected regions. The EAF took the lead in this and have become the unofficial moral leaders of Africa as a result. In most of the Bantustans, there is nothing that one could consider an ordinary life, with most of the population lives in day and night fear of crime, public services are essentially non-existent and starvation and disease are everywhere. Suicide and depression rates are among the highest in the world given that the population is acutely aware of how they are stuck in so small and crowded an area without any hope of overcoming the nuclear giant that has trapped them in their miserable open-air prisons. This has led to the horrifying invention of the term ‘grabbing/grab the wire’. It is a term that figuratively means ‘giving up’ and is based on how many in the Bantustans, so wracked with misery at how awful life is where they live, with no hope for improvement, that they simply walk up to a border fence and simply grab some of the mesh, waiting for a guard to arrive while standing perfectly still in hopes of a quick death. Border guards are so used to this that they wordlessly understand what they are asking for and just shoot straight through the head for a quick kill after taking their time to aim. There have been many cases where whole families have done the process, sometimes all together, some one after another. As one border guard told the New York Times in 2012: “I saw my friends die in front of me in the Bantustan War – but doing this every day has haunted my soul more than all the things I saw in that war put together. They tell us we’re doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery … one day I might ask to join them.” Only Venda has significant cross-country illegal immigration (that is, across South Africa and not just moving to another Black majority state), with thousands attempting to flee to Rhobabwe and the Lusitanian Kingdom. With almost 10,000 people trying to illegally cross the border every year, 90% are shot and killed in the attempt.

But even with the successful escapees, there is little hope for a successful future. Most are interned in camps in Rhobabwe on arrival (with the full approval of the Black portion of the government despite their public condemnations of the Rhodesian Front for loudly being against it). The only hope that the arrivals get is that Mozambique will ask them to become Catholics, accept Communion and enter into Church service. Though this involves renouncing ones ties to their home culture, most Vendans leap at the offer. Ironically, the South Africans have inadvertently harmed one of their long-term goals. One of South Africa’s agendas, according to whistle-blowers, is to make life for the Bantustan residents so unbearable that it will sufficiently horrify the remainder of Africa into offering them asylum, the residents will beg to leave, immigrate elsewhere thus further reduce any chance of the Bantustans and South Africa being united. The problem is that the Bantustan residents in some cases have been so thoroughly dehumanised that no country would conceivably want to take them in. Charity for Non-White South Africans was already exhausted when the Coloured expulsion happened and there is little demand for an even more war-torn and desperate population. Even the EAF passed on laxer refugee rules for the Bantustans, since the population had for so long been denied education, basic human dignities and basic human necessities that they were considered unable to be integrated into normal life again. As one EAF politician explained, “Take an innocent man, throw him in jail for thirty years, have him forced to steal and kill to survive, starve him, beat him, humiliate him, take everything away from him, and then take that man and push him into the streets of a country he has never known, with technology he never could have believed, and ask yourself: ‘Will that man contribute to society or degrade it? We cannot help them now – we can only avenge them.”

Extract from ‘Treurnicht’s Legacy: Finding Faces in the Land of Monsters’ by Paul Stone​

During the Special Period, especially after Afrikaner Action became national policy, immigration into South Africa was highly restricted to essentially only Northern Europeans, on top of naturally being less desirable to move to. Of the major pure immigrant groups today, it mainly consists of Dutchmen and Rhodesians who believe the country’s self-segregation (not dissimilar to a Californian prison) isn’t enough for them. The only people who move to South Africa in noticeable quantities today are Far Right activists who travel there under South Africa’s White Refugee clause, which was enshrined in law in 1996, giving the ‘unassailable right of members of the White race persecuted in defence of their racial identity to find safe haven in South Africa’. The refugees (overwhelmingly males) have become a notorious source of tension, similar to KKK supporters who immigrated to Rhodesia, due to their low skills and education and sense from the locals that the newcomers were entitled and didn’t want to fit in with the local culture. The law was altered in 1999 to specify that only ‘prisoners of conscience’ could apply, when actual criminals started coming into South Africa and committing heinous crimes against the locals. Yet even here, images of truth-speakers escaping imprisonment for saying Whites did not deserve to be treated as second-class citizens was met with the far more mundane reality that these ‘prisoners of conscience’ were mainly idiots who started screaming racial slurs in public. In terms of immigrants, roughly 10,000 people still trickle into South Africa every year. Emigration was primarily held back, however, due to outrage over the funding of the MK by the West and the knowledge that South Africans were so hated abroad that it would lead to significant problems seeping in. This consequently scared many South Africans into staying in their own country. Indeed one source of hope to outsiders, that the growth of the internet in South Africa would help them wake up to the horrors of what was happening in the Bantustans, was cruelly dashed when studies revealed the knowledge of being so viscerally detested by so much of the world simply made South Africans defensive.

Of all the immigrant groups have made the biggest splash in South Africa since their opening to mass White migration in the latter half of the twentieth century it is the German-speakers who would be the top of any list. While the Afrikaners attempted to solidify their grip across an entire country, ironically recreating the mistake of Apartheid to begin with, the Germans consolidated their location into what was the land their ancestors had once conquered – Namibia. Namibia was sparsely populated in 1989, even by South Africa’s positively Mongolian standards. Almost all Blacks had been expelled to external countries, leaving only two Bantustans with one being Coloured, who were lucky enough to escape the expulsion of Coloureds that occurred in South Africa proper due to having their own clearly defined Bantustans and general exhaustion after the war and integration of Namibia. This left an area of South Africa (as that was what Namibia now was, an annexed region with Windhoek as South African as Pretoria) that was soon doubly lucky as the regional security would be entrusted to the ethnic Germans authorities.

While Namibia had always been a popular destination for German speakers, Treurnicht’s deeply unpopular Afrikaner Action program highly encouraged German speakers to travel to areas where their culture and language could be practiced without significant pushback. With Namibia being so empty, creating parallel German speaking societies was quite easy. As of 2020, 80% of Namibia is of ethnically German ancestry, including Austrians and Swiss. German and Afrikaner are taught together in school, with English very much the third-place language. This marks the only major region outside Europe where German is an official language. They quickly made their mark on the local culture, giving Windhoek an annual march on V.E commemorating the Free German Army by veterans and their descendants – no German official has ever attended the event and came back with a job. Kaiser Wilhelm Street remains the main roadway and the place does its best to evoke an explicitly Germanic feel. A small but persistent independence movement exists that wants to create an independent, Germanic Namibia. But perhaps the best evidence for differences between the Germans and their Afrikaner countrymen can be found in their treatment of the Baster people.

Like the other Non-Afrikaner ethnic groups, the Germans were primarily on the Western coast of South Africa when the Bantustan War began. The White ethnic group that by far bore the brunt of the civilian atrocities in the conflict were the Afrikaners, particularly those in isolated outposts who were swallowed by the MK’s wave of slaughter while the White immigrant population typically lived closer to safer regions in the West of the country around Cape Town, or at least nowhere near the dangerous rural regions. This led to a persistent belief in Afrikaner circles that they were the only White ethnic group who had truly suffered in the war and that they had fought and died while the other immigrant groups sat around, did nothing and then had the guts to argue ‘Aren’t you being a bit harsh?’ As such, the Afrikaners have always been the most unforgiving towards the successor Bantustans while other groups, like the Germans, have been more liberal, as was the case for the Baster people of Rehoboth.

The Basters are a mixed-race group of people who are descendants of the male Afrikaners and Black women. Yes, their name is indeed derived after the word ‘Bastards’, though the population claim to have ‘reappropriated it’ to make it a name denoting power and pride. When the ‘Reshuffling’, as Treurnicht infamously put it, had concluded and they were the sole Bantustan with a Coloured population, the population quickly accepted that the best thing to do was try and build ties with South African authorities to have a relatively easy life, at least compared to the nightmares that existed out East. But it was their next step that caused the most controversy: Baster leaders encouraged their people to mimic the Afrikaners as close as possible. To that end, the Basters announced they would mimic the Afrikaner Action program, celebrating the same holiday schedule as South Africa, making Calvinism a requirement for government positions and dressing in traditional Afrikaner fashion. The plan was to thaw the hearts of the South African authorities by making them look as identical as possible to their neighbours to allow a level of lenience. To an extent this has been true, in that Pretoria has not done much to disturb the arrangement between Namibia’s German-dominated regional government and Rehoboth. This is because, owing to the relative indifference of the ethnic Germans to the issue, Rehoboth has more freedom than the rest of South Africa’s mutilated Bantustans put together.

While Namaland and the Namibian administration continue to suffer fraught ties due to lingering bad blood over the Nama Genocide during the Colonial Era, Rehoboth and the Namibian regional government enjoy relatively pleasant ones. Movement in and out of the border is astonishingly easy, as compared to the literal shoot-on-sight policy that exists around Eastern Bantustans and it resembles the Canadian American border more than anything else. It’s not normal for Basters to go weekend shopping or watch a rugby game in Windhoek. Of course, there are limits. The Basters can never permanently settle, find employment in or become citizens of South Africa due to their not being sufficiently White. Yet they have garnered a reputation as the only group in the whole of the successor Bantustans who have a relatively lax border control with South Africa. Unlike Zululand, the Baster people’s insignificant size (a population of merely 40,000) has meant that few Africans care about whether they have ‘sold out’ since they acknowledge their powerlessness in the face of being surrounded by the despised power – the fact they aren’t fully Black also helped minimise the sense of their being ‘traitors’.

The behaviour of the Basters has created an interesting question in South Africa that only now has been forced to be addressed: Could the Basters be considered ‘White’ and consequently be given citizenship? This is debated both within Baster communities and within South Africa itself. Older Basters aren’t fans of the idea, wanting to hold on to a sense of their own identity, while a younger generation is more open to the idea to make their lives significantly easier by being able to freely travel South Africa. Among South Africa’s broader population, the idea is gaining traction but popularity for the option remains at around 40% in most opinion polls. Many South Africans are impressed by their allegiance to Afrikaner traditions, and their significant European DNA also helps matters but at the same time there is concern it would open the floodgates to the total removal of the One Race Country clause. Once they are defined as White, the Mestizos, mulattos and everyone will be feared among reactionary elements as wanting to barge in and once again demographically overwhelm the ‘pureblood’ White population. It is believed that the full recognition of citizenship to the Basters will be a major condition in ‘The Deal’, the hypothesised agreement South Africans imagine will be reached when the major Western powers reopen contact and trade with South Africa. Not helping matters has been the rise of violent organisations, both in Namibia and elsewhere, who have threatened to kill the Basters for their ‘Uppityness’ in seeking to overturn the racial order and system as it currently stands. One march in Windhoek in 2018 attracted 7,000 demonstrators holding signs like ‘No Kefirs on our soil!’ and “Better dogs be citizens than Kefirs.” Then in 2019, the Baster couple of Cornelius van Wyk and Elizabeth van Wyk, vacationing in Swakopmund, were lynched side-by-side from a tree by a group calling themselves ‘The Knights of the Fiery Cross’ an obvious take on the Ku Klux Klan. We know this because both had been stripped naked and branded with the group’s insignia. The group had also been linked to attacks on Zulu tourists a year prior. The incident sparked outrage across Namibia especially, with the Namibian regional government announcing they would officially declare Basters as ‘White’, as did the Cape regional government. While this had little significance as it was up to the Federal government to define it, Pretoria now has serious headaches over the issue, both in terms of addressing the Basters and the terrorists. Though the shadowy group has been made illegal, it is unlikely that the group suspected to be of primarily rural Afrikaners will be easily found out, especially given that they likely have sympathisers at the highest reaches of power.

Extract from ‘From Darkness Into the Light: The Future of South Africa’ by Pamela Theron​

South Africa remains the only country in the world that specifically limits citizenship to those of a single race, and this constitutional requirement has been at the forefront of Western demands ever since. The ‘Dymally Amendment’ created by African American legislator Mervyn Dymally and approved by Congress in 1992, states that the United States cannot recognise any government that explicitly restricts citizenship to a single race. This is of course in defiance of the Treurnicht Constitution’s first paragraph, which states that “The rights of citizenship, employment and settlement in South Africa are the sole property of the White race, and can never be extended to any other”. This impassable deadlock has been the eternal basis of South Africa’s dispute ever since, with most Western nations agreeing removing the ‘One Race Country’ clause is ultimately what South Africa would need to do to return to the family of nations. However, the clause remains broadly popular in South Africa, especially among the politically more influential Afrikaners.

As a consequence, recognition to South Africa was almost totally suspended and embargoed during the Bantustan War and the Reshuffling. Only a handful of states refused to forgo relations. Among them were Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, due to the settler community’s veto who argued that White farmers would bear an undue burden of an embargo. A more interesting case was Katanga who, though stopping most government interaction, was forbidden under their both celebrated and chastised 1963 Constitution, which gave some of the strictest property and business rights in the world, to the extent Katanga is still rated by observers to be the freest place to do business on Earth. There is a saying among neighbouring African countries that Katangans would bet the world would end on Sunday and boast that they will collect the winnings the next Monday. So while the Katangan government went cold, they were powerless to stop (primarily Black) opportunists from filling in the trade gap and becoming fabulously rich. For the remainder of the Treurnicht years, these countries were by far and away South Africa’s main trading partners. The break came in 1994, when democracy was restored. At this the Kingdom of Saba, Arab Federation, Arabian Kingdom and Kingdom of Hejaz reopened trade relations. This was supposed to be to convince South Africa to calm its roguish behaviour, but it was actually the beginning of one of the most astonishing money laundering operations in history. The dictatorial countries ended up being used by Turkey, Iran and Italy to siphon off diamonds from South Africa in return for money while none of them would end up taking the reputational hit of dealing with the loathed state. From this point on, the usefulness of the embargo effectively collapsed and South Africa’s economy began to broadly recover from its implosion during the Bantustan War. Even the sports boycott lost its sting, as the famous Springboks Rugby team while denied permission to play abroad, simply created a new league in 1997: the Home-Rugby League, which consisted of the main regions of South Africa (Namibia, the Cape, the Orange Free State and Transvaal) with the Zulus joining in 2003.

But 2006 would give South Africa its first major international break, when Korea successfully burnished their international bad-boy reputation by opening relations with the pariah due to Japan’s refusal to pay reparations for the Comfort Women of World War 2. The move was met in the West with widespread anger but also mockery for how unrelated the two points seemed. But it would be the first of a series of new diplomatic victories in the coming years. In 2009, North Sudan likewise opened trade and recognition to South Africa – more to its longstanding animosity with Black Sudan. Then in 2017, a diplomatic bombshell was announced when in Russia, a country eternally sworn to neutrality in her constitution and to not take sides in international disputes, the High Court decided that Russia was violating her own constitution by not recognising South Africa and supporting sanctions against it. The move was a deathblow to the sanctions strategy of the West, and trade began to tick back up significantly. When Switzerland attempted a similar law on the basis of neutrality in 2019, the voters successfully pushed for and won a referendum forbidding the country to do business with South Africa while the One Race Clause was still in effect – thus demonstrating how pertinent the issue remains.

These victories have produced a glut in trade for South Africa, and has made the country now roughly as prosperous as it was before the war with trade slowly returning to 1980s levels. At the same time, South Africans are more or less familiar with the world through the internet, which is haphazardly censored, with porn of all kinds illegal. With these diplomatic successes, the calls of reformers in the United Party to remove the One Race Country clause has largely been deflated since most South Africans in polls believe that they will be given full diplomatic recognition in time ‘regardless of whether the One Race Country clause still exists’. This optimism among South Africans is mirrored by pessimism among Westerners that South Africa will ever change its ways. Polls now show that 35% of Americans (and roughly a similar proportion of Imperial Federation citizens) believe that South Africa should be recognised even without having to make serious changes to its One Race Country clause – it was 10% in 1992 when the Dymally Amendment was first passed. More interestingly, 70% of Americans (and a similar number of IF citizens) believe South Africa will be recognised with scant concessions within their lifetimes.

But of all parties, China is perhaps the most interesting, and it’s there that the most rumours and speculation emerge. South Africa has invested almost every spare coin it has into finding rare Earth metals to diversify from diamonds and have a powerful incentive for any state to do business with it. The intention is practically explicitly to bribe China with the lure of Rare Earth metals in order for it to become the premier military power in the world, in return for recognition and non-interference in South Africa’s internal affairs. Polls now show that more Chinese people want to end the non-recognition of South Africa if it could grant them favoured status in that nation’s largely sealed-off economy. The Chinese by all accounts are largely waiting for an opportune moment to make the move, which would almost certainly lead to a domino effect of CIS members (even those who have publicly denounced the state) recognising South Africa. By then, of course, the West’s economic embargo would be utterly useless and South Africa will have ‘gotten away with it’ to quote Henry Kissinger. But despite the world’s fury at the thought, with how much the Bantustans are at each other’s throats, how dehumanised their populations have become, how violently resistant the South Africans are to new arrivals, it seems almost inevitable that that is exactly what will happen.

[…]

Whether the world likes it or not, South Africa will likely be back at the table in the near future, with that smug, self-righteous grin burnished by their having defied and outlasted the entire world that says, “Hate us and see if we care.”