As a nitpick: while Cyon claims in his original
post and associated map that "Alkebu-lan" is Arabic for "land of the Blacks", the actual Arabic phrase for that is "
Bilad as-Sudan." Even if it were Arabic, it would certainly not be the "oldest name for Africa," unless the term is actually a term from Sheba or some other pre-Islamic South Arabian culture. I doubt this as well, given that the "-lan" suffix appears to just be the English/Swedish "land".
But returning to your question-- yes, it's definitely possible for Africa to be divided differently. All the end borders of the Scramble depended on who possessed what coast and how far they were willing to go inland. A stronger Spain could claim more of Mauritania, an early 1830 revolution leads to France never taking Algeria, a lengthier conflict with the Boers or Nigeria dissuades Britain from focusing on Kenya or Zimbabwe. I have doubts about the value of the Suez-- I think even if it remained Egyptian, the naval importance and gold/diamond wealth of South Africa would inevitably lead to some mini-Scramble there. But overall, the division of Africa is not hard to alter by changing factors
outside Africa.
But assuming Europe remains pretty much OTL and we're instead looking for a change
within Africa... My opinion on this matter has changed a lot since I started reading about the Luba-Lunda complex in the southern Congo and it's probably still going to change as I learn more about Africa in general but here goes:
A hypothetical independent Subsaharan native state wouldn't have to be
that different in its methods of war from OTL models. West Africa has had widespread iron weapons for at least 2 millennia, and the Bantu brought ironworking with them on their travels. Ethiopia and Adal both had access to gunpowder and cannon during their 1500s clashes, and guns often diffused inland from colonial ports thereafter. And then you have the Zulu keeping the British and Boers at bay for decades based on their reputation alone, and before going down they showed at Isandlwana that their reputation was justified. So overall, I don't think that's the bit you need to change, at least not the primary one. Instead, you need to take 10 countries that could win a battle each and turn them into 1 country that could win a war.
I'd argue that a more fundamental problem (one of many) than military composition was excessive diffusion of political power, which hollowed out potential challengers to European hegemony from within. Before the arrival of the Italians the Ethiopians had just emerged from a over a century of civil war in the Age of Princes; while this was certainly destructive, by the time it ended every noble faction besides Menelik II's had been countered and/or co-opted. So when Menelik reneged on the Treaty of Wuchale, he could call on all the resources of his state-- which, by that time, extended well past customary Ethiopian borders into Harar, Oromia, and Somalia. That's a lot more tax revenue than Menelik's predecessor Yohannes IV (who after the autocratic excesses of Tewodros II led Ethiopia more as the over-prince of confederated statelets) could call on (incidentally, Menelik himself led one of those statelets, the kingdom of Shewa, and marched north to overthrow Yohannes). This unity was good for its own sake, and it also facilitated the kind of diplomacy that led to Italy's rivals supplying Ethiopia. Contrast with the area of modern Southern DRC/Zambia: though this area has been a base for imperial states with institutional continuity for centuries, it went from "Luba empire" in the 1600s to "confederacy of Lunda kingdoms" to "minor Chokwe statelets in Angola, Bembe in Zambia, etc." by the late 1700s. The area covered by this Luba-derived tradition of kingship/governance keeps expanding,
as did the associated network of trade-- but the states in it are smaller and smaller. Attempts to reverse this pattern, like Msiri's short-lived Yeke Kingdom, met with internal dissension from the Kazembe. After Msiri's death, the Belgians took over the Yeke heartland and the British asserted suzerainty over Kazembe. Divided we fall. As a somewhat related example, there's also coastal West Africa: Benin, the Yoruba states, Dahomey, Xogbonu/Porto-Novo, etc. were all complex polities with vibrant artistic traditions and urban economies. Unfortunately, they were also all essentially city-states, with 1-2 big settlements and rural hinterland. Those are easy to impose protectorates over, and the French and English did so.
- As an aside, I don't think it's a coincidence that the Chinese dynasties considered to be golden ages of good governance (Han, Tang) are preceded by short-lived dynasties considered autocratic hard-asses (Qin, Sui), nor that the 280-year Tokugawa shogunate was preceded by Hideyoshi. In an environment when claims for local autonomy can easily turn into cessation of tax/tribute payments and raising of arms against the capital, customary systems of local governance must be overhauled at any cost.
This absolutist, top-down approach can, of course, be criticized-- for one, it's going to cause death and that in turn creates inter-population ill-will, with negative repercussions in the long-term (e.g. Oromo conflict in Ethiopia). And it doesn't guarantee success-- the cultural change ushered in by the Fulani campaigns in West Africa don't seem to have translated into long-term political results. Tippu Tib and Rabih az-Zubayr are especially unsuccessful on both counts. However, I'm convinced that imperialism of Africans over Africans is the only way to pool a larger area's resources and achieve the two main prerequisites for survival post-Berlin Conference: an army capable of stopping an invasion force at/near its beachhead, and a government that can adapt quickly to European diplomatic norms. Although, that only provides for indigenous state
survival. For prosperity... a higher population with a greater degree of economic interconnection would certainly help, and new crops plus earlier abolition could encourage both. Though abolition would have to happen on Africa's west and east coasts (OTL, the Europeans often used the continued existence of Muslim slavery as a casus belli to seize new colonies on the Swahili coast and in the Sahel).