WI: Sweden-Norway gets the Congo instead of Belgium

JCC the Alt Historian

JCC the Alt Historian

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but apparently, the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway was the next country to get the Congo had Belgium not gotten it.

Let's say that in an alternate timeline that Belgium's claim to the Congo is declined at the Berlin Conference by the other countries that attended and they instead decided that Sweden-Norway (which like Belgium is seen as a neutral power) would get it instead.

How would this affect European and African history and how would Sweden-Norway treat the African natives? Also, will it be either Norway or Sweden that gets control over the Congo after the union is dissolved in 1905?
 

pompejus

JCC the Alt Historian said:
how would Sweden-Norway treat the African natives?
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Terrible, but probably not as terrible as they were OTL, but still terrible.

It does not matter who colonises the Congo (or whatever part of the world), weather it is Belgium, Sweden-Norway, England, France, the USA, Japan or Ethiopia, or whoever. In colonisation the natives will be treated terribly.
 
AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

i feel like the resources in the area might mean the country could have the resources to become a great power- at least to industrialize, and they'd for sure need a big navy to protect one. which might agitate britian and put stockholm in the german camp. it's admittedly pure speculation on my part. but the big thing is that the congo would absolutely still be hell on earth.
 

mattep74

JCC the Alt Historian said:
I'm not sure if this is true or not, but apparently, the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway was the next country to get the Congo had Belgium not gotten it.

Let's say that in an alternate timeline that Belgium's claim to the Congo is declined at the Berlin Conference by the other countries that attended and they instead decided that Sweden-Norway (which like Belgium is seen as a neutral power) would get it instead.

How would this affect European and African history and how would Sweden-Norway treat the African natives? Also, will it be either Norway or Sweden that gets control over the Congo after the union is dissolved in 1905?
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IF Sweden or Norway gets its hands on Congo the colony would cease to exist well before OTL. If Norway gets control after 1905 they will try to give it away to anyone else. If Sweden gets it they will not want any part of it after 1921 when the Social democrats took power.
 
AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

mattep74 said:
IF Sweden or Norway gets its hands on Congo the colony would cease to exist well before OTL. If Norway gets control after 1905 they will try to give it away to anyone else. If Sweden gets it they will not want any part of it after 1921 when the Social democrats took power.
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there's no reason to assume the same politicians would come to power with a POD 30 years earlier when the country has definitely gotten richer off the exploitation. and progressive parties were rarely against colonialism at this point unless the writing was really on the wall
 

Strategos' Risk

What if they or any European power just let the natives alone because they didn't want to deal with the expense of actually running a colony?
 

Lalli

mattep74 said:
IF Sweden or Norway gets its hands on Congo the colony would cease to exist well before OTL. If Norway gets control after 1905 they will try to give it away to anyone else. If Sweden gets it they will not want any part of it after 1921 when the Social democrats took power.
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Norway probably still gets independence. Or actually very certainly. And it would try sell Congo away, probably to Brits.

But about Sweden I bit disagree. Left-wing didn't see any problems or moral issues with colonialism at this point. French left-wing which had very good grap on power, was very pro-colonailism. British Labour didn't see much problems on colonialism altough might had been ready to reform system but not decolonisation. SPD of Germany saw colonialism totally acceptable. Left-wing became anti-colonialist only just after WW2. I don't see any reason why Swedish SPD would be any different.
 

Jürgen

I think there will be some important implications.

SN would likely be much more active with missionaries than the Congo Free State, this means there will be people on the ground reporting home about any atrocities and they would have a strong lobby organization at home (the state church). So this will mean the atrocities won’t be allowed to reach OTL levels.

There will be a greater focus on producing a local Lutheran clergy, this mean that’s there will be a large number of Congolese with tertiary educations at the time of the decolonialization, rather than these been almost non-existing in Belgium Congo. With better local education you will likely also see a lot of natives in the administration of the colony. I expect SN and later Sweden to have much greater local control of the colony, as they can send local Africans as civil servants to isolated region, while European administrators will be based in a few central hubs. I also expect Swedish to end up the Lingua Franca and with the greater focus on education it will likely be spoken by significant part of the population.

For Sweden the colony will mean the access to a lot of tropical materials and I expect Sweden to be richer. Sweden will likely also be able to stay more active in Congo after decolonization, which I expect will less a complete disaster than under Belgium (hard not to be). Congolese guest workers will likely migrate to Sweden in the 60ties and 70ties, likely something like 1-2% of the Swedish population. I also expect Congo to be very poor, but it will likely be more on the level of Nigeria than the Central African Republic, as Congo is poorer than it should be with its geography. I also expect Congo avoiding OTL civil war and while it may end up dictatorship, it will likely less bad than Mobuto.
 

Jan Olbracht

Is it true that OTL at the time of Congo Free State Scandinavians outnumbered Belgians there and constituted majority of Europeans in Congo?
 

Strategos' Risk

lol someone made a YouTube video about it eight years ago.
Like most non-verbal AH YouTubes it's not very good, but what a niche topic for a video.
 

Falecius

The point is that Europeans weren't trying to find a suitably neutral power to give Congo to.
The Berlin Conference had been summoned in the first Place specifically because _Leopold_ (not "Belgium") wanted Congo and this caused all sorts of issues with balance of power, Portuguese protests, and the like.
As far as I can tell, Sweden-Norway was unlikely to be offered the place unless they showed marked interest.
 
AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

Falecius said:
The Berlin Conference had been summoned in the first Place specifically because _Leopold_ (not "Belgium") wanted Congo and this caused all sorts of issues with balance of power, Portuguese protests, and the like.
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true but it's not like they could keep it if the great powers didn't give the okay
 
SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

Depends how it's governed. Is it a normal colony or is it Oscar II's personal rubber plantation? Neither would be "nice", but the Congo Free State killing 50% of its population was an atypical level of wanton brutality even in the era of late imperialism, and subsequent Belgian rule was also on the worse side of the bellcurve for European colonies in Africa. Congo could potentially have a much brighter future if it is "merely" abused as badly as its neighbours.

As for Sweden's ability to keep the Congo after Norway exits the union... Unfortunately the odds might be better if it is a Congo Free State sort of arrangement where most of the "boots on the ground" are people from around the world employed by the man who happens to also be Sweden's King, rather than a fully Swedish administration.
 

Jürgen

SealTheRealDeal said:
Depends how it's governed. Is it a normal colony or is it Oscar II's personal rubber plantation? Neither would be "nice", but the Congo Free State killing 50% of its population was an atypical level of wanton brutality even in the era of late imperialism, and subsequent Belgian rule was also on the worse side of the bellcurve for European colonies in Africa. Congo could potentially have a much brighter future if it is "merely" abused as badly as its neighbours.
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I don’t think Oscar II will be able to hide such brutal behavior as long as Leopold II did. Sweden has a state church and they will send missionaries to Congo, and they will react badly if banned for such activity and they will report Congo Free State style atrocities back to Church and Swedish media. They will accept some brutality, but not to that level.

SealTheRealDeal said:
As for Sweden's ability to keep the Congo after Norway exits the union... Unfortunately the odds might be better if it is a Congo Free State sort of arrangement where most of the "boots on the ground" are people from around the world employed by the man who happens to also be Sweden's King, rather than a fully Swedish administration.
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I don’t really think it will hard for Sweden to simply keep the colony, Sweden dominated the union and Congo will clearly be a Swedish possession, Norway will be too poor and uninterested in Congo to make any trouble.
 
ennobee

ennobee

It would be interesting to see how a neutral Sweden and Norway would evolve psychologically if it were trust into the role of a colonizing power. I mean, in the 19th century they were light-years ahead of the rest of Europe when it came to the treatment of women, and they already had a system of 'ombudsman' to hold the powerful accountable. But how much of it would survive if after 25 years the country/countries realized that the bulk of their wealth came from the sale of Congolese coffee and cocoa and from their access to cheap Congolese ore. Would they have any problem dispatching the military to break up a Congolese miners strike? Or to 'pacify' unruly provinces?

My fear is that for all of its progressiveness back home, once in the Congo Sweden or Sweden-Norway would not be much different than any other run-of-the-mill colonizing country and that through some wilful mental gymnastics most of the Swedish and Norwegian population would be okay with it.
 
AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

ennobee said:
My fear is that for all of its progressiveness back home, once in the Congo Sweden or Sweden-Norway would not be much different than any other run-of-the-mill colonizing country and that through some wilful mental gymnastics most of the Swedish and Norwegian population would be okay with it
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Sounds like America, or France then
 
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