What's with this random province of Polish-Croatian(?) Germans in Galicia
https://redd.it/1mzgiex
@tnomod
https://redd.it/1mzgiex
@tnomod
Where would Egor Letov (Soviet punk musician) be in tno considering he was born in Omsk
https://redd.it/1n5vssu
@tnomod
https://redd.it/1n5vssu
@tnomod
Development Diary XXXI: Débrouillez-Vous - Part 2/4
# Congo, Rwanda and Burundi:
https://preview.redd.it/7lhvejpch2ff1.png?width=1131&format=png&auto=webp&s=f7779bc7228df00509c0d80ddac2693e442baa9f
The Congo had spent the war years operating increasingly independently of its legal possessor, now housed in London. The colonial gendarme organized with Allied assistance, followed Allied war plans in East Africa, and shipped raw material with Allied escort to fill Allied orders. Belgium had not disappeared, but it was ever so distant. But, in the first week of Operation Sealion, it simply ceased to exist. Crushed under the rubble of Eaton Square, the Congo was left unpossessed, with a state now largely incapable of legal action.
While paralysis gripped British holdings, the Americans acted swiftly to keep the Congo functioning. 5 weeks is all it took for the creatively named 'État du Congo' to creatively legislate its sovereignty. Although plainly intended as a temporary measure, it long outlasted the war that had spawned it. As Belgian intellectuals arrived on American shores, they and their 'Congo Question' would rub closely with the renewed martyrs of the New Deal. After De Gaulle's rebellion was ejected across the river, the question only became more prescient. Finally, in 1948, Dwight Eisenhower campaigned on the Congo Question, under the influence of men like Spaak and Ryckmans, aiming to redefine the US's strained relationship with the world.
The Model Republic it was titled, the standard by which the whole world would be judged. Cut from the same cloth as the OFN, dressed in the dazzling colors of internationalist liberalism. A defiant corner of Europe's other continent. Old WPAmen stamped a million papers with such phrasing, citizens committees raised funds to send Belgians to Léopoldville, American government and church schools ran the length of its rivers. A founding member of the OFN, crowds would say as Eisenhower opined for 'his little Congo'. However, the realities of the young République du Congo were complicated. The Model Republic, the great corporatocracy, a parliament governed by circles, parties politely worn by the simple interests which composed them. Where the US had the PWA or NLRB, Congo had the Société Générale du Congo, a parastatal unparalleled, composed from the remains of the Belgian institution. Education governed by the Church, Labor governed by its paymasters, all in collaboration. Freedom of movement, of business, of franchise - each were carefully constrained, ordered behind 'certificates' with exams designed for bias. 'Preparation,' it was termed, so that the nation was ready for its freedom.
The economy was ordered in the image of America's New Deal, as a long list of economic packages came to define the relationship between the US and the Congo in the terms of sovereign debt and investment. Under Belgian stewardship the Congo's central economic corridors all drove south, into Angola or Rhodesia, for the Americans, this had to change. The Congo was dotted with public works - bridges, rail expansions, and river ports - each of them intended to redirect the economy towards Matadi, the Congo's key Atlantic port. However, despite these attempts, the Benguela railway, leading to Lobito, in Angola, remains the larger economic thoroughfare. Complicated further, by its ownership - Tanganyika Concessions Limited, one of the very few European companies to still conduct business directly with OFN member nations. Tanks, as it's called, maintains at least parts of its 89-year charter in Katanga, granted in the times of the Free State. As civil government approaches daily life in the rest of the Congo, in Katanga it remains distant, as the CSK, the UMHK and other holdings and siblings of the Société Générale dominate its economy and political life.
For years these affairs continued, loosened ever so slightly, ever so rarely. It was the French State's evacuation of Equatorial Africa that spurned the next great change. Nearly as soon as the French had left, the Congolese had arrived, spearheaded
# Congo, Rwanda and Burundi:
https://preview.redd.it/7lhvejpch2ff1.png?width=1131&format=png&auto=webp&s=f7779bc7228df00509c0d80ddac2693e442baa9f
The Congo had spent the war years operating increasingly independently of its legal possessor, now housed in London. The colonial gendarme organized with Allied assistance, followed Allied war plans in East Africa, and shipped raw material with Allied escort to fill Allied orders. Belgium had not disappeared, but it was ever so distant. But, in the first week of Operation Sealion, it simply ceased to exist. Crushed under the rubble of Eaton Square, the Congo was left unpossessed, with a state now largely incapable of legal action.
While paralysis gripped British holdings, the Americans acted swiftly to keep the Congo functioning. 5 weeks is all it took for the creatively named 'État du Congo' to creatively legislate its sovereignty. Although plainly intended as a temporary measure, it long outlasted the war that had spawned it. As Belgian intellectuals arrived on American shores, they and their 'Congo Question' would rub closely with the renewed martyrs of the New Deal. After De Gaulle's rebellion was ejected across the river, the question only became more prescient. Finally, in 1948, Dwight Eisenhower campaigned on the Congo Question, under the influence of men like Spaak and Ryckmans, aiming to redefine the US's strained relationship with the world.
The Model Republic it was titled, the standard by which the whole world would be judged. Cut from the same cloth as the OFN, dressed in the dazzling colors of internationalist liberalism. A defiant corner of Europe's other continent. Old WPAmen stamped a million papers with such phrasing, citizens committees raised funds to send Belgians to Léopoldville, American government and church schools ran the length of its rivers. A founding member of the OFN, crowds would say as Eisenhower opined for 'his little Congo'. However, the realities of the young République du Congo were complicated. The Model Republic, the great corporatocracy, a parliament governed by circles, parties politely worn by the simple interests which composed them. Where the US had the PWA or NLRB, Congo had the Société Générale du Congo, a parastatal unparalleled, composed from the remains of the Belgian institution. Education governed by the Church, Labor governed by its paymasters, all in collaboration. Freedom of movement, of business, of franchise - each were carefully constrained, ordered behind 'certificates' with exams designed for bias. 'Preparation,' it was termed, so that the nation was ready for its freedom.
The economy was ordered in the image of America's New Deal, as a long list of economic packages came to define the relationship between the US and the Congo in the terms of sovereign debt and investment. Under Belgian stewardship the Congo's central economic corridors all drove south, into Angola or Rhodesia, for the Americans, this had to change. The Congo was dotted with public works - bridges, rail expansions, and river ports - each of them intended to redirect the economy towards Matadi, the Congo's key Atlantic port. However, despite these attempts, the Benguela railway, leading to Lobito, in Angola, remains the larger economic thoroughfare. Complicated further, by its ownership - Tanganyika Concessions Limited, one of the very few European companies to still conduct business directly with OFN member nations. Tanks, as it's called, maintains at least parts of its 89-year charter in Katanga, granted in the times of the Free State. As civil government approaches daily life in the rest of the Congo, in Katanga it remains distant, as the CSK, the UMHK and other holdings and siblings of the Société Générale dominate its economy and political life.
For years these affairs continued, loosened ever so slightly, ever so rarely. It was the French State's evacuation of Equatorial Africa that spurned the next great change. Nearly as soon as the French had left, the Congolese had arrived, spearheaded
by their own Frenchmen, and sent ahead by their own superpower. In many places they were met with collaboration, if not cheers, in others it was not so simple. The Force Publique, newly republican, did not negotiate. Within months, the UPC was pushed from Yaoundé into the borders and highlands, replaced swiftly with one of the many Commonwealth governments that now comprised the United States of Latin Africa.
None of this was popular with the Congolese soldiers, not the occupation, and much less the ongoing campaigns against 'banditry'. But, what really got to them was something different. In Brazzaville, a soldier could sit in a Cafe, order a cup of coffee, and simply be served - even by a white waiter. In Léopoldville this was essentially unthinkable. It was a simple fact - these people had more rights than them. Many more could vote than in the Congo, many more could travel freely than in the Congo, black men occupied many if not most of the key roles, something alien to the Congo. Here, the Congolese saw independence, and at home, well, they were not so sure.
Nationalist sentiments exploded in the Congo, the brutality of the state's response only further driving their furor. What little political rights had been loosened became clamped, that is, until the explosion. When an ABAKO assembly was declared illegal, and, despite the efforts of its leaders, proceeded anyway, the rally was suppressed violently. Kasa Vubu, imprisoned, was now the very face of the nation, the face of a new era of nationalists who now came to the stage. For a full year the state attempted to repress dissidents and raise collaborators, but each strategy subverted the other. Leaders like Bolikango and Bolya distanced themselves from the government, as repression of dissidents found only more and more targets.
And then it ended, as riots in Leopoldville inspired strikes in Elisabethville. The old Congolese political system shattered to pieces, a new, reformist coalition ushered to power over its corpse. The old political parties, increasingly identified as the 'white parties', found room for compromise or perished. A broadened electorate and renewed elections cemented the shift - as the Congo became governed by the Kartel de la Réforme and its very first African Prime Minister - Jean Bolikango.
Reform, and Africanization, have been slow to progress, even years out from Bolikango's ascendancy. The KdR succeeded in navigating the Congo out of its last political crisis, but its defective four years of governance have drawn to question whether it can do any more than that. Nationalists foment at its edges, their once assured allegiance increasingly drawn into question. Whereas, the European minority remains fractured over the new political conditions in the Congo, picket fences and neighborhood walls carry graffiti decrying 'les traîtres' underlining the far more serious contentions deep within the Congo's state.
https://preview.redd.it/4015rev0g3ff1.png?width=1896&format=png&auto=webp&s=e64604cc57a55d09998529922446c11db3957685
Blood comes to the capital...
Further abreast of the Congo and its struggles are its very own sister states - the Kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi. Bound by one of the last treaties to mention 'the United Nations', the now-republican Force Publique of the then-independent Congo guards the very same positions they took up after the countries were taken from Germany. Indeed, these are among the furthest outposts of the OFN, host to an array of listening systems, observation posts, and defense plans that begin with retreat. Burundi is a small island of calm amidst a sea of change. Governed by a clade of its young chiefs, educated in the West and in many ways attached to the OFN. To many in Burundi, the presence of the Americans liberates the country from the domination of Security politics, and offers yet another vector of stability within the careful ethnic and social balance at play in the
None of this was popular with the Congolese soldiers, not the occupation, and much less the ongoing campaigns against 'banditry'. But, what really got to them was something different. In Brazzaville, a soldier could sit in a Cafe, order a cup of coffee, and simply be served - even by a white waiter. In Léopoldville this was essentially unthinkable. It was a simple fact - these people had more rights than them. Many more could vote than in the Congo, many more could travel freely than in the Congo, black men occupied many if not most of the key roles, something alien to the Congo. Here, the Congolese saw independence, and at home, well, they were not so sure.
Nationalist sentiments exploded in the Congo, the brutality of the state's response only further driving their furor. What little political rights had been loosened became clamped, that is, until the explosion. When an ABAKO assembly was declared illegal, and, despite the efforts of its leaders, proceeded anyway, the rally was suppressed violently. Kasa Vubu, imprisoned, was now the very face of the nation, the face of a new era of nationalists who now came to the stage. For a full year the state attempted to repress dissidents and raise collaborators, but each strategy subverted the other. Leaders like Bolikango and Bolya distanced themselves from the government, as repression of dissidents found only more and more targets.
And then it ended, as riots in Leopoldville inspired strikes in Elisabethville. The old Congolese political system shattered to pieces, a new, reformist coalition ushered to power over its corpse. The old political parties, increasingly identified as the 'white parties', found room for compromise or perished. A broadened electorate and renewed elections cemented the shift - as the Congo became governed by the Kartel de la Réforme and its very first African Prime Minister - Jean Bolikango.
Reform, and Africanization, have been slow to progress, even years out from Bolikango's ascendancy. The KdR succeeded in navigating the Congo out of its last political crisis, but its defective four years of governance have drawn to question whether it can do any more than that. Nationalists foment at its edges, their once assured allegiance increasingly drawn into question. Whereas, the European minority remains fractured over the new political conditions in the Congo, picket fences and neighborhood walls carry graffiti decrying 'les traîtres' underlining the far more serious contentions deep within the Congo's state.
https://preview.redd.it/4015rev0g3ff1.png?width=1896&format=png&auto=webp&s=e64604cc57a55d09998529922446c11db3957685
Blood comes to the capital...
Further abreast of the Congo and its struggles are its very own sister states - the Kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi. Bound by one of the last treaties to mention 'the United Nations', the now-republican Force Publique of the then-independent Congo guards the very same positions they took up after the countries were taken from Germany. Indeed, these are among the furthest outposts of the OFN, host to an array of listening systems, observation posts, and defense plans that begin with retreat. Burundi is a small island of calm amidst a sea of change. Governed by a clade of its young chiefs, educated in the West and in many ways attached to the OFN. To many in Burundi, the presence of the Americans liberates the country from the domination of Security politics, and offers yet another vector of stability within the careful ethnic and social balance at play in the
country.
https://preview.redd.it/f8p8stdgh2ff1.png?width=1894&format=png&auto=webp&s=fcd441e0a5fc3d31048282c509ec0f50cef1f414
Rwanda, however, is a kingdom in crisis, torn at its by ethnic conflict and class conflict wound and tied together. The Bahutu Manifesto has transformed Rwandan politics, and brought confrontations of increasing scale to the forefront. As tensions rise in the Congo, they begin to boil in Rwanda, and should the Congo falter, its distant satellite will fall.
https://preview.redd.it/7fo93xjhh2ff1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a4250e9e368bad589673ab26ba85fb88fa42921
# East Africa:
https://preview.redd.it/z7eddwv5i2ff1.png?width=1672&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5e653817263ad47be8592bda1108c5d4d55b0fa
In contrast to the ostensibly liberal-democratic Congo, East Africa is where the colonial ancien regime is at its strongest. Governed under the retrograde darkness of the British Empire since the end of the war, the peoples of East Africa cry out for freedom from British rule.
The heart of both the region's resistance and its colonisation lies in Kenya. As the settler-colony of the British aristocracy, Kenya serves as the new crown jewel of the Empire, with many of the BPP's foremost leaders holding estates there. However, the prosperity of Kenya's settler elite was built on the blood of its native peoples, and a reckoning was due. This reckoning came in the early 1950s, with the rise of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (quickly dubbed "Mau Mau" by the Administration, a name that would become popularised in the British press). Being drawn largely from the Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru ethnicities, due to them having been displaced from the majority of their land for the "White Highlands" project, the KLFA began a rebellion against the colonial administration, killing several settlers and one of Kenya's foremost collaborationist chiefs, Senior Chief Waruhiu. Britain responded quickly, sending the decorated general Gerald Templer to Kenya, allowing him to form a martial law administration and giving him carte blanche to deal with the Kenyan people as he saw fit. He implemented a brutal policy, confining any natives with suspect loyalties into various forms of concentration camp. Only those with a proven record of loyalty, fighting for the colonial administration, were exempt. While fighting continued for years, the brutality of the British forces and their collaborators proved impossible for the KLFA to overcome. Now, in 1962, the once-formidable movement is a spent force.
https://preview.redd.it/mbpi33hkh2ff1.png?width=2050&format=png&auto=webp&s=de168d38d7cd6d868930860fcbb1a976a9270663
Kenya's western neighbour, Uganda, remains mostly quiet, with much of the unrest there being overspill from Kenya, while a pliant collaborationist class runs the colony.
https://preview.redd.it/tqq9rhiih2ff1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=1cb43d5b070624c7df3f7e730f9c857231ddf988
To the south, in Tanganyika, the Ghanaian Revolution and First Great Uprising led to the Tanganyika African National Union beginning an armed struggle against the colonial administration, although the British suppressed the uprising within a few months. The survivors, including their leader, Julius Nyerere, were forced to flee abroad, first to the Congo and then to Azad Hind, where they live in exile, training and preparing for the day when they can once more return to liberate Tanganyika.
https://preview.redd.it/f7c3yjx9i2ff1.png?width=1287&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7a6eca3adccbb77c799f56c051f42af3c676589
The neighbouring Sultanate of Zanzibar remains a largely stable protectorate, but any instability in Tanganyika could quickly cause the same there.
https://preview.redd.it/60s90v99i2ff1.png?width=1432&format=png&auto=webp&s=76cdaf4eb5f0d2113b4eb9118a36145173caae6e
To the south, the colonies of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland are bound together in the Central African Federation, a loose economic union, set up to benefit Britain and the settler elite of the Rhodesias
https://preview.redd.it/f8p8stdgh2ff1.png?width=1894&format=png&auto=webp&s=fcd441e0a5fc3d31048282c509ec0f50cef1f414
Rwanda, however, is a kingdom in crisis, torn at its by ethnic conflict and class conflict wound and tied together. The Bahutu Manifesto has transformed Rwandan politics, and brought confrontations of increasing scale to the forefront. As tensions rise in the Congo, they begin to boil in Rwanda, and should the Congo falter, its distant satellite will fall.
https://preview.redd.it/7fo93xjhh2ff1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a4250e9e368bad589673ab26ba85fb88fa42921
# East Africa:
https://preview.redd.it/z7eddwv5i2ff1.png?width=1672&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5e653817263ad47be8592bda1108c5d4d55b0fa
In contrast to the ostensibly liberal-democratic Congo, East Africa is where the colonial ancien regime is at its strongest. Governed under the retrograde darkness of the British Empire since the end of the war, the peoples of East Africa cry out for freedom from British rule.
The heart of both the region's resistance and its colonisation lies in Kenya. As the settler-colony of the British aristocracy, Kenya serves as the new crown jewel of the Empire, with many of the BPP's foremost leaders holding estates there. However, the prosperity of Kenya's settler elite was built on the blood of its native peoples, and a reckoning was due. This reckoning came in the early 1950s, with the rise of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (quickly dubbed "Mau Mau" by the Administration, a name that would become popularised in the British press). Being drawn largely from the Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru ethnicities, due to them having been displaced from the majority of their land for the "White Highlands" project, the KLFA began a rebellion against the colonial administration, killing several settlers and one of Kenya's foremost collaborationist chiefs, Senior Chief Waruhiu. Britain responded quickly, sending the decorated general Gerald Templer to Kenya, allowing him to form a martial law administration and giving him carte blanche to deal with the Kenyan people as he saw fit. He implemented a brutal policy, confining any natives with suspect loyalties into various forms of concentration camp. Only those with a proven record of loyalty, fighting for the colonial administration, were exempt. While fighting continued for years, the brutality of the British forces and their collaborators proved impossible for the KLFA to overcome. Now, in 1962, the once-formidable movement is a spent force.
https://preview.redd.it/mbpi33hkh2ff1.png?width=2050&format=png&auto=webp&s=de168d38d7cd6d868930860fcbb1a976a9270663
Kenya's western neighbour, Uganda, remains mostly quiet, with much of the unrest there being overspill from Kenya, while a pliant collaborationist class runs the colony.
https://preview.redd.it/tqq9rhiih2ff1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=1cb43d5b070624c7df3f7e730f9c857231ddf988
To the south, in Tanganyika, the Ghanaian Revolution and First Great Uprising led to the Tanganyika African National Union beginning an armed struggle against the colonial administration, although the British suppressed the uprising within a few months. The survivors, including their leader, Julius Nyerere, were forced to flee abroad, first to the Congo and then to Azad Hind, where they live in exile, training and preparing for the day when they can once more return to liberate Tanganyika.
https://preview.redd.it/f7c3yjx9i2ff1.png?width=1287&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7a6eca3adccbb77c799f56c051f42af3c676589
The neighbouring Sultanate of Zanzibar remains a largely stable protectorate, but any instability in Tanganyika could quickly cause the same there.
https://preview.redd.it/60s90v99i2ff1.png?width=1432&format=png&auto=webp&s=76cdaf4eb5f0d2113b4eb9118a36145173caae6e
To the south, the colonies of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland are bound together in the Central African Federation, a loose economic union, set up to benefit Britain and the settler elite of the Rhodesias
first and foremost. In Southern Rhodesia, the previously politically dominant United Rhodesia Party served a serious split in the immediate post-war period over the issue of collaborationism and whether to recognise the London government, and the more right-wing, hardline Liberal Party swept to power in the face of it, under the leadership first of Jacob Smit, and then of his successor, Ian Smith. In far-away Mauritius, the ripples of East Africa’s politics have nonetheless reached the colony. As Templer’s administration in Kenya began to look for a place for “permanent exile” of 'recalcitrant' Mau Mau followers, they settled on Mauritius, with the assent of the ruling Franco-Mauritian planter oligarchy. The introduction of slave labour into the Mauritian economy severely destabilised its already violent and fractured racial caste system, and the Indian government looks upon the majority-Indian colony with disgust at the continued British repression of their people.
The Empire's grip in East Africa will be shattered by the Second Great Uprising in 1963. Ironically, the greatest blow inflicted upon it will come not from the rebel groups that have opposed the Empire for years, but from their own colonial army. A battalion of the King's African Rifles, stationed in Tanganyika, will mutiny against their British employers after a months-long stoppage of pay caused by the chaos. The mutiny will throw the colony into disarray, forcing a speedy withdrawal and allowing the TANU to return from Azad Hind and take up its governance. Further south, in Nyasaland, the fall of Tanganyika will lead to the British and Rhodesians both concluding that the colony cannot be held, and beginning a military and administrative withdrawal to Northern Rhodesia. The "abandonment" of Nyasaland will scarcely be noticed in Britain, but it will cause shockwaves in Southern Rhodesia, with the Liberal Party's hardliners enraged at Smith for allowing the Union Jack to be brought down in Africa, and ousting him, replacing him with the right-wing ideologue William Harper. Elsewhere in East Africa, while colonialism is able to hold during the Uprising, the independence of Tanganyika causes shockwaves, allowing old rebel groups, like the KLFA, to revitalise, and new rebel groups, like those in Northern Rhodesia, to form. But make no mistake - the Empire in East Africa has been dealt a blow, but it has not been vanquished. The Republic of Tanganyika must lead the banner of independence forward, or it may find itself consumed as it once was before.
https://preview.redd.it/7jxn6f7di2ff1.png?width=744&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa4c95c72a2fe94312f5c1d603dffa66054ea96a
# Iberian Africa:
https://preview.redd.it/x0yduolmi2ff1.png?width=1999&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8bf91980d4713072620a3b508ce132608169125
The Iberian Union was never conceived of as a unitary state, but as a partnership between two brother nations, Spain and Portugal. At the Union’s formation, a special exception was made to keep each nation’s colonial ministry separate by mutual demand. The Portuguese Colonial Ministry oversees the colonies of Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Cape Verde, while its Spanish counterpart administers Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara.
On paper, the Portuguese colonies represent a more humane alternative to their nakedly white supremacist counterparts in Britain and France. Trumpeting the ideology of Lusotropicalism, the Portuguese have long portrayed themselves as a uniquely benevolent imperial project capable of peacefully incorporating native Africans into a civilization that combines the best of its disparate members. Behind the propaganda, however, lie some of the most backwards and repressive colonial regimes on the continent, replete with underdevelopment, exploitation, and a strict racial hierarchy. For decades into the Twentieth Century, the colonies languished on the periphery of Portugal's attention, little more than a source of coffee, minerals, and prestige. This began to change after the
The Empire's grip in East Africa will be shattered by the Second Great Uprising in 1963. Ironically, the greatest blow inflicted upon it will come not from the rebel groups that have opposed the Empire for years, but from their own colonial army. A battalion of the King's African Rifles, stationed in Tanganyika, will mutiny against their British employers after a months-long stoppage of pay caused by the chaos. The mutiny will throw the colony into disarray, forcing a speedy withdrawal and allowing the TANU to return from Azad Hind and take up its governance. Further south, in Nyasaland, the fall of Tanganyika will lead to the British and Rhodesians both concluding that the colony cannot be held, and beginning a military and administrative withdrawal to Northern Rhodesia. The "abandonment" of Nyasaland will scarcely be noticed in Britain, but it will cause shockwaves in Southern Rhodesia, with the Liberal Party's hardliners enraged at Smith for allowing the Union Jack to be brought down in Africa, and ousting him, replacing him with the right-wing ideologue William Harper. Elsewhere in East Africa, while colonialism is able to hold during the Uprising, the independence of Tanganyika causes shockwaves, allowing old rebel groups, like the KLFA, to revitalise, and new rebel groups, like those in Northern Rhodesia, to form. But make no mistake - the Empire in East Africa has been dealt a blow, but it has not been vanquished. The Republic of Tanganyika must lead the banner of independence forward, or it may find itself consumed as it once was before.
https://preview.redd.it/7jxn6f7di2ff1.png?width=744&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa4c95c72a2fe94312f5c1d603dffa66054ea96a
# Iberian Africa:
https://preview.redd.it/x0yduolmi2ff1.png?width=1999&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8bf91980d4713072620a3b508ce132608169125
The Iberian Union was never conceived of as a unitary state, but as a partnership between two brother nations, Spain and Portugal. At the Union’s formation, a special exception was made to keep each nation’s colonial ministry separate by mutual demand. The Portuguese Colonial Ministry oversees the colonies of Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Cape Verde, while its Spanish counterpart administers Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara.
On paper, the Portuguese colonies represent a more humane alternative to their nakedly white supremacist counterparts in Britain and France. Trumpeting the ideology of Lusotropicalism, the Portuguese have long portrayed themselves as a uniquely benevolent imperial project capable of peacefully incorporating native Africans into a civilization that combines the best of its disparate members. Behind the propaganda, however, lie some of the most backwards and repressive colonial regimes on the continent, replete with underdevelopment, exploitation, and a strict racial hierarchy. For decades into the Twentieth Century, the colonies languished on the periphery of Portugal's attention, little more than a source of coffee, minerals, and prestige. This began to change after the
implementation of the Estado Novo in 1933. Under Antonio Salazar's leadership, greater attention was paid to the colonies as sources of ideological pride as much as material wealth, in line with the theory of Lusotropicalism. For subjects of the Portuguese overseas empire, however, this change in official attitude did not translate into changes in day-to-day life. Indeed, reformers in the colonial ministry remained sidelined throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The triumph of the Reich's New Order did much to vindicate a more ruthless view of the world, and colonial officials in Lisbon, Lusotropicalist ideals notwithstanding, were no less susceptible to such views than anyone else.
It is in the crown jewel of Portuguese Africa, Angola, that the consequences of such attitudes first appeared. During the 1950s, thousands of Angolans fled the poverty and forced labor of the colony for better prospects in neighboring Congo, congregating in the capital of Léopoldville. Here, prominent Angolan refugees were soon entangled in Congolese political intrigues and increasingly nationalist undercurrents, although they never forgot the homeland they had fled. The epitome of this phenomenon is Holden Roberto, an Angolan who spent nearly his whole life in the Congo, taking leadership of the exiled Angolan Kongo separatist movements in the 1950s, coalescing into the United Party of Angola (UPA). In 1959, Roberto took advantage of labor discontent in the north of the country and, inspired by wider unrest around the continent, he attempted to launch an incursion from the Congo. His haphazard attempt at revolution posed no serious threat to the colonial regime, but it had enough popular support to awaken officials out of a self-assured stupor. Their belated response proved brutal, sending the rebels fleeing back across the border, with close to a million refugees behind them, amplifying Congo's existing political crises. American intelligence and the Congolese administration cajoled Roberto's newly founded UPA into forming a coalition with myriad other Angolan liberation organizations, even the radicals of Augustinho Neto's MPLA, recently returned from a long exile in Brazil. Together they formed the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Angola (FDLA).
Now, in 1962, the FDLA has organized a second Angolan incursion, though it faces prospects little better than the first. These repeated failures have spurred increasing disillusionment with Roberto's authoritarian leadership. More militant members in the FDLA have begun to look towards the Azad Hind-trained Jonas Savimbi as a challenger to Roberto. They insist that a change in strategy is required, and that Roberto's fixation on the north is a product of his Bakongo chauvinism rather than revolutionary principle. For these dissidents, eastern Angola beckons. In Luanda, the Portuguese have grown increasingly aware of the role of the Congo in their African misfortunes and consider options to neutralize its influence. However, the Portuguese must be cautious in this; Léo'ville is no scattered guerrilla band, and is a key American partner to boot.
On the other side of the continent, in Mozambique, the situation is quite different. Under the steady, experienced leadership of Governor-General Gabriel Maurício Teixeira, the colony has seen none of the violence or chaos experienced by its Atlantic counterpart. True, the state's cotton regime has spread misery throughout the north while the inadequacies of southern subsistence farming force unnumbered thousands into grueling labor in the mines of South Africa and Rhodesia - but this is simply the natural order of life in the eyes of the Portuguese. Opposition to the regime, such as it exists outside of a few hushed meetings from dissident settler exiles, is to be found outside of the colony itself. It is with the migrant laborers abroad that the stirrings of organized resistance can be found, and even then, it is with movements in their nascency. The sisal plantation laborers in neighboring British Tanganyika and
It is in the crown jewel of Portuguese Africa, Angola, that the consequences of such attitudes first appeared. During the 1950s, thousands of Angolans fled the poverty and forced labor of the colony for better prospects in neighboring Congo, congregating in the capital of Léopoldville. Here, prominent Angolan refugees were soon entangled in Congolese political intrigues and increasingly nationalist undercurrents, although they never forgot the homeland they had fled. The epitome of this phenomenon is Holden Roberto, an Angolan who spent nearly his whole life in the Congo, taking leadership of the exiled Angolan Kongo separatist movements in the 1950s, coalescing into the United Party of Angola (UPA). In 1959, Roberto took advantage of labor discontent in the north of the country and, inspired by wider unrest around the continent, he attempted to launch an incursion from the Congo. His haphazard attempt at revolution posed no serious threat to the colonial regime, but it had enough popular support to awaken officials out of a self-assured stupor. Their belated response proved brutal, sending the rebels fleeing back across the border, with close to a million refugees behind them, amplifying Congo's existing political crises. American intelligence and the Congolese administration cajoled Roberto's newly founded UPA into forming a coalition with myriad other Angolan liberation organizations, even the radicals of Augustinho Neto's MPLA, recently returned from a long exile in Brazil. Together they formed the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Angola (FDLA).
Now, in 1962, the FDLA has organized a second Angolan incursion, though it faces prospects little better than the first. These repeated failures have spurred increasing disillusionment with Roberto's authoritarian leadership. More militant members in the FDLA have begun to look towards the Azad Hind-trained Jonas Savimbi as a challenger to Roberto. They insist that a change in strategy is required, and that Roberto's fixation on the north is a product of his Bakongo chauvinism rather than revolutionary principle. For these dissidents, eastern Angola beckons. In Luanda, the Portuguese have grown increasingly aware of the role of the Congo in their African misfortunes and consider options to neutralize its influence. However, the Portuguese must be cautious in this; Léo'ville is no scattered guerrilla band, and is a key American partner to boot.
On the other side of the continent, in Mozambique, the situation is quite different. Under the steady, experienced leadership of Governor-General Gabriel Maurício Teixeira, the colony has seen none of the violence or chaos experienced by its Atlantic counterpart. True, the state's cotton regime has spread misery throughout the north while the inadequacies of southern subsistence farming force unnumbered thousands into grueling labor in the mines of South Africa and Rhodesia - but this is simply the natural order of life in the eyes of the Portuguese. Opposition to the regime, such as it exists outside of a few hushed meetings from dissident settler exiles, is to be found outside of the colony itself. It is with the migrant laborers abroad that the stirrings of organized resistance can be found, and even then, it is with movements in their nascency. The sisal plantation laborers in neighboring British Tanganyika and