[Alternate Mondays] No Ethiopia

[princeofcairo]

Time for another experiment, as I have grown fizzy with alternate history recently. So until I (or you) get bored, I'll be doing something on LJ on Alternate Mondays. Might be a review of an AH book or website, might be a pointer, might be a full-fledged AH based on something I've been reading

Comments

What about 1936?

[po8crg]

If there's an Italian Raj from 1907, then there's no independent state of Abyssinia for Mussolini to invade in 1935.

Without an invasion of Abyssinia, there's no economic sanctions against Italy, and Mussolini is on better terms with France and Britain. Given Mussolini's objections to Austria aligning with Germany before he was forced (from his perspective) into the German alliance after Abyssinia, it's entirely possible that the Anschluss is opposed by Italy, and that could easily fall into a shooting war in 1938 - or Hitler could back down short of war as he did at the time of the Dolfuss assassination in 1934.

The League of Nations would also be rather healthier without the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, which will also interfere with the build-up to WWII.

Re: What about 1936?

[princeofcairo]

That's kind of interesting -- Italian Raj => a neutral Mussolini. Maybe Fascist Italy holds on to its colonies after the war, as (fascist) Spain and Portugal did, and it's the decolonization movement when the Left takes power that gives us our mega-Commie Ethiopian civil war a la Angola.

Re: What about 1936?

[princeofcairo]

To say nothing of the very real possibility, as you note, that WWII begins in 1938 over Austria, which implies that it ends vastly differently -- Wehrmacht coup d'etat? Soviet invasion in 1940? Lots of possibilities.

To wrench things back to the (mostly) familiar, of course, you can easily posit Hitler backing down over the Anschluss in 1938, then trying again in 1939 after another year of Italian-German cooperation (and shared victory) in Spain. Just move everything down a year (with slightly gruesome consequences for the war), and Mussolini still gives in to the temptation to annex Nice in 1941.

But yes, this is a lovely wrinkle. Which is the purpose of Alternate Mondays.

Re: What about 1936?

[po8crg]

A Soviet invasion two years after the end of the Great Purge? How would they have gotten their act together that quickly?

[tyrannio]

How does this affect the arrival of Ethiopian food in the US?

[princeofcairo]

If the Ethiopian Union goes Communist in the 1970s, then not at all. (Except maybe to make even more Somalis open "Ethiopian" restaurants.)

If it stays right-wing and repressive, then Congress (absent Cold War incentives) might not expand (contra OTL) the number of Ethiopian immigrants allowed into the US, diminishing the number of restaurants.

Selassie

[carneggy]

Given that the Ethopians in OTL fought against Italian occupation (alongside the British as partisans in 1941), no reason to think that Halie Selassie couldn't be worked into a Che-like 'rebel general' during the Italian Raj and still have him influence Rastafarianism. He could even be speaking before the League of Nations in 35, albeit with a slightly different bent.

Heck, have him get assassinated in 1960 as the touch-off of the Civil War, and he becomes a martyr icon to blend into Rastafarianism.

on Schuyler's BLACK EMPIRE

[samedietc]

One thing, Ken: while Schuyler's BLACK EMPIRE serial might seem like an entry in the SFnal tradition of "Ethiopia Triumphant," I want to point out that all of Schuyler's black heroes are African-AMERICANS; and also, while the first series (THE BLACK INTERNATIONALE) is largely about defeating European powers, the second (BLACK EMPIRE) is largely about reforming Africa--by any means necessary. I mean, after all, there's a scene where the African-American army has to beat a tribe of African cannibals, a scene which fits not so much with the "Ethiopia Triumphant" tradition and more with the "Great White Hunter" tradition

Re: on Schuyler's BLACK EMPIRE

[ratmmjess]

Dr. Belsidus in Black Internationale is from "Spanish Guinea," IIRC, and Saddiu Mattchu in "The Ethiopian Murder Mystery" is Ethiopian.

Re: on Schuyler's BLACK EMPIRE

[samedietc]

re: the Americans in BI/BE

Re: on Schuyler's BLACK EMPIRE

[ratmmjess]

I'm working off my notes as well, so I could be wrong about Belsidus, lord knows.

I've got entries for, I think, six or seven of Schuyler's characters in my encyclopedia. All but Mattchu and (maybe) Belsidus are American. So I think you're point is generally solid, yeah. (Mattchu's far and away the most interesting to me of the group).

[anonymous]

I'm more interested in the way no Ethiopia would affect African nationalism. With Ethiopia under the Italian heel from the turn of the century, there's no sovereign African country except Liberia and transparently bogus set-ups like Morocco and Egypt.

Would this dampen the anticolonial movement after WWII? Africans glumly accepting that it's inevitable for Some White Guys to be running things and the only question is which ones?

Or would it, paradoxically, lead to more of a pan-African consciousness in the Fifties and Sixties?

Cambias

[princeofcairo]

I must confess that I don't know nearly enough African nationalist political theory to know how much of it came from Ethiopia, as opposed to Gandhi or Lenin. (Or Marcus Garvey, for that matter.)

I strongly suspect that if India becomes independent, the East African states start agitating for independence on historical schedule, and that Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyere can provide models for Algeria, Guinea, and Congo if Haile Selaisse doesn't. Certainly Ben Bella, Sekou Toure, and Patrice Lumumba didn't strike me as particularly Ethiopia-proud in their rhetoric in OTL.

[zonemind]

By my lights, Ethiopia/Abyssinia was a white obsession rather than an African one; dates back to Prester John, I suppose. Anyway, the big names I know all came from/were based in West Africa: Edward Blyden, Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sékou Touré (whom you mentioned), etc.