Informational: Nations of the Iron Pact African Commonwealth
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
So, the African Commonwealth... a nation-building project that is mired with so much bad, good, and mixed results that it's a walking contradiction. The initial plans for the African Commonwealth was born out of the two genocides that Imperial Germany did during the early days of it's colonial ambitions (both ethnic groups would, after the Great War of Resistance, get special treatment and grants as part of an apology for this) in a loose family of plans known as 'Mittle Afrika'. In actuality, the first phase of these plans was already being carried out before World War 1 with various colonies being testing grounds for various nation-building methods. Some of these methods were harsh and caused untold amounts of problems. Some were rather positive, making great strides in ensuring that a genuine nation was being built there. The others were, sadly, of a mixed bag, having both good and bad properties.
The one constant thread that all these 'nation-building experiments' had was infrastructure building. The German colonial administration -which would later be restructured into a nation building administration via Adolf Hitler during the tail end of his term as Chancellor- would undertake massive infrastructure projects, building schools, universities, hospitals, clinics to rail lines, telegraph (and later phone and radio) networks, power grids, canal systems, and ports to not only increase productivity, but also ensure that things would go smoothly. Many of the ethnic groups in Africa would later take the German word for school as their own (like in GATE/OTL, some nations in Africa actually have their word for school actually be a loan word from Germany), but this wasn't a smooth process in the least.
The biggest and most constant problem that the nation-building efforts had was due to the numerous ethnic groups in Africa itself, all of them having their own grudges against each other and that was always a source of immense grief for everyone involved. This, inevitably, led to various acts of violence where -despite the various garrisons' best efforts- numerous innocents died due to ethnic conflict (and in some cases, this world's first bouts of ethnic terrorism). Many methods to have everyone get along were tried and sadly many of them backfired into ethnic conflict. However, some administrators got rather inventive and would eventually develop a system of cultural abrasion and education to help alleviate the situation, and while this system wasn't perfect, it helped limit ethnic conflict. Eventually this system would succeed beyond all expectations.
By the 1960s, the nation-building was going slower than expected. This is partially due to the aftermath of WW2 and the various ripple conflicts from that war and the fact that outside of raw resources, Africa didn't have much for itself. At least, until a discovery was made in 1967 when a nation-building administrator was stuck in one of the tribal villages on the west coast of Africa and made a discovery of a lifetime: the discovery of viable biopolymers. To be specific, the ethnic group that the village belonged to had -for centuries- utilize a concoction made from a specific wood resin and a specific seaweed to create a plastic-like material that strengthened and water proofed whatever it was painted on. When this administrator got back to his office, he quickly asked for a team of scientists to come with him to verify what he had seen. The research took almost a decade to complete, but the discovery was unmistakable: a viable biopolymer that can be used in building construction. With the tree viable across much of Africa and the seaweed across Africa's coastline, a whole new industry was created. Half a decade later -and quite by accident, and the discovery created a biopolymer plastic that was great for storage containers- it was discovered that this biopolymer material could be modified by changing the resin, making it an even more valuable material. This discovery caused a major interest in traditional methods by the various ethnic groups, leading to the discovery of whole new medicines, with the ethnic groups getting the patent rights in the process.
Politically, the African Commonwealth started out of a collection of colonial administrations. When the Americans started with their joint administration program during the interwar years, there was a lot of problems in how it would all pan out. At first, the Americans wanted to start creating a democracy right away, but the Germans believed that it would be a recipe for disaster. Quite a few problems stem from this sadly enough, and threatened to cause the entire experiment to fall apart until a group of Africans with a higher education, some Americans, and some Bovarians worked out a plan of action: gradual democracy. The idea was, oddly enough, mindbogglingly simple (or to quote one administrator 'so simple that it was stupid'): slowly introduce the idea and systems of democracy at the local level and slowly work your way up from there. This, as all things, didn't start out that well. Even with this simple idea, things didn't go as planned and in some cases caused ethnic conflict. The planners persevered however, and slowly built an effective bedrock for a democracy. So, during the 1960s, a convention was called and this convention took almost a decade to hammer everything out, leading to what the African Commonwealth is today.
In essence, the African Commonwealth is a rather unique creature, taking elements from all nations to suit it's needs. The executive -for example- is a fusion between the US and Imperial Germany, with what amounts to be an elected king and his heir (the President and Vice President) and a Chancellor for domestic policy while the legislative is heavily reminiscent of US Congress with two more houses for the various ethnic groups (with one house being similar to the Senate that each ethnic group had equal representation and the other being similar to the House of Representatives which had population as a determining factor for representatives). This melting pot of governments had it's problems as the nation building administration slowly pulled out during the '70s, partially because of how new and different it was. As the people got used to the new government, however, the easier things went. While ethnic-based problems do still exist, it hasn't blown up to disastrous proportions in the African Commonwealth's history.
The one constant thread that all these 'nation-building experiments' had was infrastructure building. The German colonial administration -which would later be restructured into a nation building administration via Adolf Hitler during the tail end of his term as Chancellor- would undertake massive infrastructure projects, building schools, universities, hospitals, clinics to rail lines, telegraph (and later phone and radio) networks, power grids, canal systems, and ports to not only increase productivity, but also ensure that things would go smoothly. Many of the ethnic groups in Africa would later take the German word for school as their own (like in GATE/OTL, some nations in Africa actually have their word for school actually be a loan word from Germany), but this wasn't a smooth process in the least.
The biggest and most constant problem that the nation-building efforts had was due to the numerous ethnic groups in Africa itself, all of them having their own grudges against each other and that was always a source of immense grief for everyone involved. This, inevitably, led to various acts of violence where -despite the various garrisons' best efforts- numerous innocents died due to ethnic conflict (and in some cases, this world's first bouts of ethnic terrorism). Many methods to have everyone get along were tried and sadly many of them backfired into ethnic conflict. However, some administrators got rather inventive and would eventually develop a system of cultural abrasion and education to help alleviate the situation, and while this system wasn't perfect, it helped limit ethnic conflict. Eventually this system would succeed beyond all expectations.
By the 1960s, the nation-building was going slower than expected. This is partially due to the aftermath of WW2 and the various ripple conflicts from that war and the fact that outside of raw resources, Africa didn't have much for itself. At least, until a discovery was made in 1967 when a nation-building administrator was stuck in one of the tribal villages on the west coast of Africa and made a discovery of a lifetime: the discovery of viable biopolymers. To be specific, the ethnic group that the village belonged to had -for centuries- utilize a concoction made from a specific wood resin and a specific seaweed to create a plastic-like material that strengthened and water proofed whatever it was painted on. When this administrator got back to his office, he quickly asked for a team of scientists to come with him to verify what he had seen. The research took almost a decade to complete, but the discovery was unmistakable: a viable biopolymer that can be used in building construction. With the tree viable across much of Africa and the seaweed across Africa's coastline, a whole new industry was created. Half a decade later -and quite by accident, and the discovery created a biopolymer plastic that was great for storage containers- it was discovered that this biopolymer material could be modified by changing the resin, making it an even more valuable material. This discovery caused a major interest in traditional methods by the various ethnic groups, leading to the discovery of whole new medicines, with the ethnic groups getting the patent rights in the process.
Politically, the African Commonwealth started out of a collection of colonial administrations. When the Americans started with their joint administration program during the interwar years, there was a lot of problems in how it would all pan out. At first, the Americans wanted to start creating a democracy right away, but the Germans believed that it would be a recipe for disaster. Quite a few problems stem from this sadly enough, and threatened to cause the entire experiment to fall apart until a group of Africans with a higher education, some Americans, and some Bovarians worked out a plan of action: gradual democracy. The idea was, oddly enough, mindbogglingly simple (or to quote one administrator 'so simple that it was stupid'): slowly introduce the idea and systems of democracy at the local level and slowly work your way up from there. This, as all things, didn't start out that well. Even with this simple idea, things didn't go as planned and in some cases caused ethnic conflict. The planners persevered however, and slowly built an effective bedrock for a democracy. So, during the 1960s, a convention was called and this convention took almost a decade to hammer everything out, leading to what the African Commonwealth is today.
In essence, the African Commonwealth is a rather unique creature, taking elements from all nations to suit it's needs. The executive -for example- is a fusion between the US and Imperial Germany, with what amounts to be an elected king and his heir (the President and Vice President) and a Chancellor for domestic policy while the legislative is heavily reminiscent of US Congress with two more houses for the various ethnic groups (with one house being similar to the Senate that each ethnic group had equal representation and the other being similar to the House of Representatives which had population as a determining factor for representatives). This melting pot of governments had it's problems as the nation building administration slowly pulled out during the '70s, partially because of how new and different it was. As the people got used to the new government, however, the easier things went. While ethnic-based problems do still exist, it hasn't blown up to disastrous proportions in the African Commonwealth's history.