AHC: Much greater Islamization of various countries?

[WolfBear]

Here's an interesting AHC: Have much greater Islamization of various countries. So far, I can think of:

-India: Permanently keep both Pakistan and Bangladesh.
-France: Permanently keep Algeria. If it could expand even further into additional Muslim-majority territories, so much the better.
-Italy: Permanently keep both Libya and Eritrea.
-Israel: Conquer either the entire West Bank or at least the southern half of the southern West Bank in 1948-1949.
-Russia: Permanently keep Central Asia. If Russia could expand even further than that--into eastern Anatolia, northern Iran, northern Afghanistan, Xinjiang, and/or any other Muslim-majority territories, then so much the better!
-Greece: Have the Megali Idea actually succeed after the end of World War I.
-Serbia: Permanently keep Kosovo.

Anyway, which additional realistic exampels of this can you think of?

 

[raharris1973]

-Spain
-Portugal
-Bulgaria
-Serbia
-Sicily (Two Sicilies) & by extension Italy
-Romania
-Hungary

The above could be summed up for the basically the same reason: Don't kick out, massacre, or hassle Muslims so much on conquering political control or independence from them, leave them as a taxed minority in a reversed dhimmitude situation or whatever is mild enough that it is not worth it for them to leave their houses, shops and gardens in these countries.

-Britain - somehow Britain directly annexes/incorporates Cyprus, Trinidad, or Guyana, or Borneo, or Singapore
-United States - Filipino statehood movement succeeds, Mindanao supplies a large Muslim population. Alternatively, at some point, maybe as part of a lend-lease deal or during the world wars, the US acquires Trinidad.
-China- Never has to cede northwestern Xinjiang to Russian empire in mid-nineteenth century
-Germany- retains rule over Tanganyika perpetually
-Netherlands - retains rule over Surinam perpetually
-Armenia- Achieves Wilsonian Armenia borders, or borders of any larger size of OTL, and does not engage in a completely successful ethnic cleansing or genocide
-Ethiopia - Never forced to concede independence to Eritrea
-Yugoslavia - keep existing, and hold on to Bosnia and Kosovo while doing so
-Ottoman Empire - keep existing, and stabilize a footprint and border further into Europe lasting until the modern day

For ones you've mentioned already -
Russia is quite easy - in the earliest years of Communist rule, most of the Central Asian SSRs, except Bukhara and Khiva, were part of the RFSR.

 

[Skallagrim]

-Netherlands - retains rule over Surinam perpetually

Suriname is peanuts. Retain the Dutch East Indies! Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on Earth, qua population. If the Dutch East Indies are somehow directly integrated into the Netherlands, then you've just turned the Netherlands into the world's foremost Muslim country!

 

[Earl]

Suriname is peanuts. Retain the Dutch East Indies! Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on Earth, qua population. If the Dutch East Indies are somehow directly integrated into the Netherlands, then you've just turned the Netherlands into the world's foremost Muslim country!

Wont happen because of well, the above. Not a single duthc goverment would want to have such a massive population of culturally diffrent people in their nation.

 

[WolfBear]

Wont happen because of well, the above. Not a single duthc goverment would want to have such a massive population of culturally diffrent people in their nation.

But if the French could ever successfully integrate Algeria, then why not the Dutch with the Dutch East Indies as well?

Suriname is peanuts. Retain the Dutch East Indies! Indonesia is the largest Muslim country on Earth, qua population. If the Dutch East Indies are somehow directly integrated into the Netherlands, then you've just turned the Netherlands into the world's foremost Muslim country!

The Dutch could also bring in a lot of Indonesian guest workers to work on Surinamese plantations, who could later on end up staying there permanently. This isn't as unrealistic as you might think: After all, coolie labor is the reason that Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago currently have large Indian/South Asian populations.

-Spain
-Portugal
-Bulgaria
-Serbia
-Sicily (Two Sicilies) & by extension Italy
-Romania
-Hungary

The above could be summed up for the basically the same reason: Don't kick out, massacre, or hassle Muslims so much on conquering political control or independence from them, leave them as a taxed minority in a reversed dhimmitude situation or whatever is mild enough that it is not worth it for them to leave their houses, shops and gardens in these countries.

Makes also. Also, why not Ukrainea s well?

-Britain - somehow Britain directly annexes/incorporates Cyprus, Trinidad, or Guyana, or Borneo, or Singapore
-United States - Filipino statehood movement succeeds, Mindanao supplies a large Muslim population. Alternatively, at some point, maybe as part of a lend-lease deal or during the world wars, the US acquires Trinidad.
-China- Never has to cede northwestern Xinjiang to Russian empire in mid-nineteenth century
-Germany- retains rule over Tanganyika perpetually
-Netherlands - retains rule over Surinam perpetually
-Armenia- Achieves Wilsonian Armenia borders, or borders of any larger size of OTL, and does not engage in a completely successful ethnic cleansing or genocide
-Ethiopia - Never forced to concede independence to Eritrea
-Yugoslavia - keep existing, and hold on to Bosnia and Kosovo while doing so
-Ottoman Empire - keep existing, and stabilize a footprint and border further into Europe lasting until the modern day

What about Greece if the Megali Idea succeeds without (too much) ethnic cleansing and/or genocide?

Megali Idea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For ones you've mentioned already -
Russia is quite easy - in the earliest years of Communist rule, most of the Central Asian SSRs, except Bukhara and Khiva, were part of the RFSR.

Would be even better if Russia manages to completely avoid Communism and subsequently get a lot of Muslim immigrants from elsewhere as per the OTL Western European model. It could of course also keep Central Asia and Azerbaijan as well. Imagine a lot of Turks, Persians, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Uyghurs settling in Russia!

 

[Skallagrim]

Wont happen because of well, the above. Not a single duthc goverment would want to have such a massive population of culturally diffrent people in their nation.

But if the French could ever successfully integrate Algeria, then why not the Dutch with the Dutch East Indies as well?

Well, the French keeping Algeria was already a long shot. As OTL proves, even keeping just part of Algeria was a long shot. meanwhile, Indonesia has a much larger population, and the great bulk of them is Muslim. So @Earl is right that no Dutch government would want to integrate Indonesia as a consituent part of the Netherlands. Because much as India getting full voting rights in a hypothetical British federation... this development would turn the result into "THE KINGDOM OF INDONESIA and also the Netherlands".

That being said, there were people who wanted to prevent decolonisation at all costs. The last champion of that cause, in fact, was the Dutch iteration of that one overly-fervent Colonel that every country's history seems to produce at one time or another: Colonel Raymond Westerling. (His story is pretty awesome, if also crazy.)

Anyway, without World War II, I think the Dutch government would have fought with great fervour to keep the Dutch East Indies subdued. The great destruction of World War II left the Dutch so weakened that they couldn't effectively prevent Indonesian independence. Moreover, the USA basically said "rapid decolonisation or no Marshall Aid" and kept pushing about it. (This, incidentally, prevented the Dutch plan to decolonise gradually and turn the Christian regions of Indonesia into a separate country. Thanks to misplaced American idealism, Dutch colonialism in Indonesia was simply replaced with -- more brutal -- Javanese colonialism.)

In a scenario without Herr Hitler's wars, the European powers would have fought expansionist Japan. The successful defence of Indonesia would have driven home the (perceived) validity of colonialism to both the Dutch and the Indonesians. This, combined with a Netherlands not occupied by Germany or weakened by war, would lead to Indonesian independence efforts getting curb-stomped by the KNIL.

The likeliest outcome is simply a delayed decolonisation, presumably with Indonesia eventually spinning off into multiple countries. In fact, the Muslim-majority ones are most likely to leave, and the (much smaller) Christian-majority one(s) would be more likely to stay with the Netherlands. And more likely in some kind of commonwealth than as an integral part of the Netherlands.

However, scenarios can be imagined where the Dutch hold on to all of Indonesia, and things gradually (very gradually) evolve to more and more representation for the colonies. Until, at some point, Indonesians have enough say in the matter to force things to their logical conclusion: full integration. This is a very, very long shot. But stranger things have happened in history.

The Dutch could also bring in a lot of Indonesian guest workers to work on Surinamese plantations, who could later on end up staying there permanently. This isn't as unrealistic as you might think: After all, coolie labor is the reason that Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago currently have large Indian/South Asian populations.

This happened in OTL, and happened to about the extent that it was economically profitable to do so. For the Dutch to do it on a meaningfully greater scale, they'd have to prioritise something other than economic concerns. That goes against the entire rationale of all Dutch colonialism.

 

[WolfBear]

Well, the French keeping Algeria was already a long shot. As OTL proves, even keeping just part of Algeria was a long shot. meanwhile, Indonesia has a much larger population, and the great bulk of them is Muslim. So @Earl is right that no Dutch government would want to integrate Indonesia as a consituent part of the Netherlands. Because much as India getting full voting rights in a hypothetical British federation... this development would turn the result into "THE KINGDOM OF INDONESIA and also the Netherlands".

That being said, there were people who wanted to prevent decolonisation at all costs. The last champion of that cause, in fact, was the Dutch iteration of that one overly-fervent Colonel that every country's history seems to produce at one time or another: Colonel Raymond Westerling. (His story is pretty awesome, if also crazy.)

Anyway, without World War II, I think the Dutch government would have fought with great fervour to keep the Dutch East Indies subdued. The great destruction of World War II left the Dutch so weakened that they couldn't effectively prevent Indonesian independence. Moreover, the USA basically said "rapid decolonisation or no Marshall Aid" and kept pushing about it. (This, incidentally, prevented the Dutch plan to decolonise gradually and turn the Christian regions of Indonesia into a separate country. Thanks to misplaced American idealism, Dutch colonialism in Indonesia was simply replaced with -- more brutal -- Javanese colonialism.)

In a scenario without Herr Hitler's wars, the European powers would have fought expansionist Japan. The successful defence of Indonesia would have driven home the (perceived) validity of colonialism to both the Dutch and the Indonesians. This, combined with a Netherlands not occupied by Germany or weakened by war, would lead to Indonesian independence efforts getting curb-stomped by the KNIL.

The likeliest outcome is simply a delayed decolonisation, presumably with Indonesia eventually spinning off into multiple countries. In fact, the Muslim-majority ones are most likely to leave, and the (much smaller) Christian-majority one(s) would be more likely to stay with the Netherlands. And more likely in some kind of commonwealth than as an integral part of the Netherlands.

However, scenarios can be imagined where the Dutch hold on to all of Indonesia, and things gradually (very gradually) evolve to more and more representation for the colonies. Until, at some point, Indonesians have enough say in the matter to force things to their logical conclusion: full integration. This is a very, very long shot. But stranger things have happened in history.



This happened in OTL, and happened to about the extent that it was economically profitable to do so. For the Dutch to do it on a meaningfully greater scale, they'd have to prioritise something other than economic concerns. That goes against the entire rationale of all Dutch colonialism.

Re: Separating the Christian parts of Indonesia: Are we going to see an independent East and West Indonesia? :

And is Hindu-majority Bali going to be made into its own country?

Otherwise, though, very sensible analysis!

Also, what about responding to this part of one of my previous posts? :

Would be even better if Russia manages to completely avoid Communism and subsequently get a lot of Muslim immigrants from elsewhere as per the OTL Western European model. It could of course also keep Central Asia and Azerbaijan as well. Imagine a lot of Turks, Persians, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Uyghurs settling in Russia!

 

[Skallagrim]

Re: Separating the Christian parts of Indonesia: Are we going to see an independent East and West Indonesia? :

And is Hindu-majority Bali going to be made into its own country?

Otherwise, though, very sensible analysis!

I think you'd see multiple states, probably like this:

So a reduced, Islamic-majority Indonesia + independent Hindu-majority Bali + independent Catholic-majority Flores + Protestant-majority "Republic of the Lesser Sunda Islands" + Protestant-majority "Republic of the Maluku Islands" + independent Western New Guinea (which joins with Papua New Guinea).

Also, what about responding to this part of one of my previous posts?

That's another line of discussion, from which I'll refrain at present.

 

[Bassoe]

-France: Permanently keep Algeria. If it could expand even further into additional Muslim-majority territories, so much the better.

Simpler french solution; wait. Although that's more of a FHC than an AHC.

 

[WolfBear]

Simpler french solution; wait. Although that's more of a FHC than an AHC.

I don't think that France's Muslim population will go much beyond 25% due to the increasing white nationalism and/or Western cultural chauvinism in France as well as due to the eventual return of the Western breeders, including in France:

The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely in the foreseeable future

The forecasting of the future growth of world population is of critical importance to anticipate and address a wide range of global challenges. The Un…

www.sciencedirect.com