Azania
United States of Azania | |
|---|---|
 Flag
 Coat of arms
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Motto: One People, One Country, One God | |
.svg) Location of Azania with Africa | |
| Capital and largest city |
Independence, D.L. |
| Official languages | English |
| Ethnic groups (2020) |
77.5% Black 12.3% Native 3.67% Arab 3.56% Asian 1.97% White 1.03% Colored |
| Demonym(s) | Azanian |
| Government | Federal republic |
| Verônica Elza de Assunção | |
| Michaël Durand | |
| Josiah Hawkins | |
| Dorothy Rayleigh | |
| Legislature | Congress |
| Senate | |
| House of Representatives | |
| Formation | |
| May 13, 1810 | |
| November 8, 1864 | |
| January 1, 1865 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 6,679,505 km2 (2,578,971 sq mi) (7th) |
• Water (%) | 2.23 |
| Population | |
• 2020 census | 1,081,746,715 (2nd) |
• Density | 154.3/km2 (399.6/sq mi) (Nth) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2020 estimate |
• Total | $25.428 trillion (2nd) |
• Per capita | $23,507 (84th) |
| GDP (nominal) | 2020 estimate |
• Total | $21.003 trillion (1st) |
• Per capita | $19,416 (57th) |
| Gini (2020) |
 52.9high |
| HDI (2020) |
 0.840very high · Nth |
| Currency | Azan (₳) (AZN) |
| Time zone | UTC+1 to +3 (Azania Standard Time) |
| Date format | mm-dd-yyyy AD |
| Driving side | right |
| Calling code | +2 |
| ISO 3166 code | AZN |
| Internet TLD | .an |
The United States of Azania (USA), commonly known as United Azania (U.A. or UA), or simply Azania, is a large sovereign state located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Azania is the world's second-most populous country and its second-largest democracy, with a population of some 1.081 billion inhabitants. The overwhelming majority of the citizens of Azanian heritage, the descendants of free black colonists predominately from Brazil, the Caribbean, the former United States. The official language of Azania is English. Azania is an federal republic, which was established in 1865 following the disintegration of the United States in the wake of the American Civil War. The country consists of 70 states and one federal district which comprises the capital the country. Azania is the seventh-largest country in the world, spanning a total of 6,679,505 square kilometres (2,578,971 sq mi), which accounts for nearly a sixth of the continent's landmass, and a significant portion of Sub-Saharan Africa, from the Ubangi River and Great Lakes region in the east, to Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Zambezi River in the south. Azania boasts various geographical features and a wide range of climates and biomes on the continent, and is considered one of the most megadiverse countries in the world. Azania's capital of Independence, D.L. is the largest city in the country, as well as one of the largest cities in the world; other cities such as TBD, TBD, TBD, and TBD are among the largest cities on the continent of Africa. Azania is ranked as one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, owing to its vast and diverse array of wildlife, geography, and climate.
Prior to American colonization, the region that would later become Azania had been settled by the Bantu peoples some 2,000-3,000 years ago, in a series of great migratory waves that spanned all of modern-day Azania. Several Bantu tribes would be established in the various regions of sub-Saharan Africa south of the Congo River, some of these being the Fang, Kongo, Mongo, Luba, and Maasai. Bringing iron tools, crops such as cassava, sorghum, and rice south with them, the Bantu moved swiftly into the south, displacing the native pygmies and Khoisans who once dominated the region, and forcing them into isolated pockets within the tropical rainforests of the Congo Basin, and the arid lands of Southern Africa. While many of these migrants ultimately turned to hunter-gatherer lifestyles to support themselves, others such as the Shona and Luganda, founded great empires that dominated large swathes of territory in the newly conquered lands, and built great cities such as M'banza-Kongo and Great Zimbabwe. The population of pre-colonial Africa is estimated to have reached some 80 million people by 1500, roughly concurrent with the population of Europe during the same period. Trade with the Europeans following the arrival of the Portuguese in Benin in 1485, would see the introduction of the transatlantic slave trade, and the collapse of the black African population over the next six centuries.
Following a rise in racial tensions between whites and blacks in the United States during the late-1790s and early-1800s, plans were laid out to help promote a "Back-to-Africa" movement among the free black population of the country. Spearheaded by the Azanian Colonization Authority (ACA), the repatriation of free black Americans to Africa became a major operation of the United States federal government under the Madison administration in 1809. Hundreds of free blacks from the United States and Canada were transported from North America to Central Africa at the mouth of the Congo River, where they founded the town of Liberty in 1810. Due to the national politics of the United States and the nature of slavery in that country, both abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates would promote the emigration of free blacks from the Americas back to Africa as a means of alleviating the free of a slave revolt in the United States, as well as preventing the growing influence of free blacks from interfering in the institution itself. The Azania Territory as the colony had come to be known, would prosper as funding from the United States poured into the local government's coffer, and the arrival of skilled black laborers helped to bolster the workforce of the colonial population. Within a span of just fifty years, the immigrant population had risen from a mere eight thousand to some one and a half million by the time of the 1860 census. In spite of its progress, wars with the native Africans for control of the vast lands claimed by the colony would rage on for decades, well in the late-19th century.
Azania ultimately declared its independence in 1864 near the end of the American Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, leading to the inevitable the collapse and disintegration of the United States in the wake of the War of Contingency. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans would flee the ensuing chaos caused by the collapse of the United States, and the immediate aftermath of the War of Contingency, as the successor states attempted to claim as much of the former nation as possible, and secure their positions of power in the new order of the land. With none of the successor states laying claim to the colony itself while in the midst of a war, the territorial government of Azania declared independence from the remnants of the United States, and forged the path its forefathers had laid out for it decades ago. A constitution was adopted in 1866, and officially established a federal republic in the former colony, much in the mold of its former parent nation, a mold based on the principles of freedom, liberty, and civil rights for all of its citizens. Azania would proceed to subdue the rest of the surrounding lands south of the Congo for itself, with countless thousands of black settlers looking to the east as a frontier waiting to be conquered by those who had returned to their motherland. These free black settlers saw rapid expansion up the Congo River and throughout the interior of the continent, and the ultimately displacing of the continents many native African peoples, as their manifest right and a duty all of them were required to carry out.
Azania swiftly increased its holdings within Africa, rapidly expanding east and later south into southern Africa, where it would compete with the British Empire for dominance over the protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and the Nyasaland in the late-1880s during the Anglo-Azanian War. After solidifying its dominance in the region, rapid economic and industrial growth followed throughout the country, as the Azanians tapped into the vast mineral riches of the continent to fuel the development of their homeland into a modern industrialized nation. In 1899, the native African population was granted equal rights under the constitution via the Citizenship Act, swelling the population of Azania with the explicit attempt of preventing European interference in the interior affairs of the country. Years of interracial marriage and cultural blending, saw a shift away from a dualistic state with two distinct peoples, and the formation the a singular national identity forged from centuries of foreign oppression and abuses. Regarding itself as the true successor state to the United States of America, Azania promoted itself as a land of liberty, though ironically only for those of black heritage. Decades of racist policies toward whites, Arabs, Asians, and Hispanics from North and South America, would dominate the political landscape of Azania well into the modern era. These would come into force during 1920s, with the beginning of the Azanian Renaissance, period of rapid economic expansion, low unemployment and poverty rates, industrial growth, and reduced government regulations and inflation rates, saw Azania's international profile increase to remarkable levels.
The country chose not involve itself in the First World War, regarding the conflict as a purely European one, and adopted a stance of neutrality for its duration. Instead, Azania opted to play the role of supplier, providing food and arms to both sides throughout the war, and reaping the financial benefits their "bipartisan" approach brought to the homeland. Azania did take part in the Second World War, entering the conflict on the side of the Allied Powers, after the Italians invaded Ethiopia for the second time in 1935. The country covered the African theater of the war for the Allies, and helped to secure the Suez Canal from the British during the North African Campaign. Azanian joined the League of Nations in 1947, and donated heavily to the reconstruction of Europe in the aftermath of the world. During the Cold War, Azania pursued a policy of neutrality, though it at times helped to promote the decolonization of Africa and Asia by European powers, as well as counteract the expansion for communism in both continents. Fearing the possibility of a communist insurgency sponsored by the Soviet Union and Maoist China, Azania developed nuclear weapons in 1973 in line with a "no first-use" policy the following year. Azania became heavily-involved in the War on Terror in the Middle East and Central Asia, following the events of 9/11 in New York City and various other locations in North America.
Azania has since emerged as one of the leading powers on the world stage, hosting numerous international events and summits, as well as serving as an anchor for the Non-Aligned Movement within the League of Nations. It is developed country and boasts a high standard of living and a politically stable climate within the borders of Azania, especially when compared to its African neighbors. Wielding a powerful military force and several financial institutions, Azania is often referred to as the "industrial heart of the world", producing goods and services for all nations and peoples of the globe, and reaping the benefits of a peaceful neutral power. However, due to the high level of globalization in the international economy, Azania was hit hard during the Great Recession of 2007–2012, and still suffers from a high degree of income inequality. Azania ranks as the world's Nth economy in terms of raw industrial output and goods consumed by the population, though lags in terms of household wealth and yearly individual income, of which it ranks 17th and 64th in the world. It is the world's second-largest importer and exporter, though as aforementioned, most of the imported luxury goods are skewed largely toward the wealthy due to a high degree of income inequality. While the racial tensions of the past have largely been alleviated since the mid-20th century, there are still wide gaps between the Azanians of African American and Afro-Brazilian decent, who dominate virtually all aspect of financial and political life in the country, and Azanians of native African descent, who make up about a fourth of the population, but still reside in ghettos and impoverished regions of the country as laborers.
Etymology[edit]
Azania has its etymological roots in both Ancient Greek and the old Bantu language of Zande in the northern region of the country. The usage of the name Azania can be traced back to Ancient Greece, to Pliny the Elder and his mention of the "Azanian Sea", which began somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Adulis in modern-day Eritrea. The region of Azania (Ancient Greek: Ἀζανία, Azanía), was believed to have extended from Adulis all the way down to the southern coast of Africa, as described in the ancient Greek text known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Though there existed and still exist today some dispute as to the starting point of the region, most modern scholars agree to some extent that "Azania" described in part or in whole, some part of eastern Africa, though the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea never mentions the dark-skinned Ethiopians, whom the Greeks had full knowledge of and knew resided in the region. Other beliefs regarding Azania was its existence as an ancient continent by modern geologists, who believed that the continent of Azania may have existed in the region of Madagascar, existing in the area as part of a greater part of that island nation some 850 million years ago. Over several million years, the continent may have collided with mainland Africa, resulting in the formation of the East Africa Orogeny, which split off in time to form the Malagasy Orogeny.
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History[edit]
Prehistory[edit]
Azania is widely believed by most paleoanthropologists to have been host to the earliest inhabited regions on Earth, with some of the oldest human fossils dated back about four million years ago. The fossils of Australopithecus afarensis, commonly held to be the first of the precursors species to evolve into modern man, were discovered in the region of East Africa, where radiometric dating placed the age of the fossils in the range of 3.9–3.0 million years BP. Another species known as Homo ergaster, discovered in 1949, were later carbon-dated with a range dating them to about 1.9 million–600,000 years BP. The eventual emergence of Homo sapiens sometime between 150,000–100,000 years BP, saw the formation of hunter-gather tribes in Sub-Saharan Africa, and migration to other regions of planet 50,000–60,000 years ago. Due to the desertification of the Sahara, beginning in 5000 BC, from a change in the earth's axial tilt, was responsible for cutting off much of the region of the African continent in the south from the rest of the human population. Prior to this period, the Sahara was one of the largest grassland regions on the planet, consisting of flat plains and fertile valleys stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. It has been suggested that during the period of desertification, human migration from the region of Sub-Saharan Africa northwards was responsible for much of the formation of permanent settlements in areas such as Lower Egypt and the Nile Delta.
In the region of the Niger Delta, the ancestors of the Niger–Congo peoples settled down into sedentary communities harvesting rice and cassava crops, and developing some of the most complex civilizations in Africa. Cultures such as the Nok thrived in the region of modern-day Nigeria for centuries prior to the eventual Bantu expansion, and settled much of the neighboring lands leading to rapid overpopulation within the river basin of the Niger. Around 1000 BCE, the Bantu people began what has since become one of the largest periods of mass human migration in recorded history. Hundreds of thousands of Bantu-speaking peoples migrated south into the region of Central Africa, bringing with them the developments of the early West African civilizations, namely iron tools, agricultural practices, deforestation, cattle and livestock, and numerous crops that would later dominate the landscape of the region south of the Congo River. Various cultures would be established in the lands conquered by the Bantu people, such as the Fang in modern-day Bulu and Tsogo, the Kongo in Kikongo, Yaka, and Kimbundu, and the Luba in the state of Luba. The general consensus around the migration of the Bantu is that it mostly took place in two waves; the first wave moving from the Niger delta region into the Congo Basin, and the second wave moving from the basin into the regions of East Africa and Southern Africa.
Modern expeditions conducted during the 19th and 20th centuries revealed, however, that the migration of the Bantu did not take place in a vacuum, with several indigenous people such as the pygmies and Khosian-speaking natives of southern Africa, residing in the region prior to the arrival of the Bantu. Little evidence exists as to whether or not the migratory waves of the Bantu which displaced the pygmies and the bushmen where peaceful or not, but given the abundance of similar cases such as in Europe, the Middle East, and India during the same period, most researchers have concluded that violence may have been utilized to some degree by the migratory waves of the Bantu. In the place of the natives would be forced off of their lands, the Zulu, Xhosa, Shona, Swati, and numerous other Bantu ethnic groups, took the place of the indigenous peoples. Unlike their northern counterparts, urban settlements, irrigation of croplands, and semi-centralized governments, did not emerge as uniformly across the southern Bantu groups as it did with the northern ones. A few of these groups, primarily the Zulu and Swati peoples, did maintain centralized states that managed to thrive well into the industrial era, prior to the arrival of Western powers in the region.
Colonial period[edit]
Exploration and the slave trade[edit]
The colonization of the region of Africa that would become modern-day Azania had for centuries been a dormant activity compared with the rest of the globe during the Age of Sail, originally initiated by the Portuguese 150 years prior following their capture of Ceuta in 1415. The Portuguese seeking to expand their holdings on the African continent and laying the framework for a lucrative spice trade with India, establishing forts across the coastline and introducing European goods into the interior of Africa. Trade between Europe and the lands of West Africa and the tribes and kingdoms of the Congo Basin would flourish for a time, with the trade of gold, ivory, and exotic fruits expanding, and the provision of slaves from the interior of the continent being instrumental in the foundation of the transatlantic slave trade. Portuguese exploration of the interior would be limited, however, as its main focus was on the expansion of the spice trade in the east, though their explorers and traders would continue to visit the continent and establish trading posts along the coastline for the financial benefit of Portugal. With the exception of the colonization of Cape Verde in 1462, and the much earlier colonization of the Canary Islands in 1402, the Portuguese and later European nations would limit themselves almost exclusive to the coastline of Africa, where the threat of malaria and yellow fever could be avoided. Later Portuguese explorers would return to Africa to better establish a naval route to India, leading to the discovering of new lands in the southern regions of the continent. In the south, Bartolomeu Dias rounded a tumultuous region of the sea near the area they christened the "Cape of Storms" in 1488. Lacking the supplies to continue sailing beyond the cape and eastward, Dias and his crew returned to Portugal, where they later named the area the Cape of Good Hope. Nearly a decade later, Vasco da Gama would expand upon the discovery of what Dias had claimed to be the southern-most tip of the continent, and sail north of the cape to East Africa. By 1498, de Gama had discovered the lands of the Zulu, which he named Natal.
Da Gama would later sail north of Natal, and into the region of East Africa, where he reached the prosperous African city of Mombasa, where Arab, Chinese, Indian, and Turkish traders could be found in great number. Portuguese forts would be established in only a handful of locations in the lands they claimed in the modern-day state of TBD and TBD. Beyond this, European involvement in Africa would be greatly restrained by their geopolitical needs in the Western Hemisphere and the Far East of Asia. Much of the allure that did bring Europeans to the continent was the prospect of slave labor, vital to the survival of many colonies established on the islands surrounding Africa, and the growing colonies of the New World, where spices and cash crops were taking over the economy. Aside from these considerations, Africa remained a "virgin continent", yet uncolonized by the European nations that were limited in their own aspirations due to the hostile conditions of the interior. The slave trade on the continent would thrive in the meantime, with the European powers arranging treaties and alliances with the native African kingdoms to supply them with a steady source of slaves from the interior. Some African kingdoms which benefited greatly from this arrangement where the Kingdom of Kongo, the Kingdom of Benin, the Oyo Empire, the Songhai Empire, and the lands of Oman in Zanzibar, among others not named. Through these African intermediaries, the Europeans procured hundreds of thousands of slaves over the centuries to be moved from Africa to their colonies in the Americas. Through the so-called "factories", a series of European coastal trading posts which served as zones of free trade between Europeans and Africans, the slaves of the African kingdoms would be sold for weapons, goods, and clothing, and transported to the colonies of the west. With their new weapons in hand, the African powers would continue to foster a slave-based economy that they would become dependent upon for their survival.
Arriving predominately from the regions of West Africa and Central Africa, hundreds of thousands of African slaves would arrive in the lands of Brazil, British America, the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico, as well as several other smaller colonies throughout the Atlantic, where sugarcane and coffee became vital to the economies of the European colonies in the Americas. Many of the colonies themselves would become wholly dependent upon slave labor in time. The French colony of Saint-Domingue would grow rapidly to boast a population of 540,000 people, half a million of which were slaves. This colony alone was deemed the most profitable in the world at the time, with its profits contributing to a significant portion of the imperial French budget, allowing it to field vast armies back home in Europe. Consequently, as dependence upon slavery grew in the Americas, more and more slaves were required from Africa, leading to a period of depopulation of the continent. Indeed, by the turn of the 18th century, Africa's population had slowed dramatically, increasingly from 80 million in 1700 to 85 million by 1800. The effects of slavery on the continent had effected the kingdoms once dependent upon it as well, such as Benin and Kongo. Attempts to stop slavery within Kongo was quickly extinguished when the Portuguese and their native allies overran the military forces of the Kongolese in the Battle of Mbwila in 1665. The failure of Kongo to stop the Portuguese slave trade resulted in half its population disappearing by the 19th century, and its reliance on Portugal for its survival, leading to an acceptance of vassalage in 1857, ending its 467-years of sovereignty. Benin had fallen into decline as early as the 1700s, but attempts to diversify the economy away from slavery was fiercely opposed by the nobility of the kingdom, upon which the power of the Obas was based. Ultimately, the British conquered the kingdom by 1862, forcing the Benin into a protectorate that saw its sovereignty removed as well.
By the start of the 19th-century, most African nations on the continent were either directly participating in the slave trade, or were linked to it in some peripheral manner either financially or militarily as the source of slaves. Most of the coastline remained free of European domination as in the rest of the world due to the presence of diseases the Europeans held poor immunity toward, allowing for a measure of sovereignty by the African states. However, as the British and French became more embedded in the trade of both slaves and goods to African continent, their presence soon expanded to nearly all of the West African coast, and the majority of the North African region, where the Napoleonic Wars were raging. By the start of American colonization in Central Africa, most of the continent was financial strangled by the slave trade and the subsidiary industries related to it.
Azaan's Rebellion[edit]
The origin of the "back-to-Africa" movement within the former United States could be traced back to the events of the Azaan Revolt of 1793, up until that point the largest slave uprising in modern history prior to the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution. The revolt was named after the Muslim slave Azaan, a Jolof man captured and sold into slavery in 1780 in the region of Senegal. A known firebrand in his homeland, Azaan was a powerful cleric who had run afoul of the ruling authorities in the area by preaching against the brutality of the tribal rulers who had been deeply involved in the slave trade with the French and American merchants operating along the coastline. Seeking to remove a vocal opponent to their rule and business practices, several of the chiefs in Azaan's area tricked him into attending a meeting where they would repent for their actions against fellow Muslims, and seek Azaan's insight on how best to fulfill their obligations to their people. Azaan was ambushed and carried off by his fellow countrymen, and sold into slavery at the infamous House of Slaves in Dakar, where he was later transported from Senegal to the United States. Azaan would be purchased at an auction for slaves in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, and was sent to a tobacco plantation in Amelia County, where he would labor for the next ten years as chattel.
During his time on the plantation, Azaan had developed close relationships with the other slaves, many of whom were both Muslims and from the Jolof territories in Senegal, allowing him a wide range of allies who were familiar with his plight. Indeed, several had been witness to his passionate sermons against the injustices of their old masters back in Africa, and had spoken of Azaan's beliefs to the other slaves who were fond of his teachings. Azaan would lead secret prayers in the slave quarters and help many of them remember passages of the Quran as required by the Islamic faith, while elsewhere he would continue promoting his message of justice and liberty to the slaves while working on the plantation in Arabic, a common tongue many of the slaves could speak. While his sermons in a foreign tongue terrified and angered his masters, leading to many whippings and other punishments, Azaan was never threatened with the potential of execution or being sold to another master. By 1790, Azaan had established himself as the paramount member of the slave community on his plantation, highly-respected and well-connected to other slaves within the county. During his time as a leading member of the slave population on the plantation, Azaan would institute the methods and symbols by which members of his "clergy" would be recognized by other slaves sympathetic to their cause. Knowledgeable of the past abortive revolts by slaves compromised by other slaves, Azaan took no chances when determining who would be joining in his plans for the future.
The plans for a slave uprising within Virginia would begin to take form in 1791, when in the middle of the night Azaan escaped from the plantation and began heading north toward Maryland. However, rather than escape toward the free northern states, Azaan instead went to other plantations throughout northern Virginia to spread his message of liberty to the other slave communities. For two years, Azaan would live in the wild surviving off of foraging and water from streams during the day, and entering the plantations at night to preach his message to the slaves in their quarters, before returning to the woods to hide in caves. Having witnessed the cruelty and indignities visited upon fellow slaves throughout the state, Azaan began to promote a far more violent message of revolt, encouraging slaves to prepare for the day when they would take into their own hands the tools of liberty, freedom, and justice. Moving from one county to another, always wary of being recognized as a slave and turned in to his old masters, Azaan would personally spread the seeds of revolt throughout Virginia's most densely-populated centers of slavery for three years without let up. In 1793, Azaan returned to the plantation he had toiled upon for ten years, where he would begin his rebellion against slavery. Before returning to Amelia County, a date was given to those slaves affiliated with the coming revolt, March 13th, the day when the Islamic prophet Muhammad fought and won the Battle of Badr, turning the odds for Islam and affording it the critic point in history to become a major world religion.
On the evening of March 13th, Azaan and his fellow grabbed their weapons and swarmed the master's house and the houses of the other white servants on the plantation, and butchered everyone they could find. Slaves who had refused to join the rebels and attempted to warn their masters joined them on the list of the deceased. On other plantations throughout the county and parts of the state, the same story was unfolding, with hundreds of slaves moving rapidly to neutralize their masters and their servants, before joining other slaves in their immediate area to join Azaan's force in Amelia County. Within the first few days of the rebellion, the slave army had grown rapidly, swelling to a size in excess of 5,000 men, all of whom were armed with whatever weapons they could obtain before marching out with Azaan to the other areas of the state. The suddenness of the revolt and its brutality had come as a shock to the slave owners in the region, who immediately demanded the federal government do something to crush the rebelling slaves. Congress itself had not been prepared for an army of slaves to materialize just south of the capital, and were in a panic as news of the rebelling force's slow march north reached the ears of the government. Militias were scrambling to counter the slaves wherever they were found, but often the sheer numerical superiority of the slaves prevented the white militias from successfully mounting an organized defense. Indeed, it would not be until a full three months into the revolt that the militias would be able to establish a defense against the escaped slaves.
Azaan's forces freed slaves, tried their former masters, and established "courts of justice" which redistributed goods, wares, food and land to the slaves in the counties they were freed in. While many whites feared death at the hands of the escaped slaves, many of the poorest whites were spared and treated hospitably, as in the eyes of Azaan and his men, they were just as much slaves to their fellow white men as the black slaves were themselves. Many free blacks joined the ranks of Azaan's army along with abolitionists and the poor who sought to loot the houses of the wealthy. By the year's end, though Azaan's conquest had been greatly curtailed by the militias, his forces had ballooned into a massive 30,000-man army occupying nearly a dozen counties in northern Virginia. This force of the disenfranchised teeming in the southern counties could no longer afford to be ignored by the federal government, leading to Congress granting George Washington full power to raise however many men he needed for the crushing of the rebellion. Wasting no time in achieving this goal, President Washington organized a force of 20,000 men, many of whom were militiamen actively fighting against the rebels, and began his slow drive into the occupied counties to uproot the rebels by point of bayonet. No quarter was expected from the slaves, and thus none was to be given by executive order from the commander-in-chief of the army himself. The idea that the slaves could revolt against their masters was obscene in the eyes of the public supporting the institution, and if this rebellion remained too honorable in the eyes of the enslaved, it could lead to a potentially devastating successor. As such, this revolt was to be dealt with in the most ruthless and inhumane manner possible.
Back-to-Africa movement[edit]
Throughout the height of the colonial period, though the source of countless hundreds of thousands of new slaves for the New World, Africa itself was never directly colonized north of the Dutch Cape Colony of South Africa, and the handful of small Portuguese enclaves in Angola and Mozambique. Indeed, it can be said that European colonization in Africa began at the southernmost tip of the continent, and fought its way up north into the increasingly hostile interior. Due to diseases, pests, native tribes, and and a foreboding geography within the interior, the European colonial empires never made any concerted effort to bring the continent under their control. The most extensive colonial possessions on the continent were located in the arid, yet livable regions of northern and southern Africa, and the small islands dotting the waters around the mainland. Less than 1% of the total land area of Africa was under European influence, and even less of the population could count themselves as of white Europeans descent. The few areas that were of Western origin outside of the white colonies were those established by black freedmen from North America. The first of these was the colony of Freetown, the eventual capital of modern-day Sierra Leone. Established the new home for many thousands of Black Loyalists who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War in 1775, the settlement was the first attempt by the British to resettle free blacks on the African continent, though it would end up being their own successful black colony. The eventual success of Sierra Leone would spark a large "Back-to-Africa movement" in the United States, were increasing racial tensions following the country's independence in 1783 saw calls for the repatriation of the free black population. The 1790 census conducted in the United States revealed that approximately 20% of its nearly four million inhabitants were of African descent, with 1.5% of the overall American population consisting of free blacks.
Though small in number, these free black Americans were usually consisted of middle-class individuals, some of whom possessed a great deal of financial affluence. Fearing the potential that these free blacks would pressure the federal government into restricting or even outlawing the institution of slavery in the United States. Other white Americans feared the potential of free blacks displacing them in the workforce as a source of cheap yet skilled labor in the urban centers both ethnicity were moving into in vast numbers, and fought to protect what they regarded as their right to the available new jobs in the country. Finally, the majority of the white American population did not welcoming the increasing influx of free blacks into the cities and into their neighborhoods, regarding their presence in the same space as whites was an affront to the institution of slavery, supposedly undermining the southern economy in most areas, and encouraging slaves to revolt against their masters. Indeed, it was the widely-held belief at that time in American history, that blacks demanding an end to slavery was an impossibility given the "incurable prejudice" of the nation; the best any black man or woman could achieve in the eyes of most whites, would be their own freedom and perhaps that of their families, but never of their entire race. Because of these views and the growing tensions between white and black Americans, a series of repatriation movements to Africa arose throughout the American north, and later gained traction in the southern states. Spearheaded by a man named Roger Kane, a former slave himself from the state of Virginia, a back-to-Africa movement known as the Azania Colonization Authority was established in 1803, seeking to bring free blacks back to Africa, with the goal of building a nation based on the principles of freedom and equality regardless of race or class status. Having purchased his freedom at the age of 15, and built his wealth in the fishing industry, Kane was keen to prove the ability of his people to do more than survive in a society that only tolerated their presence in the country.
Though a noble endeavor, the ACA was plagued by infighting within the free black communities of the United States. Many blacks both freed and enslaved, did not regard the organization highly, believing it to be a ploy by pro-slavery advocates hoping to remove the only bulwark against their attempts to expand slavery across the entire country, that being free blacks of material wealth and influence. Though backed by notable abolitionists such as Charles F. Mercer and John Randolph, as well as the Quakers, of which one of their number, Paul Cuffee, was the wealthiest black man in the country; most blacks did not support the organization and refused to aid in its efforts for years. Kane was faced with the prospect of championing a free black colony in Africa without any free blacks to support him in his pursuits. He was able to gain the backing of Cuffee, who wished to bring free blacks in the United States and elsewhere to Africa, where they could thrive far from the racial discrimination of a white-dominated Western world. There was political will in Washington, D.C. for backing such an initiative by free blacks the establish an American colony in Africa, and emigrate from the United States. The administration of President James Madison was heavily-involved in the repatriation of free blacks to Africa as a preemptive move to forestall further slave revolts and a possible southern secession crisis over the issue of slavery. Madison having grown up on a plantation reliant on slave labor, save slavery as a necessary institution upon which the southern economy was tied at the hip, however, he likewise understood that reliance upon slavery developed a high degree of instability that put at risk the American experiment of democracy and equality for all men. The Three-Fifths Compromise adopted by Congress in 1787, gave southern states disproportionate influence in the government, and thus made slavery not just an economic issue, but a political one as well, and any talk of abolishing slavery would thus infringe upon southern political interests.
Madison understood that as well as slavery existed, the free black population would never stop seeking the abolishing of the institution; he likewise understood that as long as southern wealth and political might were linked to slavery, the wealthy landowners and politicians of the southern states would never allow the death of slavery in the United States. Thus, the only reasonable solution to the issue was to aid in the separation of the two irreconcilable parties, and give both parties an alternative to their goals. Madison himself believed that freed slaves were incapable of successfully integrating into the society that had once enslaved them, and believed that returning them to Africa would have been the better option if given the choice to do so. In 1809, President Madison invited Roger Kane and several ranking members of the ACA to the White House to discuss the possibility of the federal government financing their planned expeditions to Africa to establish colonies there. Other powerful politicians such as Henry Clay, James Monroe, Francis Scott Key, and Daniel Webster, also attended the meeting at the White House, where Kane and his fellow ACA heads would promote the idea of a free black colony in Africa. Kane acknowledged that pro-slavery advocates and anti-abolitionists such as Key, who bitterly opposed the idea of abolition, would never budge on the issue and that the "unconquerable prejudices" of America would make it impossible for free blacks to integrate into white-dominated society. He stated that the Three-Fifths Compromise was too politically-tied to the power of the southern states, making the abolition of the institution of slavery impossible on the federal level. However, Kane likewise pointed out that slavery would never been accepted by northerners who made up the majority of the population in the country, and that as long as free blacks resided there, political pressure on the south would always remain.
As a solution to a problem that had dogged the southern since its founding, Kane presented the president with his plan to found a colony of freedmen in Africa within the Congo Basin, where black Americans could establish for themselves a society more suited to their "predilections and temperament". Clay agreed with the idea, stating that the United States would never be able to overcome the issue of slavery for as long as free blacks held political influence through the abolitionist movement; Webster seconded this opinion, adding that free blacks presented a threat to the institution of slavery, and whose success away from the plantations as freedmen would only serve to foster further revolts throughout the slave population. Key, himself a slaveowner, believed that free blacks would attempt to fund and arm slave revolts in the south, and that removing them from the mainland United States and placing them as far away from the country as possible was the only realistic solution to dealing with them. Acknowledging the arguments of all sides of the debate, Madison agreed to present a bill to Congress sponsoring the formation of a free black colony in Central Africa where it could grow and help "civilize" other Africans on the continent. In September of 1809, Madison presented his bill to procure funding for a black colony for the amount of $15,000, which would go toward further donations from other sources such as the ACA and abolitionists across the country. Congress overwhelmingly approved of the bill, with many southern congressmen believing the bill would help protect slavery in the long-run. In all, the federal government would provide the $15,000 for the first year, and $5,000 for every subsequent year of the colony's existence while adjusting for inflation. Kane and other wealthy free blacks such as Paul Cuffee, TBD, and TBD, contributed a total of $23,000 for the first year expedition. Donations brought in from other sources would raise the final amount to $47,500 dollars.
Azania Territory[edit]
In 1810, the Azania Territory was officially established along the banks of the Congo River, where some 120 colonists would make their homes and prepare the way for further colonists to arrive. Founding the town of Liberty at the mouth of the Congo, the settlement would serve as the port of entry for thousands of new black colonists from the United States to arrive as the began their way into the interior of the continent. By the end of the year, the first census conducted in the territory reported that some 5,800 free blacks had settled in Africa, and were using the river to slowly move deeper and deeper into the interior. This inward expansion was further facilitated by the fact that the majority of the native Africans within the interior had been cleared out by slavers who brought them to the Americas, leaving much of the inland regions depopulated. This was not to say that the interior had been completely stripped bare of any inhabitants. There were many powerful African tribes that would attempt to resist colonial occupation of their lands, attacking settler bands that forced their way deeper into the Congo Basin. This is best exemplified by the resistance put up by the Mongo, who had successfully fended up Portuguese attempts to obtain slaves from among their lands, and were not fond of outsiders - be they white or black - attempting to establish themselves permanently in the region. These concerns would result in the start of the Mongo Wars, a series of three military conflicts for dominance over the lands along the Congo River that would only be decided by the end of the 1870s.
This conflicts with the indigenous peoples would not stall Azania expansion and occupation of the lands around them. Fueled by their deep-seeded desire to escape the enslavement and depredations of racism and discrimination, the black diaspora population flooding into the Azania Territory had lofty expectations for what a society built by those who shared their experiences would become; as such, no force within Africa or even beyond would stand against their people. Over the period of seven decades, Azania would grow rapidly throughout the interior of the continent without opposition bar that from the African natives of the Congo Basin. These natives would be quickly and brutally suppressed by the black colonists from the United States, who were growing in number as free blacks not just from the United States arrived, but blacks from France, the United Kingdom, the Caribbean, and Brazil flocked to the newly settled lands of the Azania Territory to start a new life far from their homelands. Many of these individuals from beyond the United States had quickly integrated into the new culture of the predominately American-influenced culture of the territory, and many more adopted English as their first language upon entering the colony. One of these immigrants, Haitian-born Jean-Michel Darche, who would soon become one of Azania's wealthiest industrialists, stated that he had "been born a slave in Haiti, and been born a man in Azania", a sentiment that would spread rapidly among the immigrant population.
By 1850, approximately 800,000 colonists resided in the territory, having grown exponentially in just the previous four decades at the start of the territory formation. Native Africans would not be counted in the official territorial census, which was prompted largely by the racist and discriminatory practices of the colonial government. Black settlers moving deeper and deeper inland were pushing the natives off their lands, and those who resisted often found themselves forcibly deported to reservations in the tropical and hostile northern territories. Several of these groups such as the Mitsogo in the state of New Biloxi, found themselves rounded up en masse after attempting and failing to resist Azanian intrusions into their homeland, which sat within the timber-rich forests of the Congo. More than 300,000 were either displaced or forced onto reservations in the interior, while their lands were deforested and developed by the black settlers. An influx of new funding from wealthy patrons in other abolitionist circles in Europe and the Americas, helped to sponsor the construction of the <<RAILROAD>>, which would serve as an important means by which the Azanians would continue their inward growth, and develop the fertile lands of the basin and extract its vast mineral wealth. By the end of the 1850s, Azania's non-native population had grown to nearly 1.8 million people, and the industrial population of the territory rapidly expanding to cater to the needs of the colony. In terms of urbanization, the colony had more than thirty cities with a population of 15,000 inhabitants, and two major ports of trade along the coast.
Though Azania's growth was welcomed by in the United States, mainly due to the hope that it would provide some source of relief to the countless slave-induced political turmoil experienced by nation's elites, the success of the colony had mixed reception in other lands. For example, in the United Kingdom, Azania was not viewed in a negative light, as its formation had been built along the same lines as that of Sierre Leone, a British colony founded to cater to the repatriation of former slaves from the United States and Canada. Likewise, the British had little interest in the Congo region, but the opportunity to trade with a colony that would create a direct link to the interior of the continent without requiring British funds or resources, as deemed acceptable in the eyes of the British government. However, this was not the case with the French and the Portuguese. Regarding the latter, the Portuguese had for centuries held sway over the region along the Congo River, having built up their colony in Angola as a center of trade and commerce along the southwestern coast of Africa. Angola also served as a source of slaves for Brazil, and having a large, anti-slavery state just across the border, did not bode well for the political interests of Portugal. As for France, the longer it took for the Europeans to find a suitable anti-malarial drug to allow white explorers to reach the interior, the more time it gave the Azanians to claim more and more of the continent for themselves, undermining French attempts to compete with the British in colonial ambitions.
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Self-governance[edit]
Independence[edit]
Manifest Destiny[edit]
Industrialization[edit]
Following the country's declaration of independence in 1865, it was agreed within the Barclay administration that all resources at the disposal of Azania's nascent government would be directed toward the preservation of the homeland and its sovereignty. At the time of its conception in the early-19th century, there had always been plans to make Azania a "twin in the form of her sister", the United States. Any industrial developments in the United States would be, to the best of the government's ability, emulated within Azania. However, this would require the formation of a vast and robust industrial infrastructure that had only just begun to blossom prior to the collapse of the United States. The political instability of the United States had not gone unnoticed within the political circles of Azania, and it was of no surprise that eventually the U.S. would no longer be able to support its repatriated freedmen population in Africa. With this knowledge in hand, several wealthy financiers who had taken up residence on the black continent resolved to partner themselves with the local federal government, and help exploit the vast natural resources of Africa's interior. Beginning as early as the 1830s, railway lines had been laid down from the port of Liberty to the capital of Independence, and snaking their way into the various interior settlements of Salvation, Retribution, and Kitwit, where plantation-style farms were being established. By the 1850s, the railroads of Azania stretched along the Congo River from Liberty on the western shoreline to Kisangani in the upper-eastern interior of the basin. The coal mines around Kisangani would serve a vital role in fueling the industrial expansion of Azania in various locations throughout the young nation.
Several men who aspired to become the new industrial magnates of this country would be men such as Thomas Harrison, who would found the Azania Coal and Steel Company, Joseph Dixon, who pioneered petroleum extraction and refining by way of the Pan-African Petroleum, and Perry Austin, who would found the Trans-African Railway Company. These three men and many others, would play a crucial role in the industrialization of Azania, as well as its ability to enter into the status of an industrialized economy by the turn of the century. Azania's industrial growth was not without outside help, with industrialists from the United States assisting with the development of the tools and technologies that would make the African continent more suitable to the needs of an industrialized economy. Making use of its great wealth of natural resources, Azania would contract out the extraction of its mineral riches to several foreign companies in exchange for a 40% stake in the mines and refineries that were established, as well as the employment of any local Azanians in the regions where these resources were to be extracted. Strict contracts were written up to ensure that the European powers were excluded from making claims to anything found within Azania, a task made easier by the fact that many of the lawyers involved were black men who had been educated in Western law prior to arriving in Azania. Unlike non-western states who had little knowledge of the legal practices of the European governments, Azania would negotiate from a position of strength through its knowledge of Western law.
Naturally, negotiations with far more powerful states for industrial development back home would be toothless without a means of enforcement. Well aware that their protection through the United States would come to an end one day, the founding fathers of Azania were keen to develop the military capacity of their new country, well in advance of the American Civil War. The Azanian Army and the Azanian Navy had existed as mere policing forces for some time before the civil war, their expansion nullified with the sovereignty of the Azania Territory guaranteed by the United States. However, as waves and waves of black immigrants from the United States, Brazil, the Caribbean, and other parts of Africa increased, and the political unity of the United States declined, it was accepted that the military status quo had to change. This was further exemplified by the renewed interest of the Europeans in the African continent as well, as new breakthroughs in the field of medicine made it easier for white Europeans to survive the hostile tropical biomes of Africa where it had once been next to impossible. To that end, the army would be expanded from a mere police force of some 25,000 men in 1850, to a full-trained army of 150,000 by 1860; an increase made possible by the foundation of three arsenals along the Congo River to support the formation of an indigenous arms industry. The navy itself was in more dire circumstances, as it consisted of fewer than twenty ships, of which a mere five were sloops designed to serve as customs enforcement. With the industrial growth of Azania allowing for a more capable shipbuilding industry, the navy would grow from five sloops-of-war, to a fleet of nearly twenty capable of interdicting and capturing slave ships from West Africa.
The rapid influx of new migrants combined with Azania's high birthrate necessitated an accelerated industrialization process across Azania, which allowed for and required an equally rapid development of the country's critical infrastructure, such as ports, factories, mills, railroads, and canals. Several major shipyards would be built at Liberty and Black Point, where the export of the natural resources of the country could be facilitated with ease, especially as the overall output of the interior mines increased with the rise of available workers. This in turn gave way to the construction of several steel mills and arsenals that would be completed by the 1850s, and fuel the expansion of Azania's rail network. Both the colonial and federal administrations of Alistair Barclay and his immediate successors would lean toward to funding of major public work initiatives, such as the Tenement Housing Act of 1870 and the Trans-African Railroad in 1881, the latter of which would serve as the catalyst of Azania's first major conflict on the continent as an independent nation. Regardless, Azania's industrial capacity would balloon over the course of several years, encouraged by direct investment from both the federal government and local industrial magnates, as well as Azania's rapid population growth, which approached levels similar to that witnessed in the former United States. Members of the black diaspora from across the globe, as well as white, Asian, and Arab immigrants, would leave for Azania for the promise of a new life and a secure future; Azania's population would grow from about nine million in 1850 to more than nineteen million by 1880. By 1890, Azania would become the most industrialized nation in Africa, as well as the most industrialized nation anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
Azanian Renaissance[edit]
Great War I[edit]
Great War II[edit]
Cold War[edit]
Insurgency Crisis[edit]
Red Scare[edit]
Black Azania[edit]
Vietnam War[edit]
Contemporary era[edit]
Geography and climate[edit]
Geography[edit]
Climate[edit]
Biodiversity and environment[edit]
Politics[edit]
Government[edit]
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The government of Azania is representative democracy as defined by the constitution, protecting the rights of the minority from the majority, while still providing a unified voice to the collective citizenry of the country. As a federal republic, the country is governed by a system of checks and balances that allow for a measure of stability between the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the federal government. The head of state and head of government is the President, who as of the most recent election was Verônica Elza de Assunção. The president is selected by indirect vote, in which the vote of the general electorate is apportioned to the states of the union, with an equal number of votes based on their existing number of congressional representatives. The president has the power to sign treaties, declare war, appoint federal judges and officials, and call both houses to an extraordinary session of Congress. In the event that the president is somehow incapacitated, dies, is impeached by Congress, or cannot perform his or her duties, the office is transferred over to the Vice President of Azania, who will serve as acting president until the president recovers, or until the next presidential election is held.
The Congress of Azania operates as the premier legislative branch of the federal government, passing laws on behalf of the constituents its members represent throughout the country. The body is bicameral in nature, consisting of an upper house, the Senate, and a lower house, the House of Representatives. The former consists of 140 members, with a senior and junior senator hailing from each of the 70 states of Azania. The House consists of 585 representatives, who are elected on a proportional basis from each state, based on their relative populations. As of the 2020 census, each member of the House represented a constituency of approximately 1.85 million people. The seats in the House are apportioned every ten years during the federal census, and based on the number of legal, native-born or naturalized Azanians in the country. Currently, Barclay had the most seats in the House, with a total of 29 representatives, while three states – Tula, Xiorro, and Zanzibar – had the fewest at just one representative each. Though no explicitly endorsed by the constitutional mechanisms of the state, the legislature of Azania has been dominated by two political parties since its formation in 1865; these are the center-right Federalists and the far-right Republicans.
The Nth Amendment guarantees the right of habeas corpus to all legal citizens of Azania, within the legal framework of the country. Seeking to avoid the same instance of illegally suspending habeas corpus witnessed during the American Civil War, by both Abraham Lincoln of the United States and Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy, the Nth amendment of the Azanian constitution has made it illegal for the president of the country deny a citizen their legal rights and their right to a trial by jury and protection from unlawful imprisonment. Charged with protecting these constitutional rights is the Supreme Court of Azania, which serves as the highest court in the country's judicial framework. The Supreme Court consists of nine justices with life terms, of which the highest-ranking member is the Chief Justice. This position has been held by Dorothy Rayleigh since her appointment in 19XX. Beneath the Supreme Court are the district courts, which hear cases presented to them if they are not deemed pressing enough to pass onto the Supreme Court itself.
Administrative divisions[edit]
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Azania is a federal republic consisting of 70 states and one federal district, including several uninhabited islands attached to the various states as unincorporated land. All of the states possess varying degree of legislative power, allowing them to pass legislation, collect taxes, and enforce laws locally in harmony with federal administrative supremacy, allowing the numerous states across the vastness of Azania to meet the unique needs and challenges of their citizens. The District of Independence is a federal district that houses the capital of Azania, and is directly governed by the Congress. It has the same administrative powers as the states, but does not have any real representation within the legislature with the exception of a single non-voting representative.
The states are further divided into counties which provide municipal services such as education, infrastructure repair, waste management, and policing to the local residents. Other divisions within Azania include congressional districts, which are apportioned across all 63 states in the country based on the decennial censuses of the population. Reservations which housed millions of native Africans, once accounted for a third of the sub-administrative divisions of Azania, but were abolished in 1966 in the Reservation Abolition Act. At their height in the 1950s, there were approximately 618 reservations housing some twenty-three million native Africans on them. Azania does not recognize birth-right citizenship, and only the children of African Americans, Afro-Brazilians, Azanians by nationality, and members of the overall African diaspora are granted citizenship at birth within any of the states.
Law and justice[edit]
Foreign relations[edit]
As the largest nation in Africa and the second-most populous country in the world, Azania is recognized as a major player on the geopolitical stage. A founding member of the League of Nations, Azania has ongoing diplomatic relations with virtually all sovereign states in the world. The country hosts embassies and diplomatic missions from all other nations in the world, with the exceptions of Israel, North Korea, Venezuela, and Eritrea. Azania itself has diplomatic postings across the planet, with a total of 256 missions in other nations, along with another 161 embassies under the oversight of the Directorate-General for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, which manages the country's foreign affairs policies. Azania is a member of several international organizations, such as the African Union, the G8 and the G20, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
Historically, Azania sought to maintain an independence foreign policy that ensured the continued sovereignty of the state from much larger and more powerful global empires, such as the ones once maintained by the United Kingdom and France. However, following the end of World War I, Azania adopted a much more aggressive geopolitical stance that saw it depart from its old, isolationist views, and move toward a policy of intervening in any conflicts it deemed a threat to its national security and geopolitical interests. To ensure it had a place in the new global order of nations, Azania entered into World War II on the side of the Allies, and following that conflict, joined the Western Bloc of democratic states opposed to the socialist powers of the Eastern Bloc. Throughout the entirety of the Cold War, however, Azania was keen to chart its own path through the era, targeting any socialist revolutions on the African continent, and crushing them on behalf of the rightist governments in the effected nations. Naturally, Azania maintained a hostile relationship with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact throughout the entire period, and would not reconcile with the eastern power until its collapse in 1991.
Elsewhere in the globe, Azania has held the relationship it has with the member nations of the Conference of American States as a high priority, seeking to continue warm relations with the successor states of the former United States of America. Itself once a colony of the United States as a refuge for freed black slaves from across the Americas, Azania views itself has holding a special kinship with the nations of the western continents. Home to a large population of Afro-Brazilian descended citizens from a similar migration of freed slaves to Azania in the 19th and early-20th centuries, Azania has a warm relationship with the nation of Brazil, and several other nations in Latin America. These positive relations, however, are noticeably more hostile the further north one goes, with the relationship with several of the CAS member states ranging from cool to outright hostile. Historically, Azanian diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China have always been hostile, with both nations in a state of cold war with the other. In contrast to this, relations with the United States, United Kingdom, and India have been warm for of the nation's history.
Relations with the neighboring African states have always been of a paternalistic nature, with Azania taking on a leading role within African diplomacy, and serving as a power broker between various factions in the surrounding nations. As the largest, wealthiest, and most industrialized state within the African Union, Azania has leveraged its position of dominance on the continent to push the African political scene toward outcomes favorable to itself and its interested parties. Throughout the Cold War, anti-communist operations were waged in an aggressive manner to ensure that the leftist ideologies such as Marxism, Maoism, and Nazism, were either curtailed or eliminated outright.
TBD
Military[edit]
The president is the commander-in-chief of the national armed forces, and has the responsibility of appointing the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense is tasked with overseeing the operations of the six branches of the armed forces, which include the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The Azanian Cybersecurity Forces are an independent force which operates under the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, and is not considered a traditionally-uniformed branch of the military. Collectively, these six forces comprise a total of 3.4 million active personnel, with another 1.68 million in reserves. The reserve force consists of two units in the form of the Azanian National Guard and the reserve components of the Azanian Armed Forces, the latter of which consists of the individual reserve forces for each of the six branches of the military. The Department of Defense employs nearly two million civilians, though this amount does not include contractors, either civilian or private military personnel.
Military service in Azania is fully voluntary, though it does employ a system of conscription by way of the Selective Service System during times of war. Both men and women are legally required to register for the Selective Service upon reaching the age of 18. Azania is capable of deploying its forces anywhere in the world, either by using the Air Force's fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's eight aircraft carriers, and Marine Corps' five expeditionary units currently at sea with the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific fleets. Azania currently possesses TBD bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments consisting of more than 100 personnel in TBD foreign countries. In all, there are approximately TBD combat and support personnel from the armed services deployed overseas as of 2020. Azania is one of the world's TBD recognized nuclear states, and possesses the third-largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world. As of 2020, it is believed Azania is in possession of about 1,500 nuclear warheads, of which 200-350 are currently deployed.
In absolute terms, the military budget for the Azanian Armed Forces is the largest in the world, with a total amount of $949.593 billion requested and approved for the military for 2020. This amount accounts for approximately 4.52% of the national GDP, or about one in every six or seven dollars spent by the Azanian government. Compared to other major powers in the world, defense spending and the policies around the military budget play a disproportionate in Azanian politics, and have been the subject of major electoral battles throughout the country. Likewise, military spending within Azania has an important role in the development of science and technology within the country's various research centers, as the armed forces are one of the largest patrons of the research and development in the country. More than a third of all research investment within Azania is funded by the Department of Defense, which has a variety of institutions involved in the process of providing research grants to universities and think tanks across Azania.
| AZANIAN ARMED FORCES (AAF) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expenditures | |||||
| Budget | $949.593 billion (FY 2020) | ||||
| Percent of GDP | 4.52% (FY 2020) | ||||
| Personnel | |||||
| Active personnel | 3,414,285 | ||||
| Reserve personnel | 1,676,080 | ||||
| Deployed personnel | 312,184 | ||||
| Branches | |||||
| Branch | Active | Deployable | Reserves | Active Reserve | Civilian |
| Azanian Army | 1,429,842 | 476,614 | 1,001,915 | 333,971 | 758,121 |
| Azanian Navy | 677,009 | 225,669 | 207,536 | 69,178 | 561,474 |
| Azanian Air Force | 839,490 | 279,830 | 307,127 | 102,375 | 370,537 |
| Azanian Marine Corps | 357,683 | 119,227 | 129,284 | 43,094 | 39,727 |
| Azanian Space Force | 28,744 | 6,946 | 9,581 | 3,194 | 4,603 |
| Azanian Coast Guard | 81,517 | 27,172 | 20,637 | 6,879 | 17,056 |
| TOTAL | 3,414,285 | 1,138,093 | 1,676,080 | 558,690 | 1,751,519 |
Demographics[edit]
| Historical population | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1810 | 4,008,060 | — | |
| 1820 | 4,869,084 | 21.5% | |
| 1830 | 5,908,365 | 21.3% | |
| 1840 | 7,116,394 | 20.4% | |
| 1850 | 8,749,980 | 23.0% | |
| 1860 | 10,963,663 | 25.3% | |
| 1870 | 14,268,739 | 30.1% | |
| 1880 | 19,118,220 | 34.0% | |
| 1890 | 26,197,470 | 37.0% | |
| 1900 | 36,786,746 | 40.4% | |
| 1910 | 53,481,852 | 45.4% | |
| 1920 | 72,854,717 | 36.2% | |
| 1930 | 95,797,869 | 31.5% | |
| 1940 | 109,391,854 | 14.2% | |
| 1950 | 161,246,086 | 47.4% | |
| 1960 | 186,345,147 | 15.6% | |
| 1970 | 264,024,661 | 41.7% | |
| 1980 | 367,397,139 | 39.2% | |
| 1990 | 491,173,581 | 33.7% | |
| 2000 | 636,369,668 | 29.6% | |
| 2010 | 816,451,012 | 28.3% | |
| Est. 2020 | 1,081,746,715 | 32.5% | |
Azania is the second-most populous country in the world, home to a total of 1,081,746,715 inhabitants as of 2020. The country itself is the product of rapid colonization by free blacks during the 19th century, spurred on by federal land grants and subsidized farmsteading in the interior. Today, the overwhelming majority of the population is of free black descent from the former United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean Ocean, while a substantial portion hail from black diaspora populations from around the globe. Prior to the formation of Azania as an independent state in 1865, the regions of central, eastern, and southern Africa were home to approximately 1,500 or more ethnic groups, and tens of thousands of various tribal groups, ethnic affiliations, castes, and religions throughout the region. As a matter of state policy, large ethnic groups were targeted for either assimilation or forced onto reservations, while smaller groups were either absorbed, merged, or abolished by the federal government. Within a few decades, the overwhelming majority of native Africans were forced into a new identity that isolated them from their cultural and linguistic histories. In the modern day, these two groups are classified separately as Black Azanians (77.50%) and Native Azanians (12.27%). Azania is likewise home to several non-black minorities which include Arabs (3.67%), Asians (3.56%), whites (1.97%), and coloreds (1.03%). Most of these groups are not heavily-integrated socially, and self-segregate into particularly sections of the country.
Population growth has, since the 1970s, decreased to replacement birth rates of 2.6 per woman. This was the outcome of several years of government policy to promote sustainable population growth, as well as to insure the adequate usage of national resources to provide for the population internally. In line with other government policies, foreign residency has been limited to ensure that foreign interests are as limited as possible within the country, permitting academic and financial experts to reside in Azania for an allotted period of time, by prohibiting long-term residence without explicit government approval. There are some 200,000 foreign residents in Azania as of 2020, of which 120,000 are from the European Union on student and temporary work visas. On the flip side, there are some 3.4 million Azanian citizens residing in other countries around the globe, mostly as students, medical professionals, political and military advisors, and skilled workers visiting on work visas. Of these, the majority are of African descent visiting as apart of government schemes to invite highly-educated blacks to the country to work, teach, and study. Economically, Azanian fiscal policies have lifted hundreds of millions of citizens out of poverty, with only 12% of Azanians living on less than US$1 a day. Unemployment rates are less than 3% as of 2020, with most Azanians employed in the service industry.
The sex ratio in Azania has historically be related heavy on the female side, with there being 1.13 women per 1 man in 2020, largely a consequence of the two Great Wars in the 1940s and 1960s. More than eight million Azanian men were killed during both conflicts, leading to a long-term demographic imbalance which Azania has yet to recover from as of the present day. Child mortality rates have been at their lowest levels in Azanian history, following similar government programs to promote proper childbirth practices and training of traditional midwives. Since the 1960s, 80% of all Azanian newborns are delivered in hospitals, compared with just 30-35% in the 1930-40s. The government has slowly but surely been moving toward the outlawing of traditional midwives to remove any threat of infant mortality among the native African population, and acts such as female genital mutilation and scarification upon minors has been outlawed and punishable by law since the 1880s. Overall, mortality rates in the country have been on the decrease year after year thanks to better sanitation and agricultural development, preventing the spread of malnutrition and illness in the population. The eradication of the tsetse fly in the 1960s through the use of various methods such as wild game destruction, chemical pesticides, and tactical use of deforestation, have likewise had a beneficial effect on the health of the population.
Urbanization[edit]
Languages[edit]
English is the official language of Azania, as well as the most common-spoken language throughout the country, with more than 970 million first-language speakers. There are approximately fifteen national languages in Azania, with the five largest being Portuguese, French, Arabic, Hindi, and Mandarin Chinese. None of the national languages within Azania have official status, but are afforded special status which entitles speakers to a number of cultural protections and federal sponsorship programs for minorities. Due to long-standing opposition to the expansion of non-Azanian cultures and ideologies within the nation, while minority languages are granted special status, all citizens and permanent residents must possess a minimal level of fluency in English, or face expulsion from the country. On the state-level, all states are allowed to have any number of official languages with the federal government's approval.
The only limitation on this allowance is that all signs within the state must have an English translation printed on them, and the English text must be bigger than the text of the other language. Due to these nationwide policies, Azania has experienced a high degree of integration amongst its immigrant population, with the second and third generation immigrants adopting English as their first language, and making their transition into Azanian life and culture a seamless experience. The native African languages which once dominated the region remain outlawed by the federal government, due to a history of animosity between the native black population, and the foreign black diaspora which settled in the land more than two centuries ago. Swahili and Kikongo are tolerated by the federal authorities, though no signs or documents are permitted in these languages, and stiff fines and the threat of incarceration continue to threaten any Africans who resist these policies.
Within the Azanian education system, English is compulsory for all students beginning from the age of six, though recognized minority languages are allowed to taught as electives or collegiate minors. Several universities specializing in the field of minority languages exist throughout Azania, such as the Institut de langue française à Azania and the Chinese University of Azania, which provide PhD-level degrees for graduates seeking a career in linguistics. Likewise, in spite of the extensive federal political opposition and discrimination from the black diaspora population, the Azanian Institute for Native African Languages was established in 1996 in Kigali, and has maintained a large student body, predominately among the native African population seeking to maintain a depository of knowledge on their traditional tongues which have largely faded from popular memory.
Religion[edit]
| Affiliation | % of Azanian population | |
|---|---|---|
| Christianity | 89.6 | |
| Alithian | 57.4 | |
| Protestant | 20.3 | |
| Mainline Protestant | 11.4 | |
| Evangelical Protestant | 6.6 | |
| African church | 2.3 | |
| Catholic | 9.2 | |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 1.1 | |
| Mormon | 0.9 | |
| Eastern Orthodox | 0.3 | |
| Other Christian | 0.7 | |
| Islam | 1.3 | |
| Hinduism | 0.4 | |
| Other faiths | 2.7 | |
| Irreligion | 5.2 | |
| Nothing in particular | 3.2 | |
| Agnostic | 1.6 | |
| Atheist | 0.4 | |
| Don't know or refused answer | 0.5 | |
The constitution of Azania guarantees freedom of religion, though it does not explicitly prohibit the Congress from passing laws banning certain religions within the country. Azania is described in the constitution as "...whole, black, and Christian...", clearly establishing the Christian nature of the country and the background with which legislation has been passed by the government. In line with that constitutional narrative, the Congress has often acted to protect the institution of Christianity within the country from competition by other beliefs, with complete disregard for the various denominations that make of the Christian faith, as all are deemed equally "Christian" in the eyes of the state. In spite of this, religious freedom is still protected within Azania by law, and numerous non-Abrahamic faiths are present within the country. Religions that do not call for the harm of others as an active tenet of its doctrine, i.e., those which specifically calling upon followers to enact harm onto non-believing individuals, are considered perfectly legal and may be practiced without restriction within reasonable limits. Co-existence between the various religions is enforced, and extremism of any sort has traditionally be dealt with preemptively and aggressively by state security services.
According to the 2010 census, the largest religion practiced within Azania is Christianity, with 89.6% of the total population identifying themselves as Christians. 57.4% of these Christians are affiliated with the Azanian Alithian Church, the largest Christian denomination in the country and the second-largest Christian church in the world by number of adherents after the Roman Catholic Church, with some 621 million professed adherents. Protestantism comprises the second-largest set of Christian believers in Azania, accounting for 20.3% of the population spread over the Baptist, Methodist, Evangelical, and minor African church denominations. Catholics accounted for 9.2% of the population, forming the third-largest denomination of Christians. The final group of Christian faiths were Jehovah's Witnesses at 1.1%, Mormons at 0.9%, and Eastern Orthodoxy at 0.3%; with the various other Christian groups making up 0.7% of adherents. 4.7% of the Azanian population belonged to various non-Christian religions. These were Islam at 1.3% and Hinduism at 0.4%, with other faiths such as Buddhism and Judaism, along with a myriad other religions accounting for some 2.7% of the population. The census indicated that 5.2% of the population identified themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply "undefined".
All of the old African religions native to the various regions across Azania were banned by the Christianization Act of 1887, prohibiting the practice of any pagan African faiths or traditions contradictory to the Christian faith. Originally passed with the intent of "civilizing" the African natives encountered following the colonization of their lands beginning in 1810, the law explicitly bans the practice of native non-Christian faiths within the country, making some exception for more "organized" religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. The religious practice of human sacrifice and polygamy were other motivating factors for the adoption of the law, Since 1887, very few Azanians of native descent remember the lore or traditions of their ancestral faiths, and most members of the native population have since become thoroughly Christianized within the last century and a half. Other Abrahamic faiths such as Islam and Judaism, have likewise been restricted to varying degrees, though not completely outlawed in the same manner as the native African faiths across the country. However, in spite of loosening some of these regulations on non-Christian religions, many of the adherents of these faiths moved into the more liberal states in the south, where religious liberty was more intensely protected by the various state governments.
Only a handful of religions are outright banned by the Congress of Azania; these include the Church of Scientology, Raëlism, Rastafarianism, the Unification Church, Black Hebrew Israelites, and various other cults and new religious movements that either do not follow mainstream religious norms, or make bizarre calls for antisocial behavior. Any belief systems that are predicted on warped power dynamics harmful to the adherents physically, mentally, or financially, demand total devotion to a cult leader as a person, or revolve around a doomsday prediction that requires active pursuit of its initiation by human hands, are considered a threat to the state and its population. As such, the government is quick to shutdown any movements that that follow these doctrines, and actively prosecute any individuals attempting to lead or recruit others into such cults. All religions are allowed tax exemption as a consequence of their role as " public non-profit institutions" for the betterment of the various communities in which they are located and the charity work initiated by their members.