Chapter 341: Democratic Elections
Because the Hechingen Consortium is increasing its investments in North America and the Far East, its investments in East Africa have accordingly decreased. In reality, East Africa is now digesting its prior gains. The kingdom's internal investment mainly focuses on the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone and the Northern Industrial Zone.
The Lake Malawi Industrial Zone is funded entirely by the Hechingen Consortium. It will still need more time to put its heavy industries into full operation. Even just constructing the factory buildings has taken a lot of effort, not to mention the greater challenge of building up the infrastructure. The Lake Malawi shoreline has rough terrain – mountainous, in many parts – so road building is difficult. You must bypass steep slopes, which significantly drives up construction costs.
Once all this is done, the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone will also need new immigrants. Industry requires workers; yet overall, East Africa's immigration has recently been dropping. In particular, the number of German settlers has plummeted. Without enough Germans, East Africa must be very cautious about bringing in other ethnic groups.
On that note, the kingdom is stepping up efforts to recruit from Hungary's potential pool. In the Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarians (Magyars) are only 5% of the population. That comes from a quirk of the Magyar nobility: because Hungary has an overabundance of noble titles—over six hundred thousand (including newly ennobled Lombards)—the Magyar aristocrats see themselves as a single group. They disown the peasantry, declaring that "only landowners are truly Magyars."
Nineteenth-century nationalism was rampant, but Hungarian nationalism was not purely nationalistic. One could call Hungary a land cloaked in nationalism while firmly protecting the interests of conservatives. Essentially, it exploited "nationalism" to guard aristocratic privileges.
So could Austria just absorb these peasant masses? No. Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire is pushing compulsory education to strengthen national identity, its effect is marginal because schools in Hungary teach in the Magyar language, which actually speeds up Hungarian nationalism. East Africa's move is to seize the moment, whisking away those Hungarian commoners before the monarchy's compulsory education can absorb them.
Although Hungarian immigrants lean toward a "Hungarian" identity regionally, once they arrive in East Africa, that is no longer a problem. Changing a person's nationality is straightforward enough. Most Hungarian settlers speak only Magyar; that's a bit troublesome, so you can't group them all together. They're not suitable for the thinly populated expanses of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Still, the eastern part of East Africa can take them.
After so long developing the East, German is already well established. The predominance of the German language forces other groups to learn it. Without speaking German, you can scarcely get by. Generally, just two or three months in the environment will let you pick it up; even the slowest learners might need half a year to a year.
By placing Hungarian immigrants in the East, East Africa can free up German settlers to shore up development in Zimbabwe, among other areas. Having been tricked by the Ndebele, the East African Kingdom was furious. It incited the Shona to arrest their former Ndebele overlords and exile them to Central Province to dig canals.
Although the Ndebele have been punished, East Africa is likewise taking steps to develop that land, doing away with co-governance with natives. But what about the much larger Shona population? The kingdom plans some sly tricks to contain them without provoking massive revolt, gradually whittling down the native population.
First, East Africa forcibly splits the Shona into over 150 "big tribes," each with around 10,000 people—making that the largest organizational unit. That prevents them from forming a new central force. Then, East Africa assigns a hundred-some soldiers to each tribe—basically one company—charged with keeping order in their assigned region. This way, in every "tribal zone," there's a full company of East African soldiers that can either attack or defend. They won't get surprised as before; even if they are outmatched briefly, they can hold out until reinforcements arrive.
Second, East Africa directly rules the Shona—just like it did the Ndebele—rather than sharing power with local chiefs. To keep them docile while systematically shrinking their numbers, the kingdom came up with a cunning scheme: elections.
In the name of "the spirits," each Shona tribe must send East Africa a tribute of 100 slaves. Who becomes slaves? They'll figure it out themselves. If East Africa simply dictated which individuals must become slaves, the Shona would unify in bitterness against the kingdom. Hence, East Africa lets the Shona choose the slaves by ballot. The local tribes forcibly lumped together under East African might are already full of internal strife, so they eagerly vote off anyone they hate.
"Procedural democracy," "mob rule"—the "winners," singled out as slaves, will now serve East Africa's development. And the rest can't relax either because "everyone has a chance"—no one is exempt. It's a vicious system that pits the Shona tribes against each other, fueling infighting.
Each time, East Africa takes only 1%—around 15,000 people—every three months. That fosters a false hope among most natives, akin to crossing a busy road: "So many people do it—surely I won't be the unlucky one." Gradually, Zimbabwe's black population will be replaced by white settlers. Those 15,000 slaves, in turn, get sent around East Africa for infrastructure work.
Such a "good scheme" won't be reserved for Zimbabwe alone. All native enclaves across East Africa will see it rolled out. While Zimbabwe keeps sending out thousands of black slaves, new immigrants continually flow in to consolidate East African control.
Zimbabwe's Shona population is around two million. That sounds small but is actually fairly high for Africa. Zimbabwe covers roughly three to four hundred thousand square kilometers, with lower rainfall. "So small" a region has over two million natives (including Ndebele), making its population density far higher than the East African savanna was.
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