Indigénisme
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Indigénisme; (/'ɒ̃:dɪʒɛniːsm/, Gaullican for "nativism"); was a theoretical policy of racial segregation and white supremacy devised by Chennois politicians Astor Archembault and Constantin Laflèche in the immediate aftermath of the Great War to govern a hypothetical independent successor state to the Colony of Baséland. Indigénisme formed the fundamental politics of the brief New National Party (1934–1946), who were fairly popular among the wealthy, landowning Chennois demographic of Mambiza and coastal Baséland, until the party was forcefully disbanded by the Government of Rwizikuru and Archembault and Laflèche fled to the neighbouring Silberküste Colony.
The basis of Indigénisme was to preserve the economic and social dominance of the white population in Baséland, known as Chennois, who were descended from Gaullican settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Through centuries of colonial government, the Chennois were elevated to immense importance in local politics and prospered at the expense of the native Bahian population. Supporters of Indigénisme believed whites were racially superior to blacks, and believed that racial co-existence was impossible in Baséland. The policy was popular among ex-functionalists who had fought in the war, however both Archembault and Laflèche disavowed the ideology. Indigénistes regularly collided with colonial authorities, particularly into the 1940s as the idea of independence for Baséland was becoming increasingly disregarded by Estmerish colonial authorites, who preferred to integrate the colony into Riziland.
The New National Party was banned by the Government of Rwizikuru in 1946, and forcefully disbanded a few days afterwards. Members of the party were arrested and their supporters cracked down on by the newly-independent country. Archembault and Laflèche went into hiding shortly after the party was banned, eventually fleeing and resurfacing in the Silberküste, a colony of Werania, in 1947, before emigrating to mainland Werania in 1950, where both of them lived out the rest of their lives.
Racial policy in Baséland
The Empire of Gaullica was present in what is now Garambura over a period of just under three centuries. During this period, Gaullica inflicted significant social, economic and ethnic change on the area, especially in regards to the social status of white citizens and black citizens in lands claimed by the empire. Gaullica first settled the Gonda delta under the crown-sponsored Gaullican Lower Gonda Company, led by Cassien explorer Michel Masson, in the mid-17th century. The company settled Sainte-Germaine as an economic venture and colonial port city in the 1660s, gradually displacing the native Bahians in the area as the city expanded. The Bahians remained dormant and uninterested in the affairs of the Gaullicans on the coast until the rise of the Confederacy of Njinjiland and the Sisulu, and its ruler Mabuti I. Under Mabuti, the successful native raid on Sainte-Germaine, also known as the eponymous Mabhuti Revolt, left much of the relatively undefended city damaged and much of the city's finances were stolen or destroyed. The Gaullicans responded by dealing a crucial defeat to northern natives at the Battle of Ingezi, expanding down the Gonda river through a series of explorers who documented and mapped the land.
Gaullica consolidated the area, nationalised the Lower Gonda Company and created the Colony of Baséland in 1813. The Gaullicans historically relied on the Yebase, a Bahio-Badawiyan Sotirian ethnic and social caste known for their naval prowess and administrative skill. The Yebase migrated to the lower Gonda area in the 1700s, and their influence in the colony remained notable. Despite cordial relations between white Gaullican settlers and the Yebase, native Bahians were highly discriminated against and almost definitively relegated to lower, often the lowest, social castes in colonial Bahia. Black Bahians were often employed by white colonists in poorly-paying, labourious jobs such as farming, mining, and logging, while others were employed as household workers, providing translation services, chefs, maids, musicians, gardeners and other, more casual household jobs.
This job arrangement often kept the white Gaullicans richer and the black Bahians poorer. Radical change was theorised in Baséland during the Sougoulie rebellions in the 1880s, but due to the colony's comparatively high white settler population – in 1880 nearly 25% – the movement was limited to underground secret societies. The movement exploded into the public eye when Yebase sailor Alphonse Amsalu sunk the Gaullican ship Insulaire in 1883, creating a virulent and violent backlash against both Yebase and Bahians across Baséland.
Segregation
Despite Gaullica's efforts to maintain the massive social and economic divide between the ethnicities of colonial Bahia, colonial authorities never maintained an official policy of segregation between whites and blacks, and no such law was ever enforced by the police. Whites and blacks were often naturally segregated by their economic situations, leading to the formation of many of Sainte-Germaine's slums and shanty towns on the banks of the Gonda in the late-19th century. White Gaullicans, as well as small, almost negligible amount of "Eucleanised", wealthy Bahians (who spoke Gaullican), congregated along the western and coastal districts and estates of the city, establishing gated communities and policed estates while also establishing Gaullican as the predominant language in the city.
Poorer black Bahians often congregated in shanty towns along the river, and were located up the central and northern parts of the city, often straddling rivers of the Gonda delta. Shanty towns were made of poor-quality, fragile and malleable materials, often loosely nailed wood, that would house families of up to ten in one or two rooms. Shanty families often fished on the Gonda, although it became prohibited by 1889. Gaullican authorities who caught shanty fishers often arrested them on the spot and courted them to jails in the city (which were often racially segregated, with evidence of harsher treatment given to the Bahian population). Consequences were ramped up when the shanty town of Matiti was completely destroyed after four shanty fishers were arrested by colonial authorities. Males of the shanty family were mostly absent during these arrests as they worked extremely long hours often lasting well into the night.
Effects of the war on racial theory
Tirailleurs bahiens
Prior to the war, and by extension the functionalist takeover, Gaullican colonial authorities disregarded the contributions of black Bahians to the Gaullican military, often regarding them as unfit to fight or unfit to serve alongside whites, or, more often, unskilled fighters with no place in the military. The rapid functionalist takeover in Gaullica, the abdication of the Albert III and the execution of Charles Dumont in 1919 contributed to the extreme rise in functionalist theory among the Chennois elite of Sainte-Germaine. Functionalists disregarded the idea of race in the military, introducing a policy of national conscription, although they segregated regiments into the previous organisational regiments and divisions of the Gaullican colonial armies and the new tirailleurs bahiens. Jean Bassot, the first functionalist governor of Baséland, wrote about the creation of the divisions in 1920 in Le Journal Quotidien de Sainte-Germaine:
It is time we rid ourselves of archaic views of race being a prerequisite to serve the great nation. Armies should be a place where all men, regardless of their race or creed, can come together to serve their glorious land. The tirailleurs bahiens will be created, effective immediately, to efficaciously utilise the patriotism our fellow Bahians share for our united nation and our Empire.
— Jean Bassot, Le Journal Quotidien de Sainte-Germaine
The tirailleurs proved their effectiveness in battle, especially under conscription policies, throughout the war, which contributed greatly to the decline of the theory that blacks were unfit, unwilling or too unskilled to serve in the military and began the strain of ethnic conscription-based thought that would eventually manifest itself as the Archembaultine view on conscription, which favoured the conscription of black Bahians to form the infantryman over that of white Chennois or Gaullicans.
Bahian labourers
By the time Gaullica had consolidated Baséland into a directly-administered colony, it, as well as most of the principal Euclean powers (excluding Narozalica) had abolished slavery, serfdom and involuntary servitude among naturalised citizens of the colonies. As the abolition of slavery in Gaullica was extremely recent, having universally abolished the practise in 1811. Despite this, the institution of slavery itself left large amounts of farmland in Garambura under the ownership of Chennois farmers who had previously employed indentured servants on their farmland.
The abolition of slavery relieved Bahian labourers of their bonds to their previous owners, but left thousands of them unemployed and homeless, leading to mass migration into Sainte-Germaine for work and housing. Some slaves chose to return to their previous owners as paid workers and others chose to relocate to other farms across Baséland. Logging and forestry became common as inland exploration became more common. During the war, factories in Sainte-Germaine producing military equipment, as well as dockworkers and sailors were highly populated with the Bahian populations descended from slaves who immigrated into the city in the early 19th century.
Indigénistes recognised the contributions of the black Bahian population towards the Gaullican war effort and the industrial output of the colony. It was generally accepted that lower-tier, hard labourious jobs were "ideal" for the Bahian populace, while white Chennois would continue to populate the ruling administrative elite. The NPN included occupations as part of their segregational policies in their first manifesto, with Laflèche regarding that an unsegregated colonial society would eventually stagnate and decline due to years of polarising racial relations, a facet of indigénisme he expanded on when writing on the rejection of the Estmerish theory of circular racial relations directly after the war.
Conscription
During the war, Functionalist Gaullica employed a widespread policy of national conscription of both white Gaullicans and native populations. Indigénistes disavowed the idea of white Chennois conscription into Gaullican armies to fight elsewhere as they believed the place and status of a (usually male) Chennois person in society would ultimately be fulfilled by native Bahians, eventually displacing enough Chennoise to overcome to ethnic economic and social divide in Baséland. Archembault in particularly was a staunch anti-conscription advocate for white Chennoise in Baséland, and was arrested multiple times by functionalist authorities for actions with intent to cause public disorder protesting the conscription laws in Gaullican colonies in the 1930s.
The ethnically-based anti-conscription ideology of Archembault made its way into the political manifesto of the NPN and the mainstream thought of Indigénisme in 1935. The NPN wished to introduce voluntary service in Baséland for white males, while retaining limited conscription for black males of the tirailleurs bahiens. Some more extreme Indigénistes disavowed the party's view on conscription along ethnic lines as they disliked the idea of Basé forces, mainly frontline infantrymen, consisting primarily of Bahian conscripts. Lionel Thibault, a Gaullican soldier in the war absolved of his participation in war crimes by an international tribunal three months prior, commented on the ad hoc conscription laws as they currently were at the party's first annual congress.
One cannot simply believe that the idea of national conscription in times of need can be construed as a negative policy for our land and our people. We must promote, congratulate and embolden our frontline men, for they are to embark on an honourable and prideful journey fit only for the men God intended to settle and rule these lands. It is impossible to say that our country will be represented as honourably and as good as it can be on the frontlines with a force made of the negro man.
— Lionel Thibault, I Congrès du nouveau parti national
Generally, members of the NPN as well as Indigénistes supported the Archembaultine view on conscription, including Laflèche. Thibaultine factions of the party continued to exist, however, despite conscription being a fairly un-polarising issue in the grand scheme of the party's politics.
Rejection of the circular model of prejudice
The interwar period saw Baséland transferred over to the ownership of the Federated Republics of Estmere, who already owned substantial Bahian colonies, including the neighbouring Colony of Riziland. Racial scientists of the early 20th century had previously categorised racism in Estmere into the "circle system", which comprised of circles centred around the Amendist Estmerish people in the centre, religious and cultural demographics would gradually form circles increasingly distanced from the centre corresponding to the amount and frequency of racial prejudice experienced within Estmere. Inner circles generally consisted of Sotirians from the general Weranic area of north-eastern Euclea, eventually progressing towards Catholic romance peoples and eventually Episemialist Marolevic peoples.
The circle system was a revered and widely-accepted model of prejudice by racial scentists, racial theorists and ethnographers, but Gaullican and Basé racial scientists argued this method was only applicable in the context of mainland Estmere, and took no consideration of the polarising and divided racial relations of the world's colonial states. Philosopher Jean-Christophe Sadoul and ethnographer and racial theorist Josselin Azéma proposed that racism in the colonies was experienced along a definitive racial line between whites and blacks, an observation backed by the NPN in their manifesto and studies.
Azéma's and Sadoul's assessment of racism in the colonies of Bahia and rejection of the traditional Estmerish circular model gave weight to and amplified the NPN's and Indigénistes's calls for segregation in Baséland. Laflèche, also a philosopher, argued that an unsegregated colonial society would stagnate based on the observations of Azéma and Sadoul in colonial race relations. He also proposed that whites and blacks differed fundamentally, which became a large part of the reasoning for segregation that came with Indigénisme, which was why race relations were so polarising in the colonies, where native Bahians formed a large majority, as opposed to in mainland Euclea, where Bahian residents were highly assimilated and Eucleanised.
Fundamental policies
Racial segregation
Racial segregation formed a major pillar of all forms of indigéniste thought, and was espoused by all members of the NPN and all Chennois who supported the ideology either since its inception or at a later date. Segregation was viewed as the effective means to achieved a white-centric, idealised, racially supremacist society in post-colonial Baséland where the white Chennois would live in wealthy, affluent parts of the country, working highly-paid, often white-collar jobs, while black Bahians were segregated into poor towns, districts, slums and shanty towns across the city (mainly in Sainte-Germaine), working long-hour, poorly-paid and highly labourious jobs that formed bottom-of-the-barrel, but essential, labour for Baséland.
Political scientists of the time often remarked that an indigéniste view of Bahian labour conditions could be compared to that of indentured labourers or factory workers shortly after the explosion of the Industrial Revolution in Euclea and Asteria Superior. Bahians were foreseen to work in white-owned factories, producing immense wealth and industrial output for owners that would be re-invested into keeping the Chennois as the country's affluent group. Segregation also came in a multitude of different forms, ideas, severities and applications, however some of the most common facets of society changed massively by this theoretical segregation were primary and elementary education, the country's civil code and a unique policy of segregation called the parapluie ethnique (lit. "ethnic umbrella), worked on and theorised by both Archembault and Thibault.
Education
Reforming the colonial education system was at the forefront of proposed segregational policies by the NPN, its members and other advocates for indigénisme in the 1930s. Under the system proposed by the NPN, schools would split into écoles civilisées ("civilised schools"), for Chennois and other white immigrants, and écoles nègres ("negro schools"), for the native black Bahians. Écoles civilisées were designed to have a much higher standard of education, and would teach subjects ranging from geography, history, civics and politics, as well as music, arts, sports and other recreational activities. Écoles civilisées would have manifested from the top schools in Sainte-Germaine, and would encompass all education past 14 (the legal age of work in colonial Baséland). Universities were to prohibit the enrollment of black students, and change their curriculums to remove most content on native history and replace it Euclean or broadly-Euclocentric views of history, although in practise this would have required little actual change.
Historians debate what the NPN saw as Écoles nègres aside from its most fundamental form. At its base, they were schools for black students who were prohibited from attending white schools. The schools would have also taught Euclocentric views of the world, but would focus mainly on the erasure of native culture and language and replacing them with Gaullican culture and language as well as what they referred to as "Euclean values". This forced educational assimilation was centralised into a process known as évolué, an idea that had manifested elsewhere in the Gaullican Empire prior to the 1930s. Some indigénistes proposed that black children who were deemed "civilised" could attend white schools from 14–17, but still would have been prohibited from enrolling in or attending university or any sort of further education. Écoles nègres would likely have been constructed near factories or other places that housed a large Bahian population. They were likely to have been characterised by poor conditions, strict discipline and large class sizes, taught by either white or black teachers, although some historians have theorised that black students who attended écoles civilisées were likely to become teachers at black schools.
Civil code
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Civil code in Baséland was also a large part of the rapid societal change that the NPN and indigénistes wished to enact on the country. Native clothing in all forms was to be banned by any new civil code enforced by the NPN, and would be replaced with a strict formal dress code that reflected that of the Gaullican mainland. Dress codes also formed a significant part of the aforementioned policy of évolué that indigénistes sought to promote. Speaking native languages would have been banned by the authorities and any sort of native signage, albeit rare in colonial society, would have been taken down and replaced by a Gaullican equivalent. Indigénistes thought that removing all reference to native languages and banning its use would accelerate how quickly black Bahians would assimilate into Gaullican-speaking areas, and how fast they could learn the language, as it would have effectively been impossible to live a day-to-day life in the city without knowing the language to a substantial quality.
Inter-ethnic marriages being prohibited was also courted by the NPN, who saw it as a threat to white racial purity and the effectiveness of segregation policies they wished to enact. Most churches were likely to have refused to authorise or conduct services for the marriage of black couples, whether by choice or by government policy, leading to a rise in street marriages in shanty towns conducted by Bahian pastors. Examples of shanty churches were seen across the country, with religious devotion among Catholic Bahians likely to remain high even after the theoretical enactment of indigénisme.
