Persian Empire 1845

Chapter 302 East Africa Situation
East Africa, a region often referred to by Europe as the Dark Continent, along with other parts of the continent, is experiencing its fastest development. From Cape Hafun to Zanzibar, a range of industrial projects are moving in, and this is largely driven by Iran.

Immigration is Iran's most important project, involving not only farmers from the Iranian mountains but also desert herders from the Arabian Peninsula. They are granted farmland or pasture as a foundation for settling in new lands. This immigration program has not only alleviated Iran's domestic population pressure but also injected new vitality into agriculture and animal husbandry in East Africa.

However, Iran's immigration program has also triggered some social and cultural friction. Conflicts between new immigrants and local residents are inevitable over land allocation, resource use, and cultural customs. Iran's immigration program has also brought religious and cultural influences. Many Iranian immigrants are Shia Muslims, and their arrival has changed the religious landscape of East Africa to some extent. The increasing influence of Shia Muslims has caused concern among Sunni Muslims. However, both sides agree on their attitude towards Black people, believing that they lack cultural and religious "orthodoxy."

This situation is not only reflected in words and actions, but is also solidified through policies and institutions. In some parts of East Africa, marriages between new immigrants and local black residents are considered taboo and are even publicly condemned by religious leaders.

In this era, East Africa's social structure remained largely based on tribes and religions, and the arrival of immigrants disrupted the existing balance. Iranian immigrants, leveraging their technological and financial advantages, quickly gained dominance in East Africa's agriculture, trade, and handicrafts, while the local Black population was marginalized, reduced to cheap labor, or forced to migrate to more remote areas. This unequal economic relationship further exacerbated social conflicts.

In agriculture, Iranian immigrants introduced advanced irrigation techniques and farming methods, significantly increasing land productivity. They reclaimed vast tracts of farmland in fertile river valleys and plains, cultivating cash crops such as wheat, cotton, and sugarcane. These lands had originally been cultivated by local Black tribes for generations, but the Iranian immigrants acquired ownership through purchase or seizure. The landless local residents were forced to become tenant farmers or seasonal laborers, working for the Iranian immigrants to survive. Their working conditions were harsh, their income meager, and their living standards plummeted.

In the handicraft sector, Iranian immigrants brought new technologies and tools, establishing workshops in textiles, ceramics, and metalworking. The goods produced in these workshops not only met local market demand but were also exported to the Middle East and other regions through trade networks. However, local Black residents were relegated to low-skilled labor in these workshops. The fruits of their labor were appropriated by the immigrants, while they themselves struggled to share in the benefits of industrialization.

In Zanzibar, East Africa's most important trading center, Iranian immigrants controlled most of the spice trade and port operations. They formed alliances with Arab merchants, creating a powerful commercial network, while the local black population was excluded and relegated to low-skilled manual labor. Although the Sultan of Zanzibar nominally ruled the land, his power was effectively usurped by these immigrants and merchants. To maintain his rule, the Sultan was forced to rely on the support of Iranian and Arab immigrants, further exacerbating the plight of the local black population.

The Sultan of Zanzibar issued a series of decrees restricting the participation of black residents in trade and handicrafts, ensuring the economic advantage of immigrants. At the same time, religious leaders also issued edicts prohibiting intermarriage between Shia and Sunni Muslims and black residents, believing such marriages would taint their religious purity. These policies not only deepened social divisions but also further marginalized black residents politically and economically.

But the Black people did not completely submit; some tribes began to organize and resist the exploitation and discrimination by Iranian immigrants. In the Lake Naserdin region, some tribes united to refuse to pay taxes to the Iranian governor's office and attempted to reclaim the occupied land. Although these resistance movements were small in scale and were often suppressed by the immigrants and local rulers.

After the Arab princes submitted to Iran, they also began a land enclosure movement in East Africa. With Iranian military support and their own commercial networks, these Arab nobles rapidly seized vast tracts of land in the fertile coastal and inland regions of East Africa, establishing an agricultural empire centered on plantations and slavery. Their actions also intensified the competition for land.

Their land-grabbing methods were extremely forceful. In Zanzibar and Mombasa, princes seized lands inhabited by Black tribes for generations by bribing local sultans or through direct threats of force. The original land system, primarily based on tribal communal ownership, was completely dismantled, and vast tracts of rainforest and grassland were transformed into plantations for cloves, coconuts, and sisal. Those who lost their land were either forced into slave labor on these plantations or driven to the barren inland highlands. Along the Somali coast, Arabs even revived the ancient slave trade network—collaborating with inland tribal chiefs to abduct Black people as laborers, chaining them in droves to plantations, recreating the brutal scenes of the Middle Ages.

Iran played a behind-the-scenes role in this land grab. Tehran not only provided muskets and cannons to Arab princes but also sent military advisors to help train private militias. Along the Tana River in Kenya, irrigation systems designed by Iranian engineers are altering the landscape. The once nomadic Maasai people find their traditional migration routes blocked by canals and fences, and their cattle and sheep are frequently shot for "trespassing on private land."

Religious conflict intensified during this land dispute. In the Sultan's palace of Zanzibar, Shia Arab princes forced Sunni scholars to revise Islamic legal precedents, defining "cultivating unclaimed land" as a sacred obligation. Meanwhile, Arab imams proclaimed from their pulpits: "Allah gives land to the diligent, and the lazy deserve to lose everything." This distorted doctrine led to a growing number of Black people converting to Christianity. Since they couldn't protect them, they converted to something else.

The Arab scimitars had not yet been wiped clean of blood, and the flags of European powers were about to be planted on the coast; Iranian immigrant ships still floated on the horizon, while the drums of black tribes echoed deep in the jungle. On this land soaked in blood and spices, the old world order was collapsing, while the outline of the new order was still shrouded in the smoke of war.

(End of this chapter)