African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1435 Dual Headquarters
In fact, it is not only East Africa that is concerned about the promotion of German. Germany, far away in Europe, believes that they are more qualified than East Africa to lead the construction of the German-speaking national organization. The two countries have even had some disputes over this.

In February, despite its busy schedule, the German government still sent diplomats to communicate with East Africa in order to select the venue for the first summit of the German-speaking countries.

German Ambassador to East Africa, Poinshausen, discussed the matter with Crown Prince Friedrich.

After meeting Crown Prince Friedrich, Poynzhausen said straight to the point: "Your Highness Friedrich, the headquarters of the World Organization of German-speaking Countries and the venue for the first summit should undoubtedly be located in Germany."

"Besides other things, the fact that Europe has the largest number of German-speaking countries alone means that the headquarters of the German-speaking countries organization should be set up in Europe. Among the German-speaking countries in Europe, Germany is also the most qualified to promote and build this international organization."

Europe is indeed the region with the most German-speaking countries, such as Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Dalmatia (Austria-Hungary), and there are many other countries that use German as one of their official languages, mainly Belgium, Switzerland, and some of the kingdoms under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Crown Prince Friedrich obviously did not fully agree with this. He retorted: "Ambassador Poynzhausen, according to your evidence, there are indeed more German-speaking countries in Europe."

"However, from the perspective of East Africa, the purpose of organizing the German-speaking countries organization is to strengthen the promotion of German in the world. Setting up the headquarters of the German-speaking countries organization in East Africa can better radiate the three major regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America."

"Today, German has become one of the most important languages ​​in the world. Compared with English and French, German-speaking countries like us rose too late and have a relatively weak foundation. Therefore, making German cover more regions and populations is the most important thing at present."

From a global perspective, East Africa, due to its geographical and colonial advantages, clearly has much greater global reach than Germany.

This also made Pointshausen psychologically unbalanced. Poor Germany worked so hard, paid so many sacrifices and costs, but was still trapped in the heart of the European continent.

But East Africa has vast territory, rich colonies, impressive coastline and superior geographical conditions at its fingertips. It is so unfair!
In Pointshausen's mind, East Africa was originally just a small colonial outpost on the east coast of Africa, but it has developed to its current size, which makes him, an old Junker, extremely envious.

If Germany had the same good geographical conditions as East Africa, how powerful Germany would be? Pointshausen couldn't even imagine it.

However, Poynzhausen did admire the Hohenzollern family's ability to seize opportunities. Today, three branches of the Hohenzollern family around the world control four countries.

That is Germany, East Africa, Romania and South Germany. It seems that the late 19th century to the early 20th century undoubtedly belonged to the era of the Hohenzollern family.

However, in Pointshausen's heart, Germany is always put first. Even though East Africa is as powerful as Germany, East Africa is not a pure German country after all.

Therefore, Poinshausen believes that Germany should naturally take the lead in German, an important national identity of the German nation.

Naturally, Poinzhausen will not give up the leadership of the German-speaking organization easily. He said: "But the German-speaking countries in Europe cannot be ignored. We cannot shut them out."

"If they want to join the organization and handle related business, it is obviously more convenient in Germany than traveling across the ocean to East Africa."

"Your Highness Friedrich, you cannot deny the reality that Europe is the most densely populated region of German-speaking countries. Even though other German-speaking countries are small in size except for Germany and Austria-Hungary, as separate political entities, they can obviously help spread the German language better around the world."

This is also true. After all, no matter how small a country is, once it has become an internationally recognized independent sovereign political entity, it naturally cannot avoid activities such as diplomacy and cultural exchanges. The development of these activities is obviously beneficial to the spread of the country's language.

Pointshausen went on to say: "Moreover, as the most developed region in the entire German-speaking bloc, Germany should naturally play a leading role."

Friedrich did not object to Poynzhausen's description of Germany as the most developed country in the German-speaking group, because, as far as the situation was concerned, it was true.

Although many data of East Africa exceed those of Germany, this is mainly due to the size of East Africa. For example, in terms of grain production, it is obviously impossible for Germany to compare with a country of the size of East Africa.

Of course, although Germany's land area is small, its total grain output is not low from a global perspective. After all, it feeds Germany's population of more than 20 million. At the beginning of the th century, there were only a handful of countries with a population of more than million, so Germany is undoubtedly a populous country.

Although Germany is much smaller than East Africa, its economic quality and construction level are still ahead of East Africa for the time being. After all, Germany is one of the leaders of the Second Industrial Revolution, and its foundation is not something that East Africa can catch up with in a short period of time.

Today, German industry still has great advantages in machine tools, chemicals, textiles, medicine, machinery manufacturing and other fields, and its urbanization level far exceeds that of East Africa.

Crown Prince Friedrich said: "Germany is indeed the most developed country in the world today, but we in East Africa are not much behind. In terms of economic output, industrial scale, science and technology, we have our own strengths compared to Germany."

"Compared to Ambassador Poinzhausen, you have lived in East Africa for a long time and have witnessed the rapid development of East Africa today. So from the perspective of development, we in East Africa can also demonstrate the superiority of the German nation."

Of course, the superiority that Friedrich talks about here is more on the civilizational level rather than the racial level. For a country with many immigrants like East Africa, it is impossible to use the narrative of racial superiority.

There is no doubt that civilization narrative is more beneficial to the spread of German throughout the world. After all, the German language promotion work organized by German-speaking countries was originally carried out in non-German-speaking countries.

The residents of these non-German-speaking countries undoubtedly have no connection with the German nation. If the German language is promoted based on racial superiority, it would be completely self-destructive.

Friedrich said: "The development in East Africa in recent years can serve as a template to promote the promotion of German around the world."

"After all, this proves that the contribution of German to the development of civilization is not limited by geography. In Europe, German-speaking Germany can become a world power, and in Africa, we in East Africa also speak German and are also a world power. This is conducive to shaping the image of German in the world."

"In other words, German is civilization. The economies of German-speaking countries around the world are generally not bad, which can be used to prove this point."

Of course, corroboration does not mean causation. After all, the United States, Britain, and France are also world powers, but they do not speak German.

What East Africa and Germany want to do is to convince others that this is a causal relationship. For any country, they must hope that other countries will associate their language with positive words such as "advanced" and "civilized", and preferably equate them. This is the purpose of the establishment of the German National Organization, to export "German is advanced" to the world, so as to attract more countries and populations to learn German.

Therefore, Friedrich said: "Our development in East Africa is, to some extent, more representative than Germany. After all, Germany is located in Europe, and Europe itself is one of the lands with the best geographical conditions in the world. Relatively speaking, Africa is much worse."

"But East Africa has been able to rise on the African continent. Doesn't this just prove to the world the superiority of the German language?"

Although Germany's unification did not last long, it does not mean that Germany's history is short. In Europe, during the Holy Roman Empire era, although the German region was divided, it was not weak in Europe and was able to compete with France, the Ottoman Empire or Russia.

At the same time in sub-Saharan Africa, the indigenous people were still chasing wild beasts on the grasslands. Even now, there are no other powerful countries in sub-Saharan Africa except East Africa.

Therefore, the rise of East Africa on the African continent can indeed serve as a better showcase than Germany in Europe, thereby promoting the role of German language.

However, Germany’s inspirational story in the 19th century was not bad either. After all, its transformation from fragmentation to unification, and then to becoming one of the world’s most powerful countries, is also very topical.

This is the reason why many countries in the world today are proud to learn from Germany, such as Bulgaria, which is known as the Balkan Prussia, and Japan, which learned from the German army.

At the very least, there are many things that East Africa can learn from Germany's cultural and influence exports, not to mention that East Africa's early objects of learning also included Germany.

Therefore, as a German, Poynzhausen also has his own pride and honor as a German.

He said to Crown Prince Friedrich: "We in Germany also have great appeal to countries around the world. After all, the rise of Germany itself is a miracle that is no less than that of East Africa. In the last century, Germany also faced various internal and external troubles."

"And through iron and blood, we turned Germany into one of the most powerful empires in the world, and even defeated France, a once powerful enemy, twice."

"Therefore, placing the headquarters of the German-speaking countries' organization in Germany will not only help to demonstrate the superiority of our German nation, but also attract those backward countries in the world to take Germany as their object of study and goal."

"Moreover, because of Germany's geographical disadvantages, Germany can provide more reference for those countries and nations that survive in the cracks."

Germany's counterattack against France was itself a typical example of the weak defeating the strong, which also triggered a wave of learning from the German Army among the armies of various countries in the late 19th century. East Africa, which was still a colony at the time, was also one of them.

For a moment, Crown Prince Friedrich and Ambassador Poynzhausen each had their own reasons, and it was difficult for either to convince the other.

After all, as world powers, Germany and East Africa both want and have the ability to lead the construction activities of the German-speaking Organization.

Therefore, Crown Prince Friedrich simply said: "Since both our countries have the ability and the desire to promote the internationalization of German, why not build two centers, that is, two headquarters."

"Of course, in this case, the missions of our two headquarters will also be different. We can determine the main areas of activity for each country based on their respective influence, sphere of influence, economic trade and other realities."

“For example, we in East Africa have a stronger influence in South America, so the promotion of German in South America will be mainly carried out by East Africa, while Germany’s influence on North America is deeper than ours, so you are responsible for the promotion in North America.”

"In this way, we can clearly divide the work, and the two countries can work together to promote the German language to a greater extent."

After all, East Africa and Germany have the same goal of promoting the German language, and all German-speaking countries can benefit from the promotion of the German language around the world.

This is conducive to the development of foreign trade between the two countries, the exchange and promotion of culture, and the gathering of talents and technology to German-speaking countries.

There is no doubt that East Africa and Germany attach great importance to the latter, that is, to promote the German language, thereby encouraging talents from all over the world to immigrate to German-speaking countries, or to enhance the status of German in academia and other fields.

The issue of talent is very simple. Talented people who have learned German will naturally find it easier to move to German-speaking countries. This is just like English in the past. As a world language, people from all countries who learn English are the mainstream, which greatly enhances the advantages of English-speaking countries in absorbing talents from all over the world.

The negative example is languages ​​like German and Japanese in the past. As relatively weak languages, they found it difficult to compete with English, which to a large extent led to a greater outflow of talent than inflow of talent. To put it more bluntly, the hegemonic position of English in the past allowed English-speaking countries to get free access to many talents that non-English-speaking countries had worked so hard to cultivate.

In the academic field, German itself now has an advantage. With the joint promotion of East Africa and Germany, it is possible for German to become the most important language tool for academic communication in the world.

This will make it easier for German-speaking countries to share cutting-edge academic research from around the world at a low cost.

Just like in the past, many scientific researchers in non-English speaking countries published their academic papers in English. This undoubtedly greatly facilitated the English-speaking countries' absorption of new knowledge and extraction of inspiration, thus giving their own scientific research culture a greater advantage in competition.

If German can achieve this, in the future, theoretical research results from some other countries will be available for free without even the effort of translating them. It will also broaden the thinking and inspiration of people in the scientific research and cultural fields in East Africa and promote the development of the country's scientific research and cultural undertakings.

Of course, the Germans had the same idea, but fortunately, the goals of East Africa and Germany were the same. Although there were slight differences between East African German and German German, this did not affect the overall situation, and after the German-speaking organization was established.

The German language standard will inevitably be reshaped and adjusted, and this problem will no longer exist.

Finally, Crown Prince Friedrich and Ambassador Poynzhausen reached a consensus, that is, to set up dual headquarters, share intelligence and information, and hold regular consultations to promote the German language in different parts of the world.

(End of this chapter)