Political and cultural figures who could've had lives/careers in different countries

[Erinthecute]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but Ursula von der Leyen was born and grew up in Belgium until she was 13. Belgian-born former Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann was also an elected politician in the German-speaking community until moving to Perth at age 25. Kristina Keneally was born in Las Vegas and grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and was active as a Democrat, interning for Lieutenant Governor Paul Leonard.

 

[Nanwe]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but Ursula von der Leyen was born and grew up in Belgium until she was 13. Belgian-born former Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann was also an elected politician in the German-speaking community until moving to Perth at age 25. Kristina Keneally was born in Las Vegas and grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and was active as a Democrat, interning for Lieutenant Governor Paul Leonard.

Also, von der Leyen lived in Stanford in the early 90s where her husband worked as a professor, I can see that being permanent. Wouldn't be surprised if then she ends up entering Californian politics.

 

[Tamar]

Quite, he could fit very well as a settler type.

The problem is those Russian refusenik / immigrant parties were / are dominated by big personalities (Avigdor Lieberman and Natan Sharansky, OTL - there are others one could name as well) but Zhirinovsky would be a arriviste with dodgy Soviet political ties, one of the worst personalities a human being has ever had, and no pre-existing connections except to a clearly astroturfed Soviet Jewry organization.

But, also, my god he was good at rebuilding himself.

Speaking of Lieberman, we've also talked about the scenario of him not making aliyah and instead continuing to pursue his aspirations to be a writer/playwright in the USSR. I don't know if his writing was any good, but people seemed to think so at one point - he apparently won a prize for a play he wrote as a student.

 

[Uhura's Mazda]

Bryan Gould (UK Labour politician well-known to the forum) could easily have risen quite high in NZ politics if he'd been less ambitious - I suspect he'd have been a good fit in the National Party without getting the Oxbridge Experience out of his system and with closer surveillance by his family. Perhaps defecting to Alliance in the early-mid-90s.

Going the other way, obviously most NZ politicians would have had an opportunity to involve themselves in British politics if they or their ancestors had stayed, and quite often they only chose to come to NZ rather than another colony because of happenstance (indeed Julius Vogel ran for parliament in Victoria before he came here, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield was in Canadian politics). But in terms of concrete options it's mostly a case of ex-PMs having conversations with a view to becoming a geriatric backbencher (Ward and Vogel being the obvious ones), with the exception of F. M. B. Fisher. Our man Fisher was the son of a populist MP and nephew of an early trade union leader, entering the NZ Parliament in the late 1890s as a left-wing opponent of the Liberal government. After his New Liberal Party collapsed, he eventually joined the Reform Party (broadly on the conservative end of the spectrum) and served as a Minister from 1912 to 1915. Fisher was defeated in the 1914 election and moved to the UK, where he stood at least three times for the Tories. If he'd won the Widnes by-election he'd have put a serious spoke in Arthur Henderson's career; he also came close to victory twice in Newcastle Central. As it was, he lived out his days playing tennis with Edward VIII and marrying a series of attractive 20-year-old women.

I could also imagine King O'Malley (Australian Labor MP of the same era) getting up to mischief as some sort of prairie radical in either America or Canada.

For non-Anglo examples, I can think of several independence-period Latin American generals whose careers brought them far from their birthplaces: for instance, Juan Jose Flores was born in Venezuela but ended up in Ecuador, where he became President; Jose de San Martin was born in Argentina, was offered the presidency of Chile, and tried to set himself up as the head of state in Peru; Marshal Sucre was another Venezuelan who ended up in charge of Bolivia; the Carrera brothers were Chileans who were exiled and tried to set themselves up as strongmen in Argentina. It's very conceivable that any of them could make their names militarily and then return to take power on home turf. Or Manuel Belgrano could achieve his dream and set up a monarchy in Argentina under Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru - a Peruvian mestizo.

 

[Hendryk]

There's a well-known French author tract, Le Feld-Maréchal von Bonaparte by Jean Dutourd, which speculates that with the right political reforms in the 18th century, the French Revolution could have been preempted, and with Corsica acquired by Austria rather than France, Napoleon becomes a key defender of Hapsburg rule in Central Europe.

 

[AH Layard]

Some footballers who could have played for a different international team:

Messi for Spain (turned down the Spain U20s when he was in the Barcelona youth team),
Mbappe for Cameroon,
Haaland for England,
Zidane for Algeria,
Vieria for Senegal,
Pulisic for Croatia,
Klose for Poland,
Pique for the Netherlands,
Rice for Ireland.

 

[Neoteros]

Some footballers who could have played for a different international teams:

Messi for Spain (turned down the Spain U20s when he was in the Barcelona youth team),
Mbappe for Cameroon,
Haaland for England,
Zidane for Algeria,
Vieria for Senegal,
Pulisic for Croatia,
Klose for Poland,
Pique for the Netherlands,
Rice for Ireland,
Mount for Indonesia.

Albania could've had a stacked team, too - given how many people of recent Albanian descent play for other teams. And if the Catalan independence bid had succeeded, quite a few top tier players would've played for Catalonia rather than Spain, too. Speaking of sub-Saharan African players though, had Africa's post-colonial borders been drawn along ethnic or linguistic lines whenever feasible and/or possible, taking African cultural ties and trade languages into account to avoid border gore, the hypothetical national team of a hypothetical Fula-speaking union would be stacked as well.

 

[JesterBL]

There's a well-known French author tract, Le Feld-Maréchal von Bonaparte by Jean Dutourd, which speculates that with the right political reforms in the 18th century, the French Revolution could have been preempted, and with Corsica acquired by Austria rather than France, Napoleon becomes a key defender of Hapsburg rule in Central Europe.

I feel like there's an SLP article in just alternate Napoleons. There's at least two early Napoleon AH stories (as in, 19th and early 20th century) I am aware of, then there's LTTW's Admiral Bone and I'm sure a few others.

 

[Catalunya]

Some footballers who could have played for a different international team:


Pique for the Netherlands,

Never heard about this one, but I do know Marcos Asensio has a Dutch grandmother.

 

[Japhy]

While I've tossed him on a few lists I don't think that Wolfgang Kapp has a future in New York politics if his parents decide to not emigrate back to Germany, except as a crank Conservative Republican without a constituency.

On the other hand Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht seems rather destined to be a rival of Andrew Mellon in the long Republican Administration of 1921-33 had his parents decided to stay in America before going back and having him.

 

[OwenM]

Some footballers who could have played for a different international team:

Messi for Spain (turned down the Spain U20s when he was in the Barcelona youth team),
Mbappe for Cameroon,
Haaland for England,
Zidane for Algeria,
Vieria for Senegal,
Pulisic for Croatia,
Klose for Poland,
Pique for the Netherlands,
Rice for Ireland.

Contrary to popular belief Giggs and Owen weren't eligible to play for England and Wales respectively at the time (though I think both did for schoolboy teams?) but would have been under both current and previous rules if they had been in place, as well as if their parents had somehow moved before their birth instead of when they were very young.

 

[Callan]

David Lewis, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party in the early 1970s, was born David Losz in what is today Belarus. His dad was chair of the local branch of the Jewish Labour Bund and an opponent of the Bolsheviks; when he was ten his family fled to Canada to escape Bolshevik oppression. It's very easy to imagine David Losz as a leading social democratic figure in a Russia where the October Revolution does not occur.

He grew up in Canada and attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in the 1930s, becoming heavily involved in Labour politics, almost single-handedly reviving the Labour Club and shaping it's anti-communist, anti-fascist parliamentarianism around his. Michael Foot mentions him in his diaries as "the most powerful socialist debater in the place". When he graduated in 1935 he was offered a safe seat by the Labour Party in the upcoming 1935 general election. Stafford Cripps was grooming him to be prime minister; he was offered a partnership in a London law firm associated with Cripps and would've almost certainly become a minister in the next Labour government.

Instead, he took up a request from the Canadian socialist colleague to return to Canada to revive and rebuild the Co-Operative Commonwealth Party. He transformed the party into ideologically and organizationally coherent force - and was a key force in recreating it into the New Democratic Party in the early 1960s - but never achieved the political breakthroughs Britain's Labour Party managed, and never held government office.

 

[Stateless]

John Major did a period in Nigeria that came to an end when he was in a car accident, that in part brought into relief for him what sort of life the expat community was living out there. With sufficient inertia or other factors he could have ended up being there forever. He would be able to observe changes in the country from the clubhouse of the cricket club.

 

[Hendryk]

I feel like there's an SLP article in just alternate Napoleons. There's at least two early Napoleon AH stories (as in, 19th and early 20th century) I am aware of, then there's LTTW's Admiral Bone and I'm sure a few others.

You have a point, one of the fascinating traits about him is that for the first time in a millennium and a half, someone became the most powerful man in Europe without being tied to any royal or even aristocratic bloodline. He was, for better or for worse, an entirely self-made man, and among other things he arguably made fascism thinkable.

 

[Tamar]

Instead, he took up a request from the Canadian socialist colleague to return to Canada to revive and rebuild the Co-Operative Commonwealth Party. He transformed the party into ideologically and organizationally coherent force - and was a key force in recreating it into the New Democratic Party in the early 1960s - but never achieved the political breakthroughs Britain's Labour Party managed, and never held government office.

Sort of off-topic but someone suggested to me a while ago that, if you really wanted to write a realistic NDP wank, Lewis actually agreeing to be the first leader instead of Douglas might be a POD to explore.

 

[Lilitou]

Sort of off-topic but someone suggested to me a while ago that, if you really wanted to write a realistic NDP wank, Lewis actually agreeing to be the first leader instead of Douglas might be a POD to explore.

And then, in the spirit of the thread, Douglas is one of thost many Commonwealth citizens who was born in a different country (Scotland) than where they later rose to prominence (Canada). So, Scottish Labour MP Tommy Douglas is another one!

 

[Indicus]

D’Arcy McGee, in his early life, was a young Irish hothead who went from being a moderate nationalist O’Connellite to participant in the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848. The rebellion failed and McGee instead fled to the US where he became very influential in diaspora politics. However, American discrimination against Catholics made him disillusioned, and his politics turned from republicanism to ultramontane conservatism, causing him to move to Montreal in 1857. Here, he quickly became a leader of Irish Catholics, winning election to the Province of Canada’s parliament aligned to the Liberal-Conservatives (but one opposed to the Orange Order) and became a cabinet minister. He became a vociferous Canadian nationalist and, despite his former republican views, he was so monarchist other Tories thought he went too far. He also denounced the Fenians and, for being a turncoat, was assassinated by a Fenian in 1868 at the age of 42.

It’s easy to imagine things going differently. Perhaps had he not been so involved in the 1848 rebellion, he would have stayed in Ireland and become a political leader there. If he still shifts to ultramontane conservatism, he’d be a natural fit as a conservative and later Anti-Parnellite Home Ruler. Or perhaps it would be possible to avoid his disillusionment with American republicanism and he’d end up being a big Irish Catholic politician in Boston. Or maybe he could have ended up moving/deported to Australia, ending up one of the great Australian Catholic politicians of the era. A lot of possibility there.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

I feel like there's an SLP article in just alternate Napoleons. There's at least two early Napoleon AH stories (as in, 19th and early 20th century) I am aware of, then there's LTTW's Admiral Bone and I'm sure a few others.

If we're doing alternate Napoleons, after his career slump from political suspicions and his refusal to take a lower-ranking posting as an infantry commander puting down the Vendee, he considered a move to the Ottoman Empire, who were in dire need of good artillery officers. Then the 13 Vendémiaire happened and suddenly staying in France was good for him again.

I don't know enough about the early-19th-century Ottomans to speculate on what Boney would do there, but I doubt he'd reach the heights of his OTL career unless events went really, really, skew-whiff. You could do a fun little "ohh the IRONY" vignette about him trying to see off a (Royalist?) French invasion of Egypt, though.

 

[Halton]

Reminds me of how one of Manmohan Singh's daughters is (or at least was) an ACLU lawyer in New York City.

George Fernandes’s son is a New York investment banker, interestingly enough.

 

[Halton]

Additionally, Chuka Ummuna’s dad was a gubernatorial candidate in Nigeria and died in an accident when Chuka was 13.