Chapters 23 and 24- Decolonization after WWII

After WWII, the countries that had previously been European colonies pressed for democratic reforms and independence. Europeans were aware of the inherent contradiction they created when they went to war with the Axis Powers to preserve democracy in Europe and yet denied those very basic rights from people within their own colonies. Despite the high-mindedness of the colonial reforms from 1945- today, most new countries that were created in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s were not democratic. They also lacked industrialization because they had originally been established to supply European countries with raw materials which made their economies very poor. This was the era of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries. 1st world countries were like the US, Western Europe, and Japan that had thriving economies with lots of consumer goods. 2nd world countries were communist countries like the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and later China. In these countries, there were few consumer goods, but most people had the necessities of life. 3rd world countries were the newly independent countries that were mostly impoverished. The US and the Soviet Union fought for political and economic influence in these 3rd world countries in order to gain allies in the Cold War. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, this classification system does not make sense. Today we distinguish countries between “Developed” nations that have industrialized and “Developing” nations that are in the process of becoming industrialized. Some economists also discuss “Underdeveloped” nations in which the process of industrialization seems to be perpetually slowed. These would be the poorest nations in the world (for example, Bangladesh or choose your favorite sub-Saharan African country). We will address the independence movements from European countries by region.

Asia The independence movements in Asia had begun before WWII, but they were put on hold while Europe fought the Axis Powers. Nevertheless, the countries pressed for independence as soon as possible after the war. The Philippines were granted independence from the Unites States in 1946. They were closely followed by Indian independence from Britain in 1947. Indian independence was much more difficult to come by, though, because India is a country with many different ethnicities that all compete for power. As early as 1885, the Indian National Congress (eventually led by Gandhi’s successor Nehru) had pushed for more representation for natives in the Indian Parliament. The mostly Hindu National Congress also wanted to keep India unified as an independent nation. The Muslim League, established in 1906, opposed this idea because they feared domination by the Hindu majority. As pressure for independence grew, Great Britain decided to partition the country into India (mostly Hindu) and East and West Pakistan (mostly Muslim). Immediate religious war followed while Hindus fled Pakistan and Muslims fled India. Religious violence dominated for a short time. Eventually, East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh in 1971. After independence, India had a rocky time getting started. Nevertheless, they are considered the largest democracy in the world as they have a parliament that is at least marginally representative of the population. India remained neutral during the Cold War. They never supported communism, but they felt any involvement from the US was a type of new imperialism. India still fights with Pakistan over a region called Kashmir which has led to bitter tensions between the two countries complicated by the fact that both countries have nuclear weapons. Socially, India is a complex country, not offering equal rights to men and women. Yet, in 1966, Indira Gandhi, daughter of Nehru became Prime Minister and controlled India politically on and off through the 60s, 70s, and 80s until her assassination in 1984. In the 1990s, India had a Hindu Revival in which older traditions were again celebrated in the face of modernization. After independence, Pakistan developed a military dictatorship that would last for the rest of the 20th century. Various military groups would take over the country and impose strict rule despite the fact that Pakistan still had a parliament. One major problem for Pakistan is overpopulation especially in the now independent nation of Bangladesh. Despite denying women basic rights, in 1988, a woman, Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. This is one of the essential ironies of these Asian nations: they deny women rights and yet have women in the highest government offices. In the 1990s, Pakistan fell under the rule of the Taliban and reinstituted Islamic law (Sharia law) which further restricted the rights of women. Other Asian colonies of Great Britain that gained independence were Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma (Myanmar). Malaysia and Singapore chose to become part of the British Commonwealth, governing themselves but still having a favored trading status with Great Britain. The Dutch gave Indonesia independence in 1949 after a bloody civil war. French Indochina, including Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were offered autonomy within a French Federation which meant more control but not complete independence. Cambodia and Laos agreed, but Vietnam wanted full independence. A nationalist movement started up in Vietnam led my Ho Chi Minh, a communist that rallied an army behind him called the Viet Minh. He went to war against the French colonial powers in 1946. France fought back unsuccessfully. After the disastrous battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French agreed to give Vietnam full independence.

Africa If the 1940s was the decade of independence for Asia, the 50s and 60s were the decades of independence for Africa. Unfortunately, democracy did not follow independence and most colonies that became independent devolved into dictatorships. This is probably because the people of Africa had been suppressed during imperialism, unable to participate in colonial government. When given independence, they followed the oppressive models of European domination to which they had been previously exposed. To begin, Ethiopia was liberated after WWII eventually becoming a communist nation under a dictator in 1974 that was supported by the Soviet Union. In 1951, Italy granted independence to Libya. Afterward, Colonel Muhammar al-Quaddafi became military dictator of Libya and openly sponsored terrorism against European countries. He used money from oil to become a terrible leader. In 1956, Morocco and Tunisia became independent from France. Algeria would have logically followed next, but many Europeans had settled in Algeria, and they feared political domination by the natives if independence was granted. Thus, France offered Algerians seats in the French National Assembly but held out on independence. This led to a 7 ½ year uprising that led to the fall of the 4th French Republic. In 1962, when Charles de Gaulle became president of the 5th French Republic, he granted Algeria full independence. The British experienced similar problems with their African colonies. Generally, African nations became British mandates (territories look after by the British but given some independence) then independent republics and then turned to authoritarian leaders whose rules were characterized by political and economic unrest. Ghana (independent in 1957), Uganda (1962), Nigeria (1963), Kenya and Tanzania (1964), and Rhodesia (1965) all followed this pattern. South Africa became a particular concern for the Western world in its reluctance to become democratic up through the end of the 20th century. Ethnic conflicts between the natives, the Boers (also called Afrikaners) who came from the Netherlands, and the British created tensions not easily resolved. In 1948, the South African parliament passed a group of segregation laws collectively known as apartheid. These laws severely restricted the movements, the education, the ability to get jobs, and the basic freedoms of the blacks living in South Africa. Although granted independence in 1961, the Republic of South Africa was very undemocratic and continued to deny rights to the majority of the population. Those who opposed apartheid were seen as political dissidents and were often imprisoned for lengthy terms like the famous Nelson Mandela that spent 27 years in prison. In the 1990s, apartheid started to ease due to international pressure and economic sanctions. Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994 in the first free and fair elections in the country. The French sub-Saharan colonies followed much the same pattern as the earlier mentioned British colonies being freed in 1960. The Belgian Congo became independent in 1965, but crisis in the country led to the assumption of power by a military dictator. Since then, the country has been in perpetual civil war. The country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997 but is still one of the most dangerous places to be especially in the countryside. The countries of Burundi and Rwanda experienced similar internal conflict after their independence in 1962. In Rwanda, there were two main ethnic groups, the minority Tutsis and the majority Hutus. After the British withdrew from these countries, the Tutsis refused to give more than minimal political power to the Hutus which led of rebellion. In 1994, a genocide occurred in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were killed along with Hutus that refused to participate in the slaughter. This incidence of clear genocide shocked the world and drew attention to the continuing struggles for democracy and human rights in Africa. Portugal’s colonies were among the last to become independent because Portugal itself was ruled under a dictatorship until 1974. In 1975, the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique were proclaimed independent in 1974.

Middle East Independence for countries in the Middle East generally led to religious conflict and rebellion that threaten the stability of the region even today. Although historically very different, the Arab countries in the Middle East agree on one thing: their hatred for the country of Israel. As was discussed earlier, the British had promised the area traditionally known as Palestine to several groups of people most importantly the Arabs who had fought against the Ottoman Empire during WWII and the Jews in the Balfour Declaration. In 1923, when the Ottoman Empire fell apart, the British received a mandate for Palestine. A mandate again means that they are to watch over it until it can become independent and function on its own. Although Jewish immigrants had been flocking to Palestine before WWI, but immigration increased in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The native Arabs (who happened to also be Muslim, not Jewish) were often displaced by these Jewish settlers with no place to turn. This made the Arabs angry because their families had been living in Palestine for hundreds of years. In 1947, Britain gave up its mandate, and the UN partitioned Palestine into Jewish segments (called Israel) and Palestinian segments. On May 14, 1948, Israel was invaded by its neighbors: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. Although Jordan seized an area now called the “West Bank” and Egypt claimed the Gaza Strip, Israel gained territory elsewhere causing 600,000 Palestinians to flee from their homes as Israel took over. These Palestinian refugees were not welcomed by any of the neighboring nations, so they have become one of the greatest refugee problems in the world today. Despite council from the UN, Israel refused to give back the territory it won in 1948. That war was followed by a major conflict every decade which contributed to deteriorating Israel-Palestinian relations. In 1956, Israel went to war with Egypt over the right to trade on the Suez Canal. In 1967, Israel went to war with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan to protect its trading rights in the Mediterranean Sea. Israel gained the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Sinai Peninsula as a result of this war. Additionally, almost 1 million Arabs were added to its territory. In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Despite being surprised, Israel won in less than a month and took more territory. Israel also joined in the Lebanese Civil War in 1982 in order to stop Arab terrorists from crossing the border into Israel. Israel’s biggest concern as a country is that its neighbors do not want it to exist. Another issue that Israel has to contend with is not only unfriendly neighbors but unfriendly Arabs in its own borders. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that claims to represent all Palestinians frequently pressured the Israeli government to give some concessions to the Palestinian refugees living in its borders. Some factions of the PLO, however, have grown tired of negotiating and instead incite acts of terror within Israel with the hope that Israel will cede some of its territory, specifically the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where millions of Palestinians still live in refugee camps as they have since the 1950s. Although some progress at peace was made with the Oslo Accords, Israel is still a troubled area today. The next Middle Eastern country of interest would be Syria. It was given to the French in a UN mandate and then received independence in 1946. The minority Baath Party took over the government and the president, Hafez al Assad became essential dictator until his death. His son, Bashar al Assad then took over, but the people of Syria rose up in rebellion in 2011. The country is currently still in the middle of a civil war. A final Middle Eastern country of interest is Iran. Iran is the only country in the world that has a Shi’ite Muslim majority. Most Muslims in the world are Sunni. In 1921, a general Reza Khan became the shah (dictator or king) of Iran. He followed a policy of modernization until he was forced to abdicate to his son Muhammad Reza who had close ties with America. During Muhammad Reza’s reign, Iran flourished, but also became increasingly western. Unfortunately, the shah was very corrupt and lavished in wealth while his people suffered. He was forced to flee in early 1979. After the shah fled, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over and declared Iran to be an “Islamic Republic” under Islamic law. All the people were forced to accept a very strict interpretation of Islamic law, and all things western were banned. The same year, the American Embassy in Iran was invaded by radicals following the advice of the ayatollah because the US had allowed the old shah to take refuge in the US while seeking medical treatment for late stage cancer. Fifty people were taken hostage for almost 15 months before being released. The Hostage Crisis and an embarrassing failed rescue mission humiliated the US and its government. In 1980, Iran went to war with Iraq over disputed land claims and oil reserves. The war lasted for 8 years and had no definite conclusion. Khomeini died in 1989 and was succeeded by Ayatollah Khamenei who loosened restrictions in the 1990s but tightened them again today. Iran is still a concern today due to its close ties with the former Soviet Union.

Reading Questions: 1. What was the inherent contradiction between colonization and WWII? 2. What was the difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries? Why were 3rd world countries important? 3. How did Britain choose to solve the problem with the many ethnicities in India? 4. What battle caused the French to withdraw from Vietnam? 5. Why did democracy not naturally follow independence in African countries? 6. What were the apartheid laws in South Africa? 7. Why is Israel hated by its neighbors? Why is the Palestinian refugee problem so bad? 8. What happened in Iran as a result of the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini?