Skinner, R. (2017). The dynamics of anti-apartheid: international solidarity, human rights and decolonization. In A. W. M. Smith, & C. Jeppeson (Eds.), Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa: future imperfect?. (pp. 111- 130). UCL Press. Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record License (if available): CC BY Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the final published version of the article (version of record). It first appeared online via UCL Press at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/britain-france-and-the-decolonization-of-africa. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms.html i Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa ii iii Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa Future Imperfect? Edited by Andrew W.M. Smith and Chris Jeppesen iv First published in 2017 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press Text © Contributors, 2017 Images © Contributors, 2017 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. This book is published under a Creative Common 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Andrew W.M. Smith and Chris Jeppesen (eds.), Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa. London, UCL Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911307730 Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/ ISBN: 978-1-911307-74-7 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-911307-75-4 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-911307-73-0 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-911307-76-1 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-911307-77-8 (mobi) ISBN: 978-1-78735-003-8 (html) DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911307730 v Acknowledgements This book emerged from discussions at a conference organized by the editors at University College London (UCL) in 2014, which proved an inspiring and productive exploration of the field. We would like to thank all the participants for their input and their insight in shaping the ideas behind this work, as well as the funders of that conference: the Royal Historical Society, UCL History and the Joint Faculty Institute of Graduate Studies at UCL. In addition, both editors would like to thank Margot Finn for her generous advice and willing guidance during our time at UCL. We are grateful to all the contributors to the volume for making this such an enjoyable and engaging process, while Chris Penfold, our editor at UCL Press, has shown much-appreciated forbearance during the publication process. Holly Smith and Susan Imrie both provided invaluable sup- port, editorial advice and patience during the preparation of the volume. Likewise, we both owe great thanks to Penelope Smith for being born two weeks late and affording us the space to finish writing! v vi vii Contents List of figures ix Notes on contributors x Introduction: development, contingency and entanglement: decolonization in the conditional 1 Andrew W. M. Smith and Chris Jeppesen Section 1 Development 15 1 Nation, state and agency: evolving historiographies of African decolonization 17 Michael Collins 2 ‘The winds of change are blowing economically’: the Labour Party and British overseas development, 1940s– 1960s 43 Charlotte Lydia Riley 3 ‘Oil will set us free’: the hydrocarbon industry and the Algerian decolonization process 62 Marta Musso Section 2 Contingency 85 4 Future imperfect: colonial futures, contingencies and the end of French empire 87 Andrew W. M. Smith 5 The dynamics of anti- apartheid: international solidarity, human rights and decolonization 111 Robert Skinner vii viii Section 3 Entanglement 131 6 ‘A worthwhile career for a man who is not entirely self- seeking’: service, duty and the Colonial Service during decolonization 133 Chris Jeppesen 7 Protecting empire from without: francophone African migrant workers, British West Africa and French efforts to maintain power in Africa, 1945– 1960 156 Joanna Warson Conclusion: the conditional as a category 172 Chris Jeppesen and Andrew W. M. Smith Afterword: Achilles and the tortoise: the tortoise’s view of late colonialism and decolonization 177 Martin Shipway Notes 186 Select bibliography 224 Index 239 viii CONTENTS ix List of figures 1 Map of African states with dates of independence 3 2 Map of newly discovered North African hydrocarbon fields, 1962 68 3 The original marketing material found inside Le Destin de l’Union française 91 4 The first page of extracts in front of the green folder in the archives at Aix 97 5 Cornut- Gentille’s report 104 ix x Notes on contributors Michael Collins is Senior Lecturer in International and Imperial History at UCL. He specializes in the history of empire and decolonization. He is the author of Empire, Nationalism and the Postcolonial World: Rabindranath Tagore’s Writings on History, Politics and Society (London: Routledge, 2012) and the forthcoming Decolonization and Globalization since 1945 (London: I.B. Tauris). His current research looks at the ‘federal moment’ in world history after 1945, and the interest shown by anti- colonial intellectuals in constructing regional federations in formerly colonized territories. Chris Jeppesen is a historian of twentieth- century Britain and the British empire. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, exploring the motivation behind careers in the imperial civil services, and since then he has worked on the shifting significance of empire within British culture more broadly. He is currently Teaching Fellow at UCL. Marta Musso is a researcher on the history of the oil industry and international development. Having completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, she is currently Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. Her fields of specialization include international business history, energy policies, the economics of decolonization and the evolution of digital communication. She has published on the Trans- Mediterranean gas pipeline, Italian– French relations during the Algerian War and the evolution of business websites. She is a fellow of the Cambridge–Harvard Centre for History and Economics and one of the founders of Eogan, the European Oil and Gas Archive Network. Charlotte Lydia Riley is a lecturer in twentieth- century British history at the University of Southampton. Before this she taught and researched at the University of York, the London School of Economics, and UCL, where she completed her PhD. Her work explores the Labour Party’s approach to aid and development from the 1920s to the 1990s. She is interested in x xinewgenprepdf the end of the British empire, broadly understood, and questions about duty, morality and identity in British politics. Martin Shipway is Reader in French and European Contemporary History at Birkbeck College, University of London. His work to date has focused on the French empire in Africa and Asia, and he has written a comparative account of European decolonization, Decolonization and its Impact: A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008). He has published widely on French colonial policy and administration in Africa, Madagascar and Indochina, and is currently working on a project that examines the French ‘official mind’ during the period of decolonization. Robert Skinner is a lecturer in modern history at the University of Bristol. His research examines transnational anti-colonial activism in the post- war world, and he has published on the history of the anti-apartheid movement, including his book The Foundations of Anti- apartheid: Liberal Humanitarians and Transnational Activists in Britain and the United States, c. 1919– 64 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). His recent work has focused on the interconnected histories of Third World nationalism, pacifism and the global anti- nuclear weapons campaigns of the early 1960s. Andrew W. M. Smith is a historian of the French and francophone world. His work focuses on concepts of centre and periphery, analysing various contexts in which this relationship has shaped developments within and beyond the structures of the modern state. In this context, he has written on minority nationalism in France and the decolonization of French West Africa. His most recent book is Terror and Terroir: The Winegrowers of the Languedoc and Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). He is Teaching Fellow at UCL and the secretary of the Society for the Study of French History. Joanna Warson completed her PhD in 2013 at the University of Portsmouth, under the supervision of Professor Tony Chafer and Professor Martin Evans (Sussex). Her thesis examined French policy in, and perceptions of, the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Between 2013 and 2015 Joanna was Post doctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for European and International Studies Research at the University of Portsmouth. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi xii 1 Introduction: development, contingency and entanglement: decolonization in the conditional Andrew W. M. Smith and Chris Jeppesen The imperfect tense describes an indefinite ending: in the past, it is irresolute; in the future, it is conditional. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the vast African empires of Britain and France started to break apart in ways that seemed to defy the political will of the colonizers. By 1966 most of the African continent had gained independence and new nation states raised the standards of liberation.1 Looking back on the political reconfigurations of this period, it can appear that an unstoppable storm swept across the African continent during the late 1950s and early 1960s.