Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School 5-2014 The rB oad, Toiling Masses in all the Continents: Anticolonial Activists and the Atlantic Charter Mark Reeves Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses Part of the Asian History Commons, European History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Reeves, Mark, "The rB oad, Toiling Masses in all the Continents: Anticolonial Activists and the Atlantic Charter" (2014). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 1341. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1341 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses & Specialist Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE BROAD, TOILING MASSES IN ALL THE CONTINENTS: ANTICOLONIAL ACTIVISTS AND THE ATLANTIC CHARTER A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts By Mark L. Reeves May 2014 I dedicate this thesis to the Baptist Campus Ministry of Western Kentucky University, which provided me with a community, which helped me become a leader, and which enabled me to discover the wonder of transnationalism through international student ministry. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As always, I must acknowledge God, “for from him and through him and for him are all things” (Romans 11:36). In Jesus Christ we see a kingdom of all peoples without empires. Dr. Juan Romero’s course on the Modern Middle East gave me the opportunity to investigate Syrian decolonization during the Second World War, where I noticed the frequent citation of the Atlantic Charter. Dr. Patricia Minter’s Senior Seminar in human rights the semester before gave me the confidence to tackle the legal and rights history this project implied. Dr. Minter’s well-timed advice, especially pointing me toward Samuel Moyn’s work, has been priceless. Dr. Jen Walton-Hanley graciously sacrificed time to do an independent reading on colonialism with me, a course which opened my eyes to the rich world of anticolonial and postcolonial theory. Dr. Hanley, and the course, opened up a whole new field of inquiry for me. I must thank Dr. Beth Plummer and Dr. Robert Dietle for allowing me to take a week off for research at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library after the government shutdown nearly foiled my research trip. The Graduate School of Western Kentucky University provided the funding for research at the National Archives and the Library of Congress, for which I am very appreciative. As with innumerable projects here at WKU, all would be lost without the diligence and patience of Selina Langford and Ken Foushee in Interlibrary Loan. I often wonder what they must think of me. More generally, I extend my thanks to the History Department at WKU. I could not have asked for a better intellectual environment in which to come of age iv academically. I look forward to new frontiers, but I know those frontiers have been charted out on the second floor of Cherry. Dr. Eric Reed swept in at a (in my book) divinely-appointed moment to tempt me to study history again, and that conversation changed my life. Ms. Janet Haynes, who runs our department with grace and a litany of called-in-favors, is a university treasure. Maybe a national treasure, too. Our newest resident, Dr. Marko Dumančić, usefully challenged me to articulate this project in a clear way, and I owe him a great deal for helping me to chart where this project is going next. To the History Department, the jewel of Western Kentucky University, I give my sincerest thanks. v CONTENTS 1. The Atlantic Charter in Anticolonial Perspective: Historiography and Theory ......................................................................................... 1 2. "Write it in Water": India and the Atlantic Charter ................................................................................... 35 3. "The Shade of Principles of Justice and Liberty": Syria and the Atlantic Charter ................................................................................... 69 4. "He Had Seen It Work in the Philippines": The Philippines and the Atlantic Charter ................................................................ 103 5. Conclusion: The Three-Fifths World ........................................................................................... 132 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 146 vi THE BROAD, TOILING MASSES IN ALL THE CONTINENTS: ANTICOLONIAL ACTIVISTS AND THE ATLANTIC CHARTER Mark L. Reeves May 2014 160 Pages Directed by: Beth Plummer, Chunmei Du, and Juan Romero Department of History Western Kentucky University The 1941 Atlantic Charter’s references to self-determination galvanized anticolonial nationalists during the Second World War. These activists used the principles enumerated in the Atlantic Charter to frame their demands. This thesis examines three cases in the broader global context during the war, from vastly different colonial and wartime situations: British-ruled India, French-ruled Syria, and the U.S.- ruled Philippines. Across these different situations, anticolonial nationalists used the Atlantic Charter in an attempt to legitimate their own projects. This thesis shows that the elite nationalist movements examined here used a common rhetoric from the Charter, but in variable ways. Each case study is examined in depth, concluding with comparisons of how Indian, Syrian, and Philippine nationalist movements cited, used, or ignored the Atlantic Charter. Broadly speaking, movements in each of the case studies diverged between either dismissing the Charter as colonialist hypocrisy, necessitating the rejection of political dialogue for more radical options, or using the Charter as a tool to extract concessions from European and American colonial regimes. vii Chapter One The Atlantic Charter in Anticolonial Perspective: Historiography and Theory On August 14, 1941, during a summit off Newfoundland, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued a joint statement that surprised the world.1 The statement’s eight points described the broad areas of Churchill and Roosevelt’s agreement over the post-war world, the “common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.” Included were traditional U.S. points about free trade and freedom of the seas, as well as more New Deal-inspired goals of “improved labor standards…and social security.”2 On the 14th the document appeared as a press release in the United States, while in London Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee read it to a worldwide BBC radio audience.3 The document quickly became known as the “Atlantic Charter.”4 The Allies continued to reference the Charter in their documents throughout the war. Shortly after its promulgation, Britain and its European allies affirmed the Atlantic Charter as the basis for their opposition to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.5 After the Japanese, German, and Italian declarations of war on the United States, President 1 For an overview of the negotiations of the Charter, see Theodore A. Wilson, The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941, Revised Edition (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 32, 89, 93, and 149ff.; Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1997), 36–40. 2 “Atlantic Charter,” The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed April 8, 2013, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/atlantic.asp. 3 “Mr. Attlee’s Statement,” The Times, August 15, 1941. 4 Wilson, The First Summit, 192; Elizabeth Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are Stuck with It: The 1941 Atlantic Charter as a Human Rights Instrument,” Virginia Journal of International Law 46, no. 3 (2006): 501–502. 5 “Inter-Allied Council Statement on the Principles of the Atlantic Charter: September 24, 1941,” Text, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed December 11, 2013, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/interall.asp. 1 Roosevelt joined Churchill in promulgating a “Declaration by United Nations” to serve as the basis for the anti-Axis alliance.6 The signatory states to the Declaration were then referred to as the “United Nations.” At the end of the war, the signatories participated in the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, and thus became the founding members of the United Nations Organization.7 The third point in the Atlantic Charter aroused the most interest globally: that the United States and the United Kingdom “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.”8 As Roosevelt speechwriter Robert Sherwood observed, “it was not long before the people of India, Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia were beginning to ask if the Atlantic Charter extended also to the Pacific and to Asia in general.”9 Over the course of the war, Sherwood’s comments proved too limiting. Indians, Burmese,