Lecture 10: End of War, End of Empires: The Spread of the Post-colonial movement in Africa and Asia

Decolonization of Asian and African areas in the early phases of the Cold War. The Non-Aligned Movement (1961), the Group of 77 (1964). The Growth of Soviet-funded and Chinese- funded armed groups in Africa (from the 1960s).

The reasons why decolonization took place are many and complex, varying widely from one country to another. Three key elements played a major role in the process: colonized peoples' thirst for independence, the Second World War which demonstrated that colonial powers were no longer invulnerable, and a new focus on anti-colonialism in international arenas such as the United Nations. The end of the colonial empires was not caused by the Cold War, but new nations became entangled in the dispute between East and West. The Cold War and decolonization created a Three World order. The First World was the US and its liberal democratic, capitalist allies, the Second World was the USSR and its communist allies, and the new, decolonized nations formed the Third World. In this lesson, students will learn about the efforts of the US and the Soviet Union to influence the Third World and the attempt of leaders in the Third World to create a “Third Way” that would be independent of both superpowers.

They will analyze two conflicts – the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 – to understand how Third World leaders tried to shape a Third Way amid the pressures of the Cold War.

Colonial world dominance in 1939. Before the Second World War broke out, a large proportion of the world population was living under the sovereignty of a colonial power, for the most part European. European domination in Africa was particularly impressive. 

World War II undermines the colonial system. Myths such as the invulnerability of colonial powers and white supremacy were seriously challenged by the outbreak of the Second World War.

Accelerated decolonization after 1945. Following the Second World War, the colonial system was subject to growing unrest and many countries quickly acquired their independence.

Independence for India and Pakistan. Clement Attlee, the Labor Prime Minister who replaced Winston Churchill in July 1945, soon realized that independence for India was inevitable, but disagreements among the Indian politicians made the negotiations very difficult.

 Independence for Burma, Ceylon and Malaysia. Burma and Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) obtained their independence soon after India but, in Malaysia, the situation was more complex.

 Independence for the Indonesian Archipelago. A direct consequence of Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during the Second World War was the emergence of Indonesian nationalism. Nevertheless, at the end of the war, the Netherlands was opposed to independence.

Independence for Indochina. The Communist Party led by Ho Chi Minh took advantage of the Japanese occupation of Indochina during the Second World War to launch the Viet Minh Independence Movement. The failure to create an Indochinese federation in 1946 as part of the French Union led to a long war of independence.

Independence for Italy’s African colonies. Independence for Italy’s African colonies (Ethiopia, Libya, Eritrea, Somalia) came as a direct consequence of Italy’s downfall during the Second World War.

Decolonization of the United Kingdom’s territories in Africa. In Africa, the United Kingdom launched the process of decolonization in the early 1950s. Some countries achieved independence peacefully. Others, however, became embroiled in inter-community rivalries or faced with opposition from the British colonial settlers.

 Decolonization of North Africa by France. French North Africa covered three territories: the Protectorates of Morocco in the west and Tunisia in the East, with Algeria in the centre. Algeria was considered by France to be an extension of its national territory and only obtained its independence after a long drawn-out conflict lasting 8 years.

Decolonization of French black Africa. Independence in Africa was introduced in phases. Most of the French colonies in Black Africa became independent in 1960.

Independence for Belgium’s African colonies. The immense Belgian Congo was one of the richest colonies in Africa. After bloody riots in 1959, the Belgian Government quickly yielded to demands for independence in 1960.

Independence for Portugal’s African colonies. Portuguese colonies in Africa gained their independence only after the “Carnation Revolution” which took place in Lisbon in April 1974.

Independence for Spain’s African territories

Spain had few colonies on the African continent. North of Morocco, Spanish Guinea and Western Sahara gained their independence from Spain during the period 1956 to 1975.

Comparison of Decolonization in India and Africa After World War II

In comparing the patterns and results of decolonization of India and Africa, there are many similarities and differences. The decolonization movement gained strength after WWII in both India and Africa because of the war's weakening of the colonizing European countries' economies, as well as rising nationalism in India and Africa. Also, both Africa and India suffered splits between populations within the same colony after decolonization. This was because of ethnic and religious differences among populations of the colonies. However, Africa and India were different in their political structures after decolonization. This was because of the desire of these African nations to protect and gain valuable resources, as well as the desire of the Hindus of India to gain political power and of the rulers of the nations of Africa to remain in power.

After World War II, the colonizing nations of Europe, including Britain and France, became weaker due to the war's negative impact on their economies and military. This meant they had less funding to run bureaucracies in their colonies, and were reluctant to make military commitment to suppress revolts in their colonies. Because of WWII's drain on their economies, the European nations wanted to take even larger advantage of their colonies, taking more of the colonies' valuable resources, and paying even less for them. This furthered nationalistic beliefs because it greatly upset local elites, who owned most of these resources and were not receiving adequate pay for them. Europe's struggling economy meant it couldn't pay African workers decent wages to work for them, so instead Europeans forced Africans into labor for them. When the government of French Equatorial Africa decided to build a railroad from Brazzaville to the Atlantic Coast, it drafted 127,000 men to carve a roadbed across mountains and through rainforests. Lacking food, clothing, and medical care, 20,000 of them died. Events such as this contributed to rising nationalism in Africa. Also, during WWII, many people from Africa and India went to Europe to help in the war effort. Between the years of 1939 and 1945, over a million Africans served in World War II. Upon arriving and seeing the European nations in their weakened state, they no longer saw Europeans as dominant economically, militarily, or culturally. The weakness of the European countries and growing nationalism in India and Africa, due to their new views of Europe, combined to help India reach decolonization in 1947 and the nations of Africa to reach decolonization in and after the 1950s. This included Ghana's independence in 1957, Nigeria's in 1960, and Algeria's in 1962.

When the Europeans split up Africa into different colonies, they did so to further their own agenda, and ignored the fact that they were separating and mixing peoples of different ethnicities and religions. After independence, African countries were responsible for governing themselves, and many tribes didn't want to be part of nations composed of peoples of different ethnicities and religions. One example of this was the religious conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. Also, tribes within these nations didn't want to have a centralized democratic African government because some regions had valuable natural resources, while others did not. For this reason, tribes in regions with valuable natural resources didn't want to share these resources with the rest of their nation through the central government, and would attempt to split off from the nation instead. As a result, many nations of Africa became dictatorial military governments, so that the government would have enough power to force tribes to stay within the nation, and to compel people to give up their wealth. Another reason for some of the dictatorial governments in Africa was due to the fact that European settlers of these nations wanted to remain in power. Unlike in India, where Hindus used democracy to gain political power because they were a majority, these settlers, being an extreme minority, could not rely on democracy to remain in power. Instead, these settlers instituted dictatorships to remain in power. One example of this is in Zimbabwe, which was run by whites. Similarly, after South Africa won independence from Britain in 1931, the ruling British and Dutch colonists established a system of apartheid as an all-encompassing way of dividing blacks, who were 80% of the population, from the white minority. The worst areas of the country, compromising less than 15% of the nation's land, were set aside for blacks. The whites were given the cities, the resource-rich mines, and the best farmland. Blacks who stayed in the cities were segregated into black slums.

By the time India received independence, conflict between Hindus and Muslims had become so intense that Muslims broke off and formed their own nation, Pakistan. This was followed by genocide of Muslims in India, as well as genocide of Hindus in Pakistan. Within a few months, some twelve million people had abandoned their homes and a half-million lay dead. Before the break, Muslims had a lot of political power, as they were the elites in India. However, when receiving independence, India declared its government would be a democracy, unlike in Africa, where many nations were governed by dictatorships. This was decided because the majority of India was Hindu, and Hindus knew they would gain control of India's government if they used a democracy. However, as a minority, constituting only a quarter of the people of India, the Muslims would lose most of their political power in a democratic government, and so they decided to split off and form their own nation. This was similar to the attempts of many tribes of Africa to split off from their nations, because of ethnic and religious differences as well as their unwillingness to share valuable resources.

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), international organization dedicated to representing the interests and aspirations of developing countries. The Non-Aligned Movement counts more than 100 member states, whose combined population amounts to more than half of the world’s population

The Non-Aligned Movement emerged in the context of the wave of decolonization that followed World War II. At the 1955 Bandung Conference (the Asian-African Conference), the conference’s attendees, many of whose countries had recently gained their independence, called for “abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defence to serve the particular interests of any of the big powers.” In the context of the Cold War, they argued, countries of the developing world should abstain from allying with one of the two superpowers (the United States and the U.S.S.R.) and should instead join in support of national self-determination against all forms of colonialism and imperialism. The Non-Aligned Movement was founded and held its first conference (the Belgrade Conference) in 1961 under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and Sukarno of Indonesia.

As a condition for membership, the states of the Non-Aligned Movement cannot be part of a multilateral military alliance (such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or have signed a bilateral military agreement with one of the “big powers” if it was “deliberately concluded in the context of Great Power conflicts.” However, the idea of nonalignment does not signify that a state ought to remain passive or even neutral in international politics. On the contrary, from the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement, its stated aim has been to give a voice to developing countries and to encourage their concerted action in world affairs.

Unlike the United Nations (UN) or the Organization of American States, the Non-Aligned Movement has no formal constitution or permanent secretariat. All members of the Non-Aligned Movement have equal weight within its organization. The movement’s positions are reached by consensus in the Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government, which, by convention, convenes every three years. The administration of the organization is the responsibility of the country holding the chair, a position that rotates at every summit. The ministers of foreign affairs of the member states meet more regularly in order to discuss common challenges, notably at the opening of each regular session of the UN General Assembly.

One of the challenges of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 21st century has been to reassess its identity and purpose in the post-Cold War era. The movement has continued to advocate for international cooperation, multilateralism, and national self-determination, but it has also been increasingly vocal against the inequities of the world economic order.

The Group of 77 at the United Nations is a loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations. There were 77 founding members of the organization, but by November 2013 the organization had since expanded to 134 member countries.

South Africa holds the Chairmanship for 2015. The group was founded on June 15, 1964, by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The first major meeting was in Algiers in 1967, where the Charter of Algiers was adopted and the basis for permanent institutional structures was begun. There are Chapters of the Group of 77 in Rome (FAO), Vienna (UNIDO), Paris (UNESCO), Nairobi (UNEP) and the Group of 24 in Washington, D.C. (International Monetary Fund and World Bank).