Decolonization of Asia and Africa (1 janv. 1945 – 1 janv. 1965)

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The Cold War era oversaw a period of decolonization in which the map was remade after a retreat from imperial control. In just 20 years, over 50 new countries were formed.

The ideas of national self-determination, racial equality, and personal dignity spread to common people after World War I. Both wars undermined the notion of European superiority and gave strength to anticolonialists. Americans also encouraged European powers to let go (although they had some colonies themselves). Imperial powers preferred to prevent conflict and focus on matters at home. Leaders like Mao Zedong, Mohandas Gandhi, and Gamal Abdel Nasser as well as intellectuals like Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and Martinique’s Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon inspired colonial peoples to resist.

Soviets and Communist Chinese advocated rebellion to end colonial exploitation. They supported Communist independence movements with economic and military aid. Western Europe and particularly the U.S. promoted the idea of free-market economies and liberal democracies and similarly sent aid to decolonizing nations to keep them noncommunist. Many new leaders adopted a policy of nonalignment--neutrality in the Cold War.

Many colonies decolonized relatively peacefully, with significant exceptions. The decolonization of Algeria, Palestine, India, and Indochina were just a few that were dramatic and bloody.

The Netherlands had increased their influence in Indonesia since the early seventeenth century. When Japan overran the islands in World War II, hopes of independence were encouraged and rebellion stirred. Four years of guerrilla war followed, and the Netherlands reluctantly accepted Indonesian independence in 1949. The new president was nonaligned.
France tried to maintain control over Indochina. Despite American aid, the French army in Vietnam was defeated in 1954 by forces led by Ho Chi Minh, who was supported by the USSR and China. Vietnam became split into a Communist North and a pro-Western South, reading to conflict involving the U.S. Cambodia and Laos also gained independence under noncommunist regimes.

After the First World War in India, Gandhi built a mass movement preaching nonviolent “noncooperation” with the British. He gained a liberal constitution in 1935 that was a blueprint for independence. After being halted by the Second World War, the independence movement was successful after the more-sympathetic Labour Party came to power and granted sovereignty, mainly because of the high cost of maintaining the colony.
However, conflict between Hindus and Muslims followed. The British agreed to calls for a partition of separate states. Pakistan was created. Millions fled both ways across the borders, leaving death and mayhem in its wake. In a few weeks in 1947, up to a million died, and Gandhi was later assassinated.

Pakistan developed ties with the U.S. New Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru practiced nonalignment. Both nations joined the British Commonwealth, a voluntary and cooperative association of former British colonies.

After Japan withdrew, China experienced civil war again. The authoritarian Guomindang (National People’s Party), led by Jiang Jieshi/Chiang Kai-Shek fought to repress the Chinese Communists that were led by Mao Zedong. The Soviets backed the Communists, while the Americans gave more aid to the Guomindang. The Communists gained the support of the peasantry and their enemies withdrew to Taiwan. China was united as a strong centralized state with a Marxist government that promoted land reform, extended education, and health-care programs to the peasantry. It also brought mass arrest, forced-labor camps, and mass propaganda.
The British government had promised a Jewish homeland, a compromise that fell apart after World War II. Neither Arabs or Jews were happy with their rule. The British left Palestine, and the UN decided to divide the territory into an Arab state and a Jewish state. Arabs soon attacked the new state of Israel. Nearly a million of Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. The conflict continued for half a century.

The 1948 Arab defeat triggered a nationalist revolution in Egypt in 1952. Gamal Abdel Nasser led the revolutionaries against the pro-Western king. Nasser became president and advocated nonalignment. In 1956 he abruptly nationalized the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company. In response, the British, French, and Israelis planned a secret military operation. The U.S. was fearful that this would encourage Arab states to join the East Bloc, and thus joined the Soviets in forcing them to back down. The Suez crisis was a watershed event in European imperialism and showed that European powers could no longer maintain their global empires.
Starting in 1957, most of Britain’s African colonies, like Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania, gained independence with little bloodshed. However, in Kenya, British forces brutally crushed the nationalist Mau Mau rebellion but still recognized Kenyan independence in 1963. The South African government declared an independent republic to preserve their apartheid (the exploitative system of racial segregation).

Belgian rule inspired an increasingly-aggressive anticolonial movement in the Congo led by Patrice Lumumba. Belgium gave in and planned to give independence six months from January 1960. When they pulled out, the new government was unprepared and chaos erupted. Congolese troops attacked the remaining Belgian officers. Fearing the Congo would join the East Bloc, the U.S. CIA helped implement a military coup against then-prime minister Lumumba. He was taken prisoner and assassinated. The military then set up a U.S. backed dictatorship under corrupt general Joseph Mobutu. The Congo was wracked by violence and poverty for decades.
Former French colonies like Tunisia, Morocco, and Senegal became independent within a form of French commonwealth. The French aided them economically in an attempt to “civilize” them and to gain goods, investment, and jobs.

In Algeria, rebels, tired of a hierarchy that favored French descendants, established the National Liberation Front. The pieds-noirs, European residents, wanted French aid, and France crushed the FLN. The bloody Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. Both sides committed atrocities. By 1958, France had limited FLN actions, but French public opinion was against the war and the FLN gained many supporters. Efforts to open peace talks were futile. Charles de Gaulle was reinstated, which calmed everyone at first. However, de Gaulle then moved towards Algerian self-determination. In 1961, pieds-noirs and army leaders formed the OAS (Secret Army Organization) and began a terrorist revolt against Muslim Algerians and the French government. The OAS was violent and rebellious until they were crushed. Negotiations continued, and Algeria became independent under the FLN. Over a million pieds-noirs fled.

By the mid-1960s, most African states had won independence, although conflict remained in many countries. Western European countries still increased their economic and cultural ties with them. They used the appeal of special trading privileges and provided heavy investment in French and English language education to enhance their presence. These practices have been called neocolonialism, which perpetuated Western economic domination and undermined the promise of political independence.

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