World War II was brutally costly. Some decolonized countries maintain strong economic ties with the former colonial power. Japan expanded its occupation of Chinese territory during the 1930s, and occupied Southeast Asia during World War II. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Ghana, Guinea, and Mali were so committed to this idea of a United States of Africa that their constitutions allowed their governments to cede partial or total control of their domestic affairs to such an authority. The Belgian Congo was especially rich, and many Belgian businessmen lobbied hard to maintain control. General elections in India in 1946 strengthened the Muslim League. The 1973 oil crisis which followed the Yom Kippur War (October 1973) was triggered by the OPEC which decided an embargo against the US and Western countries, causing a fourfold increase in the price of oil, which lasted five months, starting on October 17, 1973, and ending on March 18, 1974. Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire all lost their colonial claims with Great Britain and France receiving the lion's share of their holdings. Independence and decolonization in Southern Africa After the war the imperial powers were under strong international pressure to decolonize. A demonstration in Algiers on April 26, 1958, during the Algerian War, a conflict between France and Algerian independence movements from 1954 to 1962. How did World War II play a role in the eventual decolonization of Asia What Countries Have Been Decolonized? - FAQS Clear The colonizer no longer had the burden of obligation, financial or otherwise, to their colony. After their 2nd defeat, a Frenchman called Santiague de Liniers was proclaimed a new Viceroy by the local population and later accepted by Spain. In 1956, Morocco and Tunisia gained their independence from France. Nassers next move was to cut the link between them. The decolonisation of Africa was a process that took place in the mid-to-late 1950s to 1975 during the Cold War, with radical government changes on the continent as colonial governments made the transition to independent states.The process was often marred with violence, political turmoil, widespread unrest, and organised revolts in both northern and sub-Saharan countries including the Mau Mau . In 1950 Indonesia became a centralized, independent republic. Typical challenges of decolonization include state-building, nation-building, and economic development. When North Vietnam invaded the south in 1955, the United States, China, and Russia ratcheted up their support for the respective sides, sending financial aid, weapons, and soldiers, which fueled a devastating, two-decade conflict. Let's explore the different ways new nations responded to such challenges. [21][22] Some explanations emphasize how colonial powers struggled militarily against insurgents in the colonies due to a shift from 19th century conditions of "strong political will, a permissive international environment, access to local collaborators, and flexibility to pick their battles" to 20th century conditions of "apathetic publics, hostile superpowers, vanishing collaborators, and constrained options". With this new wave of Indian nationalism, Gandhi was eventually able to garner the support needed to push back the British and create an independent India in 1947.[31]. The decolonization process was a result of a combination of factors such as nationalism, anti-colonialism, and the changing geopolitical landscape. The Dutch in the East Indies, and at home, were practically unanimous (except for the communists) that Dutch power and prestige and wealth depended on an extremely expensive war to regain the islands. [68] In Zimbabwe, former Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe seized property from white African farmers, killing several of them, and forcing the survivors to emigrate. "Decolonisation, Democratisation, and Communist Reform: The Soviet Collapse in Comparative Perspective," Journal of World History 12#2 (2001), 375406. In general, those colonies that offered neither concentrated resources nor strategic advantages and that harboured no European settlers won easy separation from their overlords. READ: End of Old Regimes (article) | Khan Academy This lesson will examine how Africa changed after . Then, the 1982 Latin American debt crisis exploded in Mexico first, then Argentina and Brazil, which proved unable to pay back their debts, jeopardizing the existence of the international economic system. Some of the British colonies in Asia were directly administered by British officials, while others were ruled by local monarchs as protectorates or in subsidiary alliance with the UK. ", In general, the release of the colonized caused little economic loss to the colonizers. Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the US, but Cuba became independent in 1902. South Korea and Taiwan carried out their transformation with economic support from the United States and generous access to the U.S. market for their exports. [17] Several analyses point to different reasons for the spread of anti-colonial political movements. Following the SpanishAmerican War in 1898, the US added most of Spain's remaining colonies: Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Guam. The British pulled out, after dividing the Mandate into Palestine and Jordan.[34]. In February 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the United Kingdom must transfer the islands to Mauritius as they were not legally separated from the latter in 1965. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States has been far less active in the Americas, but invaded Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11 attacks in 2001, establishing army and air bases in Central Asia. The Europeans were tired of World War II due to the tremendous devastation in Europe, and they could no longer hold on to their colonies in Africa. Why is the decolonization of Africa important? By 1954 French North Africa was beginning to stir; guerrilla warfare occurred in both Morocco (where the French had deposed and exiled Sultan Muammad V) and Tunisia. Nkrumah believed that a united Africa was the continents only chance to compete with powerful European economies. It was not a movement for independence, however, and only a small part of India was involved. Decolonization When the United Nations was founded in 1945, some 750 million people, nearly a third of the world's population, lived in Territories that were dependent on colonial Powers.. The Allied powers divided Korea into two occupation zones, which became the states of North Korea and South Korea. [32] Large-scale communal violence broke out between Muslims and Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs after the British left in 1947 in the newly independent dominions of India and Pakistan. 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Aftermath of World War II - Wikipedia The Cold War and decolonization happened in roughly the same period of time and were, to many people, one experience rather than two. . [23][clarification needed], A great deal of scholarship attributes the ideological origins of national independence movements to the Age of Enlightenment. The Non-Aligned Movement constituted itself around the main figures of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, Sukarno, the Indonesian president, Josip Broz Tito the Communist leader of Yugoslavia, and Gamal Abdel Nasser, head of Egypt. All Arab spokesmen expressed intransigent opposition to any two-nation solution. The Sukarno regime held fast through three years of intermittent war, however, and the Dutch found no allies and no international support. From the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust came a new chapter in international human rights. Indian Decolonization - Decolonization - Google Sites Following World War II, a large part of the world was in the hands of European powers, established as colonies in the previous centuries. Some former colonies like South Korea and Taiwan shifted from exporting raw materials to instead producing various industrial goods such as ships and computers. Karl Wolfgang Deutsch, William J. Folt, eds. Decolonization of Asia and Africa, 1945-1960 - United States Department The Cold War and decolonization were also linked by the actions of . Discuss the process of decolonization after WWII. How did Yet hardly had their colonies been established than these convictions began to be challenged. In the Americas and South Africa, such issues are increasingly discussed under the term decoloniality. The arsenal of democracy that Franklin D. Roosevelt called into existence when the United States entered World War II proved to be a . Updates? In December 1941, the Japan joined World War II by invading the European and U.S. colonies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, including French Indochina, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Portuguese Timor, and others. This lack of economic diversification presented challenges for newly independent countries when demand for their primary exports fell. Lets explore a few causes. Burundi, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia gained independence as monarchies, but all four countries' monarchs were later deposed, and they became republics. Post-WWII Independence Movements Around the World: History & Examples Newfoundland ceded self-rule back to London in 1934. The intrusiveness and bad relations this engendered were somewhat checked by the Clark Memorandum and renounced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy". But for those former colonies that gained their independence, establishing a country entailed far more than simply flying a new flag or playing a national anthem. decolonization, process by which colonies become independent of the colonizing country. In practice, this meant that the United States was led to act as a collections agent for European creditors by administering customs duties in the Dominican Republic (19051941), Haiti (19151934), and elsewhere. How Does History Inform the Chinese Communist Partys Domestic and Foreign Policy Goals? [8][9] In states that have won independence, Indigenous people living under settler colonialism continue to make demands for decolonization and self-determination. Indonesia annexed Netherlands New Guinea in 1963, and Portuguese Timor in 1975. India's independence movement started at the beginning of the 20 th century. Many decolonized countries created programs to promote industrialization. In 1822, Portugal lost control of Brazil, its largest colony. How the Second World War decolonised Africa - The New Times In 1945, Africa had four independent countries Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa. Angola. Millions of formerly disenfranchised people voted for the first time, and new, postcolonial leaders brought attention to historically neglected global issues such as economic inequality and foreign military intervention. Changes in Africa After World War II - Study.com By 1940 it consisted mostly of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). High-quality, standards-aligned classroom resources, lesson plans, teaching inspiration, and professional development opportunitiesall inspired by our mission that Global Civics is essential for twenty-first century citizenship. After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam) in 1954 and the abortive Anglo-French Suez expedition of 1956, however, decolonization took on an irresistible momentum, so that by the mid-1970s only scattered vestiges of Europes colonial territories remained. The world map fundamentally changed during the era of decolonization with roughly a hundred countries coming into existence between 1945 and 1989. The reasons why decolonization took place are many and complex, varying widely from one country to another. Numerous countries declared their independence. In Cameroon and Nigeria, political movements have pushed to reorganize the countries along ethnic lines rather than colonial borders. Thomas, Martin, Bob Moore, and Lawrence J. Butler. [85], Indigenous decolonization theory views Western Eurocentric historical accounts and political discourse as an ongoing political construct that attempts to negate Indigenous peoples and their experiences around the world. Meanwhile, in Rwanda and Sudan, tensions between ethnic groups grew after independence, leading to discrimination, violence, and eventually genocide (actions taken with the intent to destroy a specific group of people). Declaration of Independence, Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh invoked those same words when declaring his country free from French colonial rule. This lesson explores how countries gained their independence, the obstacles leaders faced in building their new nations, and the ways the world continues to experience the legacy of decolonization. After World War II, European countries generally lacked the wealth and political support necessary to suppress faraway revolts; they also faced opposition from the new superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both of which had taken positions against colonialism.