November 30 Decolonization

Introduction

1940s-1970s: era of full-scale decolonization

I. British attitudes

controlling change

Britain without empire?

II. forces that eroded the European colonial order

A. conflicts between Western powers

B. internal forces

collaboration

not capacity but willingness

indigenous traditions + ideologies of the West

Gandhi; Kwame Nkrumah

 

III. paths to independence

A. negotiated independence: India, Ghana, Nigeria

1. India [see Nov 20]

the violence of partition [map] [train] [refugee camp]

"Pakistan's Enemy? The Focus Remains on India" [NPR link]

"In Flourishing India, an Old Obsession with Pakistan" [NPR link]

"Partition Still Casts a Shadow on India-Pakistan Ties" [NPR link]

 

2. Ghana

tropical Africa's first independent state

National Congress of British West Africa

1946 constitution

Accra 1948

Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)

1945 Pan-African Congress

Towards Colonial Freedom (1947): "positive action"

Convention People's Party (1949)

British response

British institutions and ceremonial

March 6, 1957 [early US-Ghana relations]

I Speak of Freedom (1961)

 

B. incomplete decolonization

European settlers

Kenya [time line]

Kikuyu

1952 Mau Mau Revolt

Jomo Kenyatta and the African National Union

South Africa [Invictus]

apartheid [image] and the National Party

1950 Group Areas Act

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress

Sharpeville massacre [report from Time]