Decolonization in Settler Colonies

Third world nationalism. These kinds of
images were inspirations for movements

around the rest of the world, calling for
human rights for colonial peoples,

democracy and self rule for people who'd
been living in empires for a long time,

including in many of the settlement
colonies of the rest of the world. Where

we see a conflict emerge between European
settlers who've been living, sometimes for

generations in the colonies. And an
indigenous or native peoples. Where we see

struggles between a, often native majority
population and a settler minority

population. This is, of course, what had
exploded in Algeria in the 1950s. And it

was a harbinger of things to come. One of
the sites for a struggle such as this one

would, in fact, be to take us back to a
case that we've been touching on over the

course of these lectures. South Africa,
where Dutch and then, later, British

settlers had moved from, particularly
eighteenth century. So they've been there

for a very long time and established very
deep roots, but had never of course become

the majority population. What had
happened, of course after the Second World

War, is that this minority population had
declared what was called the apartheid

state. This was a regime that contained
Africans, Black Africans. And to some

extent even the Indian migrants who'd come
from India to South Africa and constrained

their rights. They did not enjoy then home
rule within a within South Africa. The key

organization leading the struggle then to
resist both in some senses, European rule

and white rule within South Africa was the
African National Congress, created in

1923. notice, in fact, that the title
itself borrows already the model of the, a

notion of a congress party which the
Indians had rolled out in the 1880's. The

African National Congress, or the ANC,
which remains, which is in power now in

South Africa. was born out of trade union
activists. communist party militants,

modeled on the Indian notion of a pan. In
this case would be pan, let's call it

tribal identities, to create a natio n out
of the plurality of religions, tribes, and

regions of South Africa. And in 1955, the
ANC would issue what they called their

freedom charter. This was an announcement,
then, and you can imagine, 1955, this,

this is the same year as the Bandung
Conference, then, outlining the demands

for what a free South Africa would look
like. In this case it would be not just

free from any European rule, because that
was no longer the issue, but free meant

that everybody in South Africa could enjoy
the same political rights. This was then

followed by a series of strikes,
particularly a mass strike by women, by

African women against the apartheid
authorities. Agitation in the shanty towns

against the ways in which Africans had
been hemmed in to these very poor areas

and deprived of basic needs, and of
course, shootings by the police and the

military to contain the agitation that
threatened to spill into an insurgency in

South Africa. In fact, funerals in South
Africa in the 1950s became the site for

the clashes between organized activists,
who'd come out to mourn the dead in the

funeral processions and the police
themselves. Because among other things,

the funerals were the only legal
gatherings. So repressive had apartheid

state become. India was in negotiated
withdrawal, but it was not violent in the

sense that the violence was directed at
the empires. The violence became civic

violence between denominational groups.
South Africa was so hard because it pit,

it became a civil struggle. A civil war
brewing in South Africa between settler

populations and native populations who all
felt they belonged at home. So the

process, what I'm trying to convey to you
is that the process of decolonization,

when you had incumbent settler populations
who could not simply go home. There was no

home to go to, for the descendants of the
Boers, for instance. For them South Africa

was home, too. But the fact was, South
Africa, was only one of a set of many

sites across Africa, what would become a
continental struggle, for freedom. In most

cas es, the bellicosity of the struggle
wa-, was much more pronounced than it had

been in India, and in some senses, one
might say that many places of Africa are

still grappling with the consequences of
empire and the consequences of

decolonization. How to become nation
states in internally heterogeneous

political communities, where languages and
faiths and tribal identities, regional

identities, are not amalgamated together
into some carapace, or umbrella of the

nation state. Much of the struggle because
they were so complicated on the ground can

be simplified. And I may be doing some
injustice to the complexity of local

processes. But, we can simplify it into
three fundamental barrier, three

fundamental variables. One was, how strong
the local European settler colony was. In

general, the stronger the local settler
colony would be, the more resistance there

would be to European withdrawal. Secondly,
how much resistance did the European

metropole put up, depending on its own
dependency in the colony, where the colony

was more strategic. Alright, and
therefore, the metropole more dependent on

the colony. Very often, we see more
resistance. And finally, a third variable

is, how strong, how unified were the
anti-colonial forces? This is one way in

which the Hindu movement of Indian
nationalists was very powerful. Alright.

And really could negotiate with the
British from a strong, relatively strong

bargaining position. So, in the
decolonization of Africa, and I'm going to

pull up a map here. Lance, maybe we could
have people get a sense of this. as you're

looking at this map, this is of course why
I can't go case by case. There are just so

many instances. A couple of things to
note. One, as you read further, and I hope

you do read further. Think about those
three variables. The second, is that it

takes a very long time. In a sense, it
begins in Egypt in the early 1950's, and

in Egypt a treaty would be signed between
the nationalist Nasser and British

authorities that would allow Egyptian
autonomy and independence. And s pread to

sub-Saharan Africa, in Ghana in 1957. The
leader or the broker of this transition

would be Kwame Nkrumah. Okay I'm going to
put somebody on the hot spot here. Maybe

Lance. Who's the guy on the right-hand
side here? Judging by that title I'm gonna

say Martin Luther King Junior. Oh, oh, of
course, there you go. I sort of gave it

away. This is the problem, you see, when
I'm lecturing to you all and, and to you

all, I can't necessarily see what I
brought up on the screen. Yes it's Martin

Luther King. I'm going to come back to
King in a minute. But Nkruma was the

broker of Ghanan independence, and this
idea of Ghanan independence had become

iconic for the rest of Africa, and in fact
for African-Americans themselves. But the

these were relatively pacted models of
transition, not unlike the Indian case.

But especially as we move to central
Africa, the process of in, or winning

independence would become increasingly
violent. And in the Congo region

particularly, became the site of one of
the most brutal proxy wars of the Cold

War, in which Belgian and Portuguese
colonies trying to secede from the

metropoles had to the nationals had to
pick up arms. And in so doing, had, were

supported on the one hand by communist
and, and, and, and Soviet, and eventually

Chinese support, which then drew in other
proxy allies, like South Africa. Cubans

would send tens of thousands of troops to
fight in Central Africa. And so these war

became especially brutal, because the
struggle for independence became highly

militarized and weaponized. Proxy wars,
and within them, civil wars between

tribes, regions, linguistic groups. So the
wave of decolonization that began more,

let's say, civic and, and, and pacted in
the earlier phase become more violent over

time, when the pacting process doesn't
work. And these sites become struggle,

proxy struggles for contests between
Washington and Moscow. So, I'd like you to

think, then, about how these different
patterns of anti-colonial struggles in

Africa, in particular, play out.