Written by Arda Kizilkaya
The Beginning of It All
Decolonization can be defined as “taking away the colonial”, but this raises the question of what colonial means. Colonization involves a community taking control of another community’s lands, resources, languages, cultures, and relationships. In Canada and the US, human habitation began with indigenous communities who migrated in the Ice Age and continued with European migrants who arrived to claim the lands as their own, Colonial usually means Eurocentric, meaning that Western European-derived ways of existence, belief, knowledge, and action are implicitly or explicitly presented as the norm, and other ways of being, learning, and doing are implicitly presented as an alternative, or less worthy. Later settlers to this territory had to adapt to this Eurocentric norm.
The Reason Why Decolonization Started
For decades, colonized people called for independence to little avail. However, many of these groups had reason for optimism at the end of World War I. In 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson delivered a speech on the importance of self-determination, the idea that people should be governed only with their consent. Pro-independence revolutionaries from Egypt, Korea, and Vietnam celebrated the announcement and contacted Wilson for further support of their causes. However, Wilson largely ignored these appeals.
After centuries of colonialism, what led to the breakup of these powerful and continent-spanning empires followed by World War II? There are a few reasons:
Economic Forces
World War II bankrupted a huge chunk of Europe. As a result, the cost of maintaining millions of soldiers and administrators in colonies became increasingly unfeasible, particularly for the UK, which emerged from the conflict with crippling debt.
Postwar Agreements
Several countries on the losing side of World War II gave up their colonies as terms of their surrender. For example, Japan which ruled across thirteen modern-day countries renounced control of its empire with a peace treaty in 1951.
Independence Movements
Long-standing independence movements gained momentum and clamped down on colonial powers. Political group colonies in Ghana and India gained independence with popular nonviolent protests. Meanwhile, rebel groups in countries like Kenya and Vietnam waged long and bloody wars to gain independence.
International Pressure
The foundation of the UN in 1945 gave newly independent countries a forum to raise global support for decolonization worldwide. In 1960, a group of African and Asian nations organized to call for a resolution for the “complete independence and freedom” of all colonial territories. The resolution passed without opposition, signaling a clear denunciation of colonialism globally.
The Effects of Decolonization
Studying post-World War II independence cases, we statistically examine the consequences of postwar decolonization for democracy, internal conflict, government revenue growth, and economic growth using two-way fixed-effects models. It is found that democracy levels increased clearly as colonies gained internal autonomy in their pre-independence period. However, conflict, revenue growth, and economic growth do not differ before or after independence. Accounting for varieties of colonial establishment or autogenous independence timing produces similar results. Except for democratic gains, the overall findings suggest that, although European colonial empires created deleterious long-term effects, decolonization exhibited less pronounced political consequences than sometimes thought.
Is Decolonization Truly Over
The world map radically changed during the era of decolonization with roughly a hundred countries coming into existence between 1945 and 1989. Today, nearly all of the world’s population lives in independent countries, but that doesn’t mean that decolonization is entirely over.
Nearly two million people still live in what the United Nations calls non-self-governing territories, and many civilians in those territories have pushed for a change in their status. In the U.S.-administered territory of Guam, some popular movements have called for independence, although some Guamanians hope the Pacific island becomes the fifty-first state of the United States.
References:
How did decolonization reshape the world? (n.d.). CFR Education from the Council on Foreign Relations. https://education.cfr.org/learn/reading/how-did-decolonization-reshape-world
(n.d.).
Oxford Academic. https://academic.oup.com/isq/article-abstract/
United Nations. (n.d.). Decolonization. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/decolonization
What is decolonization? What is indigenization? | Centre for teaching and learning. (n.d.).
Queen's University Canada. https://www.queensu.ca/ctl/resources/decolonizing-and-indigenizing/what-decolonization-what-indigenization
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