{"id":324,"date":"2019-07-31T18:56:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T18:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/mwhcccs\/chapter\/decolonization\/"},"modified":"2024-01-12T23:31:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T23:31:41","slug":"decolonization","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/mwhcccs\/chapter\/decolonization\/","title":{"raw":"Decolonization","rendered":"Decolonization"},"content":{"raw":"
\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_301\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2560\"]\"Allied Allied military personnel in Paris celebrating V-J Day on August 15, 1945[\/caption]\n\nThe defeat of Germany and Japan freed the people of the nations these two would-be empires had conquered, but it also caused people dominated by older empires to question the legitimacy of imperialism. In many of Europe\u2019s and the United States\u2019 imperial possessions, the struggle for independence had begun long before World War Two, however. As you\u2019ll recall from previous chapters, European and American justifications for empire included the claim that people such as Britain\u2019s subjects in India and the America\u2019s in the Philippines were unprepared to stand on their own as independent nations. This claim was undermined by the effectiveness of the Indians and Filipinos in World War II. Filipinos had proven their value as guerrilla fighters. The Japanese only managed to control twelve of the forty-eight provinces of the Philippines, and U.S. General Douglas MacArthur said, \u201cGive me ten thousand Filipinos and I shall conquer the world!\u201d And in imperial possessions like India, the \u201ccivilizing project\u201d of empire for generations had including educating local administrators and training military and police forces. The leaders of national liberation often came out of these experiences reasoning that since they were already experienced at running their own nations as administrators for the empires, it was time for the imperialists to leave.\u00a0 Furthermore, the war was full of inspirational examples of Europeans and Asians who fought side by side against the fascist occupiers in their conquered nations. The process was accelerated by the strain of war on the European imperialists. France and the Netherlands had been conquered and themselves occupied as imperial subjects by the Germans, while the British were greatly weakened.\n\n \n\n[caption id=\"attachment_301\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]\"Winston Winston Churchill waving the Victory sign to the crowd in Whitehall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945.[\/caption]\n\nAfter the war, the nations that had been targeted by Germany (Britain, France, and the Netherlands) all attempted to separate their reaction to this attack from the response of colonial populations to their return. For instance, British leaders like Winston Churchill hoped and expected to expand their empire, which they now renamed a commonwealth, and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) had no intention of giving back Iran\u2019s oil fields. This may seem a strange attitude for a nation that was having trouble feeding and housing its own population and leaned on U.S. aid like a crutch. But the British retained their sense of cultural superiority and convinced themselves that their help was still needed to \u201cassist primitive peoples in their march to modernity.\u201d\n\nThe timing of national liberation was complicated by the growing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was both a competition to dominate territory and control alliances as well as an ideological struggle between capitalism and communism. This conflict was known as the \u201cCold War,\u201d since the two countries never directly attacked one another. Instead they fought a series of proxy wars that occurred within the context of decolonization. Each superpower competed to recruit more new nations to their side, pouring military and economic aid into the new developing countries.\n\n \n\n[caption id=\"attachment_301\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\"]\"Philippine Propaganda poster depicting the Philippine resistance movement[\/caption]\n\nDespite the Cold War, at times the process of independence was peacefully achieved through mutual agreement. In the Philippines, for example, the U.S. government handed over power to a local Filipino government within a year of ending the war with Japan. The Americans fully appreciated the sacrifices made by the Filipinos under Japanese occupation and the contributions they had made to their own liberation. President Harry Truman recognized the independence of the Philippines on July 4, 1946. In the days leading up to the announcement, the American and Filipino governments worked out arrangements allowing the U.S. to retain dozens of military bases and for American businesses to have preferential access to the raw materials and markets of the newly independent nation.\n\nSometimes, peaceful political pressure from organized movements also led to liberation. Indian independence, examined below, is the first and prime example of how non-violent protest, boycotts, and moral suasion could result in freedom. However, there are also many cases in which independence could only be achieved through a more violent guerrilla struggle, as European imperialists were unwilling to let go of their colonies despite the desires of the colonized.\n
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