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Introduction
Decolonization refers to how colonies endeavored to become sovereign from colonizing nations in the previous decades. The process took place between 1945 and 1960 when numerous republics in Asia and Africa started achieving absolute independence from the European colonial administrators. Harold Macmillan, the British Prime Minister, predominantly played a fundamental role during the start of decolonization. Certain countries had diplomatic and logical decolonization. However, other nations achieved their independence through violence and frequent insurgencies against their colonizers. Unequivocally, few newly-independent countries gained stable governments immediately after the beginning of the decolonization process, while others continued to be reigned by military juntas or dictators for many decades. This signifies the distinct countries that had different conventions of contesting in the decolonization process to achieve independence. Surprisingly, the decolonization procedure coincided with the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, resulting in the development of the new United Nations. This implies that the process of decolonization significantly transformed the pattern of international relations, specifically between African and Asia, between 1945 and 1960s in a more general sense.
Causes of Decolonization Process in Asia and Africa
The primary considerations of decolonization between Africa and Asia are categorized into three types which include peripheral, metro-centric, and international. The frameworks portray causes of imperial power within the colonized territory and internationally. For instance, the existence of the cold war, which is a global cause, resulted in the majority of countries within Asia and Africa entrusting themselves, thus engaging in violent and peaceful revolutions to conquer the colonists. The cold war sanctioned the majority of the military soldiers of Africa and Asia who were conscripted into imperial militaries. As a result, most of the combatants gained political awareness and self-determination that was used against the colonizers among different countries.
The internal causes of decolonization within Africa and Asia resulted from colonial individuals exploiting the economy of the colonized countries. They achieved this by syphoning off abundant resources such as mining which resulted in the frustration of the local people raising their grievances. Other reasons included modern nationalism, which contributed to the shaping of imperialism in colonies, bringing a sense of identification with pride among the citizens. This contributed more to the national organization in management that destabilized the setup of the colonizers within the African and Asians’ land. The obliteration of traditional life, specifically within the African region and some Asian countries, through the introduction of European culture and authority catalyzed the process of decolonization. This is as a result of majority of the citizens within these countries felt irritated, which resulted in the psychological origin of nationalism.
Subsequently, the ideas from the French Revolution and other colonizers within Asia and Africa who brought missionary education positively impacted the development of knowledge and enabled countless people become intelligent. This concept of educating the individuals from the colonized countries, including Africa and Asia, influenced their minds making them imbibe the value of freedom and democracy, thus contributing to the decolonization process. Besides, the frequent environment of the United Nations in the post-second world war era affected the imperial powers negatively by urging them to withdraw from their colonies within Asia and Africa. Finally, the introduction of the Pan-Africanism concept resulted in most African people within different countries during the end of the 19th century questioning European domination within their nation. The shared inspiration and excellent knowledge during the pan-African conferences enabled the people of Africa to express their ideas on how to rule themselves, which resulted in decolonization.
Analysis of Decolonization Process of Asia and Africa
Both Asia and Africa experienced the highest number of colonizers that mistreated and harassed them. During the 19th century, the majority of the European powers had colonized Southeast Asia and particular of the countries in Africa. The industrializing powers of Europe during the interventionism decades had a different perspective with the Asian and African continent. Explicitly, they viewed the African and Asian continent to be a reservoir of labor, raw materials, and territory for future settlement due to their vast population growth in their previous countries. The significant development and European settlement in most places in Asia and Africa were sporadic. However, the colonized nations were exploited where some of the members were brutally treated, and their natural resources were taken. The people were forced to work freely and sometimes killed or relocated as slaves to other republics. Nonetheless, the introduction of colonization resulted in the ruling of arbitrary natural boundaries where none existed before, thus contributing to the linguistic and division of ethnic groups and natural features. This laid a foundation for establishing different states that lacked geographical, political, ethnic, or linguistic affinity.
Being a significant imperial control, Japan drove the European powers out of Asian countries during World War II. This depicts that the Japanese colonizer surrendered in 1945. This resulted from the development of the local nationalist movement within the Asian colonies, which campaigned for independence other than the return to European colonial rules. In many circumstances, French Indochina and Indonesia were the specific nationalities that have been practicing gorilla fighting against the Japanese people after European surrenders. In other words, they were former members of the colonial military establishment. During that time, those independent movements frequently appealed to the government of the U.S to support them.
The U.S used to support the concept of national self-determination. It had strengthened its ties to the European allies, specifically those with imperial claims on their former colonies. It used to negotiate and encourage the European imperial powers to withdraw from overseas territories, including Asia and Africa. This is why in 1946, the United States granted independence to the Philippines to motivate other superpower countries to decolonize from their former colonies. However, the competition emerged during the Cold war with the Soviet Union dominating United States foreign policy in the late 1940s and 1950s. In this context, the Eisenhower and Truman administration developed rapidly.
Majority of European power lost their colonies by granting independence to different foreign administrations. More so, the Soviet Union continued to support communist parties to achieve dominance in the new States. This concept served as the shift of international balance in power in favor of the Soviet Union while removing access to the economic resources from the allies of the United States. For example, different events took place within the Asian countries in Africa. Specifically, Indonesia struggled to acquire independence from the Netherlands during 1945 and 1950 and the first socialist takeovers of Egypt in 1952, which served as reinforcement of the Soviet Union.
Despite all these events in history, the U.S continued to use aid packages and sometimes military interventions and technical assistance in encouraging different countries within Asia and Africa to adopt governments that correlate with the west. This was different from the Soviet Union, which used to deploy other tactics to motivate new countries to join the communist bloc. They advised the newly decolonized nations that communism was intrinsically a non-imperialist political ideology. However, majority of the countries resisted and joined the non-aligned movement. The movement was formed after the Bandung conference in 1955, while the countries continued to focus on developing their strategies after achieving independence.
The new countries that had gained independence contributed to altering the balance of power within the United Nations. This resulted in the increase of countries to 35 member states in 1946. The number increased due to the majority of the African and Asian nations joining the organization. In 1970 the number of member nations had risen dramatically to 127. The new countries that joined the organization had a similar characteristic. Majority of them were non-white, facing internal challenges resulting from their previous colonizers, and were aiming to develop the economy that the former settlers had exploited. The nations became vocal advocates for the continuity of decolonization within African and Asian states that were still experiencing colonization. This resulted in numerous countries gaining national independence, bringing the end of the colonial era.
The Effects of Decolonization in Africa and Asia
As a result of distinct countries encouraging the decolonization process, it resulted in positive impact discussed in this context. The primary effect of decolonization within the Asian and African countries is that it promoted universal relations that created an appropriate international character. The ruthless exploitation from the imperial colonial powers was able to be mitigated while countries achieved their democracy and equality of using resources up-to-date. Moreover, crime practices against humanities, such as slavery, were abolished. Similarly, decolonization resulted in the emergence of new sovereign countries within Africa and Asia that became the battlefield of ideological competition. Countries that engaged in the decolonization process developed an effective policy that enhanced neutralism. This allowed them to maintain an alignment concept as a symbol of dignity and prestige. In other words, the delocalization positively impacted the growth of the third-world countries in Asia and Africa.
Summary
The process of decolonization significantly transformed the pattern of international relations, specifically between Africa and Asia. The study indicates that the process occurred between 1945 and the 1960s in a more general sense. The primary considerations of decolonization between Africa and Asia have been categorized into three types which include peripheral, metro-centric, and international. Both Asia and Africa experienced the highest number of colonizers that mistreated and harassed them. The internal causes of decolonization within Africa and Asia resulted from colonists exploiting the economy of the colonized countries. However, the U.S supported the concept of national self-determination, which resulted to countless countries in Asia and Africa to achieve success after decolonization. The primary impact of decolonization within the Asian and African countries is that it promoted international relations up to contemporary society.
References
Hansen, Peo. 2021. “Decolonization and the spectre of the nation‐state.” The British Journal of Sociology. Web.
Obar, Ayami Irom. 2018. “Decolonization in Asia, Latin America and Africa.” Web.
Suremain, Marie-Albane de. 2019. “Between political reserve and scientific change: French geographers and decolonisation in tropical Africa, 1945–1967.” Journal of Historical Geography 66; 9-19. Web.
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