What is Decolonization:
Decolonization is understood as the process of political, economic, social and cultural independence of a nation that has been dominated by a foreign government.
Originally, the term appeared after the end of the Second World War, when the newly created United Nations Organization (UN) promoted the independence processes of some 80 non-autonomous nations, mostly present in Asia and Africa, that were still living under the domain of foreign colonizers, almost all of them European, although not exclusively.
Forms of decolonization
Decolonization as a historical process has been practiced through different strategies. Namely:
Independence: consists of the withdrawal of the dominator from the territory and total handover of power to the natives. It usually occurs through armed struggle.
Free association (Commonwealth): a power and a colony agree to the association of the latter with the former, in exchange for the recognition of civil rights and the right to autonomous government. It implies accepting a certain degree of responsibility of the majority State over the former colony.
Integration into a State or administrative entity: like the previous case, this is a negotiated exit. The colonized nation voluntarily agrees to integrate into a State or administrative entity, in terms of equal citizen rights.
Neocolonialism and decolonization
The term decolonization is also currently applied to the processes of transformation of the colonialist or “colonized” social imaginary, characterized by the replication of racist and endorracist discourses, the legitimation of the “center/periphery” dichotomy, Eurocentrism, economic dependence and subalternity as perspective.
This is because many of those that were European or Western colonies are still subject to indirect forms of control by foreign powers, despite having political autonomy. This process is called neocolonialism.
The economic tension of countries affected by colonialism and neocolonialism causes a significant percentage of migration towards what migrants perceive as powers or “metropolises.” When emigrating, discrimination processes based on ethnic or cultural origin are frequently generated.
See also:
Causes of decolonization
Among the causes of decolonization, internal factors and external factors can be counted. Among the internal factors we can mention the following:
The demographic explosion and with it, the growth of the city; Expansion and strengthening of nationalism; Expansion of new ideologies, such as democracy.
Among the external factors we include:
The impact of the Second World War; The action of international organizations in favor of decolonization, such as the UN; The promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947, which recognized the right of peoples to self-determination; impact of the Cold War;The influence of the Bandung Conference, a conference held in 1955 in Indonesia, where participating nations showed solidarity with non-self-governing nations, and urged Europe to commit to decolonization.The influence of religions who have advocated for independence. This is the case, for example, of the Catholic Church through the encyclicals Pacem in terris of John XXIII (1963), and Populorum Progressio of Paul VI (1967).
See also
Decolonization of Asia and Africa
Although the decolonization of America took place between the end of the 18th century (Haiti and the United States) and the 19th century through the wars of independence, Asia and Africa underwent different processes.
At the dawn of the 20th century, Europe had consolidated the industrial and capitalist model, which was in an expansion phase. After the First World War, Europe divided up control of some regions that were added to those they already had. This produced unequal power relations in the world.
Although Egypt was decolonized in 1922, the vigor of the decolonization process in Asia and Africa began after the Second World War. However, in each country the process was different. Some cases were negotiated, while others had to be resolved through violence or created social tensions among nationals of such magnitude that they provoked civil conflicts after decolonization.
Asia was the first region to achieve its independence, so it represented the first phase of the process. The first would be India and Pakistan, independent in 1945 and 1947 respectively. They would be followed by Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Indochina.
A second phase would affect North Africa. Throughout the 1950s, we would see the independence of Libya (1951), Tunisia (1956), Morocco (1956), Ghana (1957), Algeria (1962), Angola and Mozambique (1975), among others.
With the sixties and seventies, a new phase of decolonization would liberate countries such as Nigeria (1960), Sierra Leone (1961), Tanganyika (1961), Uganda 1962, Kenya (1963), Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi.
The last phase of decolonization would cover the years from 1975 to 1995, affecting the continent of Oceania and the Caribbean area.
See also Independence.