Change: Decolonization and Freedom Movements WHAP/Napp

“Decolonization in southern Africa was delayed by the opposition of European settlers, some with deep roots in Africa but many others who were new arrivals after 1945. While the settler minority tried to defend white supremacy, African-led liberation movements were committed to the creation of nonracial societies and majority rule. In the 1960s Africans began guerrilla movements against Portuguese rule in Angola and Mozambique, eventually prompting the Portuguese army to overthrow the undemocratic government of Portugal in 1974. The new Portuguese government granted independence to Angola and Mozambique the following year. In 1980, after a ten-year fight, European settlers in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia accepted African majority rule. The new government changed the country’s name, which had honored the memory of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, to Zimbabwe, the name of a great stone city built by Africans long before the arrival of European settlers. This left only South Africa and neighboring Namibia in the hands of ruling European minorities.

A succession of South African governments had constructed a state and society based on a policy of racial separation, or apartheid, after World War II. Fourteen percent of the population was descended from Dutch and English settler. By law, whites controlled the most productive tracts of land, the industrial, mining, and commercial enterprises, and the government. Other laws imposed segregated housing, schools, and jobs on South Asians and people of mixed parentage classified as ‘nonwhite.’ The 74 percent of the population made up of indigenous Africans were subjected to far stricter limitations on place of residence, right to travel, andaccess to jobs and public facilities. African ‘homelands,’ somewhat similar to Amerindian reservations in the United States, were created in parts of the country, often far from the more dynamic and prosperous urban and industrial areas. Overcrowded and lacking investment, these restricted ‘homelands’ were very poor and squalid with few services and fewer opportunities.

The African National Congress (ANC), formed in 1912, and other organizations led the opposition to apartheid. After police fired on demonstrators in the African town of Sharpeville in 1960 and banned all peaceful political protest by Africans, an African lawyer named Nelson Mandela (b. 1918) organized guerrilla resistance by the ANC. Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. The ANC operated from outside the country. The armed struggle against apartheid continued until 1990.” ~ The Earth and Its Peoples

1-What factors delayed decolonization in southern Africa? ______

2-What were African-led liberation movements committed to? ______

3-Discuss decolonization in Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). ______

4-Describe the system of apartheid in South Africa. ______

5-Discuss the importance of the ANC and the Sharpeville Massacre. ______

Notes:
  1. New Ideas and New Dynamics
  1. Idea of self-determination rendered empire illegitimate in the eyes of many
  2. World wars weakened Europe, discrediting sense of European superiority
  3. U.S.A. and Soviet Union, new superpowers, generally opposed imperialism
  4. United Nationsplatform from which to conduct anticolonial agitation
  5. And a second or third generation of Western-educated elites in colonies
  6. Familiar with European culture and were deeply aware of its hypocrisy
  1. Case Study: India
  1. Before 20th century, few of its people thought of themselves as “Indians”
  2. Cultural identities were local and infinitely varied
  3. Most important political expression of an all-Indian identity took shape in the Indian National Congress (INC), which was established in 1885
  4. Association of English-educated Indiansoverwhelmingly Hindu/high-caste
  5. But circumstances began to change in aftermath of World War I
  6. End of the war was followed by a massive influenza epidemic
  7. A series of repressive actions, including killing of some 400 people who had defied a ban on public meetings to celebrate a Hindu festival in Amritsar
  8. Mohandas K. Gandhi
  1. 1893, accepted a job with Indian firm in South Africa
  2. Personally experienced overt racism for the first time in South Africa
  3. Began to protest the country’s policies of racial segregation
  4. Emerging political philosophy, known as Satyagraha (“truth force”), was an active and confrontational, though nonviolent, approach to political action
  5. Returning to India in 1914, Gandhi rose within leadership ranks of the INC
  6. Called Mahatma, Great Soul
  7. Worked to raise status of India’s untouchables
  8. Organized boycott of British cloth and Salt March, acts of civil disobedience
  9. Opposed modern industrial future, seeking instead self-sufficient villages
  1. Jawaharlal Nehru
  1. Another Indian nationalist and colleague of Gandhi’s, embraced science, etc.
  1. All-India Muslim League (1906)
  1. Muslims feared that their voice could be swamped by a numerically dominant Hindu population
  2. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, increasingly argued that those parts of India that had a Muslim majority should have a separate political status
  1. India became independent in 1947 with Muslim Pakistan, itself divided into two wings 1,000 miles apart, and a secular but mostly Hindu India
  2. Rioting ensued and Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in 1948
  1. Case Study: South Africa
  1. Struggle was not waged against an occupying European colonial power, for South Africa had in fact been independent of Great Britain since 1910
  2. But independence had been granted to a government wholly controlled by a white settler minority
  3. Whitesdescended from British but politically dominant section descended from early Dutch settlers in 1600s and known as Boers or Afrikaners
  4. Boers had unsuccessfully sought independence from a British-ruled South Africa in a bitter struggle (the Boer War, 1899-1902)
  5. Prominence of race, expressed most clearly in the policy of apartheid, which attempted to separate blacks from whites in every conceivable way
  6. Rigid “pass laws” to control the movement of Africans to cities
  7. “Native reserves,” or Bantustans, served as ethnic homelands
  8. Established in 1912, African National Congress (ANC), led by educated, professional, and middle-class Africans who sought, not to overthrow the existing order, but political equality within that society
I.During the 1950s, a new and younger generation of the ANC leadership included Nelson Mandela launched civil disobedienceimprisoned
J. Governmentshooting of sixty-nine unarmed demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, the banning of the ANC, and the imprisonment of its leadership
K. In 1976 in a sprawling, segregated, impoverished black neighborhood called Soweto, outside Johannesburg, in which hundreds were killed
L. Trigger for uprising was government’s decision to enforce education for Africans in hated language of white Afrikaners rather than English
M. Divestment or withdrawal of private funds in South African economy also occurred1994 resulted in national elections, which brought ANC to power

Complete the Review Quilt Below (Place Key Points in Each Box):

Factors Weakening Imperialism: / Amritsar Massacre: / Mohandas K. Gandhi: / Satyagraha:
Boycott of British Cloth: / Salt March: / Indian National Congress: / All-Muslim League:
Pakistan: / Rioting at Partitioning: / Apartheid: / African National Congress:
Boers/Afrikaners: / Sharpeville Massacre: / Nelson Mandela: / Soweto Riots:

Questions:

  • What international circumstances and social changes contributed to the end of colonial empires?
  • What was the role of Gandhi in India's struggle for independence?
  • What conflicts and differences divided India's nationalist movement?
  • Why was African majority rule in South Africa delayed until 1994, whereas the overthrow of European colonialism had occurred much earlier in the rest of Africa and Asia?

  1. What was Jawaharlal Nehru’s overall policy direction for India?
(A)To put Gandhi’s dream of a spiritually pure, nontechnological India into action
(B)To cement a firm military alliance between India and the United States
(C)To modernize, secularize, and democratize India
(D)To gain more territory for India at the expense of China
(E)To create a theocratic regime governed by Hindu principles
  1. The Indian National Congress
(A) From the outset took part in acts of violence against the British Raj.
(B)Was initially loyal to the British rulers and primarily concerned with interests of the Indian elite.
(C)Was composed primarily of peasants and Muslim holy men.
(D)Included only Hindus.
  1. Colonial societies with white settler populations
(A)Were among the first to grant majority rule.
(B)Were the regions where overt violence and revolution were most likely to occur.
(C)Did not achieve independence in the twentieth century.
(D)Introduced the tactics of peaceful mass demonstrations and boycotts. /
  1. Which of the following statements concerning Gandhi is not accurate?
(A)Prior to returning to India, he had opposed restrictive laws aimed at Indians in South Africa.
(B)He was the first of the great liberators to spring from the ranks of the peasants.
(C)He stressed non-violent, but aggressive protest tactics.
(D)He willingly accepted the role of the traditional Hindu holy man.
  1. In 1931 Gandhi renewed his civil disobedience to the British administration of India with the
(A)Coal strike.
(B)Salt March.
(C)Guerrilla assault on Simon Commission.
(D)March on Hunger.
  1. What radical African leader helped to achieve independence in Ghana?
(A)Jomo Kenyatta
(B)Nelson Mandela
(C)Julius Nyerere
(D)Kwame Nkrumah

Thesis Statement: Change Over Time: South Africa from 1940 – 1994 ______

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