Was Decolonization Inevitable?

Was Decolonization Inevitable?

  • Yes, decolonization was inevitable.

    Votes: 33 32.7%
  • It was in some cases.

    Votes: 51 50.5%
  • No, decolonization was not inevitable.

    Votes: 17 16.8%

  • Total voters
    101
What do mean by decolonization? If you mean the end of colonization then yes, if you mean the reversal of it's effects, maybe not.

If it weren't for the European wars in the first half of the twentieth century then it's possible that the Empires wouldn't have collapsed. Now the natives people aren't going to accept being second class citizens when their not under threat of death or too unaware to do anything, but they might accept the europeans as long as the benefits outwiegh the costs.

At no point did benefits come near outweighing costs for the great majority.

So what if a new 'teacher' form of coloniaism developed, where the empires tried to improve their holdings and educate the population. Unlikely maybe, but humour me, if the empires were being industrialised, the populace educated and infrastructure build might a Commonwealth like structure be tolerated with the European 'sponsers'.

:eek:

Thing is, why would Europe be willing to finance the means for its colonies to become independent?
 
At no point did benefits come near outweighing costs for the great majority.



Thing is, why would Europe be willing to finance the means for its colonies to become independent?

There's a second enlighenment? I don't know maybe something like the black civil rights movement in the US but worldwide? I know it's unlikely but someones got to say something on the colonialism side of thing. :(
 
Would they? The process of Indian nationalism may have been somehwat accelerated by the war but it was clearly already well on the way. The British people displayed a creditable unwillingness to dig our heels and try to hold down the world's second nation and therefore, even if it takes until the mid-50s, India is asserting full national independence one way or another. And after that, what? As far as Britain is concerned, the keystone is gone. African nationalism was a rising force even before the war: after all, besides sapping British money, prestige, and resolve and therefore speeding up the process, what effect did the war have on, say, Zambia?

I agree with others that more settler or tiny colonies could survive. Libya, for instance. But generally colonialism was on the way out and would not have lasted the century.

It's not that so much as Adolf Hitler's ghastly example of racism (mainly ghastly because it targeted the wrong set of victims, ones wealthy enough and with enough sympathy to keep the matter in the public eye, plus losing the war) made the idea of massive slaughter to keep groups down quite discredited. A harsher, or alternately an actually enforced Versailles treaty will not necessarily create a Nazism which would make the methods of mass slaughter discredited to what degree it is.

Pretty much inevitable. I cant stand the colonialwank on this site, really. It says much about what kinda people frequent this site on occassion:rolleyes:

Really, the alternatives are that certain European states keep half the world in subjugation (and whoever finds that good seriously needs some mental checkup) or, if some utopian-wanktastic "imperial federations" are formed, they cease to be european nations (after all, in any British imperial federation, India would rule).

Not necessarily, the regimes might have collapsed, but in terms of a 20th Century downfall, without Hitler it is not as likely. Colonial repression would be less-attached to Axis brutality and hence more acceptable as a counter-response.

How much more effort would you expend than the French did to hold onto Algeria? Libya would be even worse due to the terrain. There is no way a relatively populated country with a culture of any sophistication would remain a colonial possession. The only candidates are islands with minimal populations or populated almost entirely with people from the metropolis like the Falklands, or small enclaves under threat from neighboring powers, like Hong Kong.

For all practical purposes, decolonization was inevitable.

If no Hitler, then more savage methods would be more socially acceptable. It would likely still happen, but it would be much more brutal and hence more traumatizing for both parties. The concept of de-colonization as a more peaceful separation is less likely without the Nazis....:(:(
 
If the Brtish Raj were still a unit, it would be the largest country in the world.

Actually it'd be more like the fifth largest in terms of territory, well, unless for some (totally ASB) reason Russia, Canada, the United States, and, to a lesser degree, China all break up into different nations.
 
Actually it'd be more like the fifth largest in terms of territory, well, unless for some (totally ASB) reason Russia, Canada, the United States, and, to a lesser degree, China all break up into different nations.

Which is why I clearly meant population.
 
It's not that so much as Adolf Hitler's ghastly example of racism (mainly ghastly because it targeted the wrong set of victims, ones wealthy enough and with enough sympathy to keep the matter in the public eye, plus losing the war) made the idea of massive slaughter to keep groups down quite discredited. A harsher, or alternately an actually enforced Versailles treaty will not necessarily create a Nazism which would make the methods of mass slaughter discredited to what degree it is.

Problems: 1) This one is incidental, but I don't like the idea of a harsher Versailles, which would have spilled over the line into genuine abuse of Germany where our Versailles balanced on the edge, when German democracy could clearly have been saved without one.

2) You're assuming that brutality wasn't used. Algeria, Indonesia, Kenya, these places were all the site of thinsg which were not Nazi but not pretty.

3) You're assuming that it would have worked. How many young men will the peoples of Europe allow to be killed to opress a country about which they know nothing?

4) You're forgetting about India, which, I say again and again, was clearly on the path to peaceful (in terms of Brits against Indians, obviously...) independence before the war.

5) Which reminds me: you're assuming that before the war, everybody thought indefinate colonialism was possible and desirable. Even by the early 30s, "enlightened" opinion in Britain was that the colonies were being "developed and educated in preparation for independence". This was basically hogswash, but the existence of the attitude is a point against your argument.
 
Hardly inevitable but probable.

While it is perhaps too accepting of dependence theory, a doctrine I find occasionally simplistic, the theory that nationalism; biological, religious or otherwise, will bleed over to the subject populations seems a correct one. But in part I would offer that this was inevitable only because the colonised elites, and it is only the elites who matter, were debarred from fully embracing this nationalism of their masters. Certainly there were many amongst the colonies who were very willing to be citizens of "The British Empire", and the others, and it was only the realisation that they were going to remain second class citizens indefinately that soured them to it. The question to ask then is whether nationalism in such a form was unavoidable amongst the European states.

This I think is rather suspect, although obviously to see it off at the pass you require a relatively early POD, a century or so earlier than many of these in the 20th century. Nationalism as we are all aware is a purely ideological concept lacking any objective reality. While nationalism is likely to be tied up in religious identities, which are unlikely to be rendered homogenous, although even that might not be impossible with enough changes, the biological conception of race is a pure fiction and one that could have been avoided. As many have said, the 19th and 20th centuries would in all likelyhood have been more pleasant if it had.

Now it is true that it would be impossible to co-opt all the elites: It stands that those who are without power will always form their own oligarchies and hence a new crop of leaders. In India for example it would seem fair to say that the British had, by and large, made their peace with the oligarchs of the ancienne regime. Where they proved ultimately incapable in the face of an increasingly vibrant and ambitious petit-bourgeois which they had themselves brought into being. They fell back on the ultimately doomed policy of divide and rule without seeking to ensure the loyalty of a substantial majority by ensuring a universalisation of interests. Was it impossible for them to do otherwise? I don't think so. This goes double for sub Saharan Africa, where, while is dangerous to draw univerals, at the time of decolonisation this process of petit-bourgeois evolution was very much in its infancy when compared with India. The infancy of this process is in part to explain the many difficulties sub saharan Africa has had. Nations without a petit-bourgeois, regardless of skin colour or location, have rarely been governed well.
 
The way I see it, you don't have a lot of options here. The only stable method that was proven OTL is the 'portuguese' method. Here's how it went:
1.)In the 30's a fascist regime to power with a dream and an SMG(preferably a constitution too,as per OTL, unless you're planning on writing a TL assumin the dictators and their successors will be peaceful buddhists ;) ).
2.)The party members are intelligent and see themselves as revolutionaries.
3.)These party members (particularly the important ones) decide that a multiethnic policy whereupon all citizens are considered nationals. ("White or Black, we are all Portuguese!"
*applause*
4.)STAY OUT OF WWII!!!!
5.) JOIN A COLD WAR ALLIANCE (NATO or Warsaw Pact).
6.)By the time the 60's roll aroundand all your competitors are fighting the massive uprising in their colonies (shouting 'What the Hell just HAPPENED??'no doubt.) you have a large (say 70-90% of the native population) population of native middle class more worried about enjoying the infrastructure built for them and sending little tommy to college than the proletariat revolution.
7.)When the inevitable wave of post-indepedence nutjobs flood in from neighboring (ex)colonial crapholes to get your population, only 20% of the population sides with Dr. Mobutu "Failed State" Smith and his National Movement to Liberate (insert country name here).
8.)You're fascist! Do what you do best! Send in the legions for 5 years or so, win, and return the troops to cheers of praise.

9.) DON'T GET ASSASSINATED BY THE KGB/CIA (or they'll buy off your army, cause an uprising in your backyard, and renders everything you've done completely pointless)

Yeah, so if one or two countries can pull this off, some colonialism survives, but not as we know it. It smacks of Genghis' kind of rule: no democracy, just rule of law, and basic monetary success. I hope this helps!
*gets assassinated by KGB*
 
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