Impact of Decolonisation on the Structure of World Politics

Evaluate how the process of decolonisation changed the structure of world politics

The purpose of
this is assignment to evaluate how the process of decolonisation
changed the structure of world politics. According to Duara, (2004) decolonisation
refers to the process whereby colonial powers transferred institutional and
legal control over their territories and dependencies to indigenously based,
formally sovereign, nation-states. According to various authors decolonisation
started after the World War II, this is supported by Duara, (2004) who states
that the political search for independence often began during the inter-war
years and fructified within fifteen years of the end of World War II in 1945. Birmingham
(1995) also backs this information and states that the decolonization started
after the World War II as colonized people agitated for independence and
colonial powers withdrew their administrators from Africa. Post-war era saw the
colonised nations begin the process of decolonisation, this process enabled the
nations to regain their freedom from their European colonisers. Fraser, (1994)
supports this as she states that Decolonization marked a phase in the
globalization of politics that ended the intellectual and political legitimacy
of colonial rule and eroded the hierarchies of race that underpinned the centuries-old
colonial order.

However not all colonised nations gained their independence
from Europe, many like Africa went through the imperialism which transitioned
into colonisation of the African continent for most of the nineteenth century
through military influence and economic dominance. Imperialism is
“the creation and or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and
territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an
empire, based on domination and subordination” (Johnston, 2000). In its
simplest form Farah et al, (2001) describes imperialism as one country’s
domination of the political, economic and social life of another country. During
this period, many European countries travelled to African to claim their
African territory during the new imperialism period was between 1880’s to the
start of the world war, this was known as the scramble of Africa (Newworldencyclopedia.org).
The colonisation of Africa would benefit European as they were being able to
exploit the African people for their own commercial interests by controlling
the means of production. Roughly around 1870 to 1914, imperialist gain control
over much of the world. 

Although the colonisation process of Africa and Asia began
at the end of the eighteenth century. By 1853, Europeans had marked their
territory on most of north-western Africa. These Europeans included the
British, French and Spanish.  Late 1870’s
the Europeans had Algeria which was held by France, the Cape Colony and Natal
known as South Africa was held by Britain and Angola by Portugal. I will
evaluate the decolonisation of the continent of Africa and how this changed the
structure of what politics was when the continent was controlled and the present-day
effects the Europeans still have on Africa.

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Historically we can see that during this period, the slave
trade had been abolished in 1807, however during the period of slavery the Europeans
took more than 11 million people from West Africa to America and Europe
(reference). Nonetheless, less than 65 years later the Europeans found reason
to return to Africa to claim territory on what they had begun prior during the
late 18^th century however due to the failure of previous attempts it
was particularly important that this attempt would be successful and lucky for
the Europeans technology had advanced in terms of weaponry. Esler et al (2009) reports
that also superior technology including riverboats and telegraph, as well as
improved medical knowledge also played a part.

As a result of colonialism and imperialism, Africa suffered long the
term effects, such as the loss of important natural resources like gold and
rubber, economic devastation, cultural confusion, geopolitical division, and
political subjugation(Mentan,2010). Europeans wanted more power and even took the
land from the people. The scramble for Africa divided the
continent into nation states ruled by European colonial powers. Economist such
as Michalopoulos (2015) have released papers showing how the decisions of
borders have affected war and civil unrest in Africa especially amongst ethnic
groups examples of these divides include the Anyi of Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
George Peter Murdock studied the African conflict of the post-independence
period finding that often civil conflicts are higher in the historical homeland
of partitioned ethnicities suggesting that when the Europeans begun their
scramble for Africa they only paid attention to the size and resources like
water of the nation as opposed to the cultural aspects or social elements that
define nation states. 

On the other hand, other, contributing
issues that have impacted decolonisation include socio-cultural factors like
language. African countries colonised by the British Empire were influenced
with the English language and educational system of the British as many
colonisers had intended to settle in the many of the countries they had
colonised, an example of this would be for Southern Africa. Colonial powers used education as a tool for both political and economic
reasons. Moreover, for colonizers education was a means to win converts to
their religion (Windel, 2009).

The British were keen on
maintaining and establishing the duty to civilise Africa, this theory of
civilising Africa was held by Britons like David Livingstone. These viewed were
also supported by many Europeans and discussed during the Berlin Conference of
1884-85 (Appiah, A. and Gates, H. 2010), an idea that as European and the superior race Africa
needed the support of the Europeans to become civilised civilians, arguably
this view may have been far from the truth, the Europeans went into the
continent of Africa and created separation and divisions in the scramble of
Africa which resulted in many border wars, they also create disarray between
the nation people as they exploited the resources they needed. Amongst
all of this the British Empire for example installed many aspects of their own
culture language being the main aspect much of Africa and Asia still use the
English language as a staple language in their countries but during
colonisation it removed the barrier between the people and the colonisers which
can be viewed to be ignorant as they had invaded a nation and demanded that the
people would learn their language. Still even after decolonisation for many of
these countries English remains the main language which shows the present
influence colonial power continues to have. 

Within
Africa, to date Nigeria and South Africa are the richest countries with GDP’s
of $594.257 for Nigeria and $341.261 for South Africa (www.worldstopmost.com). The
GDP’s of both the countries make up almost a half of the GDP for sub-Saharan
countries. Both of these countries are rich in natural resources that help
maintain their stability and economy. Nigeria producing crude oil which makes
up for around 10% of the country’s GDP they also have been able to flourish
with their aircraft parts exports, tobacco and vinegar exports. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated Nigeria to become the biggest economy
in Africa as of 2016 and as of 2017 they have over taken second places South
Africa to become the richest economy in Africa and holds the 21^st
position globally, in this case it shows that a country once a colony of the
British Empire have been able to sustain their economy and rebuild after
decolonisation to become an influential country economically but additionally
socially much of Nigeria economy is also made up of entertainment industry with
Nollywood being the second largest film industry before Bollywood and after Hollywood
 (www.worldstopmost.com)
and South Africa having gold and diamonds, the World Bank and IMF have
considered South Africa as an upper middle income economy with its economy
thriving off exports such as gold, diamonds, minerals and machinery as well as
the added tourism that came along with South Africa hosting the World Cup which
increased the revenue for the country and also introduced foreign investments
from the Chinese and other countries. Once again, like Nigeria as a country
once ruled under the colonial powers of the British Empire South Africa have
been through a series horrendous events and great division as a nation with
Apartheid, the Dutch and British colonising the country they have managed to
maintain a growing economy which unfortunately for many African countries they
have not been able to recover from separation of their colonisers which have
resulted in many civil wars and poverty

Since the 1960’s sub-Saharan African countries have not been able to fully develop successfully this is because from 1974 to mid 1990’s Africa had a negative GDP growth rate which was contributed by corruption, famine, drought, poverty, aids, civil wars that hindered the growth of African economies (www.nber.org). It is unfortunate because unlike most European countries most sub-Saharan countries have beneficial natural resources, however these resources become an internal conflict for the countries due to corruption and continuance interference from the West. For sub-Saharan Africa corruption has proven to be one of the main problem that have slowed down the growth of the African economy and the influence it has on the global political stage. A quote from economist Hanson (2009) says “corruption in Africa ranges from high level political graft on the scale of millions of dollars to low level bribes” This high level of corruption allows powerful elites within the government to control the resource of the state as it benefits them, an example of a African leader such as Idi Amin who brought their countries economy to a decline due to an increase in military expenditure used to remove all Indian and Pakistani citizens in 1927, the economic decline would last decades.

After
the United Nations was established in 1945 nearly a third of the world’s
population lived in territorial ruled countries that were dependent on colonial
power. Chapter XI, articles 73 and 74 of the Charter of the United Nations
established the principles that now continue to guide the United Nation on its
effects on decolonisation(Un.org). After the defeat of the League of Nation and
the formation of the United Nations more than 80 former colonies have gained
their independence and with only 17 non-self-governing territories remaining.
However, for a large governing body like the United Nations with a great number
of newly independent states it may have been difficult for the superpowers to
work alongside and understand the cultural difference but with great diversity
also comes along a unique direction in which today’s global politics had taken.
It is understandable that superpowers like Britain and France would have
initially found it difficult to understand and cooperate with countries they
once ruled and felt superior to but this did not decrease the influence many
Asian and African countries obtained on the global political stage, especially
the influence culturally these countries began to have on the world. This would
also result to a breakdown of the old super powers.

During the inter-war period an emerged anti-colonialism took
of high influence among countries that had been once under European
colonisation, this influenced an independence movement around Africa and Asia
which would ultimately result to the collapse of the colonial powers. For most
of the anti-colonial movements throughout Africa and Asia they were attached to
a form of socialism and the revolutionary Marxist view which suggested that
imperial powers were weakened by WW2 and the ideas that newly independent
states had found new markets to exploit. In February 1960 Harold Macmillan made
a famous speech to the South African parliament stating, “The wind of change is
blowing through this continent and, whether we like it or not, this growth of
national consciousness is a political fact” (academic.oup.com). This can be
argued to be an official statement that supported the rapid decolonization of
the British Empire in Africa.

References

• Birmingham, David (1995). The Decolonization of Africa. Routledge. ISBN 1857285409.
• Duara, P. (2004). Introduction: The decolonization of Asia and Africa in the twentieth century. In P. Duara, Decolonization: Perspectives from now and then (pp. 1-18). London: Routledge.
• Esler, A and Ellis, E (2009) World History. USA: Prentice Hall
• Farah, A and Karls, A.B (2001) World history: the human experience. USA: McGraw Hill
• Fraser., C, (1994) “Understanding American Policy towards the Decolonization of European Empires, 1945–1964,” Diplomacy & Statecraft (March 1992): 105–25; and Wm. Roger Louis and Ronald Robinson, “The Imperialism of Decolonization,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 22: 462–511.
• Johnston, Ronald John (2000). The Dictionary of Human Geography (4th ed.). USA: Wiley-Blackwell
• Nber.org. (2017). The Economic Decline in Africa. [online] Available at: http://www.nber.org/digest/jan04/w9865.html
• Internationalreportingproject.org. (2017). Stories – Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa — International Reporting Project. [online] Available at: https://internationalreportingproject.org/stories/view/corruption-in-sub-saharan-africa
• Mentan, Tatah, (2010) The State in Africa: An Analysis of Impacts of Historical Trajectories of Global Capitalist Expansion and Domination in the Continent. African Books Collective, – Political Science – 417 pages
• Most, W. (2017). Top 10 Richest African Countries. [online] World’s Top Most. Available at: http://www.worldstopmost.com/2017-2018-2019-2020/news/richest-african-countries-2016-top-10-list
• Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-02-29/inside-nigerias-prolific-film-industry
• Michalopoulous, Stelios and and Papaioannou, Elias (2015) The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa
• Newworldencyclopedia.org. (2017). Scramble for Africa – New World Encyclopedia. [online] Available at: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Scramble_for_Africa
• Appiah, A. and Gates, H. (2010). Encyclopedia of Africa. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Un.org. (2017). The United Nations and Decolonization – History. [online] Available at: http://www.un.org/en/decolonization/history.shtml