World History

Unit 6: World War in the Twentieth Century

Chapter 26: New Political Forces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Mon, Mar 24, 2014

54. Tue, Mar 25, 2014

This chapter is largely another grab-bag of events that took place outside Europe, apparently in order to fill in the picture and entitle it to the name World History. While the separate pieces are reasonably comprehensible, I think (unlike some of the earlier parts of the book), I don't get a sense that any of them is written with an appreciation of the internal dynamics of the cultures and societies that produced them. We are shown, for example, the Indian resistance to British rule under Gandhi entirely from the point of Western political and social norms — and part of what makes this such a richly fascinating episode in the history of both countries is precisely the fact that it can be viewed in at least two ways. What the English saw going on what one thing; what the Indians saw was something else entirely. Neither of them is necessarily entirely wrong or entirely right. The internal understanding of what was going on in the Japanese empire is too complex to be taken in from outside as well.

To some extent this is understandable. The book itself is written to be understood from a Western perspective. Nevertheless, it's worth trying to insert oneself imaginatively, at least, into the contexts that created the ferment in these various parts of the world. What makes up the religious, cultural, and historical mental furniture that made up the perspective that's not as well represented here?

It's interesting also that much of the discourse on both sides of these issues — most of them concerning the breakdown of colonialism — were couched in the terms of Western political and social discourse. Many of the leaders, from Gandhi to those leading the various African moves toward independence, were educated in Western (often English) universities. This uniquely enabled them to address the power structures in the colonial nations on their own terms, which was in turn able to foster sympathy and comprehension.

The Middle East, which remains a seething cauldron of political and social unrest to this day, largely received its current shape as part of the settlements following World War I. Egypt was able to establish itself largely as independent. Turkey, being the center of the old Ottoman Empire, was validated as its own state and was largely able to reconstruct itself, under the guidance of one very strong leader, in some new ways. Other areas were not so fortunate. Palestine's woes are the daily fare of our newspapers. Iran and Iraq have warred against each other and with other powers both inside the region and outside — and it cannot have eluded anyone that American troops are still on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The situation in Africa was very mixed. We talked in previous weeks about the various colonizing that was done in different parts of Africa during the late nineteenth century. The imprint of the different kinds of authority was lasting. The brutalization of the Congo under the Belgians continues to bear fruit to this day: the Congo is one of the parts of Africa where it's really not safe for anyone — foreigner or native. Tribal warfare has if anything grown worse since the departure of the Belgians. South Africa embodied a very English and Dutch sensibility, which in turn produced one of the most enduring racist institutions in the twentieth century — the policy that was called Apartheid — which is merely Afrikaans for "separation". The machinery of Apartheid was instituted formally after World War II, and was not dismantled until 1994. That it was undone without enormous bloodshed is one of the most encouraging features of its age.

The stresses and contradictions afflicting Latin America were curiously similar to those in Africa in some ways, but very different in others. The Americas had long since been colonized by Spain and Portugal, and now had well-rooted populations that spoke Spanish or Portuguese as their primarily languages, and contained a much higher percentage of racially mixed people. They had shared the fortunes, to a greater or lesser extent, of their parent countries, and, though they were typically exploited rather harshly in economic terms, they had governments basically operating on a Western model. Most of them had won free of their parent countries in the nineteenth century, thanks to such revolutionaries as Simon Bolivar, but the governments that were established in place of the colonial ones were seldom models of stability. To some extent, that legacy continues to this day: in Latin America, there is probably the highest incidence of military coup d'etat of any part of the world. Figuring out which regimes to support has been a constant source of confusion for the other Western powers, especially the United States, and the inevitable bad choices in that area has created a good deal of ill-will that is part of what besets our foreign policy in that part of the world to this day.

• What created and enabled the reforms of Atatürk in Turkey? What are the consequences of imposing an almost entirely secular form of government on the domains of the former Caliphates? The book mentions almost nothing about the Armenians and the Kurds. What do you know about them (if anything)? What happens when populations are caught on the borders between such radically different kinds of state?
• Almost nobody is quite capable of parsing the peculiar nature of the current state of Palestine. We will later see the formalization of the state of Israel, but for now we can take stock of the various ingredients that went into making what it is today. How did colonial intervention enable or foster that — or suppress the alternative?
• Africa remains a continent of the most diverse social and economic makeup. In some regions it is reasonably well-off; in others it bears the long scars of internecine strife and colonial administration. Whether one believes that colonial occupation was a good thing or not, the process of letting go of such territories comes with its own perils, which reminds one of Terence's memorable Latin phrase auribus teno lupum — "I'm holding a wolf by the ears." As long as one keeps hold, the wolf is harmless. But can one ever let go? How can one do so safely?
• South American politics has been poised uniquely between Western and non-Western influences for the better part of two centuries. How did those nations try to frame up their own identities, and with what results?

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