Deck 23: E: The End of Empire the Global South on the Global Stage 1914-Present

Question 1

Personal Reflection: Having studied the history of the new nations that secured their independence from European colonial powers in the twentieth century,do you feel that the next century holds great promise for these regions? Why or why not?

Answer 1

•Assessment of the accomplishments and setbacks experienced by the new nations
•Recognition of the variety of experiences
•Reasoned conclusions about current trends
•A reasoned prediction about the future
A really good answer will engage with the ideas explored in Reflections: History in the Middle of the Stream.

Question 2

Discuss the political,economic,and cultural experiments of the new nation-states that emerged as a result of the processes of decolonization in the second half of the twentieth century.

Answer 2

•The common challenges new states faced should be identified: growing populations that outstripped available resources,culturally diverse populations,weak loyalty to the new states,widespread poverty,and weak private economies.
•A discussion of experiments with communism should focus on China,Vietnam,and Cuba.
•A discussion of multiparty democracy should focus on India and South Africa.
•A discussion of one-party democracy should focus on Mexico,Tanzania,and Senegal.
•A discussion of military regimes should focus on Latin America,Africa,and the Middle East in the early decades after independence.
•A discussion of personal dictatorships should focus on Uganda and the Philippines.
•The recent resurgence of democracy in many countries that had been dominated by authoritarian regimes should be noted.
•A discussion of strategies of economic development should highlight the shift from state-controlled economies to market-oriented economies in recent decades.
•A discussion of cultural experiments should contrast the secularism of Turkey with the Islamization of Iran.

Question 3

Historical Comparison: Compare and contrast the freedom movements in India and South Africa.

Answer 3

•The African National Congress and the Indian National Congress were both initially founded and led by the elite of their respective communities.
•They pursued peaceful and moderate protest at first,then later broadened their bases of support and developed nonviolent civil disobedience.
•Black South Africans struggled against an internal opponent,the country's white minority,rather than against a distant colonial ruler.
•The intransigence of the sizable and threatened white settler community in South Africa contributed to African rule being delayed until 1994,whereas India,which lacked any such community,achieved independence almost five decades earlier.
•Race was a much more prominent issue in South Africa,which was expressed most clearly in the policy of apartheid.Apartheid attempted to separate blacks from whites in every conceivable way while retaining their labor power in the white-controlled economy.
•The international pressure to end apartheid that was placed on the white South African government had no parallel in India.
•In India,the freedom struggle was marked by a growing divide between the country's Muslim and Hindu populations that ultimately led to the partition of India at independence.Although race,ethnicity,and ideology generated dissension in South Africa,no such religious division occurred there,and the other tensions did not result in partition after freedom was finally won.