The Anti-Colonial Century

I. India


A. Indian National Conference (INC)--the political organization in India that advocated for independence--and which is still in existence today. Its most famous member were Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

1. Mohandas Gandhi--Oxford-trained Indian lawyer. His own experience with racial discrimination in England, South Africa, and India led him to embrace Hindi religious and dietary practices--although he rejected the subjugation of women in society, and fought against the worst of caste practices, seeking equality for all Indians--and independence for the country. Gandhi was western educated, but learned in his time away from India that many British--or, most specifically, the British government--saw him as inferior because of his ethnic background; he spent much of his adult life fighting against that, and fighting for independence for his country.


a) Homespun--Gandhi was a proponent of domestic industry. He insisted on wearing traditional clothing--including a loincloth--from Indian grown cotton. This cotton he himself worked to turn into thread, which he then wove into cloth. This rejection of Western methods endeared him to a large part of India that could not afford western goods--he made their poverty a virtue. Gandhi consciously rejected westernization, and in this way made himself popular among the masses.


b) Salt March--in 1922, to protest the British imposition of a tax on salt, Gandhi and a growing number of followers march 239 miles to the sea to make their own salt, rather than pay the British for their imported salt.

c) “Non-cooperation” movement--after the success of the Salt March, Gandhi encouraged Indians to engage in a non-cooperation movement, where they would refuse to use the British governmental system--especially the courts--and to avoid the purchase of British goods

d) “Quit India” movement--signaled a renewed effort to persuade the British to grant India independence. Indian dissatisfaction with British rule grew throughout the 1930s, as more Indians became impoverished while the British government continued the practices that enriched the metropole in London.



B. Non-violent Civil Disobedience--Gandhi practiced pacifism; in fact, he was the lone figure in the INC to vote against conditional support for the fight against fascism. So this practice he undertook as a matter of principle, rather than for tactical reasons--and his followers often times were not as principled as he was. Non-violent civil disobedience is most effective when it provokes a disproportionately violent response.


1. Quit India--campaign sparked by the fact that the Viceroy of India (and Englishman appointed by the British government) declared war on Germany without consulting any Indians. In response, some breakaway factions of the INC sought out the Japanese. Most, however, followed Gandhi’s call to begin a massive program of civil disobedience. The British responded by sending a representative to negotiate a settlement with INC representatives; when those negotiations broke down, Gandhi renewed his call for civil disobedience to begin.

a) Arrest of INC leadership--the British responded to this movement by arresting the entire national leadership of the INC, which effectively killed the national movement--but spurred the development of secondary leaders in the provinces of the country. The leadership was arrested in 1942, and were to be held for the duration of the war. Gandhi was released in 1943, due to failing health. After his release, he went on a hunger strike in an attempt to win the release of the rest of the leadership.

C. Independence--it was apparent to many political leaders in Great Britain that the cost of maintaining India as a colony after the war would be more than the impoverished country could bear, and the decision was made to "grant" India independence.


1. Partition--the religious tensions between Muslims and Hindus, which the British had done much to foster (the ancient "divide and conquer" principle), impelled them to partition India at the time of independence, in order to attempt to diminish the likelihood of civil war--which happened anyway.


a. British arrogance--the British civil servant charged with drawing the boundaries for the two nations knew next to nothing about India, so the boundaries had nothing to with the majority population resident there. In addition, the two religions had co-existed in India so long that to make such a distinction was ludicrous, anyway.

b. Effect on India--since partition, politics in India has become more chauvinistic, with following the stricture of the Hindi religion becoming the defining characteristic of Indian nationalism--which leaves out all other religions.

c. Effect on Pakistan--with only Islam as a unifying principle (and even that being divisive, with the struggle between Sunni and Sha'ria for dominance), and with hundreds of miles dividing Pakistan from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the military is the dominant institution--and democracy has suffered as a result.

II. Vietnam


A. French colonialism--began in 1858, when the French army and navy invaded to “protect” Roman Catholics in Vietnam who were being “persecuted.”

1. Collaborators--this labeled most Catholics in Vietnam as collaborators with the foreign enemy, which would have repercussions in the mid-20th century.

a) Dr. Tom Dooley, an American Catholic, and his accounts of communist treatment of Roman Catholics did much during the late 1950s (he was cited as an example of volunteerism by John F. Kennedy while the latter was establishing the Peace Corps). Dooley was cultivated by CIA agent Edward Lansdale, and probably gathered intelligence for the CIA while in southeast Asia.

2. French colonists--confined their activities largely to the lucrative rubber plantations, while allowing the elite in Vietnam (or, as the French preferred to say, Indochina or Cochin China; the French, in fact, forbade the use of the term Vietnam to refer to the country) to acquire most of the land and wealth they cared to not acquire for themselves, while peasants in the countryside were impoverished.


B. Ho Chi Minh--like Gandhi, Ho became the focal point for the independence movement in his country. Also like Gandhi, Ho was western educated--although his family was vehemently nationalist. His father was a minor mandarin, but refused to learn French because he claimed it would “spoil” his Vietnamese. Ho, like Gandhi, spent much of this public life dressed like a peasant, by choice, abandoning trappings of the office he attained.

1. Ho the Communist--Ho’s involvement with international communism dated from 1919 (even before Mao tse-Tung); he was one of the original members of the French Communist Party, and served for a number of years with the Comintern in Moscow as the expert on colonialism.

2. Ho the Nationalist--Ho petitioned the Versailles Conference to grant Vietnam independence, but was ignored. Ho collaborated with the United States Army Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA) to defeat the Japanese, and then petitioned US president Harry Truman to support independence for the country, and was ignored. Ho forced emperor Bao Dai to abdicate, but was forced to accept the French re-establishing control; he immediately set about creating a resistance movement, however.


3. Dien Bien Phu--a contingent of French paratroopers were defeated at this battle and force to surrender, the French then signed the Geneva Accords. The country was divided “temporarily” into two sections at the insistence of the United States; France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam agreed that reunification elections would be held in 1956, but the United States and Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) did not sign the accord, and felt no compunction to follow its edicts--particularly because the government in the south never had much popular support.


4. The American War in Vietnam--the most obvious instance of the United States fighting a proxy war against the Soviet Union, when the war was essentially fought by the opposing side to throw off the cloak of colonialism and become an independent country

III. Palestine/Israel


A. Muslim resistance--as Jews began moving to Palestine in larger numbers, establishing kibbutzes and moving in numbers into cities, Palestinians began attempting to discourage Jewish settlement, including physical violence.

1. 1929 Riot--dispute over “permanent” structures built by Jews at the Wailing Wall, which Muslim clerics demanded by removed in keeping with an Ottoman edict restricting such structures from being built. Resulted in the deaths of 133 Jews, and 116 Palestinians.

2. 1939 White Paper--proposal by Great Britain to resolve growing dispute over Palestine; centered on restricting immigration of Jews until an election was held in 1949, when Arabs and Jews would be seated in a government in proportion to their populations that year--but guaranteeing that Arabs would remain in the majority. In the end, the White Paper pleased no one--the Jews saw it as a death warrant for thousands (the Nazi pogrom was just getting underway), as well as stiemying their nationalist aspirations, while the Arabs saw it as not restrictive enough, because it would allow the Jews to undermine the postwar government

B. Jewish response--the response of Zionists varied across a wide spectrum, from tit-for-tat retaliation to organized terror campaigns.


1. Irgun--a secret Jewish armed group, which carried out a campaign of terror (bombings and attempted assassinations) against British government and military officials, mainly


a) King David Hotel bombing--Irgun operatives carried out this terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 91 people, including 17 Jews. Irgun leaders said they regretted the Jewish deaths and would pray for their souls, but did not regret the British deaths, because Great Britain had never expressed regret over the Jewish deaths during the Holocaust. No mention was made of the deaths of the largest group of death--Arabs.


b) Menachem Begin--led Irgun during this time period, and was the man who gave the order for the hotel to be blown up. After Israeli statehood, Begin became leader of the Likud Party, and by the late 1970s prime minister of Israel. In a bit of karmic irony, his autobiography, The Revolt, is must reading for Hamas and Hezbollah.


c) Lohamei Herut Israel--LEHI or the Stern Gang, a splinter group that broke off from Irgun, targeted Arab populations in a terror car-bombing campaign. Best known outside of Israel as the first organization to be labeled a “terrorist group” by the United Nations. Inside Israel, they are recognized as devoted patriots to the Zionist cause.


IV. The Battle for Algiers



A. The Front de Libération Nationale (FLN)--the FLN was the Algerian national liberation group that fought an eight year guerilla war against France (1954-1962) to gain independence. The FLN, an Arab-socialist political party, is still in control of the government in Algiers, although lately their leadership is being challenged by an Islamist political party.

1. Social/Cultural/Political movement--the FLN was not a Marxist party, but construed socialism broadly--mainly as a way of identifying oppressors and the oppressed.

a) Attempted to ferret out what they defined as destructive behaviors (consumption of alcohol and prostitution in particular).

b) Reform of these behaviors was seen as key to developing sense of national pride, since native Algerians were lowest on the totem pole in colonial Algerian society, below French and the pied noirs (literally, “black feet”), Algerian-born of European descent.


2. The “dirty war” French occupying forces did not hesitate to use what the Bush Administration would term “enhanced interrogation techniques” (what sane people recognize as torture).

3. FLN response--to use plastique in bombing raids against both French establishments and the French military.


a) Cafe wars in France--the struggle for control by elements of the FLN for the government-in-exile led to a series of assassination attempts on Algerian ex-pats in France, called the cafe wars.

4. Evian Accords--granted independence to Algeria (in quick stages)--but led more than a million pied noir to emigrate to France. In the mother country, however, these pied noir felt that the native French population blamed them for the war--but also felt estranged from their native Algeria.



a) Algeria and the fall of the Fourth Republic--the cost of the war in Algeria--and the way the “dirty war” was carried out by French forces, led to the French parliament granting President Charles de Gaulle near-dictatorial powers--and also led to the fall of the Fourth Republic.