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3. The decolonizing process.

  • Although decolonization had as antecedent the independence of the British and Hispano-Portuguese possessions of the American continent during the eighteenth century and beginning of the XIX, the term decolonization is used, specifically, to refer to the Process that took place in the twentieth century and affected the continents of Asia and Africa.
    During the time of between wars nationalist movements arose to claim the full sovereignty of their territories, but it was from 1945 when the decolonization occurred in an irrepressible way, following an east-west direction: it began in Asia Eastern and, after reaching the Arab world, ended up in black Africa.
    In the process of independence of the colonial Territories can be distinguished the following phases:
  • Period between wars (1919-1945). The former Muslim territories of the Ottoman Empire, administered as mandates under French-British tutelage, reached their independence: Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
  • Period of 1945-1955. The colonies of east and South Asia were proclaimed Independent: India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia.
  • Period of 1955-1975. North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya) and black Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Chad, Sudan, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, etc) were decolonized.
  • Resultado de imagen de mapa descolonizacion periodo entreguerras
    The decolonizing process did not occur in the same way in all the territories, it was conditioned by the administrative and organisational system implemented by the Europeans, the geopolitical situation of the colony and the attitude of the metropolis and the Colonies. Therefore, several modalities or ways of decolonization can be appreciated:.
    • The United Kingdom favoured the peaceful way. It acted with great realism and, although tensions were sometimes inevitable, it generally renounced political sovereignty in order to safeguard trade and monetary ties with its former colonies, which were integrated as members of the Commonwealth. It endowed its colonies progressively with greater levels of self-government and political institutions similar to the European ones, until, by common accord, Independence was proclaimed.
      Resultado de imagen de mapa descolonizacion REINO UNIDO
    • The revolutionary route was the violence and the armed confrontation between the colony and the metropolis to make way for the decolonizing process.
      • The Netherlands and Portugal personified this route in Indonesia, Angola or Mozambique.
      • France followed a mixed model, depending on the colony and the moment: it opposed the independence of Indo-China and Algeria, which provoked dramatic wars in these territories, but accepted that the majority of its colonies in Africa peacefully.