Chapter 42 Chapter 7 The End of the Empire 4

4 In the era of revolutionary turmoil, basically only the British Empire itself was shaken.But the great economic panic of 1929-1933 shook the dependent world as a whole.For as a matter of fact, these areas have continued to grow during the age of imperialism, and even the Great War did not interrupt this prosperity, because most of them were far away from the war area.At that time, the people of many colonies had not yet had any relationship with the expanding world economy, let alone felt that they had suffered any new influences different from before.For those Limin men and women who have worked hard to dig and transport since ancient times, what kind of global environment is the labor they are doing day and night, what is the difference, what is the difference?But despite this, the imperial economy, after all, has a considerable impact on the daily life of ordinary people, especially in areas where export is the focus of production.In some cases, these changes have even emerged in a political form recognized by local people or foreign rulers. From the 1900s to the 1930s, farms and idylls in Peru began to transform into sugar factories along the coast or commercial sheep ranches in the highlands of the interior.As a result, the trickle of Indian laborers migrating to the seaside cities began to converge into a torrent, and new ideas gradually infiltrated into the traditional inland.So by the 1930s, Huasicancha, a small, "extremely remote" village located 3,700 meters above the Andes, extremely inaccessible to outsiders, was already debating which national party would best represent it interests (Smith 1989, esp. P. 175).But most of the time, except for the locals, outsiders don't know or care how much these small villages have changed.

For example, for an economic society that almost never uses money, or only uses money for limited purposes, what kind of changes will it mean once it enters an economic world where money is the only standard of exchange?One example is the many islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans.The transactions of goods, services, and people have all changed fundamentally.The original social value, and in fact even the original form of social distribution, have also changed as a result.For farmers in Negri Sembilan, Malaysia, which mainly produces rice and follows a matriarchal society, women have always been responsible for farming the land passed down from their ancestors, and they can only be inherited by women.As for the jungle, the land newly cleared by men for the cultivation of secondary crops can be left directly to men.But with the rise in the price of rubber, which is more profitable than rice, the original balance between the sexes began to change, and the weight of family property passed down by men increased.This shift has strengthened the status of leaders of traditional Islamic sects.They are dedicated to patriarchal authority, so naturally they do not want to impose their "orthodox" views on local customs and habits.Not to mention the local rulers and their families, who were the only exceptions to the generally matriarchal society in the region that practiced a patrilineal society (Firth 1954).A dependent economy and society is full of such changes and transformations.But the communities that lived within had little direct contact with the outside world—in the case of the Malay community, perhaps only through the intermediary of a Chinese trader.As for the merchant himself, the most common situation is probably that he was a farmer or craftsman from Fujian, China.The cultural traditions of the home country make it used to frugality for a living, and what's more, it makes it well versed in the mysterious and complex functions of money.But despite these two different characteristics, the world of this humble Chinese businessman was equally distant from the modern world of Henry Ford and General Motors.

Despite these changes in the colonial world, a world economy still seemed remote, with its immediacy and recognizable impact, largely without transformative influence.But in places like India and China, isolated industrial regions emerged with fast growth and cheap labor.Therefore, since 1919, the conflicts and struggles of the working class have continued to spread, and there are even labor organizations that have learned from the Western model.In addition, large ports and industrial cities arose, from which the world of dependent economies interacted with the external world-economy that manipulated its destiny.Examples include Mumbai, Shanghai (whose population jumped from 200,000 in the mid-19th century to 3.5 million in the 1930s), Buenos Aires, and, to a lesser extent, Cassblanca.The population of Casablanca has increased to 250,000 in less than 30 years since it became a modern port city (Bairoch, 1985, pp. 527 525).

The emergence of the Great Depression changed everything.The interests of two completely different economic and social interests, depending on the region and the capital city, suddenly overlapped violently, and the impact was obvious.The price of agricultural products alone is enough to have this strong effect.The prices of the agricultural products that the Third World economies depended on fell sharply, far below the prices of the finished products they bought from the West (see Chapter 3).The state of colonialism and economic dependence then became unacceptable even for those who benefited from it. “Cairo, Rangoon, Jakarta – Batavia as it used to be called in the Dutch period – student unrest everywhere. Not because of political hopelessness, but because of the current depression, which has overturned support for colonialism in the past. The mentality of his parents was swept away, and his parents’ generation’s acceptance of colonialism disappeared.” (Holland 1985, p. 12) In fact, the reason is more than this: the lives of ordinary people also felt natural disasters for the first time. Great shocks other than war (except in times of war).This kind of disaster cannot be solved without prayer, and the only way is to protest.Thus, a broad base of political mobilization has since taken shape, especially in areas where peasant life is largely at the mercy of the world market economy system, such as coastal West Africa and around Southeast Asia.At the same time, the Great Depression will also depend on the domestic and foreign political situation in the region, resulting in an extremely unstable state.

The 1930s were thus a critical decade for the Third World.The main reason is not all that the depression led to a radical political direction.But it has also established a common interface between the depressed and politicized minority and the general people of the country.This situation is no exception in India and other countries where nationalist movements have already mobilized the people. In the early 1930s, India once again set off a large wave of non-cooperation movements, and the British government finally gave in and agreed to promulgate a compromise constitution. In 1937, the first provincial elections were held across India, and the Congress party gained national support.In the central area of ​​the Gange (Gange), the number of its party members increased from more than 60,000 in 1935 to more than 1.5 million in the late 1930s (Tomlinson, 1976, p. 86).This phenomenon is all the more pronounced in countries that have not hitherto mobilized on such a large scale.The contours of mass politics in the future era, whether vague or clear, will gradually emerge from then on.For example, populist ideas in Latin America, based on leaders with totalitarian characters, began to seek the support of urban workers.Trade union organizations in the Caribbean and other places have carried out large-scale political mobilization; their leaders may become party leaders in the future.The emigrants of Algerian workers who traveled to and from France became a powerful base for the country's revolutionary movement.And in places like Vietnam, a communist-based nationwide resistance movement emerged with strong ties to small farmers.All these kinds are too numerous to enumerate.At least in Malaya, the years of depression have since interrupted the combined power of the colonial authorities and the small farmers, making room for future political development.

By the end of the 1930s, the crisis of colonialism had extended to other major empires.Although two of them, Italy and Japan, were still expanding at the time (the former had just invaded Ethiopia, the latter was trying to conquer China)-but their good days were not long.As for the new Indian constitution promulgated in 1935, it was originally the product of a compromise between the British colonial government and the rampant Indian nationalism. Symbol of big concessions.In French North Africa, serious political movements arose for the first time in Tunisia, Algeria and elsewhere—even Morocco had sporadic conflicts—and in French Indochina, mass movements inspired by orthodox communist parties were for the first time. Once it got serious.In Indonesia, the Netherlands also tried to maintain control, and Indonesia "has always been different from other countries in its sensitivity to the various movements that have occurred in the East in recent years." (Van Asbeck1939) The difference is not that it is extra quiet than others; Various local resistance forces—Islamic, Communist, and secular nationalist movements—have been at odds not only within themselves, but also with each other.Even in the Caribbean, which had always been considered sleepy by the colonial authorities, a series of strikes took place in the oil fields of Trinidad.The transformation of Jamaica's settlements and cities from 1935 to 1938 into conflicts where riots spread throughout the island exposed a level of popular discontent never seen before.

During these turbulent years, only the continent of sub-Saharan Africa remained silent.After 1935, however, the years of depression brought strikes to this silent land.The anger of the strike was ignited by the copper belt in Central Africa.From this, the London authorities realized the fact that the mass migration of rural men from the countryside to the mining areas had a destabilizing and destructive force on society and politics.Therefore, it called on the colonial government to reform the status quo, asking them to set up a labor department and start improving the working environment and conditions of workers to stabilize the working class. The wave of strikes that arose from 1935 to the 1940s spread throughout Africa, but basically they did not have any political meaning against colonial rule.Unless we count the rapid expansion of African churches and prophets targeting blacks at that time, and the popularity of anti-secular government movements such as the Millennium Watchtower movement (Watchtower, which originated in the United States) that rose from the copper belt, are also counted as political product.Colonial governments began to reflect for the first time on the unsettling consequences of economic change for African agrarian societies - which were, in fact, going through a period of rather prosperous growth - and began to encourage social anthropologists to study the subject in depth .

However, from a political point of view, the African colonial authorities at that time seemed to be able to sit back and relax.In the vast African countryside, this is the golden age of white administrative bureaucrats.Regardless of whether there is an aboriginal "leader" in the local area who is responsible for coordination, everything is so smooth and pleasant.Sometimes, in order to facilitate the "indirect" rule of the colonial authorities, the post of "chieftain" was specially set up for management.As for Africa's urban intelligentsia, it was newly educated and increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo.By the mid-1930s their numbers were large enough to sustain a thriving political newspaper such as the African Morning Post on the Gold Coast (now Ghanan) , West African Pilot in Nigeria, and Eclaireur de la Cote d, Ivoive in Ivory Coast. [The Sentinel has led a campaign against senior military officials and the police, demanding that the government take measures to rehabilitate society and fight for benefits for the economically devastated unemployed and African farmers. ] (Hodgkin, 1961, P.32) African local political leaders advocating nationalism have also begun to emerge at this time.Their thinking was influenced by the rise of the black movement in the United States, by France in the era of the Popular Front, and even by the Communist movement.These trends began to circulate in the West African Students Union (West African Students Union) in London.Several of the presidents of the African republics in the future also appeared on the stage at this time - such as the first president of Kenya Kenyatta (Jomo Kenyatta, 1889-1978), and Dr. Azikiwe who later became the president of Nigeria (Namdi Azikiwe).At the time, though, none of the above had given the colonial authorities in Europe any sleepless nights.

Although the end of the colonial empire in the world was possible in 1939, whether it was really imminent, as far as the author can remember, is not always clear.Thinking back to that year, the atmosphere in a certain "school" for communist students in Britain and the "colons" did not reflect this view-yet it would have been hard to say at the time that anyone had any expectations for how things would turn out. Who could be more optimistic than that batch of young and fanatical Marxists?The event that really changed the colonial world completely was the Second World War.The background and causes of World War II are extremely complicated, but it is definitely a big duel between imperialists.And until the situation was reversed in 1943, several large colonial empires were always at a disadvantage.Needless to say, France was humiliated and defeated in front of the enemy at once.Its vassal states and territories can survive only with the grace and permission of the Axis forces.In Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, the British, Dutch, and several colonies owned by other Western countries also fell into the clutches of the Japanese army.Even in North Africa, Germany has achieved what it wanted and has grown in power, only a few tens of kilometers away from Alexandria.The situation was so serious that the British side even seriously considered withdrawing from Egypt.Only the area of ​​Africa south of the desert is still under the strict control of the West.In fact, the British drove Italian forces from the eastern cape (Ethiopia) without much effort.

The real mortal wound of these old colonial empires lies in the fact that the war revealed a fact: it turns out that these white masters, as well as their mighty mother country, will also be defeated in humiliation one day.It turns out that these big empires are strong on the outside and strong on the inside. Even though they finally won the battle, they no longer have the strength to regroup. In 1942, the Indian National Congress, chanting "Quit India!", launched a major rebellion.In fact, this rebellion was not yet the biggest test for the British in India, because the chaos was quickly put down.The event that really put the British dominance into a serious test was the mutiny of 55,000 Indian officers and soldiers.They voted for Bosch, a leftist from the Congress Party, and formed an "Indian National Army" (IndianNataional Army).Bose himself, on the other hand, was determined to seek support from the Japanese side in pursuit of Indian independence (Bhargava/Singh Gill 1988, p. 10; Sareen, 1988, pp. 20-21).The Japanese side is sophisticated, and its motives are not as pure as those of the Indian soldiers.Japan's politics are obviously influenced by the country's navy, intending to use the skin color of Indian soldiers to mediate and sow discord, and pretend to be the liberator of the colonies.Japan's racial card game was effective (though not with overseas Chinese; they also failed in Vietnam, allowing the French to maintain local administration). In 1943, the Japanese even organized the "Assembly of Greater East Asiatic Nations" in Tokyo.The "Presidents" and "Prime Ministers" of various countries present came from the puppet governments of various countries controlled by the Japanese, including China, India, Thailand, Burma and Manchukuo.Although the nationalists in the various colonies are very grateful for the support of the Japanese side, taking Indonesia as an example, the assistance given by Japan is indeed very important.But gratitude is nothing but gratitude, but everyone can see clearly in their hearts that it is impossible to stand on the side of Japan.Once the defeat of the Japanese side was decided, everyone in the colonies immediately turned their guns.At the same time, they will never forget the fact that they have seen through before: how vulnerable the western empire is.Although the United States quickly changed its original intentions due to domestic anti-communist ideology, it became the defender of the old conservative forces in the third world.The people of the colonies did not ignore another fact: the two great powers that defeated the Axis forces—Roosevelt’s United States and Stalin’s Soviet Union—although they had different motivations, basically they both had an aversion to the old colonialism .