Decolonisation

1
Decolonisation

• Steve Cushion

2
Decolonisation

• Compare the different process of decolonisation
  between France Britain
• Examine the French role in Algeria in some detail

3
Decolonisation

• Economic change in colonies
• capitalist economy based on cash crops
• Creation of new local bourgeoisie
• Racist nature of early 20th century Imperialism
• Colonial troops in WW2
• Fighting for Democracy - see hypocrisy of
  Allies
• Gain confidence
• Post war military exhaustion and bankruptcy in
  Europe
• weakens hold on colonies

4
Decolonisation

• Realisation by Imperialist nations that profit
  does not require colonisation
• Debt slavery
• No longer required to give even minimal welfare
  and education
• The United States pioneered modernised form of
  imperialism in Latin America
• exported their capital
• took their profits
• sent their marines if the natives got restless
• gave nothing in return
• after WW2, US ready for the rest of the world

5
France Britain

• Fall of France
• Military honour saved by Free French (colonial
  troops)
• Post war French claim to be Great Power
• British formal (if hypocritical) policy for
  eventual decolonisation
• French policy of Integration
• Southern Asia first test

6
India

• Indian National Congress 1885
• 1920 strategy of satyagraha (non-violent
  resistance) devised by Mahatma Gandhi
• Quit India Movement
• 100,000 arrests
• Indian National Army fights for Japanese
• played off Muslim League Congress
• divide and rule - most violence inter-communal
  not anti-imperialist
• prevent India reaching true potential
• Political defeat for Britain

7
Indo-China

• Viet Minh fight Japanese
• No mood for recolonisation
• French Army seeks prestige
• Dien Bien Phu, the worst defeat of European
  soldiers since the Zulus
• Military defeat as well as political

8
Settler States

• Algeria
• Military pride after Vietnam
• Closer to Home
• Closer links with colons
• Official policy of Integration
• Comparisons with Ireland?

• Australia
• massacred native population
• South Africa
• independent
• Kenya
• Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau)
• Rhodesia
• Ignored till guerrilla victory
• Messy but politically painless

9
Africa the Caribbean

• France
• Concerned with Algeria
• Cut their losses in other colonies
• Slightly better terms than Britain
• But
• Zone Franc
• Gendarme dAfrique
• DOM-TOMs

• Britain
• Found other ways to exploit cash crops
• Went relatively painlessly
• less racism without settlers
• Cold war aims of non-Communist governments
• After Suez crisis

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Some Trouble Spots for the British Empire

• Yemen
• fear of Communism
• Cyprus
• Divide and Rule - Enosis - EOKA
• Strategic position
• Malaya
• Communism again

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Algeria

• One Million dead in Algeria
• Undeclared Civil War in France
• attempted coup by right wing generals
• nightly bombings, plastiquages, in Paris
• demonstrations for decolonisation attacked by the
  police - 100s dead
• government underground terrorist organisations

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Colonisation

• 1830 - 1848 Conquest against fierce resistance
• Native culture smashed
• Arabs and Berbers pushed onto marginal land
• Flood of colonists from all over Europe
• 1896 Technically part of France
• In reality colonial-settler state
• 1.9 of Muslim children go to school

13
Resistance

• Etoile Nord-africaine founded by Algerian
  Communists in Paris 1926
• 1930 - breaks links with CP
• Mainly Algerian workers in France
• 40,000 members
• Lead by Masali Hadj

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Popular Front 1936

• CP and moderate nationalists demand full
  citizenship
• Etoile Nord-africaine demand independence
• loi Violette offered to extend the vote to 21,000
  Muslims (compared to 200,000 European voters)
• Still too much for colons,
• never passed
• greatly increases support for independence

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Amis du Manifeste

• First congress in March 1945
• 350,000 members elected Masali Hadj as leader
• Masali deported
• Riots
• VE day armed nationalists kill 94 settlers
• Colons and Army kill 60,000 in reprisal

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Elections

• 1946 Referendum on 4th Republic
• successful boycott
• 1948 Elections
• Rigged
• Official candidates win
• Turn to the armed struggle
• Organisation Speciale set up by Masali Hadj
• There is no solution but the machine gun
• Ferhat Abbas, moderate nationalist leader

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World Events

• Arab league and the rise of Nasser
• Dien Bien Phu
• 1956 - Tunisia independent
• after armed revolt
• France and Britain humiliated at Suez

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Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN)

• Split from Masali Hadjs organisation
• 1954 Launches guerrilla in mountains
• Army replies with fierce repression
• 85,000 troops
• Ensures political hegemony of FLN

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Response in France

• Recalls National Servicemen

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Response in France

• Riots in Rouen Grenoble
• Strikes elsewhere
• First committees against war
• Election of republican Front government
• Platform of Peace in Algeria
• Settlers riot
• PM Guy Mollet backs down

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FLN 1956

• Communist Party support
• Founds trade union - UGTA
• Thousands of Algerian soldiers desert
• Student strike
• French underground support networks
• Communists
• Socialists
• Trotskyists
• radical Christians

22
FLN

• Mollet tries negotiations
• Army kidnaps Ben Bella
• Ali la Pointe kills mayor of Boufarik

23
FLN

• Ali la Pointe kills mayor of Boufarik
• Colons bomb Muslim cinemas
• The Battle of Algers 1957
• Army victory at cost of
• alienating all Muslim opinion
• alenating much public opinion in France

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de Gaulle returns

• more negotiations fail
• Army dismiss government
• de Gaulle recalled
• all things to all men
• repression increases
• FLN
• sets up provisional government 1958
• offers negotiations (insist on Ben Bella) 1959

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Army and Colons

• Right wing feel betrayed
• Settlers riot - Week of the Barricades
• Seek Army support
• CRS machine gunned by settlers
• 14 dead, 61 injured
• Colonels dither and settler rebellion fails

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Turning point

• 1960 de Gaulles visit met with riots and bombs
• Settler demonstration attacked by Muslim crowd
• rescued by paratroopers
• Referendum
• Negotiations start

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Generals Putsch

• Retired Army officers
• Foreign Legion Paratroop Regiment
• Settlers
• French Fascists

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Generals Putsch

• Navy Air Force stay loyal
• Army in Germany neutral
• General Strike in France
• Conscripts refuse to fight
• Non au fascisme
• Cells in Army to watch right-wing officers

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Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS)

• Plot fails - deserters go underground
• murderous last ditch campaign for Algerie
  française
• Plastic bombs
• Assassinations
• Mortar bomb the Kasbah
• Government counter terror
• Action Speciale and the barbouzes

30
la Bataille de Paris
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Metro Charronne - General Strike
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Evian negotiations

• Drag on
• Never in doubt
• Good deal for colons
• Too stupid to see it and fled to France
• base for racist demagogues like le Pen

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Following a referendum, Algeria became an
independent republic on the 3rd of July 1962.