How long can Decolonization be delayed?
- Thread starter nice_pengguin
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Maybe - and this is unorthodox, a timeline where WW1 is averted only for a worse World War to break out with biological, nuclear and chemical weapons, causing large scale European refugee movement to the colonies.
With the settler colonies like Algeria or South Africa functioning as the bases of government in exile, technically never
With the settler colonies like Algeria or South Africa functioning as the bases of government in exile, technically never
See Portugal for what happened to colonial empires who were not involved in the war. Militant resistance by a cross-class nationalist strata will eventually dislodge the imperial powers.
Removing WW2 is not enough, after the WW1 the Empires were already "fatally wounded" and were losing their grip in their colonies. Also, you need to butterfly the Soviets, considering them (and the US) were the biggest proponent of anti-colonization in OTL, even if just for selfish reasons.
Without the existence of the USSR or other anti-colonialist countries like communist China, it would likely be a lot easier for Europe to hold onto its colonies, for at least a little bit longer anyway. With no USSR/PRC/etc to fund and arm guerillas, it won't be quite so expensive in terms of blood and treasure to keep the colonies even when the locals inevitably demand their freedom. Of course even without the funding and equipment provided by the socialists, a large enough popular revolt would still be a massive expense (and likely a PR nightmare) to deal with, if it could even be dealt with at all.
Even if you butterfly WW1 away you would see some degree of decolonisation altough it would be lesser degree and take much longer. In some places it would be really gradual process and some places would see long and brutal colonial wars.
I think it is important with this question is that you have to distinguish between countries and between colonies. Every European country colonised in a different way and treated their colonies differently. France was very different from the UK. And even every single colony was treated differently by the home country. You could even see differences within colonies.
Lets take the Netherlands as an example. Currently the Dutch Antilles are still part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. With only a slightly different and very late POD Suriname could be as well. While an independent Indonesia was basicly a given. Way too large, way too culturally different population. In the end Indonesian indendence was a given. Without WWII it could have been delayed for decades, but I expect in the 60's there would be an armed rebellion the Dutch would be unable to suppress. That said, while Java might become independent at that point, the Maluku islands and New Guinea could be held for longer, although not forever.
Lets take the Netherlands as an example. Currently the Dutch Antilles are still part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. With only a slightly different and very late POD Suriname could be as well. While an independent Indonesia was basicly a given. Way too large, way too culturally different population. In the end Indonesian indendence was a given. Without WWII it could have been delayed for decades, but I expect in the 60's there would be an armed rebellion the Dutch would be unable to suppress. That said, while Java might become independent at that point, the Maluku islands and New Guinea could be held for longer, although not forever.
Without WW2 the Soviet Union is still a complete international pariah and uncapable of seriously contesting the colonial empires and the US is isolationist. While I agree that after WW1 decolonization would happen at some point it would be delayed a lot without WW2.
The USSR wasn't seriously contesting colonialism, especially not internally. But the very processes of imperialism produced classes and castes that generated people who would contest colonialism; and, they produced population booms and a bias towards a moment when well organised light infantry supported by artillery especially in close terrain; and, the Comintern and Cominform provided organisational structures and techniques which were exceptional at mobilising the potential new classes in the periphery of imperialism. For India one may consider the British response to Chinese imperial bureaucracy. For China, one may consider the Chinese response to Chinese imperial bureaucracy amplified by the comintern. Not so much the Comintern/cominform as a particular ideological centre, but as an organisational locus. In someways these are just the Interregnum in England, or the French republic and empire with better literate bureaucracy. Without the Comintern, similar people would have found similar techniques wherever they could. WWII did stretch the capacity of imperialist states, and amplify the anti-imperialist techniques in the periphery. But a similar macro-economic catastrophe was implicit in the emergence of high fordism. About the only escape from anti-imperialism is a low-equilibrium trap like a depression forever that doesn't produce a nexus of social and cultural influence. But that just gets us a great China's 19th century across imperialism as a world system.
Hate to be overly macro-economic: but some locality of imperial capitalism in the 1930s would refuse a low-equilibria trap, and create the crisis of 1940-1990 in the ability of the leadership of empire to maintain policing in close terrain against high-populations with literate new-classes and an ability of these new-classes to mobilise bureaucracy better than the centre of empire.
If not Indo-China then India, if not India then China, if not China then the East Indies, if not the East Indies Afghanistan.
yours,
Sam R.
Hate to be overly macro-economic: but some locality of imperial capitalism in the 1930s would refuse a low-equilibria trap, and create the crisis of 1940-1990 in the ability of the leadership of empire to maintain policing in close terrain against high-populations with literate new-classes and an ability of these new-classes to mobilise bureaucracy better than the centre of empire.
If not Indo-China then India, if not India then China, if not China then the East Indies, if not the East Indies Afghanistan.
yours,
Sam R.
You would have to make a majority of those in the colonies genuinely like being colonized. Either by brainwashing like North Korea, which isn't practical, certainly with democracies like the UK and France, or by genuinely making their lives better-which would be extremely expensive. Or you have indirect colonies, puppet governments run by the people of that country, but if they are too puppet-like their own people won't accept them.
Would a no-US timeline where creating cadet kingdoms/kingdoms in personal union** is preferred and much of Africa, the Middle East and mainland Southeast asia are not colonized (since they remained so until the late 19th-early 20th century) work towards retaining the existing colonies?
After all even at the height of OTL imperialism, China, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan* and Siam remained uncolonized.
*depends if you count the 1880s-1919 period as British rule
**India could be in personal union with Britain, Indonesia with Holland, the Philippines with Spain and so on
After all even at the height of OTL imperialism, China, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan* and Siam remained uncolonized.
*depends if you count the 1880s-1919 period as British rule
**India could be in personal union with Britain, Indonesia with Holland, the Philippines with Spain and so on
I was thinking HRH, and the Malay and Indian states. Becoming Empress by personal love, not parliament and the company's violence. But as long as Malay and Indian princes will accept Brigertons as sufficiently sexy to form coordinated state unions.