After+Independence+-+Long-Term+Struggles+in+the+Postcolonial+Era

Brian Hodges, Caleb Stoll =** After Independence - Long-Term Struggles in the Postcolonial Era **=

After WWII European countries started pulling out of their colonies. In the colonies political and economic stability was hard to achieve. The colonies had no economic system of their own and European powers interfered impeding progress. Many countries reverted to authoritarian or military rule. A few managed to build a stable democracy. Asian and Islamic, such as China and Iran, governments relied primarily on centralized rule. Many Asian countries developed a communist or socialist government.

In China Mao Zedong reunified China for the first time since the Qing Dynasty. He created a distinctly Chinese version of communism. In 1949 he began programs to accelerate Chinese development. The Great Leap Forward abolished private ownership and made farming and industry rural and communal. This project sometimes dubbed "The Giant Step Backward" failed, the communal farms failed to meet quotas and bad harvests created one of the deadliest famines in history. Mao Zedong blamed rebel sparrows for eating grain and ordered peasants to kill them. With no predators insects were able to consume most of the crops over the next few years. Between 1959 and 1962 almost 20,000,000 Chinese died of starvation or malnutrition. In 1966 Mao started the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The revolution empowered the Red Guards to kill anyone suspected of revisionism. Victims were beaten, killed, jailed, or sent to labor camps. The Cultural Revolution stalled Chinese development, but ended in 1976 with Mao's death.

Mao left his rule to Deng Xiaoping. Xiaoping denounced Mao's Cultural Revolution, and managed to seize power in 1981. The 1980s are referred to as "Deng's Revolution" and facilitated China's entry into international trade. He sent tens of thousands of students to foreign universities where they were exposed to democracy and revolutionary ideas. In 1989 they staged pro democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen square. Deng stopped the demonstrations with police violence, which polarized the world's opinion of China. This caused China to face the issue of having to gain economic benefits without losing its identity. The issue increased when China gained Hong Kong back from Britain in 1997.

India took a very distinct path from Chinese Communism. They set up a democratic system in 1947. In the 1970s India started the "green revolution" that increased agricultural yields. However India still faced massive overpopulation. In 1975 Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mohandas Gandhi) declared a national emergency and suspended democratic processes for two years. During those two years she began a strict birth control policy. In 1977 when elections were held again she was voted out of power because of her birth control policies. In 1980 she returned to power and faced several religious issues such as the Sikhs requesting greater autonomy in the Punjab region. Unwilling to compromise she ordered the army to attack the golden temple Amristar which harbored armed Sikh extremists. In retaliations two of her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her in 1984. Her son took over in 1985 and offered reconciliation to the Sikhs but lost his office in '89 and was asassinated in 1991 while trying to get it back.

The geographic convergence of the Arab and Muslim worlds in south-west Asia and north Africa encouraged the development of Arab nationalism. Although Arab lands shared a common language and religion divisions were frequent and alliances shifted over time. The Cold War split the Arab Muslim world as some states allied themselves with the United States while others associated with the Soviet Union. Religious divisions also complicated the attainment of Arab unity because Sunni and Shia Muslims followed divergent theologies and foreign policies. In southwest Asia, peace seemed a distant prospect for decades. Many small conflicts increased tensions in the region but also led to several peace talks, both in the region and with foreign powers. Between 1976 and 1980 sevral events changed the political climate in the middle east. First, in 1976, Egypt denounced it's friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, then in 1977 they started serious negotiation with Israel and between 1978 and 1980 a number of peace treaties were signed. In 1981 the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) worked to isolate Egypt. The PLO, formed in 1964, was an unofficial government for Palestinians dispalced from Israel. In 1953 and '55 treaties were signed with Israel that gave them limited self rule in Israeli territories. The negotiations stalled several times, especially with the assasination of the Iraeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, but eventually talks continued.

The PLO-Israeli talks eventually le dto the creation of Islamism. Islamism was the thinking that American and European thinking was bringing about the decline of Islam. Most Islamists are dedicated to peaceful settlement but a radical faction believes that they have a mandate from God to use violent methods. They use jihad, the right and duty to defend Islam from unjust attack, as rationalization for their actions. In 1979 a large scale revolution took place in Iran taking an anti-US stance. They attacked the US embassy and captured 69 hostages, only 14 were released before 1981, while the Iran government shut down US military bases and economic ventures. This inspired other terrorist activities leading up to today. During these events Iraq took the opportunity to invade it's neighbor and attempt the creation of a pan-Arab nation. Although intitially successful Iranian counter-attacks extended the war until 1988. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait and in 1991 started the Gulf War. A coalition led by the US soundly defeated Iraq and because of September 11, 2001 the US launched a preemptive strike on Iraq in 2003 as part of it's war on terror to destroy Hussein's "Weapons of Mass Destruction". By December US forces had captured Hussein.

After WWII Mexico began a campaign against foreign owned companies in the 1930s. In the '40s The Institutional Revolutionary Party experimented with removing foreign dependance but came under attack in the 1990s by peasents. In Argentina economy expanded and they became a leader against US and European intervention. Unfortunately for it's inhabitants it's rulers were often military dictators. Many other Latin American countries were intermediary versions of these two systems. Unfortunately for the region US interference became worse, not better. In 1954 the US's CIA intervention forced Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratic leader of Guatemala, out of power. During the campaign Nicaragua proved itself to be a US ally by channeling weapons to Guatemalan rebels. In 1961 Nicaragua served as a staging point for the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. All of this drew the ire of other Latin American nations and in 1979 the Sandinistas, a partially socialist party, took power enigmatically supported by the US. When Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency US interference in foreign affairs diminished and troops were withdrawn from Nicaragua. However when Ronald Reagan took office he abandoned Carter's policies and resumed attacks on communism. In 1989 an agreement allowed for UN peacekeeping forces to be present in Nicaragua and over the next few decades the country returned to democracy. Despite, and occasionally because of US interference economic difficulties persisted in Latin America through the twentieth century. These economic troubles prevented any government from stabilizing in the region but eventually people in these regions found ways to turn a healthy profit and began a steady flow of cash into the region until the global recession of the 1970s and '80s.

Africa's political was no better either. Poverty, military coups, and artificial borders prevented any kind of political stability. In South Africa large amounts of white settlers delayed African freedom by instituting the same types of racism that dominated America. Because of it's large amounts of minerals and industrial proficiency whites in South Africa held a great deal of money allowing them to institute the Afrikaner National Party to quell African uprising. The National Party began apartheid to keep whites and blacks separate. They designated approximately 87% of South Africa's land to white use and split the other populations from each other to prevent organized uprising. To fight the National Party the minority groups formed the African National Congress, and by 1960 they had increased protesting enough for the National Party to declare them communists and use violent methods to stop them. Through the '70s and '80s internal and international pressure forced change in South Africa. In 1989 F. W. de Clerk became the South African president and began to dismantle the apartheid system. In 1994 elections were held that voted the ANC into power.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo also had a bloody path to stability. The Belgian Congo was reconfigured into Zaire in 1971 and then The Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997. The first reconfigure was due to a military coup by Mobutu Sese Seko. He amassed personal fortunes through dictatorial rule and he and his cronies were dubbed "the vampire elite" for leeching off their population. In 1997 Laurent Kabila took power from him and created The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Focused on stability he created a system that gave all of the power to himself. He assured the international community that this was a transitional phase but in 2001 during a terrorist attack he was shot and killed by his bodyguard and his son took over. Most of African nations have a vast ammount of resources but lack the technology and economic footing to make use of them, this makes African countries some of the poorest in the world and they will stay that way for the immediate future.