Decolonization without WWII

[Straha]

Presume that the second world war is avoided in Europe and that Japan
stops at Manchuria. How does decolonization work out in this world?

For the purposes of this scenario, presume Germany has a regime
duplicating Franco's spain in many ways that gets Austria, the
sudenten and the corridor but doesn't

Also presume that Japan's military leadership turnover produces a
slightly less insane crop of leaders -- Japan still grabs Manchuria
and arms warlords but there's no sino-japanese war.

[Anthony Buckland]

The planet is drenched in butterflies by this, but ...
the major decolonization influences left alive are:
(1) Gandhi, who might succeed despite the British
Empire not being weakened by a world war, because the
BE still has to deal with the effects of the Depression,
which in turn is not brought to an end by a wartime
economy. There will then be no block to a Hindu-Islam
war in the former India, or to the Empire becoming a
Commonwealth since it was only India that had the
British monarch as imperial ruler (and "ET IND IMP"
disappears from British coins).
(2) Revolutionary influences in Algeria, to be
combated by France without a strong De Gaulle regime.
(3) I'm not sure about this one, lacking the war, but
maybe Communist revolution in Malaya, facing a stronger
British military.

Someone else may have some input on the stability of the
Dutch East Indies and any revolts in Kenya and its
neighbors.

[mist...@gmail.com]

Wowsers, good question! I'll shut up and listen to experts responding. But I'll like to throw into the soup the question of how much political rhetoric in response to ongoing problems relates to future debates on colonialism and self determination.

That is, did the fight against Fascism compel the liberal democracies to so talk up the ideals of liberty and sovereignty that it accelerated the chatter for and agitation toward Third World independence? And if all the talk of "Freedom versus tyranny" that propagated about the world in the early 1940s was not pushed further into the hearts and minds of the world by a fighting war, would the germanation of ideas about freedom have kept the idea weak enough in the 1950s when Africa started pushing for independence?

I think not. The spread of global media and the global push for education would have nurtured the same yearning for independence in the hearts of 34rd Worlders. There might not have been an anti-Soviet cold war motivating the US to brag about freedom under democracy to brown-skinned people in this ATL, but there would have been a kind of Cold War against a still intact fascism that would motivate the Anglo-French alliance to keep their subjugated nations happy.

So maybe the independence of Africa would have gone smoother. Depriving Germany of Arabic oil and stripping Italy of Libyan oil might have required the Anglo-French side to use more butter than guns in their approach to African independence movements. German support for the Mau-Maus might push the Brits into a more accommodation stance against African militants. We are, after all, talking about a world where Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy was a successful model for preserving the Empire. Indian independence might look a bit more like Canada's or Australia's--the Crown still keeping hold of nominal authority while the locals still went on about their national business.

The Fascist-Democratic Cold War would be more likely to turn hot, I think, without a unified North Atlantic and without the example of WW2 to sober everybody up about what fighting really means. German interference in France's inevitable troubles in Algeria and IndoChina would be potential trigger points for a coalition war in the 50s after everybody's got a good number of atomic bombs to throw around.

After all, one saving grace in the US-Soviet Cold War was the fact that, except for the Bering Strait, the principal opponents don't share an actual border to shoot across for when the going gets tough. Germany and France have a nice long border with barrels of historical grudges to work out. An atomic show-down might prove a much shorter and much uglier repeat of 1914.

[ADPUF]

mist...@gmail.com, 02:21, domenica 26 agosto 2012:

There are no A-Bombs in this alternate World.


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[Don Phillipson]

> On Friday, June 29, 2012 9:34:07 AM UTC-5, Straha wrote:
>> Presume that the second world war is avoided in Europe and that Japan
>> stops at Manchuria. How does decolonization work out in this world?

The British Empire laid out 1920-1936 a fairly clear path
to "Dominion Status," = self-government = decolonization.
This was pioneered by Canada (the first dominion, 1867),
Australia and South Africa (each somewhat embittered by
WW1 experience) formalized at the imperial conference of
1926 and proclaimed in the Statute of Westminster 1932.

The first beneficiaries were the "white dominions," first
Canada which during WW1 insisted on full autonomy (i.e. totally
independent trade and foreign policy), and last New Zealand
(which declined to adopt the 1932 Statute until after 1945.)
During this period Newfoundland had the odd experience of
being promoted to dominion status and (sort of) voluntarily
reverting to colonial status during the Depression (because
bankrupt.)

But this was not reserved to the white dominions, cf. agitation
for Indian self-government since 1920 (Indian National Congress
after the Amritsar Massacre.) Because so large and rich, India
was a sort of "guest observer" at the various imperial conferences,
in practice allowed quasi-independent status. Each was free to
opt in or out of the imperial schemes of 1920-40, viz. airship
service, telegraphs, an imperial medical service, lots of detailed
agricultural and economic co-op research plans. The dominions
were free to opt out since guaranteed total independence in 1926
(like it or not, as New Zealand did not like it . . .) India was
free to opt in or out since it was not run by the Colonial Office
but had its own department in the UK government structure, but
its viceroy was capable of either undermining or overruling any
orders from London.

The real but undecided question concerning India was whether
self-government or democracy ought to come first. This was
not decided by the Govt. of India Act and democratic institutions
had not developed much before the UK quit India in 1947 -- and
Burma and Ceylon as well. In the postwar world the UK government
could not afford to delay and had no solution of its own (cf. also
Britain's surrender in 1947 of the League of Nations mandate to
prepare Palestine/Israel for self-government. Later events (e.g.
Banding Conference) suggested India had some ambitions to help
other British dependencies decolonize. Advanced African colonies
(Gold Coast and Nigeria) got independence by 1960 and probably
would have done so without WW2, i.e. WW2 had no observable effect
on their decolonization.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Don Phillipson]

> On Friday, June 29, 2012 9:34:07 AM UTC-5, Straha wrote:
>> Presume that the second world war is avoided in Europe and that Japan
>> stops at Manchuria. How does decolonization work out in this world?