NEW PATTERNS OF NATIONALISM

Nationalism was as important a force during the 20th century as it had been in the previous era. People under the control of imperialist nations continued to strive for their own identities, and new, independent nations popped up in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and southeast Asia. Nationalist movements also were a major cause of the late 20th century breakup of the Soviet Union, again changing the balance of world power in the post-Cold War era.

NATIONALISM IN AFRICA

By the early 20th century Europeans had colonized most of the African continent. Christian missionaries set up schools that educated a new native elite, who learned not only skills and literacy but western political ideas as well. They couldn't help but notice the contrast between the democratic ideals they were being taught in class and the reality of discrimination that they saw around them. This observation sparked nationalist movements in many places, including:

• Senegal - Blaise Diagne agitated for African participation in politics and fair treatment by the French army.
• South Africa - Western-educated natives founded the African National Congress in 1909 to defend the interests of Africans.
• Ethiopia - Italy took over Ethiopia in the years leading up to World War II, and Emperor Haile Selassie led Ethiopian troops into his capital city to reclaim his title. Ethiopians, as well as many other people in northern Africa responded to Allied promises of liberation and helped the Allies defeat the Germans that had occupied the area.

POST WORLD WAR II STRUGGLES IN ALGERIA

World War II was a humiliating experience for the French. Their armies had folded under Hitler's blitzkrieg within a few days, and they had to be liberated from German control by the other Allied powers. Both world wars devastated the infrastructure of France, and the weak parliamentary government seemed to have little control over the economy. Despite these hardships (or perhaps because of them), the French were determined to hold on to Algeria and Vietnam in Southeast Asia after World War II ended. French persistence set off major revolts in both areas. In 1954 war in Algeria broke out with great brutality by both sides. In reaction to the government's inability to fight the war, the French government was totally restructured, with strong man Charles de Gaulle taking the reins of the country as its new president. Algeria finally gained their independence in 1962, but lingering bitterness and retaliation led to a stream of French-sympathizers flooding into France from Algeria.

DECOLONIZATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

None of the wars for independence in sub-Saharan Africa matched the Algerian struggle in scale. One by one native leaders negotiated treaties with their imperialist masters, so that by the late 1960s, the African continent was composed primarily of independent nations. A Pan-African movement was started by Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1957 became the prime minister of Ghana, and Jomo Kenyatta, a leader of Kenya, but the focus of nationalism was on independence for the individual colonies.

Independence led to many new problems for African nations. Many border disputes occurred, since colonial boundaries often did not follow ethnic lines. The borders of some countries, such as Nigeria and Zaire, encompassed several different ethnic groups that struggled with one another for control of the country. Race conflict became particularly severe in the temperate southern part of the continent, where Europeans clashed with natives for political and economic power. South Africa was left with apartheid, an attempt by European minorities to keep natives in subservient, and very separate, roles in society. The African National Congress, formed in South Africa in 1912, led a bloody struggle against apartheid, which eventually led to success when Nelson Mandela became the first native president of South Africa in 1994.

NATIONALISM IN INDIA

Native elite had formed nationalist groups in India before World War I began, and the struggle against British control continued until India finally won its independence in 1947. The movement was fractured from the beginning, largely because the diversity of people on the Indian subcontinent made a united independence movement difficult. Tensions were particularly high between Hindus and Muslims. Muslims constituted only about a quarter of the entire Indian population, but they formed a majority in the northwest and in eastern Bengal.

During World War I Indians supported Britain Enthusiastically, hoping that they would be rewarded for their loyalty. However, Britain stalled on independence, and political tensions mounted. For the next twenty years, Indians and British clashed often and violently, and the colony threatened to descend into chaos. The downward spiral was halted by Mohandas K. Gandhi, a man known to his followers as "Mahatma," the "great soul." Gandhi, educated as a lawyer in Britain, had some unusual political ideas. He denounced violence and popular uprisings and preached the virtues of ahisma (nonviolence) and satyagraha (the search for truth.) He demonstrated his identification with the poor by wearing simple homespun clothing and practicing fasting. He was also a brilliant political tactician, and he had a knack for attracting public attention. His most famous gesture was the Walk to the Sea, where he gathered salt as a symbol of Indian industry, an action forbidden by the British government. Such non-violent persistence landed him in jail repeatedly, but his leadership gave Indians the moral high-ground over the British, who eventually agreed to independence in 1947.

The independence agreement was complicated because Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, clashed openly. Violent riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out in Bengal and Bihar, so that the British negotiated with the two organizations to partition India into two states. Most of the subcontinent remained under secular rule dominated by Hindus, but the new Muslim state of Pakistan was formed in the northwest and northeast. Independence celebrations were marred by violence between Muslims and Hindus. The partition led to massive movements of Indians from one area to the other, and Gandhi himself was assassinated by a Hindu who was upset because the partition meant that he had to leave his home. Religious conflict continued to plague the subcontinent for the rest of the 20th century.

NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

In Indonesia, a nationalist leader named simply Sukarno, cooperated with the Japanese during World War II with the hope of throwing off the colonial control of the Dutch. Despite the Japanese defeat in the war, independence was negotiated in 1949, and Sukarno became the dictator until he was removed by a military coup in 1965. The British granted independence to Burma (now Myanmar) in 1948, and the United States negotiated independence with the Philippines in 1946. As in Africa, the French provided the most resistance to decolonization in southeast Asia.

Throughout the area, independence leaders were also drawn to communism, and French Indochina was no exception. The Communist leader Ho Chi Minh led his supporters against the French, capturing the colonial stronghold of Dienbienphu in 1954. Ho Chi Minh's government took over in the north, and a noncommunist nationalist government ruled in the south, which eventually came to be heavily supported by the United States. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the United States waged an unsuccessful war with North Vietnam that eventually ended in the reunification of the country under communist rule in 1975.

NATIONALISM IN LATIN AMERICA

Nationalism in Latin America took the form of internal conflict, since almost all the nations had achieved independence during the 19th century. However, most were still ruled by an authoritarian elite. During the 20th century, many nations experienced populist uprisings that challenged the elite and set in motion an unstable relationship between democracy and militarism. Some teetered back and forth between democratically elected leaders and military generals who established power through force. Coups d'etat became common, and political legitimacy and economic viability became serious issues.

• Mexico - At the beginning of the century, Mexico was ruled by Porfirio Diaz, a military general who enriched a small group of elites by allowing them to control agriculture and welcoming businessmen from the United States to control industry. The Revolution of 1910 began not with the exploited poor, but with elites that Diaz did not favor, almost all of them military generals. As early as 1911 the revolutionary fervor had spread to peasants, who were led by regional strongmen, such as Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Despite the creation of a democratic-based Constitution in 1917, the revolution raged on, with every President assassinated during his term of office until Lazaro Cardenas took over in 1934. Finally, the country stabilized under an umbrella political party (PRI), which tightly controlled Mexican politics until the 1990s, when some signs of democracy began to appear.
• Argentina and Brazil - These two countries have many differences in language, ethnicity, and geographical settings, but both were controlled by elites. Early in the century, Argentina's government represented the interest of landowners that raised cattle and sheep and grew wheat for export, and Brazil's elite was made up of coffee and caco planters and rubber exporters. In both countries, the gap between the rich and poor was great, with the elite spending lavishly on palaces and personal goods. However, the Great Depression hit both countries hard, and stimulated coups against the governments. Getulio Vargas took over in Brazil in 1930, and instituted a highly authoritarian regime. Military revolts characterized Argentina, with Juan Peron, supported by Nazi interests, leading a major coup in 1943. Authoritarian rule in both countries continued on into the second half of the century.
• The Cuban Revolution and its aftermath - Revolutions against dictators were often inspired by communism, especially after the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959. Military leaders of Brazil led a conservative reaction by staging a coup of the democratically elected government in 1964. There the "Brazilian Solution" was characterized by dictatorship, violent repression, and government promotion of industrialization. A similar pattern occurred in Chile in 1974 where the socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Socialist Sandinistas led a rebellion against the dictator of Nicaragua in 1979, where their communist affiliations led them to disfavor with the conservative United States government led by Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported Contras (counterrevolutionaries) who unsuccessfully challenged the Sandinistas. By the 1990s, most Latin American nations had loosened the control by the military, and democratic elections appeared to be gaining ground. However, they continued to be economically and militarily dominated by the United States.