colonialism and decolonization

Colonization: 

Colonialism is a political-economic fact whereby different nations discovered, conquered, settled, and exploited large zones of the world. The term is originated from the Latin word colere, which means to "to inhabit" (Rockman, 2003). Past reports indicated that colonialism has been practiced throughout history and all over the world. Generally, colonialism happens when people from one terrain establish or acquire, maintain, and develop colonies in another region. In colonialism, the metropole or colonizing power claims dominance over the colony.

Colonialism is a procedure of temporally extended domination by people over other people and as such part of the historical cosmos of forms of intergroup domination, subjugation, oppression, and exploitation (Horvath 1972). From a world-systems viewpoint, much of the history of the capitalist world-economy is a history of colonialism, consisting of repeated and more or less successful attempts by the core to create a periphery, to control it politically in order to exploit it economically ( Sanderson 2005: 186f). Both the capitalist and pre-capitalist world-systems have had colonial empires (Chase-Dunn/Hall 1997). Colonialism brings a totally new existence to the colonies. Cultural which are unfamiliar to one another are brought together and forced to interact and coexist. The subjugation of lands and forceful coexistence of peoples of different backgrounds (as a result of the conquest) with different beliefs and philosophies has brought about many changes, both negative and positive, especially in the colonies.

Records have shown that the age of modern colonialism started around 1500, following the European discoveries of a sea route around Africa's southern coast (1488) and of America (1492). With these events, sea power shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and to the developing nation-states of Portugal, Spain, the Dutch Republic, France, and England. Often, colonization is determined by a desire for economic development. In the period of sixteenth century, European colonization of Africa had significant role in development of European economy. European colonization strengthened because Europeans had just developed galleons or ships that could navigate more easily all the way to Africa. There was easy access to foreign lands which encouraged European aristocracies and merchants to discover new terrains in an effort to obtain raw materials and develop new markets. Obtaining raw materials from overseas lands led to the Industrial Revolution, and the practice of bondage. This created a new source of labour power for Europeans. This type of colonialism promoted European economies but at the same time, it had harmful consequences for African economies. Colonized terrains were forced to depend on colonizers for trade. Local institutions and political structures were dismantled and substituted with ones imposed by colonial influences.

These nations extended and colonized throughout the world through discovery, conquest, and settlement, spreading European institutions and culture. Today, Colonialism has been recognized with rule over peoples of different race occupying lands separated by salt water from the imperial centre. Especially, it indicates direct political control by European states or states established by Europeans, as the United States or Australia, over peoples of other races, particularly over Asians and Africans. It has been documented that the most remarkable colonial powers were Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, whose shared empires covered at various times the whole of North, Central and South America, Africa, Australia, much of Indonesia, the countries lying in the Levant, much of the Indian subcontinent as well as most of the countries lying in between. In short, most of the world. Germany as a colonial power is often considered a minor aspect of Europe's imperialist development.

Other features of the "colonial situation" are, domination of an alien minority, asserting racial and cultural superiority, over a materially inferior native majority, contact between a machine-oriented civilization with Christian origins, a powerful economy, and a rapid rhythm of life and a non-Christian civilization that lacks machines and is marked by a backward economy and a slow rhythm of life, and the imposition of the first civilization upon the second.

Decolonization

Decolonisation is the downfall of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains its supremacy over dependent terrains. Decolonization is described as the collapse of colonialism, or the claim of a previously colonized people for independence and self-determination. In part, decolonization was the consequence of independence movements in colonized territories. It was also the result of an intended economic decision made by colonial authorities. The cost of maintaining colonial empires had begun to surpass their value for the European powers. The Oxford English Dictionary explains decolonization as "the withdrawal from its colonies of a colonial power; the acquisition of political or economic independence by such colonies." Etemad (2000) affirmed that decolonization led to emigration of colony-born Europeans thereby reducing the amount of human capital in the newly independent nation.

Other experts define decolonization as a polity's movement from a status of political dependence or subordination to a status of formal autonomy or sovereignty. In modern practice, it is generally supposed that the regal or metropolitan centre is physically separated from the dependency and that the two societies are culturally distinct. The term, Decolonization refers specifically to the fragmentation of western overseas empires and their replacement by sovereign states in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. It can be assumed politically (attaining independence, autonomous home rule, union with the metropole or another state), or culturally (removal of pernicious colonial effects). The term refers predominantly to the dismantlement, in the years after World War II, of the colonial empires established earlier to World War I all over the world.

The United Nations Special Committee on decolonization has specified that in the process of decolonization there is no alternative to the colonizer allowing a process of self-determination but in practice decolonization may involve either peaceful rebellion or national liberation wars by pro-independence groups. It may be internal or involve the interference of foreign supremacies acting individually or through international bodies such as the United Nations. Many examples of decolonization can be found in the literatures of Thucydides, but there have been several particularly active periods of decolonization in modern times. These include the breakup of the Spanish Empire in the 19th century; of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires following World War I; of the British, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Belgian and Italian colonial empires following World War II; and of the Soviet Union (successor to the Russian Empire) following the Cold War. It is shown in studies that decolonization refers to the ability to view and discuss non-European cultures from an impartial, non-western viewpoint.

There are many ways by which decolonization can occur. Most commonly, the dependency becomes a new independent state, a political entity recognized in the international field as independent of other states and as possessing final jurisdiction over a defined territory and population. Less often, decolonization may occur through the dependency's full incorporation into an existing polity, such that it is no longer separate and subordinate.

In historical records, it is not clearly mentioned that when decolonization has occurred. Puerto Rico's relation to the United States can be defined as one of colonial dependency or as free association. In the 1960s, Portugal claimed to have no colonies, only foreign territories formally combined into a unitary Portuguese state (Nogueira 1963). And where political relations are not challenged, the absence of overt conflict makes it problematic to know when independence has been achieved. There were three major elements that played massive role in this decolonization process. First was the colonized peoples' hunger for independence, secondly was the Second World War itself which established that colonial powers were no longer indestructible, and thirdly was the new focus on anti-colonialism in United Nations. The first upsurge of decolonization started with the liberation of Britain's thirteen continental colonies as the United States of America. The French Revolution touched off a slave uprising that led finally to the independence of the French colony of Saint Domingue as Haiti. Portuguese Brazil and Spanish Central and South America became self-governing after the Napoleonic Wars, which had cut Latin America off from the Iberian peninsula.

While the first period of decolonization was restricted to the Americas. In twentieth-century, decolonization was global. It encompassed the freedom of most of the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Australasia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean. Between the world wars, some of Britain's settler colonies and a number of insecurely held protectorates became fully independent. After World War II, the major Asian colonies such as India, Indonesia, Indochina, and the Philippines gained independence. This change rapidly speeded during the 1960s, which saw the decolonization of approximately all of Africa. In the decade of the 1980s, nearly all Western colonies had become self-governing or had been fully integrated into sovereign states. One important difference between the two periods of decolonization has to do with who sought independence. Early American decolonization were creole revolutions, as the offspring of European settlers sought political independence from their mother country. The American Revolution and the Spanish Wars for Independence were political instead of social revolutions. Slave revolt in Haiti provided the sole exception, to the revulsion of creole nationalists as well as loyalists elsewhere.

On the contrary, twentieth-century decolonization was deep-rooted in aboriginal rather than creole movements for independence, as decolonization came to mean autonomy from racially foreign rule. After World War II, settler subgroups opposed decolonization, since national independence spelled an end to their privileged political, economic, and social position. Only in South Africa did a racialist minority government survived decolonization.

The first and second influences of decolonization also varied importantly terms of violence involved. Early decolonization in the America was gained through military battle between settler and imperial forces. Wars for independence fumed in Britain's thirteen continental colonies, in Spanish Central and South America, and in Haiti. Only in Portuguese Brazil was independence attained without a battle because Brazil was richer and more populated than Portugal.

During the twentieth century, prolonged wars for independence were fought in Indochina, Indonesia, Algeria, and Angola. But these were the exceptions to the rule. Most colonies became independent without organized violence between the imperial state and colonial nationalists. In much of Africa, imperial powers practically abandoned colonies at the first sign of antagonism to the colonial regime. In the middle of 1960s, decolonization had become a rather routine activity for many imperial powers, often attained through institutionalized expressions of popular will.

Decolonization has greatly affected on the economies of the newly formed states. It was observed that newly independent African states had to improve an economic system. Furthermore, even though the previous colonies were now formally independent, they were still rather dependent on the West for support in developing economic and political structures. Therefore, western companies still had a significant amount of control over the new states. Newly independent states borrowed money from the Western countries in order to fund their own development which created a new system of debt. For decades, this debt has been politically not possible for many countries to pay off and still exists. The consequences of decolonization for more general notions of international supremacy or mistreatment are strongly contested. Dependency and world systems thinkers visualized decolonization as producing modification in the mere form, but not the content, of core-periphery relations (Chase-Dunn and Rubinson 1979). The main debate is that contact between more and less developed economies tends generally to strengthen the differential between them, even in the absence of explicit political controls. Dependency on overseas capital has been contended to slow long-term economic development (Bornschier et al. 1978) and more generally to shape the political and economic structure of the dependent society (Cardoso and Faletto 1979).

Regardless of these apprehensions, it is established that decolonization involves a fundamental change in the structures regulating international exchange, especially in the post-World War II period. Contemporary states are equipped with broadly accepted rights to control economic activity within their boundaries, including rights to nationalize foreign-owned industries and renegotiate contracts with multinational corporations (Lipson 1985). Third World nations mobilize around these rights (Krasner 1985), and the negative impact of economic dependency seems to fall when the bordering state is strong (Delacroix and Ragin 1981).

To summarize, the process of colonialism typically involved the relocation of populace to a new terrain, where the arrivals lived as permanent settlers while maintaining political fidelity to their country of origin. Colonialism is a practice of authority, which involves the suppression of one people to another. Decolonization is the opposing of colonialism. In this process, one nation establishes itself self-governing and separate from the state it had emerged from.