Hi! I'm wondering if there are any tangible differences and/or similarities in how Britain contra France treated their colonies before and during the decolonization. (1900s) How did this effect the development of the independent country, and what aspects led these differences/similarities to occur?
Thanks!
Since shortly after the second world war the new Labour Government of Britain and the UN settled on a plan to over time work the British colonies into independence. The idea was however that this should take far more time than it did. Following the example of India, which had more or less already won it's independence by 45, hold the actual execution of the emancipation from British rule, the British way was to decentralize the power from London, slipping it into the hands of local assemblies. One of the big problems with this method was that Britain had extendedly favored a ruling tactic that involved the different local groups to be played out agains each other, to keep the focus of the occupants, which resulted internal conflicts within the postcolonial state. Key is that in reality, Britain didn't do much to interfere with the natural evolution of events but were quite eager to leave to colonies for themselves. Hopefully some one else can expand on this statement since i've got a hard time to find actual sources to it.
France, on the other hand, really liked assimilation. Their idea was to keep the colonies, but to give them enough power to satisfy the nationalistic desire for freedom in some way. France was very brutal about this, and beat down many a revolt to stay in power. Especially since English colonies got independence and the French ones wanted theirs to. in 1958 De Guille announced that all French colonies could chose independence, or more independent power but still work intimately with france. All but Guinea chose the latter. The colonies was represented by their local presidents and decided as a unity on military, foreign and economic politics. in 1960 this was disbanded for nationalistic reasons and because the colonies had rivalties between themselves that didn't make them work well in a group. My computer is about to die and i forgot my charger at a friends. I'll see if i can expand tomorrow. Sources are McKay: A world history of soscieties and Lundestad: Väst, öst, syd nord. (swedish)
I just readt this today for a test.
Follow-up question: In addition to these two colonial empires, how do others such as the Portugese, Spanish and Dutch treat their colonies?