Chapter 34 - The Colonies Become New Nations
Muslims resisted attempts to integrate them under a Hindu-dominated Indian administration.
In various Indian cities, rioting between the two groups erupted.
Four days of riots in Calcutta in August 1946 resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 persons and the injuries of over 15,000 others.
As if the partition of India had not caused enough violence between Hindus and Muslims, the two groups quickly clashed over the little province of Kashmir.
Kashmir is located on the northernmost tip of India, bordering Pakistan.
Kashmir had a mainly Muslim populace despite its Hindu king.
For the first 17 years of India's independence, Nehru was the country's leader. He was one of Gandhi's most ardent supporters.
Nehru, who was educated in Britain, was well-liked by all sections of Indian society.
He promoted democracy, unification, and modernization of the economy.
Nehru passed away in 1964. After his death, the Congress Party was left without a strong leader capable of uniting the different political factions that had developed since India's independence.
Then, in 1966, Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, was elected Prime Minister. She was re-elected in 1980 after a brief absence from politics.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalist party's leader, has reigned over a dynamic but frequently tumultuous country since his election as prime minister in 1998.
He faces challenges posed by India's growing population, which is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2035.
Furthermore, the country is plagued by social inequity and religious unrest is a constant concern.
The two Pakistani regions have had tense relations since the beginning. While East Pakistan had a greater population, West Pakistan, which housed the national administration, generally overlooked it.
A massive cyclone and tidal surge hit East Pakistan in 1970, killing an estimated 266,000 people.
While international aid flooded into Pakistan, the government in West Pakistan did not transmit the aid to East Pakistan as quickly as it should have.
The initial priorities of the Filipinos were to rebuild the economy and reinstate Manila as the country's capital.
World War II had wreaked havoc on the city. The Philippines had been promised $620 million in war reparations by the US.
However, in order to receive the funds, the US administration requested that Filipinos accept the Bell Act.
This bill would establish eight years of tariff-free trade between the United States and the Philippines, followed by a progressive increase in tariffs.
The Philippines has had to fight its own separatist organization since attaining independence.
The southern region of the country has been a stronghold of Muslims known as the Moros for generations.
The Moro National Liberation Front was founded in the early 1970s by a group of Moros.
Burma experienced one political crisis after another after obtaining independence.
People in the country were torn between repressive military rulers and pro-democracy forces.
Conflicts between Communists and ethnic minorities also wreaked havoc on the country.
The Japanese captured the Malay Peninsula, which had previously been held by the British, during World War II.
Following the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the British returned to the peninsula.
They attempted, but failed, to unite the many peoples of Malaya into a single state.
They also had to deal with a Communist rebellion.
Kenya was dominated by the British, and many British settlers opposed Kenyan independence, particularly those who had taken over valuable farmland in the country's northern highlands.
As a result of two events, they were forced to recognize African self-government. One was Kenyan nationalist Jomo Kenyatta's strong leadership.
Algeria, France's most important overseas colony, had one million French colonists and nine million Arabs and Berber Muslims.
The French colonists refused to share political power with the local Algerians after World War II.
The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) declared its desire to struggle for independence in 1954.
To combat the FLN, the French sent nearly half a million troops to Algeria.
Atrocities were committed by both sides.
The Belgian Congo was one of the most exploited European territories in Africa. Belgium had brutally plundering the colony's rich rubber and copper resources.
Furthermore, Belgian officials reigned harshly and gave no social services to the inhabitants.
They had also made no effort to prepare the population for independence.
Angola, to the southwest of Congo, was a country that had to battle not just for independence, but also to keep itself together afterward.
The Portuguese had governed Angola for a long time and had no intention of relinquishing power.
When the colony's independence movement erupted, Portugal dispatched 50,000 troops to quell the uprising.
Almost half of Portugal's national budget was spent on the conflict.
In 1956, the second Arab-Israeli war broke out.
Egypt took possession of the Suez Canal, which ran between the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea along Egypt's eastern border.
Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president, dispatched forces to seize the canal, which was owned by British interests.
Nasser's fury about the loss of US and British financial support for the construction of Egypt's Aswan Dam triggered the military action.
Tensions between Israel and the Arab states began to rise again in the years after the Suez Crisis was resolved.
Nasser and his Arab allies, armed with Soviet tanks and planes, felt poised to confront Israel by early 1967.
Arab Palestinians fought for recognition as Israel and its Arab neighbors fought each other.
While the Palestinians were granted their own homeland by the United Nations, Israel conquered much of it, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, during its successive conflicts.
Israel said that such a measure was necessary for its national security.
Palestinians, a considerable number of whom lived in Israel-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip, were one Arab group that continued to clash with Israelis.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the PLO's armed wing waged an anti-Israel campaign.
Israel retaliated by attacking suspected Palestinian rebel positions in Palestinian towns.
The Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to demolish Palestinian rural strongholds.
The Israelis were obliged to withdraw after becoming entangled in Lebanon's civil war.
The fate of the Palestinian territories proved to be a fiercely divided topic, and negotiations between the two sides made little headway.
Secret meetings in Oslo, Norway, in 1993, however, yielded a surprising agreement: the Declaration of Principles, often known as the Oslo Peace Accords.
Demonstrations, attacks on Israeli soldiers, and rock throwing by unarmed youngsters marked the start of the second intifada, which began similarly to the first.
This time, though, Palestinian militant groups began to employ a novel weapon: suicide bombers.
Their attacks against Jewish settlements in the occupied areas, as well as civilian targets throughout Israel, increased the level of bloodshed substantially.
Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the war as the second intifada lasted into 2007.
Israel unilaterally evacuated all of its settlers and troops from Gaza in the summer of 2005.
Then, in 2006, Hamas, a militant terrorist organization focused on deposing Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state, won a majority in Palestinian Authority elections.
These countries have suffered economically since attaining independence, and are now among the poorest in the world.
Much of the issue derives from their reliance on the Soviet Union for financial assistance.
As a result, they've had a hard time sticking up for themselves. Additional issues have arisen as a result of Soviet economic practices.
For several of the newly established Central Asia Struggles countries, fighting among diverse ethnic and religious groups has provided another barrier to stability.
The region is home to a diverse group of people, some of whom have a long history of animosity toward one another.
The Soviets kept a lid on these conflicts and mainly avoided severe ethnic riots with their iron fist control.
Afghanistan has a lengthy and tumultuous history. During the 1800s, Russia and Britain battled it out for control of the continent.
Russia desired access to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan, while Britain desired control of the country to preserve its Indian Empire's northern boundaries.
Before finally departing Afghanistan in 1919, Britain fought three distinct wars with the Afghans.
Following the Soviet withdrawal, numerous Afghan rebel factions began fighting for control of the nation.
The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic outfit, emerged victorious.
By 1998, it had taken control of 90% of the country.
The Northern Alliance, another rebel group, controlled the country's northwest region.
Initially, many saw the Taliban as a good force, as it provided order to the war-torn country, rooted out corruption, and encouraged business growth.
While the Taliban gathered in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Afghan officials chose Hamid Karzai to lead a new administration.
He was later elected president for a five-year term in 2004. His government was faced with the job of rebuilding a country that had been ravaged by conflict for more than two decades.
However, the Taliban resurfaced in 2006, prompting NATO troops to take over military operations in the south.
Fighting with the Taliban raged on well into 2007.
Muslims resisted attempts to integrate them under a Hindu-dominated Indian administration.
In various Indian cities, rioting between the two groups erupted.
Four days of riots in Calcutta in August 1946 resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 persons and the injuries of over 15,000 others.
As if the partition of India had not caused enough violence between Hindus and Muslims, the two groups quickly clashed over the little province of Kashmir.
Kashmir is located on the northernmost tip of India, bordering Pakistan.
Kashmir had a mainly Muslim populace despite its Hindu king.
For the first 17 years of India's independence, Nehru was the country's leader. He was one of Gandhi's most ardent supporters.
Nehru, who was educated in Britain, was well-liked by all sections of Indian society.
He promoted democracy, unification, and modernization of the economy.
Nehru passed away in 1964. After his death, the Congress Party was left without a strong leader capable of uniting the different political factions that had developed since India's independence.
Then, in 1966, Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, was elected Prime Minister. She was re-elected in 1980 after a brief absence from politics.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalist party's leader, has reigned over a dynamic but frequently tumultuous country since his election as prime minister in 1998.
He faces challenges posed by India's growing population, which is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2035.
Furthermore, the country is plagued by social inequity and religious unrest is a constant concern.
The two Pakistani regions have had tense relations since the beginning. While East Pakistan had a greater population, West Pakistan, which housed the national administration, generally overlooked it.
A massive cyclone and tidal surge hit East Pakistan in 1970, killing an estimated 266,000 people.
While international aid flooded into Pakistan, the government in West Pakistan did not transmit the aid to East Pakistan as quickly as it should have.
The initial priorities of the Filipinos were to rebuild the economy and reinstate Manila as the country's capital.
World War II had wreaked havoc on the city. The Philippines had been promised $620 million in war reparations by the US.
However, in order to receive the funds, the US administration requested that Filipinos accept the Bell Act.
This bill would establish eight years of tariff-free trade between the United States and the Philippines, followed by a progressive increase in tariffs.
The Philippines has had to fight its own separatist organization since attaining independence.
The southern region of the country has been a stronghold of Muslims known as the Moros for generations.
The Moro National Liberation Front was founded in the early 1970s by a group of Moros.
Burma experienced one political crisis after another after obtaining independence.
People in the country were torn between repressive military rulers and pro-democracy forces.
Conflicts between Communists and ethnic minorities also wreaked havoc on the country.
The Japanese captured the Malay Peninsula, which had previously been held by the British, during World War II.
Following the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the British returned to the peninsula.
They attempted, but failed, to unite the many peoples of Malaya into a single state.
They also had to deal with a Communist rebellion.
Kenya was dominated by the British, and many British settlers opposed Kenyan independence, particularly those who had taken over valuable farmland in the country's northern highlands.
As a result of two events, they were forced to recognize African self-government. One was Kenyan nationalist Jomo Kenyatta's strong leadership.
Algeria, France's most important overseas colony, had one million French colonists and nine million Arabs and Berber Muslims.
The French colonists refused to share political power with the local Algerians after World War II.
The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) declared its desire to struggle for independence in 1954.
To combat the FLN, the French sent nearly half a million troops to Algeria.
Atrocities were committed by both sides.
The Belgian Congo was one of the most exploited European territories in Africa. Belgium had brutally plundering the colony's rich rubber and copper resources.
Furthermore, Belgian officials reigned harshly and gave no social services to the inhabitants.
They had also made no effort to prepare the population for independence.
Angola, to the southwest of Congo, was a country that had to battle not just for independence, but also to keep itself together afterward.
The Portuguese had governed Angola for a long time and had no intention of relinquishing power.
When the colony's independence movement erupted, Portugal dispatched 50,000 troops to quell the uprising.
Almost half of Portugal's national budget was spent on the conflict.
In 1956, the second Arab-Israeli war broke out.
Egypt took possession of the Suez Canal, which ran between the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea along Egypt's eastern border.
Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president, dispatched forces to seize the canal, which was owned by British interests.
Nasser's fury about the loss of US and British financial support for the construction of Egypt's Aswan Dam triggered the military action.
Tensions between Israel and the Arab states began to rise again in the years after the Suez Crisis was resolved.
Nasser and his Arab allies, armed with Soviet tanks and planes, felt poised to confront Israel by early 1967.
Arab Palestinians fought for recognition as Israel and its Arab neighbors fought each other.
While the Palestinians were granted their own homeland by the United Nations, Israel conquered much of it, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, during its successive conflicts.
Israel said that such a measure was necessary for its national security.
Palestinians, a considerable number of whom lived in Israel-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip, were one Arab group that continued to clash with Israelis.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the PLO's armed wing waged an anti-Israel campaign.
Israel retaliated by attacking suspected Palestinian rebel positions in Palestinian towns.
The Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to demolish Palestinian rural strongholds.
The Israelis were obliged to withdraw after becoming entangled in Lebanon's civil war.
The fate of the Palestinian territories proved to be a fiercely divided topic, and negotiations between the two sides made little headway.
Secret meetings in Oslo, Norway, in 1993, however, yielded a surprising agreement: the Declaration of Principles, often known as the Oslo Peace Accords.
Demonstrations, attacks on Israeli soldiers, and rock throwing by unarmed youngsters marked the start of the second intifada, which began similarly to the first.
This time, though, Palestinian militant groups began to employ a novel weapon: suicide bombers.
Their attacks against Jewish settlements in the occupied areas, as well as civilian targets throughout Israel, increased the level of bloodshed substantially.
Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the war as the second intifada lasted into 2007.
Israel unilaterally evacuated all of its settlers and troops from Gaza in the summer of 2005.
Then, in 2006, Hamas, a militant terrorist organization focused on deposing Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state, won a majority in Palestinian Authority elections.
These countries have suffered economically since attaining independence, and are now among the poorest in the world.
Much of the issue derives from their reliance on the Soviet Union for financial assistance.
As a result, they've had a hard time sticking up for themselves. Additional issues have arisen as a result of Soviet economic practices.
For several of the newly established Central Asia Struggles countries, fighting among diverse ethnic and religious groups has provided another barrier to stability.
The region is home to a diverse group of people, some of whom have a long history of animosity toward one another.
The Soviets kept a lid on these conflicts and mainly avoided severe ethnic riots with their iron fist control.
Afghanistan has a lengthy and tumultuous history. During the 1800s, Russia and Britain battled it out for control of the continent.
Russia desired access to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan, while Britain desired control of the country to preserve its Indian Empire's northern boundaries.
Before finally departing Afghanistan in 1919, Britain fought three distinct wars with the Afghans.
Following the Soviet withdrawal, numerous Afghan rebel factions began fighting for control of the nation.
The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic outfit, emerged victorious.
By 1998, it had taken control of 90% of the country.
The Northern Alliance, another rebel group, controlled the country's northwest region.
Initially, many saw the Taliban as a good force, as it provided order to the war-torn country, rooted out corruption, and encouraged business growth.
While the Taliban gathered in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Afghan officials chose Hamid Karzai to lead a new administration.
He was later elected president for a five-year term in 2004. His government was faced with the job of rebuilding a country that had been ravaged by conflict for more than two decades.
However, the Taliban resurfaced in 2006, prompting NATO troops to take over military operations in the south.
Fighting with the Taliban raged on well into 2007.