Chapter 35

Nationalism and Political Identities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America

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India’s Quest for Home Rule The Indian National Congress was founded 1885 to promote

self-rule. A mixture of British and Indian intellectuals, the group met annually to

discuss more political participation for educated Indians; it was not opposed to continued British rule initially.

Support for Congress at the beginning came from both Hindus and Muslims.

The British encouraged the development of Muslim League (1906) to blunt the growing power of Congress.

Congress’s original position of working with the British changed after World War I; it moved toward opposition.

Woodrow Wilson and Lenin inspired the postwar change in the movement’s position.

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India’s Quest for Home Rule

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Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

Father: Karamchand Gandhi, was a high-ranking official in a small princely state in what is now Gujarat.

His mother, Putlibai Gandhi, was a devout Jain, a sect that preaches pacifism, vegetarianism, and self-enlightenment through strict self-control.

Gandhi was a mediocre student; his father had to pull some strings to get him a good education.

Gandhi came to London in 1888 to study law, and after being called to the bar, returned to India in 1891. He tried and failed to work as a barrister in Bombay.

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Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) In 1893—at age 24—he went to South Africa under a one-year

contract with an Indian firm. He ended up staying for 21 years. Indians in South Africa comprised a small group of wealthy Muslims

and a larger group of poor Hindu indentured laborers; Gandhi’s experiences with all of these groups convinced him of their common “Indian-ness” despite their religious and caste differences.

Gandhi was politicized by discrimination he faced on public transportation and by a 1893 bill limiting Indian voting rights.

Gandhi opposed the precursor of the apartheid system that created a legal framework for racial segregation and limits on the access to political and economic freedoms for people of color (including Indians).

Because of his activism, Gandhi was nearly lynched by a white mob in 1897; only the intervention of the police saved him.

During the Boer War, he organized an Indian ambulance corps. He developed non-violent political protest tactics while in South Africa.

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Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

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Gandhi and his wife, Kasturbai, in 1902, while living in South Africa

Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) Gandhi returned to India 1915 and joined the Indian National

Congress. He took over its leadership in 1920, and turned it into a truly mass movement.

Gandhi reportedly was given the title Mahatma—meaning “great soul”—by the Indian poet and musician Rabindranath Tagore, a title that Gandhi himself disliked.

Voiced strong opposition to the Hindu caste system; wanted an “Indian” state that embraced peoples of all castes and religions with national citizenship.

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Indian Caste System Four “castes” or varna in Hinduism

Brahmins – priest class Kshatriya – governing and military class Vaishyas – cattle herders, farmers, and merchants Shudras – laborers, artisans, servants, and tenant farmers “Untouchables” – This British label applies to those outside of

the caste system as punishment; they perform duties that make one “unclean” in Hindu system of belief.

Skin Color: There is the expectation that higher castes will be people of lighter skin color and that lower castes will be darker. The upper castes are supposedly descended from peoples of Central Asia who invaded.

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Gandhi’s Passive Resistance Ahimsa: literally means avoidance of violence; important

concept in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Has roots in ancient Vedic texts.

Satyagraha: passive resistance; term means “truth and firmness,” or more literally: “insistence on truth.” Gandhi coined the term in south Africa in 1906.

Amritsar Massacre (1919): British troops open fire on a crowd of roughly 15,000 in the city of Amritsar with machine guns. The official count was 379 dead, but the number is more likely to be over 1,000.

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Gandhi’s Passive Resistance Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-

1922): Gandhi encouraged Indians not to participate in any British institutions—courts, schools, government offices, etc.—and to boycott British goods. Was very successful, but Gandhi called it off in 1922 due to outbreaks of violence.

Civil Disobedience Movement (1930): Gandhi’s 25-day “Salt March” to the coastal city of Dandi picked up where the Non-Cooperation Movement left off, triggering a national protest against the British salt tax.

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Gandhi on the march against the government salt production

monopoly

The Government of India Act (1937) Creation of autonomous legislature

But 600 nominally sovereign princes refuse to cooperate with the plan—fear what was left of their power would be further diminished.

Muslim fears of Hindu dominance Traditional economic divide in urban areas:

Muslim merchants and Hindu laborers Economic tensions become especially severe

with Great Depression

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) proposes a partition: the creation of the state of Pakistan.

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Muhammad Ali Jinnah

The Republic of China The Revolution of 1911: Many local

uprisings and revolts across the country reveal a deep-seated resentment against Manchu rule and its failure to modernize.

Nationalist Dr. Sun Yatsen (1866-1925) is elected provisional president of a new republic on Dec. 29, 1911. He proclaims the beginning of a new Republic of China in to being on Jan. 1, 1912.

Revolution forces the five-year-old Qing Emperor Puyi to abdicate on Feb. 12, 1912, ending over 2,000 years of imperial rule.

Central government is weak, leading to political anarchy

Independent warlords exercise local control.

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Emperor Puyi

Dr. Sun Yatsen c. 1911-1912

Sun Yatsen (1866-1925)

Born in Guangdong Province, but received a Western education in Hawai’i and converted to Christianity. Received his medical degree in Hong Kong in 1892.

Created Nationalist People’s Party—known as Guomindang or Kuomintang—in 1912. Roots of the party were in the “Revive China Society,” which Sun founded in Honolulu in 1894.

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Flag of the first Chinese Republic, 1912-1928. Each color represents one of the five “races”: Red for Han Chinese, Yellow for Manchus, Blue for Mongols, White for Muslims, and Black for Tibetans.

Chinese Nationalism May Fourth Movement

Began with protests on May 4, 1919, in Beijing

Students and urban intellectuals protest imperialism and the Chinese government’s weak response to the Treaty of Versailles. Signaled a turn toward popular Chinese nationalism and especially

resentment toward Japanese interference in China’s affairs. Suppression of the May Fourth protests marked a radicalization of

Chinese politics; many intellectuals began to reject the Western liberalism of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and accept the principles of Marxist thought.

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Chinese Nationalism Marxism increases in popularity after the May Fourth

protests of 1919. Chinese Communist Party was founded in Shanghai in

1921 with its first meeting; Mao Zedong attends as the Hunan Province representative.

By 1924, the Guomindang welcomed members of the Chinese Communist Party into its ranks, and assured full cooperation.

The Guomindang also accepted aid from the Soviet Union at this time.

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Chinese Nationalism Mao Zedong was born in 1893 in a village in

Hunan Province, in the southern central part of the country, to a peasant family.

Mao’s father had been born poor, but became successful as a grain merchant.

He was a secondary school (high school) student in Hunan Province when the 1911 revolution broke out, and joined the revolutionary army.

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Mao in 1921

After graduating from a teachers’ college, Mao became an assistant librarian at Beijing University and attended lectures.

After returning to Hunan to become a headmaster of a school, Mao attends the first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921.

In 1923, he is elected one of the five commissars of the Central Committee, and on his path to power.

The Republic of China

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Regions controlled byvarious warlord factions in 1926

Civil War Jiang Jieshi (also known as Chiang Kai-Shek, 1887-

1975) takes over the Guomindang after death of Sun Yatsen in March 1925; he is much less tolerant of radical politics.

In 1926 Jiang launches a military expedition to unify China and make himself leader of the country; in 1927, Jiang turned against his Communist allies, leading to the outbreak of Civil War.

Communists flee 6,215 miles to northwest China in 1934-1936 to flee destruction at the hand of the Nationalist; this becomes known as the Long March, which wins much popular sentiment for the Communists.

Mao Zedong emerges as the leaders at this time, and also formulates a distinctly Chinese version of communism which becomes known as Maoism.

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Jiang Jieshi in 1925

The Struggle for Control in China,

1927-1936

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Imperialist Japan

Japan signs treaties and works withthe League of Nations to limit imperialist activity between 1922 and 1928, like the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which renounced war as an instrument of policy (initiated by the U.S. and France)

In 1925, law grants universal suffrage to all men over age 25. Despite many democratic reforms during the 1920s in Japan, there is

considerable political chaos, with assassinations and violent protests; Democratic institutions do not take firm hold.

Militarist, imperialist circles advocate greater assertion of Japanese power in East Asia.

Militarists view China as a soft target.

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Japanese Imperial Battle Flag

The Mukden Incident of 1931 In September 1931, Japanese troops in Manchuria in northern China

secretly blow up small parts of the Japanese-built South Manchuria Railway as pretext for war, claiming nearby Chinese troops committed the act.

Over opposition of Japanese civilian government, the military takes Manchuria, renames it Manchukuo, a puppet state.

League of Nations censures Japan and Japan leaves the organization. Democratically elected Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855-1932)

tried to reign in the out-of-control military, but is assassinated on May 15, 1932, which marks the end of any real power of the civilian government.

In 1934, the Japanese install Puyi, the last Qing Emperor, as the Emperor of Manchukuo, as a figurehead.

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Africa and the Great War

African colonies participated in World War I Allies invaded German-controlled colonies Africans were encouraged to fight white soldiers Many Europeans left to be deployed elsewhere; only a

“skeleton crew” of Europeans left Weak colonial authority encouraged local rebellions and

challenges to European domination: an example was the Mumbo cult in Kenya, which rejected Christianity and European values and thrived from roughly 1912 to 1934.

Influence of new Pan-African ideology, in part generated by Black Caribbean intellectuals

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Africa’s New Elite Postwar class of elites often influenced by education,

other experiences abroad, especially Marxism and Pan-African ideology

Many of this group move to create modern nation-states in Africa Jomo Kenyatta (1889-1978), Kenyan nationalist – studied at

University College London. Became Prime Minister upon declaration of independence from Britain in 1963.

Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), Ghanaian nationalist – studied at Lincoln University and University of Pennsylvania. elected Prime Minister of British colony “Gold Coast”; Nkrumah declares Ghanaian independence.

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Pan-African Ideology Marcus Garvey (1887-1940): From Jamaica,

Garvey preached a Pan-African ideology that encouraged entrepreneurial self-independence. Spent 1912-1914 studying at Birbeck College in London Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) when

back in Jamaica in 1914. Came to New York in 1916 to raise funds to create a school in Jamaica

like Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. Stays in New York and sets up a new UNIA chapter; begins publishing

influential Negro World newspaper in 1918. In 1919 creates the Black Star shipping line with partners. By 1920, the UNIA had four million members. Garvey seeks to develop Liberia with a construction loan. In 1922, he actually has a face-to-face meeting with the Ku Klux Klan. Sentenced to five years in jail for mail fraud in 1923, but is deported in

1927.

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Pan-African Ideology

Other Caribbean Pan-African Intellectuals Hubert Harrison (1883-1927): Harrison was from the Danish West

Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands); moved to New York and worked as an organizer for the American Socialist Party and became an editor of Garvey’s Negro World in 1920.

George Padmore (1903-1959): Trinidadian journalist and writer who was a Communist from 1927 and 1934, and then a Pan-Africanist. Traveled in the U.S. and Soviet Union before settling in London and then in Ghana late in life.

C.L.R. James (1901-1989): Influential Trinidadian historian, literary critic, social theorist, and anti-Stalinist communist.

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961): Francophone psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary writer from Martinique who supported Algeria during its fight for independence from France.

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Latin American Developments Reactions against U.S. influence; many protests

by university students Explore alternate political ideologies, especially Marxism Fidel Castro (Cuba, 1926- ): Leads Cuban revolution starting in

1953 against corrupt pro-U.S. military dictator, Fulgencio Batista, whom Castro overthrows in 1959.

José Carlos Mariátegui (Peru, 1895-1930): Journalist and philosopher who founds Peru’s first socialist party in 1928.

Artist Diego Rivera (Mexico, 1886-1957): Famed mural painter whose work critiques imperialist and capitalist exploitation of Latin American peoples. Received a commission to paint a mural in the new Rockefeller Center from 1932-1934. The mural was destroyed because it contained a portrait of V.I. Lenin.

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Latin American Developments

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Diego Rivera at work at a mural in 1933

United States Economic Domination Great War ensures U.S. domination of Latin America Huge capital investment in Latin America; export of

raw materials U.S. economic neocolonialism under President

William Howard Taft (1857-1931) “Dollar diplomacy”: The term was coined by Theodore

Roosevelt, but the strategy was used extensively by his successor, Taft. It meant offering loans to a country in exchange for agreeing to the U.S.’s foreign policy goals.

“Dollar Diplomacy” was not always peaceful: led to several U.S. invasions of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.

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The United States in Latin America, 1895-1941

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The “Good Neighbor Policy”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) announces the “good neighbor” policy in 1933: non-intervention and non-interference in Latin American affairs.

Led to the pullout of Marines from Haiti and Nicaragua in 1934.

Leads Washington to support local leaders. U.S. Marine serves as advisers to train local

militias rather than fight themselves.

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Nicaraguan Developments U.S. marines had occupied Nicaragua on and off since 1909. Civil war broke out in the 1920s against a U.S.-imposed

conservative president. The leftist general Augusto César Sandino begins fighting a guerilla

war against U.S. Marines in 1927, stating their presence violated Nicaraguan sovereignty.

U.S. finds an ally in Anastacio Somoza Garcia (1896-1956), who becomes the director of the Nicaraguan National Guard in 1933.

In 1933, a new president is elected and U.S. forces pull out. During peace negotiations, Somoza orders Sandino’s assassination

in 1934 even though the latter had been promised his safety. Somoza overthrows the rightfully elected president in 1936, but is

supported by the FDR administration.

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Nicaraguan Developments

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Anastasio Somoza García(1896 – 1956)

Augusto Calderón Sandino(1895 – 1934)

Mexican Developments Roosevelt formally renounces intervention as per

the Monroe Doctrine in 1933 President Lázaro Cárdenas (1895-1970)

nationalizes Mexican oil industry in 1938 Previously controlled by U.S. and British interests “Good Neighbor” policy leads to negotiations for compensation

rather than troops marching in.

Roosevelt convinces U.S., British businesses to accept $24 million in compensation ($260 sought) U.S. wants to retain support of Mexico with approaching war Leading up to WWII: Mexican immigrant labor is needed, so

FDR wants good relations with Mexico.

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