Chapter 23 Reflections

                The twentieth century brought with its devastating wars and travesties reformations within countries previously subjected to colonial rule. Africa, Asia, and India were the largest group of oppressed individuals within their own homeland, and come the twentieth century of political, economic, and personal growth for the citizens of these lands. Strayer comments that the “end of European empires seemed almost natural” due to the irrationality of one country ruling another in these changing times (693). Regardless of this inconsistency in thought between dominators and the dominated, historians continue to struggle to determine the central cause for the division of once large countries into separated nation-states. In India in particular, religion played a large role in the segregation of the people. Regardless of Gandhi’s efforts to demonstrate through peaceful methods the important of the unification of the people to protest a common pain, the different religions that fostered the lives of the oppressed prevented their interconnection. Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued in favor of Muslim segregation due to the people’s pure nature needing to remain unpolluted by those not of the religion. Of course, Gandhi rejected these ideals due to their strict contradiction of the very principles he had been fighting for. Through Gandhi’s tactics, no one people were elevated above the others nor were a certain group diminished as the sole perpetrators. Gandhi instead fought to change mentalities and perspectives of those suffering through processes of gathering rather than separating. He accepted all political factions if they supported his cause, all religions, all races, and all sympathizers. For Jinnah to insist upon a further segregation just after India removed the British colonial control over the country was downright offensive to Gandhi’s cause.

                South Africa had a similar struggle as India, though suffered through more racially ingrained hatreds and segregations than that of the Indians. South African political leaders existed as a small fraction of the population of the country, and all of whom were white. Twenty percent of the population had control of the entire population due to the color of their skin, not unlike the racism occurring in America at roughly the same time, though much more intense a few decades earlier. The policy of apartheid declared the segregations on account of skin color alone; the blacks remained separate from the whites. India did not suffer this sort of treatment from their colonial forces, creating a unique situation for the indigenous African people. Political parties rose from the African sanction, though were met with guns, murder, and jail time. The struggle was violent, and many believed that much blood would be shed in order to end the policies of apartheid. Internal pressure grew from the efforts of the black individuals, with large, organized strikes causing detrimental impact to the work force with some two million people striking. Surprisingly, global pressures compounded these internal structures in favor of the removal of apartheid with boycotts of South Africa in terms of “sporting events…the refusal of artists and entertainers…economic boycotts; the withdrawal of private investment funds” (703). The combination of the global as well as internal efforts forced the white powers to congregate with the black leaders in order to avoid the blood shed that would surely ensue. The result ended apartheid and gained South Africa its political freedom.