World War I was known as the the war against empire. However, this was far from the truth—many colonies were shuffled around, and the French and British relied heavily on their colonies in the second world war. They not only relied on their colonies for physical manpower, but also for industrial output and supplies. However, after the war, the relationships that they had with their colonies became more complicated. As Frederick Cooper says in his article “Reconstructing Empire in British and French Africa,” colonization needed to be re-legitimized after WW2. This was harder than they had expected, however, and made many powerful countries question what it actually meant to be imperial.
“Could an imperial regime adopt a more democratic form of governance, or a more nuanced view of sovereignty, and still remain imperial?” (Cooper, p 201). This question was the main issue that imperial powers, especially France, were dealing with post WW2. They had a tendency to oscillate between giving more rights to their colonized people, and then cracking down violently on them and treating them as sub-humans. For example, as Elizabeth Schmidt points out in her chapter “Popular Resistance and Anticolonial Mobilization: The War Effort in French Guinea,” Africans who fought in the war were put in camps after the war where they were treated terribly. However, France was also creating programs similar to affirmative action for Muslim Algerians called “promotion musulmane” (Cooper, 202). The contrast between these actions shows the confusion that arose about what it meant to be imperial. It seems as if the French government wanted to allow their colonized people to have more rights and freedoms, but once they gave them too much, they felt that they were no longer exerting true colonial power. This disconnect shows how it was impossible to legitimize their colonies again at this point in history. Cooper states that the French “needed empire more than ever, and had fewer means to enforce their power over it” (p. 203). The more tightly that the French held on to their colonies, the stronger their movements to break free grew.
The study of the French and their colonies postwar raises bigger questions about the sustainability of empire after World War 2. After decades and decades of having to find ways to legitimize their empires, I believe that WW2 was the final nail in the coffin for empire. Although the French needed their colonies to rebuild, I believe that they had run out of ways to continue to legitimize holding these colonies and exploiting their colonized peoples.
Is it possible that despite programs for minority groups, the European Empires could never actually consistently help disenfranchised colonial subjects due to racial and cultural differences?
Looking at European’s efforts to maintain empires it is little surprise things went so poorly.
Christopher Jackson
Nice post! I also find it interesting the varying tactics the colonizers used to both suppress their colonies or give them more rights simultaneously. Do you think this power struggle would’ve happened if the war did not happen? Or was it the true catalyst for colonial unrest?
Do you think the French were too fixated on running the colonies similar to before the war and that is why they had these problems with disconnects between colonies? If they weren’t fixated on this older way of running do you think they could have had a more democratic colonial empire?
I like where you quoted Cooper stating: “Cooper states that the French “needed empire more than ever, and had fewer means to enforce their power over it” (p. 203). The more tightly that the French held on to their colonies, the stronger their movements to break free grew.” It made me think, did this perhaps in some way place the colonies in a superior position to France? Like “you need us but we don’t need you?” I don’t think that this was by any means the only or even the main catalyst for these colonial movements for freedom but it is another interesting perspective to consider.