Nationalism and decolonization movements happened in the 1920s through 1960s, but South Africa’s movement didn’t end until 1994. The Nationalist movements are when a lot of people support and believe in being politically independent. The Decolonization movement is when people stop relying on another country that colonized them. Some of the rights that were taken away from the people were that they couldn’t protest, they weren’t represented in the government, the citizens paid high taxes, they were poor, there was segregation, and land was taken away. The citizens of South Africa, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana, protested with nonviolent and militant actions. Nonviolent actions were when people peacefully protested. Militant actions were …show more content…
when the people used violence as a form of protest. The nonviolent actions during nationalism and decolonization movements in Africa and Asia were successful because the native people managed to be represented in the government. The militant actions during nationalism and decolonization movements in Africa and Asia somewhat successful because the government didn’t listen to the native people’s demands, however the native people were able to attract attention and get better rights. The nonviolent actions were successful during nationalism and decolonization in Africa and Asia because the native people were able to be represented in the government.
For example, India was colonized by the British and the British government made the people pay a lot of taxes on things like salt and land. The citizens were also forced to buy British goods. Because of those unfair demands, Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress, decided to protest with nonviolent actions because he understands the experience of poor Indians and is justifying their actions against British rule. In document 1 written in India in the year 1930, Gandhi sent a letter to Lord Irwin, British leader of India, because Gandhi wanted to explain why they were doing the Salt March. The Salt March was to illegally make salt from seawater. The people traveled from Ahmedabad to Dandi, a total of 400 kilometers. Other strategies that the people used for the Salt March were boycotts, held meetings,with held payments of taxes and revenue, passed out brochures when people celebrate national culture, and they blocked liquor shops. The letter said that the Indians suffered a lot under British rule because of the high salt taxes and that if the citizens used nonviolence they would be able to see what the British government did to the citizens. …show more content…
Gandhi’s nonviolent methods were actually successful because they were able to bring attention to the situation the citizens faced. The people used peaceful actions and were able to be represented in the government. The people couldn’t be ignored anymore and their voices were heard. Another example where nonviolence actions succeeded were in document 3. Document 3 was about Ghana. The people in Ghana were not represented in the government and whenever the people tried to bring awareness the British government quickly took action and prevented them from doing so. This document was written by Kwame Nkrumah, who led a nonviolent campaign and was Prime Minister. Nkrumah wrote this in Ghana in the year 1949, it was for the CPP or Convention People’s Party to explain what Nkrumah meant by nonviolence. His tactics were to boycott, go on strikes, went on march, and stopped using transportation. This shows how nonviolent actions were successful because Nkrumah was able to represent the people in the government because was elected at Prime Minister. The government could no longer avoid these people and these issues because the people had a lot of attention already and because Kwame Nkrumah was the people’s voice in the government. In addition, the people in Nigeria were not represented in the British government and the people were not paid enough, which led to economic problems. They did boycotts, strikes, and organized political parties and got people to run in the government to get represented. Some of the political parties that they had were the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM). NNDP was when people ran in the 1923 elections. This approach was not successful because the person that was elected didn’t go against the colonial system, and that is how the NYM was created. The NYM was also not successful because the leader resigned and the lbo members did the same. Other groups were National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). NCNC was where people protested about economic and political problems. Jaja Wachuku was the first black Nigerian speaker and the Prime Minister was also black. The nonviolent actions were successful because in the end they were represented in the government. It was successful because the citizens were represented in the government just like they wanted. The people wanted to be represented in the government because the government was being unfair to the citizens of Nigeria. The people were not paid enough so they wanted to change that and they did so by protesting and doing political parties. Some people may say that nonviolent actions were not successful because the protesters were arrested if they participated in public demonstrations and did boycotts. The African National congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress were not allowed to meet and were banned from operating in South Africa. However, because the citizens used a nonviolent approach the native people started to get support from other citizens and get them to support their cause, which led them to be represented in the government. The militant actions during nationalism and decolonization movements in Africa and Asia were somewhat successful because in some countries the government ignored the people’s requests, however in other countries the people were able to attract attention and get better rights.
An example where militant actions failed were in India. The people were forced to pay high taxes for salt and land. They were also forced to buy British products. In India there were small groups in India that decided to use violence. The Indian people made movements that encouraged violent actions, these programs were called Quit India Movement and Direct Action Day. Quit India Movement was when the people destroyed government buildings and destroyed anything from colonization. Direct Action Day was when there were a lot of massacres and rioting. Those events happened in the North. Mahatma Gandhi was blamed for some of the militant action and the government didn’t want to negotiate. This shows how the militant actions were unsuccessful because it made the British government ignore the people’s demands. This act of violence didn’t even get attention from others, instead Gandhi was blamed for something he didn’t do. In the same way, the people of Kenya did not have any economic or political rights in the British government. The citizens lost land to the British. The militant actions that the people did were encouraged by the Mau Mau. The Mau Mau was an organization that motivated people to be violent to
the British government. The Mau Mau mostly attacked police stations and other government offices. Jomo Kenyatta, Prime Minister for Kenya, was arrested because the police thought he was a part of the Mau Mau although he did not support the violent actions that were made. The violent actions that the Mau Mau supported caused Jomo Kenyatta to be arrested and he was convicted. Not only that but the Mau Mau was then later arrested and taken to concentration camps. The Mau Mau weren't successful because they tried to push the British government completely out of power but they failed. Because the Mau Mau were not successful it caused the people to think differently and decided to take a different approach, which was peaceful protests. On the other hand, militant actions were also successful because the people eventually got their rights. For example in Vietnam, the French government force the people to pay high taxes, plantations were taken away from the citizens, and the French also made the people poor. Some of the actions that the volunteers did were that they built hundreds of miles of roads, dug trenches, 200,000 people volunteered to carry ammunition, food, fuel, and the people also organized ambushes. The militant actions were actually successful for this example because they managed to hurt the government by burning the Dien Bien Phu and the people made the french commanders surrender. The citizens defeated the French and the French had to return the land that they took from the people. The French also had to leave Vietnam. Likewise in South Africa, colonized by the White Afrikaners, militant actions were successful. The people in South Africa were segregated, had a low income, couldn’t go on strike, or vote. They used violence to get what they wanted because when they used no violence they were arrested if they participated in public demonstrations and boycotts. The African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress were not allowed to meet. When the people used violence they targeted white police stations and power plant to send terror. The citizens also attacked african chiefs and headmen who supported the government. Those events were led by Umkhonto we Sizwe, a South African Organization. This shows how militant actions were successful because the people did whatever they thought was right. The people saw that peaceful protests were not helping so they turned to violence and got what they wanted. Nelson Mandela became president because of the organization called ANC. The people elected Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the first African person to be president and the people were finally represented in the government. After Mandela was elected he started to negotiate a new constitution, rebuild the civil service and try to work on apartheid. The nonviolent actions during the nationalism and decolonization movement in Africa and Asia were victorious because the native people were finally represented in the government. The militant actions during nationalism and decolonization movement in Africa and ASia were somewhat successful because the government sometimes ignored the issues that the people brought up, but they did bring a lot of awareness to the topic and they got better rights. The people fought hard for what they believed in no matter what it took. The people made peaceful protests even if some of the strategies did not end up working in some countries. The people who protested were sometimes brutally beaten by the police, but the citizens were prepared for that kind of treatment. The citizens risked their lives to achieve their goals. However in other countries the people felt that they could only be heard in the government by using militant actions. In some cases militant methods did work because the government did not want more chaos. It is important to discuss why the actions during nationalism and decolonization because people need to be educated. This is important now because we need to learn from the past and make sure that we always fight for what we truly believe and we should do it no matter the costs. This reminds me of people in Argentina. The teachers went out on a strike because they were not payed enough and because the wanted to get better funding. The teachers used a peaceful approach.
When you are fight to get peace and fairness back to your government, does it involve nonviolent or violent acts to get what you want? When Gandhi came back to India after getting his law degree, Gandhi started a movement to bring peace and fairness back to their government. What made Gandhi’s nonviolent movement work? The reason Gandhi’s nonviolent movement worked was because he didn’t believe in segregation, didn’t follow the British’s rules for Indians, went to jail for his movement, and he was determined.
Gandhi developed the idea of satyagraha which centered around nonviolent resistance to opposition and evil. The goal of this march was to protest the taxation on salt production and transport in India by the British government. Gandhi's march sparked a wave of civil disobedience which contributed to the expulsion of the British empire. This march had a long term effect, as it inspired many to take part in a successful, organized civil protest. Furthermore, the protest stimulated further motivation for other disobedience and influenced the thinking of many civil disobedience leaders, such as Martin Luther King during the Civil rights
King and Thoreau?s approach to civil disobedience is a more civilized way to protest than those at the WTO. King in his letter of response to the Birmingham clergy, ?Letter from Birmingham Jail? he list four basics steps to a non-violent campaign: collection of the facts to determine if injustice exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action (174). In his letter he points out that the individuals involved in the campaign attended a series of workshops on nonviolence. During the workshops individuals were to ask themselves if they were able to accept blows without retaliating and if they could endure the ordeal of jail (174). Thoreau?s approach is slightly different at an individual level but yet was nonviolent. He refused to pay his poll tax, which he felt was unjust. The result was he was arrested and jailed. He applied a type of civil disobedience without eliciting violence.
Mahatma Gandhi, a prominent leader in the independence movement of India once said, “Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless and corrupt.”(brainyquotes.com) Gandhi states that protest and civil disobedience are necessary when the authority becomes unscrupulous. This correlates to “Declaration of Independence,” by Thomas Jefferson; “Civil Disobedience,” by Henry David Thoreau; and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King Jr., because all three leaders felt that civil disobedience was important to help protest against an unjust ruling. Jefferson stood up to the injustice of the king by writing the Declaration of Independence and urged others to stand up for the independence of America. Thoreau exemplified
Peaceful resistance to laws positively impact a free society because if there isn't, how will people hear the voices of the oppressed and mistreated? Peaceful resistance comes a long way in trying to advance the rights and customs of the oppressed today. For example, The Salt March of 1930 was based on the Salt Act of 1882, which excluded the people the India from producing or getting salt, only British officials. Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of this protest. According to an article by time.com, it says that "The protest continued until Gandhi was granted bargaining rights at a negotiation in London. India didn’t see freedom until 1947, but the salt satyagraha (his brand of civil disobedience) established Gandhi as a force to be reckoned with and set a powerful precedent for future nonviolent protestors, including Martin Luther King Jr.(Sarah Begley,2015)" This means the salt march was a start for India's independence. Also, Gandhi's brand of civil disobedience set precedents for future nonviolent protests. Another Example of how peaceful protests
Civil disobedience is the refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means. The use of nonviolence runs throughout history, however the fusion of organized mass struggle and nonviolence is relatively new. The militant campaign for women’s suffrage in Britain included a variety of nonviolent tactics such as boycotts, noncooperation, limited property destruction, civil disobedience, mass marches and demonstrations. The Salvadoran people have used nonviolence as one powerful and necessary element of their struggle. There is a rich tradition of nonviolent protest in this country as well, including Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad during the Civil War and Henry Thoreau’s refusal to pay war taxes.
From the onset of man fighting for freedom or his beliefs, the question has always been whether one person can make a difference using words rather than wars. Philosophically, the concept of civil disobedience would appear to be an ineffective weapon against political injustice; history however has proven it to repeatedly be one of the most powerful weapons of the common man. Martin Luther King Jr. looked at the way African Americans were treated in the United States and saw an inequality. By refusing to pay his taxes and subsequently being imprisoned for a night, Henry David Thoreau demonstrated his intolerance for the American government. Under British rule, India remained oppressed until Mohandas Gandhi, with his doctrine of non-violence lead the country to freedom.
Since the beginning of the union of the states, the right to succeed has continually been tested. Whether the are reasons severe enough to be considered, or ones that will be forgotten and resolved, the question has been continuously asked if it is acceptable for a state to secede from the union. The amendments were created to protect the rights of the people; if not all the amendments are observed, but instead are violated, the people should have the right to secede. However, before the secession is agreed upon, the state should carefully consider all options; only if the union is doing more damage than benefit should the state seriously consider. This is the exact decision Britain was given. The union with Europe was hurting not only Britain but also Europe its self. Both government and people were put at risk. This was not, however, the case with the outbreak in 1860 in the south. The south aspired for slavery, and if that meant seceding, they would have it, not because it was better for the people. A state should have the right to pull away from a union if: the government is causing more damage than benefit, at least two-thirds of the people of the state vote
During the ratification of the Constitution, anti-Federalists proposed a compromise in which the state of New York reserved the “right to withdraw herself from the Union after a certain number of years” if the federal government did not support reforms the state favored. The Federalists immediately rejected the compromise claiming that the Constitution did not permit unilateral state secession. Alexander Hamilton and John Jay made it abundantly clear that the “reservation of a right to withdraw” was ultimately “inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification.”
Under British rule in India, the British were harshly oppressive and only interested in exploiting products from India for their own use, causing many Indians to become extremely poor. They became so oppressed they were on the verge of violent civil disobedience, when Gandhi appeared to negotiate with the British threw non-violent tactics such as sit-ins and hunger strikes. The people were supportive on Gandhi and were set to become violent if anything happened to him. Things were resolved without violence.
Gandhi was known first for his nonviolence behavior and would condemn his own party opposing violence. Gandhi made use of nonviolent and passive resistance through non-cooperation as his weapon of choice in the conflict against the British. The butchery of civilians by British military personnel resulted in increased public anger and acts of violence. Mahatma Gandhi criticized both the activities of British Government and the revenge of the butchery from the Indians. He extended consolation to the British victims and denounced the riots. Initially his party was opposed to his declaration. Later, however, they accepted Gandhi’s principal stating that any retaliation or violence was hurtful and could not be justified. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi success with nonviolent activism, Martin Luther King Jr. pushed forward his Civil Rights Movement with nonviolent activism as well. Although the two have personally never had contact, Dr. King learned of Gandhi 's discipline while in the seminary. His first application of the nonviolent campaign came in 1955 during the Montgomery bus boycott. Here, he had a witnessed firsthand the power of a peaceful
A modern example of violent resistance would be the Arab Spring. In Algeria, people protested because of a lack of housing and several people attempted or committed self-immolation to create awareness including Mohamed Aouichia and Mohsen Bouterfif who set themselves on fire in 2011. In Israel, protesters from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria attempted to march into Israel to remember the Nakba, a war in Palestine that forced over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs out of their homes, the protests soon turned violent when the Israeli border patrol would not let them cross. The Syrian Uprising spread into Lebanon and there were many clashes between anti-Assad and pro-Assad groups that injured hundreds of people. In Mauritania, a man set himself on fire to protest Mauritania’s leader, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. In Morocco, a group of protesters set a bank on fire causing five peoples’ deaths. In Oman, protesters set fire to cars and stores which cause the police to violently retaliate. And finally in Sudan hundreds of people protested for their ruler to resign and by the end, there were people wanting to overthrow him by any means. Success is something that differs by opinion so it is not easy to measure, but if I had to state if I think the Arab Spring was successful, I would say yes. I think it was successful because the Arab Spring spread through
In an effort to help free India from the British rule, Mahatma Gandhi once again contributed to a protest against salt taxes, known as the Salt March. This protest advocated Gandhi’s theory of satyagraha or nonviolent disobedience as the nation came together on March 12, 1930 to walk the 241 mile long journey to the shores of Dandi to attain salt. Although some Indians criticized Gandhi for not achieving direct independence from the Raj or British rule, Gandhi’s execution of the Salt March helped to create a stronger nation for the Indians to live in. Gandhi motivated the Indians to act robustly against the injustices of the salt taxes through nonviolent means. This caused Gandhi to create a temporary compromising pact between Gandhi and the British viceroy over the turmoil created by the salt taxes.
In another scene, Gandhi is in jail, and some of his followers are peacefully gathered in a square. The police lock up the square and kill almost everyone, over 1,500 people. Gandhi is disgusted and discouraged. He continues to preach non-violence, but the Indians do have occasional conflict with the police. Gandhi’s counter to the popular phrase “an eye for an eye” says that after that, “everyone will be blind.” Gandhi leads several organized protests against British rule. In one, all Indians stopped doing their work, and the major cities in the country were disabled. Another time, he led a 165-mile walk to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt. The Indians made their own salt out of the sea.
The process of decolonization in Africa during the 1950’s through the 1970’s was a very smart yet risky idea. For some places independence was easily gained yet in other areas it was a battle. During the time periods where colonization existed, Africa was peaceful and kept things in order. People had control over their specific locations and there were no questions to be asked. Once it was decided to remove these rights, things got out of hand rather quickly. Violence was a main occurrence during the decolonization timeframe because rules, rights, leaderships, etc. got altered and drastically changed. Sometimes nonviolence was used but it usually wasn’t as effective. A major example of using nonviolence actions to gain independence is when Gandhi protested in India. African leaders have tried very hard to lessen the influence of Western powers and the broader international community but they’ve never been completely successful because they continuously needed support in state building, economic development, and public health initiatives.