Summary
Highlights
New states often saw their governments actively involved in directing economic development. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt utilized Cold War rivalries to fund projects like the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the Aswan High Dam, alongside social welfare reforms. Indira Gandhi in India implemented socialist five-year plans and the Green Revolution to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency and nationalized key industries to reduce inflation and increase production.
Decolonization in the 20th century led to the creation of approximately 80 new states. Many inherited colonial boundaries drawn for imperial benefit, leading to significant conflicts. Even when new boundaries were drawn, outcomes were often violent and complex.
India's independence, achieved through negotiation, resulted in the partition into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. This led to widespread violence and forced migration of over 12 million people, with over half a million deaths. The arbitrary boundaries contributed to ongoing conflicts, such as the dispute over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region with a Hindu ruler, claimed by both India and Pakistan and involving China.
Palestine, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, became a British mandate after WWI. The rise of Zionism and British pledges (Balfour Declaration) encouraged Jewish migration to Palestine, leading to tensions with the Arab Muslim majority. Post-WWII, the UN partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. While Jews accepted and declared independence as Israel, Palestinians resisted, leading to immediate warfare and ongoing conflict in the region.
Decolonization also triggered significant waves of migration from former colonies to their imperial 'metropoles.' Despite past colonial rule, economic difficulties in newly independent states led people to seek work in the cities of their former colonizers. This resulted in cultural and economic ties between the former colonies and metropoles, transforming the previously homogeneous European societies into multi-ethnic ones, exemplified by South Asians migrating to Great Britain, Algerians to France, and Filipinos to the United States.