Decolonization and White Africans: The “Winds of Change,” Resistance, and Beyond

By P. Eric Louw

Decolonization and White Africans examines how African decolonization affected white Africans in eight countries – Algeria, Kenya, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Angola, Mozambique, South West Africa (Namibia), and South Africa – and discusses their varied responses to decolonization, including resistance, acquiescence, negotiations, and migration. It also examines the range of mechanisms used by the global community to compel white Africans into submitting to decolonization through such means as official pressure, diplomatic negotiations, global activism, sanctions, and warfare.
Until now, books about African decolonization usually approached the topic either from the perspective of the colonial powers or from an anti-colonial black African perspective. As a result, white African perspectives have been marginalized, downplayed, or presented reductively. Decolonization and White Africans adds white African perspectives to the story, thereby broadening our understanding of the decolonization phenomenon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academica Press
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781680532890

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Cover: Decolonization and White Africans: The “Winds of Change,” Resistance, and Beyond by P. Eric Louw

Decolonization and White Africans:

The Winds of Change, Resistance, and Beyond

P. Eric Louw

Academica Press

Washington~London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Louw, P. Eric. (author)

Title: Decolonization and White Africans: The Winds of Change, Resistance, and Beyond | P. Eric Louw

Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2022. | Includes references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022931324 | ISBN 9781680532883 (hardcover) | 9781680532890 (e-book)

Copyright 2022 P. Eric Louw

Contents

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1:

Decolonization as Idea and Political Project

Chapter 2:

Decolonization Encounters the obstacle of White Africans

Chapter 3:

British, French, and Portuguese Responses to Decolonization

Chapter 4:

Southern African Whites Resist Decolonization:

Pressure, Wars, and Negotiations

Chapter 5:

What happened to the Rhodesians?

Chapter 6:

Apartheid’s Attempt to Create a White African State

Chapter 7:

The Miracle of Ending Apartheid

Chapter 8:

How the Post-Apartheid State Affected White South Africans

Part 1: From Sharing to Transformation

Chapter 9:

How the Post-Apartheid State Affected White South Africans

Part 2: Beyond the Miracle

Chapter 10:

Roosevelt’s Decolonization Dream,

White Africans, and Afropessimism

Bibliography

Notes

Index

Abbreviations

AAG – Affirmative Action Group

Alcora – Alliance Against the Rebellions in Africa (Aliança Contra as Rebeliões em Africa)

ANC –African National Congress

ANCYL – African National Congress Youth League

ANYL – African National Youth League

ARMSKOR – Armaments Corporation

AWB – Afrikaner Resistance Movement

BDC – Beira Democratic Convergence

BEE – Black Economic Empowerment

BLF – Black Land First

CAS – Capricorn Africa Society

CCB – Civil Co-Operation Bureau

CFU – Commercial Farmer Union

CIO – Central Intelligence Organization

Codesa – Convention for a Democratic South Africa

COMOPS – Combined Operations

COSAG – Concerned South Africans Group

COSATU – Congress of South African Trade Unions

CP – Conservative Party

CRT – Critical Race Theory

DA – Democratic Alliance

DP – Democratic Party

DTA – Democratic Turnhalle Alliance

EFF – Economic Freedom Fighters

ESKOM – Electricity Supply Commission

EU – European Union

EWC – (Land) Expropriation Without Compensation

FC – Stay Together

FF – Freedom Front

FICO – Front for Independent Western Convergence

FIP – Federal Independence Party

FLN – National Liberation Front

FNLA – National Liberation Front of Angola

FOSATU – Federation of South African Trade Unions.

FUA – Angolan United Front

FRELIMO – Front for the Liberation of Mozambique

FRETILIN – Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor

GNU – Government of National Unity

GUMO – United Group of Mozambique

IBDC – Indigenous Business Development Centre

Idasa – Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa

IFP – Inkatha Freedom Party

IRA – Irish Republican Army

LM – Lourenço Marques (Maputo)

MD – Mozambican Democrats

MDA – Angolan Democratic Movement

MDC – Movement for Democratic Change

MFA – Armed Forces Movement

MK – Umkonto we Sizwe

MPLA – People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola

MUD – United Democratic Movement

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NDP – National Democratic Party

NP – National Party

NRBD – National Reconstruction and Development Board

NSMS – National Security Management System

NUF – National Unifying Force.

NRAC – Northern Rhodesia African Congress

OAS – Secret Army Organization

OAU – Organization of African Unity

OPO – Ovamboland People’s Organization

PAC – Pan-African Congress

PAIGC – African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde

PCDA – Angolan Democratic Convergence Party

PFP – Progressive Federal Party

PIDE - International Police and State Defence

PLAN – People’s Liberation Army (SWAPO)

PLO – Palestinian Liberation Organization

PRASA – Passenger Rail Agency

RAP – Rhodesia Action Party

R&N – Rhodesia and Nyasaland

RET – Radical Economic Transformation

RF – Rhodesia Front

RENAMO – Mozambican National Resistance

SA – South Africa or South African

SAA – South African Airways

SABC – South African Broadcasting Corporation

SABRA – South African Bureau of Racial Affairs

SACP – South African Communist Party

SADF – South African Defence Force

SAIRR – South African Institute of Race Relations

SANRAL – SA National Road Agency

SAP – South African Police

SOE – State owned enterprises

SWA – South West Africa

SWAPO – South West African People’s Organization

SWATF – South West Africa Territory Force

TEC – Transitional Executive Council

TRC – Truth and Reconciliation Commission

TTL – Tribal Trust Land

UCP – United Country Party

UDI – Unilateral Declaration of Independence

UDF – United Democratic Front

UDM – United Democratic Movement

UFP – United Federal Party

UN – United Nations

UNITA – National Union for the Total Independence of Angola

UP – United Party

US – United States

USA – United States of America

UDENAMO – United Democratic Movement of Mozambique

UNIP – United National Independence Party

UPA – Union of the Peoples of Angola

WHAM – Win Hearts and Minds

ZANLA – Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANU)

ZANU – Zimbabwe African National Union

ZANU-PF – Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front

ZAPU – Zimbabwe African People’s Union

ZIPRA – Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZAPU)

ZNLWVA – Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Fernando Pimenta. Our discussions about Mozambique and Angola were really helpful. Thanks also to librarians Angela Hannan and Anne Draper.

Preface

Much has been written about African decolonization from either the perspective of those colonized or from the perspective of the metropolitan powers who did the colonizing. Because the perspectives of white Africans have often been marginal within these texts, this book aims to explicitly bring to the foreground White African perspectives with the hope that providing this third viewpoint will serve to provoke new discussions about African decolonization and the consequences of that decolonization.

Since I lived a large part of my life as a White African, it seems appropriate that I briefly position myself as the writer of this text, plus explain something of my own political journey (which saw me move from the left of the political spectrum to right). I grew up and went to school in what was then Rhodesia, but received my university education in South Africa. I was then conscripted into the South African army for two years. Thereafter I became a journalist at a liberal newspaper in Pretoria before moving on to postgraduate studies and becoming an academic.

My earliest political memories are of sitting at the breakfast table in the early 1960s listening to Radio Rhodesia news telling the unfolding story of African decolonization. As a child I did not yet understand the implications of those news stories, but I could see my parents were troubled by what they heard. Watching my parents’ disbelief and exasperation made it clear they thought something bad was happening. What they were listening to were arguments between the governments of Britain and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland over the future of the Federation. On both sides of my family I was the fourth generation to have lived in Rhodesia. Both my parents and two of my grandparents had been born in Southern Rhodesia and they had been raised to believe the British Empire was a good thing. As a child I might not have understood the politics, but I did grasp that any loyalty my parents had felt for London was now turning to contempt and that they were feeling very unsafe.

As a teenager I discovered the Anglican Church bookshop in Salisbury which sold books by the likes of Basil Davidson, Chinua Achebe, Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Doris Lessing, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda, Oginga Odinga, Kwame Nkrumah, Tom Mboya, Lawrence Vambe and Stanlake Samkange. I read these voraciously. At the church bookshop I also signed up to a Fabian newsletter from London. These all shaped my political consciousness in ways that increasingly distanced me from my parents, and wider family, who were by then all loyal followers of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front party.

As an undergraduate student I was introduced to the New Left and then while an army conscript I read Marx. While working in Pretoria I gave up my weekends to run classes for Sached’s black adult education program. By the 1980s I was a United Democratic Front (UDF) activist in Durban, attracted by the UDF’s advocacy of non-racialism. I also helped found and run the Durban Media Trainers Group – an NGO that trained black media activists for the UDF and Cosatu. When the ANC was unbanned in 1990 there were no ANC structures left standing inside South Africa. So I served on a committee formed to rebuild ANC structures in Durban. In the beginning the new ANC branches that we created were filled with UDF activists like myself (because the UDF had disbanded itself) but over time the composition of these branches changed.

The period 1990 to 1993 was tumultuous as the ANC and NP fought over a new constitution. Political violence exploded as the ANC and conservative-black parties (like the Inkatha Freedom Party) fought for control of black townships and the ANC adopted mass action to push the NP into accepting the ANC’s preferred constitutional model. During this period returning ANC exiles poured back into the country from Zambia, Tanzania, Britain and Eastern Europe. And as these returnees filled up the newly established ANC branches a discernible shift in political culture took place. Many of the returnees from Africa brought with them a 1960s Uhuru black nationalism, while the returnees from Eastern Europe brought both a Stalinist variety of communism plus a sense of shock at having recently witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The result was that the UDF’s non-racialism was quickly displaced by a hybridized African-Marxist rhetoric and black nationalism which advocated massive state-interventionism to rapidly transfer wealth and jobs from whites to blacks. As the exiles returned and the political culture shifted so one witnessed an incremental withdrawal of many former UDF activists from ANC branches. This produced an unmistakeable change in the appearance of meetings. The UDF’s 1980s meetings had always been racially mixed. But by 1993 ANC meetings had become overwhelmingly black, as many UDF white, Indian and coloured activists dropped out. I was one of those UDF activists who stopped attending ANC meetings as I grew progressively alienated by black nationalist talk. But just because I stopped attending meetings did not mean that I had as yet abandoned the left. However, my withdrawal did ultimately begin my political journey rightwards by creating distance from the ANC. And this distance was the first step in facilitating critical thinking about events unfolding before my eyes – critical thinking that ultimately led me to see socialism as the problem and not the solution.

When the ANC became the government in 1994 I still assumed that the ANC would not make the same mistakes as seen in other African states. But sadly post-apartheid South Africa turned into just another poorly governed and corrupt African state. This accelerated my journey towards becoming a conservative as I concluded that socialist-thinking, left-liberal guilt and the propagation of victimhood discourses were all implicated in promoting Africa’s governance problems – because leftist thinking made excuses for poor performance (usually by blaming imperialism/colonialism, capitalism or white racism). And excusing the poor performance of African elites effectively allows poor governance to continue, and even expand. This does Africa (and Africans) no favours at all.

This book grew out of my frustration with watching the endless damage being inflicted upon two countries I care deeply about (South Africa and Zimbabwe). My intention is to be deliberately provocative so as to stimulate debate and rethinking. But for this debate to happen the left will have to desist from their common strategies of claiming the high moral ground, or deploying rhetorical devises like the victim-villain discourse, or hurling accusations of ‘racism.’ For example, one might expect adherents of critical race theory (CRT) to construct and dismiss this book as white talk. From within the methodological sleight of hand deployed by CRT, white talk would translate into being automatically attacked and dismissed as racist; and from within the logic of CTR no defence to charges of racism is available. I do not think that this book is an appropriate place to digress into an engagement with CRT because that would swallow up too many pages. Besides others have already engaged with, and offered criticism of CRT – for example, Pluckrose & Lindsay (2020). What I will say is that this book has been written as an intellectual engagement with how White Africans have experienced decolonization. Or to use CRT-speak (as derived from Althusser’s notion of ‘interpellation’) this book examines how White Africans have been ‘positioned’ by the processes of decolonization. The point is these White African experiences are real and it is reductionist and crooked thinking to simply reduce them down to mere poststructural linguistic constructs (as CRT does). Using pejorative terms (like ‘racist’) to label and dismiss the White African voice is at best intellectually unhelpful and at worst becomes a disingenuous censoring mechanism. Instead this book argues that the experiences of White Africans deserve to be put on the table when decolonization is being discussed.

Chapter 1:

Decolonization as Idea and Political Project

Let me make this clear: we mean to hold our own. I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

- Winston Churchill’s response to American pressure for decolonization, 1942

Decolonization was a hugely significant phenomenon during the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed decolonization reconfigured the entire global political landscape after World War II. And Africa was especially radically affected. However, what is often de-emphasised when telling the decolonization story is that millions of Europeans had settled in Africa where they had built their own Western societies (just as settlers had done in North America, Australasia, Latin America, and Russian-Asia). But because of the way African decolonization was implemented the lives of these White Africans¹ were devastated as the societies they had built were systematically dissolved. The focus of this book will be on how decolonization affected White African societies in Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola, Southwest Africa, and finally South Africa.

When examining the volumes of material written about decolonization, two features stand out. Firstly, the field is dominated by what Kennedy² calls celebratory accounts which applaud decolonization as something excellent. As Kennedy’s notes, this celebratory writing glosses over or ‘forgets’ both the less savory aspects of the decolonization phenomenon³ plus its many negative outcomes. Kennedy therefore challenges us to move beyond the celebratory narrative which, for example, ignores how many indigenous people collaborated with (and fought for) the status quo and did not support decolonization; how decolonization inflicted enormous pain on millions of people through dislocation plus forced migration and post-colonial violence; plus how decolonization often produced very poor outcomes.

Secondly, when discussing the end of European imperialism, existing decolonization-narratives have generally emphasised either the rebellion of colonial-victims (tied to a ‘liberation discourse’), or pointed to the ‘goodwill’ (or ‘wisdom’) of European colonial-powers who opted to grant independence. (The latter was tied to a ‘Whiggish vision’ of ending empire⁴ which argued the British Empire always intended to bestow liberty/self determination on its subject peoples’). Both these two versions of the decolonization story complement the celebratory narrative. This book will offer a different explanation, arguing decolonization’s source actually lies in American dreams of building their own informal empire. So the story being told in this volume, is of how both European colonial powers plus Africans (black and white) were simply responding to the rise of assertive USA-power.

Further this book seeks to explicitly add a new set of perspectives into the decolonization story (alongside the narratives emphasising the voices of either colonial-victims, or European colonial-powers), namely the perspectives of White Africans. The addition of perspectives (marginalized or ignored by the celebratory account of decolonization) will go some way towards meeting Kennedy’s challenge of moving beyond the celebratory account. In addition, this book explicitly widens the decolonization story by discussing how South Africa (although an independent state) became enmeshed in the decolonization saga, such that the final stage of decolonization – originally launched by Roosevelt’s 1940s administration – is still playing itself out in twenty-first century South Africa.

But before we can even begin to examine how a now mutated variety of ‘decolonization’ is currently playing itself out in contemporary South Africa, we must first go back and examine how World War II transformed the world by replacing the Pax Britannica with the Pax Americana. Before this war European empires (especially Britain’s) straddled the globe; while the USA was the new rising global power which kept finding its opportunities for trade and expansion thwarted by the fact the Europeans had gotten there first. For the USA this was deeply frustrating. Consequently, even before America had entered World War II, the US State Department established working committees charged with conceptualizing how to terminate European imperialism through decolonization;⁵ and how to replace Europe’s formal empires with an American informal empire. The 1940s also saw the USA mount a huge global campaign to demonize imperialism/colonialism plus to promote the idea of post-war decolonization.⁶ This campaign signalled to Third World peoples everywhere that rebellions against European empires would be supported by America. Churchill responded by saying he would not preside over the liquidation of the British Empire just because Roosevelt desired it. But Washington, confident the war would end with America as the world’s most powerful state, set about planning for how a Pax Americana would replace the Pax Britannica. This meant a core feature of the post-World War II world was going to be decolonization.

It turned out Washington’s analysts were correct – America did emerge as the key victor of World War II, with its military in possession of Western Europe, Japan, the Atlantic and the Pacific. The USA, not Britain now became the world’s global policeman. Washington’s only miscalculation was in not planning for how the Soviet Union’s occupation of Eastern Europe would transform the Soviets into another superpower alongside America. This miscalculation produced the Cold War; and also resulted in Washington having to redesign the way decolonization would be rolled out (because having stirred up decolonization activists, the US now feared these rebellions might be co-opted by communists). None-the-less, despite needing modifications, decolonization was rolled out from the late 1940s onwards – in fact, decolonization became one of the key features of post 1945 global politics. This begs a number of questions – What is decolonization? Why was it implemented in the way it was? Who promoted it? Who resisted it? And did decolonization ultimately meet the expectations of those promoting it?

Ascribing an exact meaning to decolonization is not as straightforward as one might think.⁷ There is agreement that decolonization is a phenomenon associated with imperial retreat – i.e. it is about those moments when an empire relinquishes sovereignty over part of its territory. This means giving up its former rights to govern that territory and its inhabitants. These inhabitants consequently cease to be subjects of the empire by acquiring self-determination. Henceforth, they govern themselves in an ‘independent’ state. However, there are also ‘disagreements’ about the meaning of decolonization. For example, some see decolonization as happening when imperial powers decide to transfer control of their territory to the local inhabitants. Others see decolonization as happening when local inhabitants force empires to grant independence. Others see decolonization as happening due to competitive pressures between states. These three meanings are not mutually exclusive, but they are different – and reveal something about a lack of precision in much discussion/analysis of this phenomenon. To complicate matters further, there is the issue of how transforming ‘formal empire’ (e.g. Pax Britannica) into ‘informal empire’ (e.g. Pax Americana) affects our definition of decolonization. It is also worth noting post-World War II decolonization is only one of four similar exercises in sovereignty transfer.⁸ In all four cases, sovereignty transfers were triggered by wars between empires – the Seven Years’ War; World War I; World War II; and the Cold War. These wars broke old balances of power creating periods of post-war readjustment and instability. From these readjustments flowed sovereignty transfers. In all four cases, sovereignty transfers were associated with conflict, struggle, resistance and pain as millions of people were driven from their homelands. The same was true for post-World War II decolonization.

But before turning to post-World War II decolonization let us first examining this phenomenon’s roots – namely, American planning for a new world order which involved terminating Europe’s empires.

The roots of decolonization: Internationalizing Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Atlantic Charter

Franklin Roosevelt had a strong personal commitment to decolonization; so during his presidency, decolonization was placed firmly onto America’s foreign policy agenda. Domestically Roosevelt’s progressive-liberalism created the New Deal. Significantly, Roosevelt’s team aspired to Internationalize this New Deal – i.e. design interventionist foreign policies to ‘socially engineer’ and ‘change’ foreign societies to make them conform to Democratic Party dreams of progress. This shifted America towards a human rights-driven foreign policy – a part of which was promoting anticolonialism. Thus was anticolonialism turned into a decolonization policy by Cordell Hull and Sumner Welles’ State Department team (reflecting the passionate committed to ending Europe’s empires/decolonization held by Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor). Roosevelt had personally called for decolonization during a Press Conference for the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association. Speaking about a stop-over in Britain’s colony of Gambia, Roosevelt said:

It’s the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life. The natives are five thousand years back of us. Disease is rampant…for every dollar that the British…have put into Gambia, they have taken out ten. It’s just plain exploitation of those people. There is no education whatsoever…the agriculture there is perfectly pitiful…the natives grow a lot of peanuts…and they still use a pointed stick. Nobody ever saw a plow in Gambia. The British have never done a thing about it. Now, as I say, we have got to realize that in a country like Gambia—and there are a lot of them down there—the people, who are in the overwhelming majority, have no possibility of self-government for a long time. But we have got to move…to teach them self-government. That means education, it means sanitation.⁹

Roosevelt curiously blamed the British for the natives being primitive; chastised Britain for not forcing cultural change upon them; and applied Hobson’s¹⁰ ‘exploitation model’ (despite Gambia being a strategic, not economic/trading colony). But importantly, this Roosevelt statement encodes America’s decolonization vision of ‘development,’ ‘trusteeship’ and culturally transforming/ Westernizing primitive people through ‘education.’ It was upon this Roosevelt vision that the US State Department built its post-World War II decolonization policy.

So understanding decolonization requires examining American war-time planning for a post-war settlement (when both US State Department plus Defence Department planners formulated schemes for building an American-led new world order). Significantly, Roosevelt-era planning was dominated by Wilsonian-liberal thinking.

Woodrow Wilson had failed to implement his dream of liberal-internationalism after World War I, but when Roosevelt became President in 1933, Wilsonianism was put squarely back on America’s agenda. By the 1940s Wilson’s vision of liberal-internationalism and free trade dominated the White House, State Department and US Treasury. With these Washington power-bases under their control, Wilsonians could finally try and implement their new world order vision, and a foreign policy anchored in the Roosevelt-team’s twin agendas of human rights and free trade. However, there was not unanimity amongst all Washington’s players, with Defence Department planners (especially in the Navy)¹¹ often arguing for a different vision of the Pax Americana.¹² However, ultimately Roosevelt’s pro-Wilsonian, anti-imperialism/anticolonialism views prevailed. Significantly, because Roosevelt was skilled in using other people, he deployed Secretary of State Cordell Hull to push his (Wilsonian) trade vision; Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles to push the ‘moral’ dimension; and Wendell Willkie to stir up public opinion against imperialism and colonialism.¹³

Roosevelt, Hull and Welles believed that although Wilson had failed to create a liberal peace,¹⁴ American power in the 1940s now allowed them to succeed where Wilson had failed. The Wilson doctrine was a vision deeply embedded in American liberalism.¹⁵ A cornerstone of Wilson’s thinking was his belief American business needed to ‘conquer’ world markets. In History of the American people Wilson recognized the closing of the USA’s land settlement frontier created the potential for economic stagnation and social unrest. To solve this, America needed access to world markets/resources to keep its economy growing. Hence it was in America’s interests to establish global free trade and end the division of the world into imperial trading blocks. If American laissez-faire capitalism was to keep growing, the wider world needed to become America’s new expanding frontier.¹⁶ But Wilson advocated American expansionism not based upon building a formal empire, but based upon building an informal empire¹⁷ supported by a new multilateral international order. Of necessity, building an American informal empire required breaking the hold Europe’s empires had over so much of the world’s resources and trade opportunities. Wilson’s problem after World War I was that the USA was still not powerful enough to dislodge West European empires; although Wilson did manage to have some of his anti-imperial ideas implemented through the Treaty of Versailles – e.g. self-determination was applied to break-up the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and a League of Nations mandate (or trusteeship) system applied to the dissolved German and Ottoman empires.

Roosevelt, Hull and Welles’ Wilsonian planning process ran from 1940-45 – a process initiated when the Advisory Committee on Post War Foreign Policy convened in January 1940; and ending with the April 1945 San Francisco meeting to launch the United Nations. When it came to conceptualizing America’s ‘ideal’ post-war world, the key work was done by three State Department committees and one research body.¹⁸ These were the Subcommittee on Political Problems, plus Subcommittee on International Organization (both subcommittees of the Advisory Committee on Post War Foreign Policy); the Committee on Dependent Areas; and the State Department’s Division of Special Research. The first and third committees planned the post-war decolonization exercise; while the second planned a multilateral organization to secure Pax Americana security (i.e. the UN system of ‘collective security).

For anyone concerned with post World War II decolonization the Subcommittee on Political Problems is especially interesting. This subcommittee lay at the heart of the State Department’s exercise in reconceptualising/reordering world politics by removing those European empires deemed obstacles to establishing America’s informal ‘trading’ empire (or what Kwame Nkrumah called neo-colonialism).¹⁹ This subcommittee convened in 1942.²⁰ Under Secretary of State, Sumner Welles personally chaired this sub-committee, because it was the key vehicle for influencing the direction of the whole post-war planning exercise. Stanley Hornbeck, State Department Far East expert. James Shotwell, expert in British-French colonial competition, and mandate-issues. Isaiah Bowman, John Hopkins University president, with a special interest in Africa. Anne Hare McCormick, New York Times foreign affairs writer (who infused into the deliberations a strong sense of moral outrage against European colonialism). Other members were Leo Pasvolsky and Harley Notter (both from the Division of Special Research); Benjamin Cohen and David Niles (both White House staffers); Norman Davis, Hamilton Armstrong, Myron Taylor, Adolf Berle, Dean Acheson and Herbert Feis. Both Welles and McCormick were very anti-European imperialism. On 8 August 1942, Welles set the tone for the sub-committee by stating its purpose:

Liberation of the peoples should be the main principle. Many of these peoples cannot undertake self-government at this time. This is where trusteeship comes in. The United Nations [i.e. the Allied powers) should endeavour to develop the ability of these peoples to govern themselves as soon as possible.²¹

There was general agreement on Welles’ sub-committee that America would end the European and Japanese empires and promote self-determination (in line with what became the Atlantic Charter’s vision). Hornbeck raised some potentially tricky implementation-problems, e.g. what was to be done if colonial settlers resisted these American moves? what happened if some peoples did not want self-determination? or if some did not want trusteeship? The committee decided a universal self-determination model was impractical; and independence would need to be worked towards on a case-by-case basis.²² Welles’ sub-committee specifically identified Africa and Pacific states as posing problems. The State Department could not find any African agitation for independence, nor did they believe Africans had any conception of self-government.²³ Committee members Bowman, Welles and McCormick concluded sub-Saharan Africa was not ready for independence because they believed Africans were ‘on the lowest rung of the evolutionary ladder,’ who unlike the people of Asia or the Middle East had produced no civilization.²⁴ This overlapped with Roosevelt’s evaluation of Gambians as ‘five thousand years back of us.’ So what should be done with states not ready for independence? The committee was adamant Europe’s empires must be dismantled; and European imperialism could not be maintained even with regard to such ‘backward areas.’ If they could not be granted independence, nor remain subjects of European empires, then a third option must be found. So a system of ‘trusteeship’ was developed, and became core to the Roosevelt-team’s decolonization model – it entailed the Allies creating an international mechanism to supervise the transition from imperial ‘dependence’ to ‘independence.’ Effectively this meant ‘development’ and ‘education’ geared to uplifting backward areas and producing small groups of educated people who could become the Third World ruling elites (comprador-partners)²⁵ which America required for its trading empire to function. So Roosevelt saw education (i.e. Westernization) as vital for building his new world order; believing subject peoples should only be held in ‘tutelage’ until they could ‘stand on their own feet.’²⁶ Roosevelt shared a widespread 1940s belief that it would take many decades or even centuries to ‘raise’ some ‘backward’ people (through ‘development’) to a level where they could be granted self-determination. There was no expectation in the 1940s State Department that decolonization would unfold as quickly as it did. Instead, it was expected a lengthy period of trusteeship (education and development) would be required to prepare many colonies for independence.

So the idea of decolonization was born in Welles’ sub-committee. However, despite creating this concept Roosevelt’s team never produced a clear anticolonial policy.²⁷ But this lack of clear policy did not hinder them triggering huge expectations in Asia and Africa. The Atlantic Charter, anti-British Empire rhetoric, and the State Department’s 1943 ‘Declaration of National Independence’ all served to encourage the growth of nationalist anticolonial groups within Europe’s empires. This stirred rebellion which naturally served to destabilize Europe’s empires. America welcomed and encouraged this, because undermining Europe’s empires translated into growing USA power, thereby enhancing American access to resources and markets previously controlled by others. And the process became exponential – the weaker Europe’s empires looked the more rebellions grew; and the more power America acquired, the more it could leverage further change. So any understanding of decolonization must include examining how Roosevelt’s team diffused their vision of anti-imperialism/anticolonialism to the world.

Roosevelt was highly adept at using media to steer public opinion and generate bandwagon effects.²⁸ He understood very well how to build public opinion into a force for exerting political pressure. He also knew Britain was not immune to growing American anticolonialism because ideas flowed back and forth across the Atlantic. So widening American support for decolonization would help in two ways. Firstly, it provided Roosevelt with an excuse to pressure London (by claiming he was simply responding to his electorate).²⁹ Secondly, Britain’s press and universities would clearly pick up such ideas and so hopefully grow British anticolonialism. This would increase the political costs of maintaining an empire. Consequently, Roosevelt’s team set about promoting decolonization.

The seminal moment for putting decolonization onto the global agenda came in July 1941 (five months before America entered the war) when Washington’s Wilsonian-vision for the post-war world was revealed in a Welles speech at the Norwegian embassy broadcast across America and Europe, in 26-languages. Welles’ speech argued for open door trade; restoring independence and sovereignty of nations around the world; plus creating a new League of Nations to ensure collective security.³⁰ This speech not only put Germany and Japan on notice, it also put Britain and France on notice of America’s future intentions. Next came the Atlantic Charter – effectively the founding document of decolonization. Welles was the main driver behind the Atlantic Charter.³¹ Significantly, Under-Secretary of State Welles (not his boss, Hull) accompanied Roosevelt to meet Churchill. The Atlantic Charter emerged as a joint American-British declaration from the Churchill-Roosevelt 1941 Newfoundland meeting. Welles saw this Charter as an opportunity to promote Wilson’s vision and globalize the Monroe Doctrine.³² Roosevelt saw it as a means to ‘free people all over the world from backward colonial policy’ and to promote free trade.³³ Although merely a press release, rather than a formal treaty, the Atlantic Charter was to have far-reaching consequences for the post-war world. Both Welles and Roosevelt knew perfectly well Britain was in a precarious position and desperately needed American assistance in its war with Germany. Welles and Roosevelt took advantage of this,³⁴ getting Britain to commit to clauses dealing with self-determination and open door trade.

Although Churchill made sure the Atlantic Charter never referred to Britain’s Empire, the document effectively undermined this empire (as Welles had intended) by putting self-determination and decolonization onto the world’s agenda. In the decades that followed, this Charter became a document to rally anticolonial forces, and played a decisive role in creating a political climate encouraging the destruction of European imperialism. In South Africa, for example, ANC president, Alfred Xuma appointed a committee to examine the implications of the Atlantic Charter. This committee recognized the revolutionary potential of the USA’s call for decolonization and universal franchise, and so the Atlantic Charter was South Africanized into the ANC’s African claims³⁵ which demanded universal franchise. Another sign of things to come was that Clement Atlee, Britain’s Labour Party leader, announced the Atlantic Charter should be applied to Asians and Africans as well as Europeans.³⁶ Britain’s Colonial Office immediately recognized the dangers this Charter posed to the Empire and recommended the War Cabinet not endorse it.³⁷ Having lost this battle, a shaken Colonial Office began trying to formulate arguments and reforms to save the Empire.

Roosevelt’s decolonization and anti-imperialism campaign

Roosevelt personally played a role in putting decolonization on the agenda through deploying his well-honed news management skills.³⁸ Roosevelt was a media-master – he employed skilled spin-doctors, ran an effective public relations machine³⁹ and developed the art of being personable with journalists, making himself into a media darling. Roosevelt had a proven ability to keep journalists on-side and maintain full control of the news agenda through press conferences, which he manipulated by planting questions.⁴⁰ He also ably deployed the new medium of radio to generate mass approval.⁴¹ Roosevelt used his position as president to make important speeches attacking colonialism;⁴² his media-savviness keeping decolonization on the agenda. He was convinced ‘pitiless publicity’ would force Europe’s imperial powers towards decolonization.⁴³ However, Roosevelt also understood the need not to go too far in personally antagonizing Britain (since America and Britain were World War II allies). Consequently, he creatively deployed other people to mouth harsh anti-imperial messages and pressure Britain, e.g. Wendell Willkie, Henry Wallace, Welles, and (Roosevelt’s Chinese ally) Chiang Kai-shek. Roosevelt also deployed public diplomacy against the British (e.g. Atlantic Charter); and he repeatedly sent US-officials around the globe⁴⁴ to spread the gospel of independence.⁴⁵

In 1942-43 Roosevelt launched an aggressive anticolonial Public Relations exercise using Welles as surrogate. Welles made a series of harsh anti-imperialist pronouncements, authorized by Roosevelt as ‘trial balloons’ on post-war policy.⁴⁶ Consequently, Welles acquired the profile of a leading anti-imperialist spokesman. Welles had always seen the Atlantic Charter as a weapon to weaken Britain’s empire. So following Japan’s defeat of Britain in Singapore Welles deliberately reactivated the Charter and attacked the British Empire during an Arlington Memorial Day address.⁴⁷ Welles stressed the Charter’s principles applied to the whole world. He described World War II as a ‘people’s war’ and called for the complete liberation of all the peoples of the colonial world. Welles said America was fighting the war to end racial discrimination and imperialism and after the war America should lead a process of global reform in collaboration with the Soviets and China. He said America needed to assume the role of global power and build a new world order in which there would be ‘freedom from want.’ Because Welles was Roosevelt’s right hand man London realized this speech should be taken seriously. In his nationally syndicated column, Walter Lippmann noted this was not a utopian speech, but rather signalled serious policy. Welles’ Arlington speech was big news. The New York Times carried the story on page one under the headline ‘Age of Imperialism Ended.’ When Anne McCormick (of Welles’ planning committee) said in her New York Times column the Arlington speech represented a ‘New Deal for the world,’ she articulate the hubris of a rising power in simply assuming Roosevelt’s team had a right to globally impose their Democratic Party’s beliefs. Because Welles wanted the anticolonial message to have affect inside Britain’s empire the US Office of War Information distributed his speech as a press release to hundreds of newspapers across India and had it broadcast on All India Radio. This emboldened India’s nationalists who pursued with vigour their ‘Quit India campaign.’ Inside the State Department Welles now had the post-war planning committees focus their discussions on how to decolonize India and other colonial territories. He told the planners political consciousness favouring independence was springing up across the colonial world and America should seek to lead these movements.⁴⁸

But it was Roosevelt’s use of Wendell Willkie as anti-imperial spokesman that revealed his real brilliance for deploying surrogates to sway public opinion. Willkie had been Roosevelt’s opponent in the 1940 Presidential campaign. What better than to deploy one’s Republican opponent as surrogate spokesman. Consequently, Roosevelt sent Willkie (as his personal representative) on a 1942 world tour. Willkie focussed attention on decolonization in general and India in particular.⁴⁹ As part of Willkie’s entourage, Roosevelt sent two senior propagandists of the Office of War Information (OWI), namely the foreign propaganda supervisor and the director of domestic news⁵⁰ (revealing Roosevelt had both a domestic and international propaganda agenda). Willkie’s global tour was big news every day throughout his trip.⁵¹ Upon returning home Willkie made