Happy Birthday Jamaica! The end of colonialism

"In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." And, for the next 450+ years, Western Europeans accumulated, at one time or another, dominion over the vast majority of land and peoples of the earth. Today is the 50th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule in Jamaica. As such, it is a fitting occasion for a brief discussion of one of the major international themes of the 1960s – the end of political colonialism.

By the 19th Century, the focus of colonial expansion had shifted from the Americas to Africa and Asia.  The British consolidated their hold on the Indian subcontinent, while dividing up Polynesia, Micronesia, the Middle East, Africa and parts of the Far East, mainly with France.  By the beginning of World War I, colonies belonging to England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Italy could be found throughout the world.  In 1922, Great Britain, with its roughly 43 million citizens, controlled almost a quarter of the land area of the Earth, with a total population of more that 450 million people – 20% of the world’s inhabitants. 

India Independence Day celebration- August 15, 1947

The Versailles Treaty that ended World War I, with its Wilsonian emphasis on political self-determination, was probably the real beginning of the end, philosophically, for 19th Century colonialism.  World War II certainly marked the start of its decline in fact.  The late 1940s saw the British depart from India (“the jewel in the crown”) in 1947, and from Palestine in 1948.  The pace picked up rapidly, sometimes spurred by revolutionary/terrorist movements (such as Palestine and French Algeria), but more often by peaceful withdrawal motivated by financial exhaustion, political agitation at home, and the growing international stigma associated with the system. 

 With apologies to Jamaica, let's use Africa as a convenient historical example.  Of the roughly 50 African colonies formerly controlled by European powers, almost 2/3s of them achieved their independence in the 1960s (more than half of those in 1960 alone).  The four African colonies that were liberated in 1962 were:

Rwanda, former Belgian colony, on July 1, 1962
Burundi, former Belgian colony, on July 1, 1962
Algeria, former French colony, on July 1, 1962
Uganda, former British colony, on October 9, 1962

While many of these new nations achieved stability, the avalanche of independence that swept along the others left many without the political background and infrastructure necessary for effective self-governance.   Adding to that unpreparedness was the economic chaos frequently caused by the abrupt separation from their former colonial systems.  Also, in many cases, the new nations merely mirrored the administrative units established by the controlling power and did not actually reflect the ethic divisions upon which true nationality-based sovereignty could grow.  The resulting politically and economic instability contributed to and, as we will see later in the decade, became part of another of the major themes of the 1960s, the Cold War.

Goodbye, Norma Jeane

Fifty years ago today, on August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the ultimate sex symbol of all times, was found dead in her home from an overdose of barbiturates.  She was only 36.  

The circumstances of her death are one of the recurring fields for conspiracy theory.  An FBI file, which was disclosed in 2006, contained a report which speculated that then Attorney General Robert Kennedy had been having an affair with Monroe and that he promised to leave his wife and marry her.  According to the report, when Monroe decided that Kennedy had no intention of doing so, she threatened to make the affair public.  Since she had a history of publicity-seeking suicide attempts, she was allegedly urged to do so again, but this time she was allowed to die.  Not only Robert Kennedy, but actor Peter Lawford, Monroe’s psychiatrist, and others were also named as conspirators.  The report notes that the source of the story was unknown and the accuracy could not be authenticated.  This is only one of the many theories that add a provocative twist to this sad chapter.

As we’ve observed before in this blog, Monroe’s story really belongs mostly to the 1950s.  By 1962, she had developed the reputation as difficult to work with and unreliable, and only two of her movies were released after 1959.  Her importance to the story of the 1960s, aside from the historical significance of her death, was as a transitional symbol.  From the conservative, “Ozzie and Harriet” 1950s to the sexual revolution, “Love the One You’re With” of the end of the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe’s none-too-subtle sexuality clearly represents an important intermediate step.