NATIONALISM: OBSTACLES ALONG THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

Nationalist ideas and movements were driving forces behind the independence wave of phase 5.²⁰ Yet the limitations of anticolonial nationalism and the obstacles non­European nationalists confronted when trying to displace their rulers were serious.

Non-European nationalism, as defined here, identifies the colony as the na­tional unit that is entitled to form an autonomous state.²¹ Typically the nation com­prises all residents of a colony regardless of race. The nation may also be equated, however, with all its non-European or indigenous residents. Given that the vast majority in phase 5 new states fits one or both of the latter categories, non-European nationalism is democratic in aspiration, its inclination toward inclusiveness con­trasting sharply with the exclusivist, antidemocratic premises of colonialism. Its inclusiveness also sets it apart from settler nationalism, which from phase 2 through 4 (in the white dominions) and 5 (in Rhodesia) tended to define the nation as residents of European descent. Where settlers constituted the vast majority of the population their nationalism was consistent with democratic, albeit racially discrim­inatory, forms of government. Where settlers were in the minority their nationalism shared colonialism’s antidemocratic character.

Non-European nationalism was unlike collaboration and accommodation in opposing foreign control of a colony’s leading institutions, particularly in the public sector, and in proposing that the nation’s citizens control these institutions. It dif­fered from exit, avoidance, sabotage, and displacement in directly and openly chal­lenging the holders of power. Nationalists inveighed against individual and collective self-abasement, preaching confidently that the nation could do a better job of gov­erning itself than foreigners.

In most territories gaining independence in phase 5, a substantial time gap separated imposition of European rule from the spread of nationalist ideas and movements. In Portugal’s African colonies the interval extended from early phase 1 to the 1950s and 1960s, in many Caribbean islands from mid-phase 1 to phase 4. If one dates British intrusion in Indian affairs to the 1750s, more than a century elapsed before the inc was formed in 1885 and more than a century and a half before it became a mass movement and declared independence as the goal in 1929. In sub- Saharan Africa nationalist mobilization in the late 1940s and 1950s. came four to six decades after European rule was imposed. Once articulated, nationalist ideas did not automatically generate mass support and in many instances were contested by movements appealing to other identities. The puzzle is why nationalism took so long to emerge, and why when it did the journey to the political kingdom was often long and hazardous.

One answer is that nationalist ideas could not gain widespread acceptance until colonial rule was firmly consolidated. Because a territory*s non-European resi­dents differed from each other in many ways, such as language and social custom, if they were to press at an early point for self-determination they would appeal to multiple selves and hence split colonial society into hostile fragments. Not until later, when foreign rule impacted the lives of ordinary people, could they take seriously the argument that their shared political subjugation was more important than the fac­tors keeping them apart. Asking residents of a territory whose boundaries were externally and often arbitrarily imposed to think of themselves as one nation was asking a lot.

Once nationalist ideas took hold the most obvious obstacle to their spread was opposition from government, to say nothing of settlers. Top administrators saw nationalists as critics with dubious credentials, who applied inappropriate political standards and persistently invented or exaggerated facts. Even worse, nationalists aspired to the jobs power holders occupied. Officials with careers at stake and a civilizational project at risk were not about to let themselves be displaced without a struggle. Their aim was to weaken and divide and divert nationalist movements, if not repress them. Metropoles with no plans to devolve power to colonial residents favored outright repression. Examples from phase 4 and the early years of phase 5 were the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies, Belgians in the Congo, the Portuguese in all their colonies, and the French in Indochina, Algeria, and Madagascar. When a movement was declared illegal, its leaders jailed and followers harassed, its headquar­ters infiltrated by spies, all protest marches and demonstrations banned, the press censored, and public speech unprotected, the obstacle course to national liberation was formidable indeed.

The British, by contrast, having devised in phase 3 a policy of shifting power to settler communities that culminated in the Statute of Westminster (1931), were open to pressures from colonies of occupation to apply similar policies to non-Europeans. In the typical British colony it was easier than in territories ruled by other metropoles for nationalists in phases 4 and 5 to form legally recognized organizations and address public gatherings. Political parties could contend for votes in elections to colonial legislatures assigned meaningful policy-making responsibilities.²²

But London’s willingness to transfer power to nationalist politicians should not be overstated.

In general, Britain’s strategy in phase 5 was to delay the transfer of power as long as was prudent. One part of the strategy, paradoxically, was to insist that its successors prove they represented a plurality if not a majority of the population. Nationalists could not come to power on a vehement claim to represent the voiceless masses. They had to go out and win contested elections organized and supervised by colonial administrators. Both sides converged in appealing to the popular will as arbiter of a colony’s future.

Regardless of the metropole in charge and the extent of opposition from above, nationalists confronted additional obstacles. They had to convince substantial num­bers of people that their analysis of history and the contemporary political situation was valid and that their proposed plan of action made sense.

Many of the early nationalists were physically, culturally, and psychologically distanced from the people they sought to reach. Nationalists clustered in cities, while the vast majority in most colonies was dispersed throughout the countryside. Where transport was rudimentary it proved difficult if not impossible to reach outlying areas. Where people spoke many languages a speaker might address an audience in a tongue it did not understand—and hope for an accurate translation. The magnitude of the challenge was concisely expressed by Julius Nyerere, founder of Tanganyika’s nationalist party tanu: “Other nations try to reach the moon, tanu tries to reach the villages.” For Nyerere the two tasks were equivalent in magnitude, scope, and complexity.

Nationalists tended to assume that the desperate poverty of the masses made for a high level of discontent that could be easily tapped and mobilized for political ends. But it was not that simple. As Eric Hoffer has observed, “Misery does not automatically generate discontent; nor is the intensity of discontent directly propor­tional to the degree of misery. Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bear­able; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems within reach.”²³ Hoffer’s words suggest why nationalist leaders were often angrier at colonial ride than were the ordinary folk they set out to reach. The initial challenge was to describe reality in a way that made the audience as angry as the speaker was. Only then could popular discontent be channeled in the desired direction.

A second obstacle is implicit in the earlier discussion of coping mechanisms. The sheer number and variety of options made it likely that colonized people would move not in one direction but many.

A third obstacle is implicit in the observations of this and earlier chapters. Phases 4 and 5 witnessed a proliferation of collective identities. Some had precolonial roots. Others resulted from the penetrative activities of public, private profit, and religious sector institutions. Many identities combined old and new, as when small ethnic groups and subcastes banded together to gain better access to public sector jobs and social services. What outsiders called traditional groupings were often recent creations responding to new forms of competitive interaction among the colonized.²⁴ Organizations arose to speak on behalf of racial and ethnic groups, residents of districts and regions, religious communities, castes and subcastes, oc­cupational categories like plantation workers, miners, traders, farmers, teachers, junior civil servants, and the like.

These organizations were not necessarily rivals of nationalist movements. Af­ter all, people can hold several identities simultaneously. Ardent nationalists saw no incompatibility between their appeals to national unity and the undeniable fact that as individuals they too belonged to certain linguistic or religious groups and not others. In numerous cases organizations representing specific groups functioned as local level building blocks for nationalist parties. The trade union movement, for example, was the base for the Parti Democratique de Guinee, a farmer’s association for the Parti Democratique de la Còte d’Ivoire.²⁵ In any event few nonnationalist organizations went so far as to press for their own independent state. The Muslim League’s call in 1940 to carve an independent Pakistan out of British India was the rare exception, not the general rule.

These points granted, nationalists often found themselves competing with groups they deemed either subnational or antinational. Nationalists were trying to reach the same people the other organizations were eager to proselytize. The target audience was unlikely to accept and act positively on all messages sent its way. Could the call for national self-determination even be heard amid the cacophony of voices appealing to multiple selves?

Especially worrisome to nationalists were movements that mobilized large groups concentrated in distinctly defined regions within a territory. The fear was that such groups might come to regard themselves as nations, entitled to their own independent states and capable of forming them. A recurring nationalist nightmare was civil war prompted by the attempted secession of would-be nations within the larger one. A version of this scenario did in fact play out when India was partitioned at independence. After independence, secessionist revolts shook Nigeria, the Congo (Zaire), and Pakistan.

Some nationalist movements were weakened by being perceived as agents of one group’s political agenda. In India from the late 1930s onward, M. A. Jinnah was able to rally many Muslims to forsake the inc for the Muslim League. Jinnah’s argument was that the inc, for all its inclusive rhetoric, was a communal party representing the Hindu majority. Jinnah was disturbed by Gandhi’s reliance on the Hindi language and Hindu religious symbolism to mobilize the peasant masses. The Muslim League leader derisively termed Gandhi “that Hindu revivalist.”²⁶ Jinnah feared that if the inc controlled an independent government Muslims would be permanently marginalized. From the inc’s perspective, Jinnah’s call for a separate Muslim state delayed and ultimately derailed the drive for a united, independent, secular India.

In Nigeria, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (ncnc) failed to gain broad support in all parts of the country consistent with its self-image. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who became ncnc president shortly after its formation in 1944, was a dedicated nationalist who eventually became Nigeria’s first president. But he was also an Igbo, and Igbos were the party’s most active supporters. Azikiwe seriously hurt his cause by becoming president of the Ibo State Union in 1948 and declaring, “It would appear that the God of Africa has created the Ibo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of the ages.”²⁷ This convinced prominent fig­ures in other regions that the ncnc was really an ethnic chauvinist organization masquerading under nationalist colors. Subsequent formation of the Action Group and Northern People’s Congress to represent other ethnic and regional interests slowed the drive for independence in Africa’s most populous territory.

Nationalists did not need to capture the institutional heights of all three sectors in order to gain independence. Taking over top executive positions in the public sector was a necessary and often sufficient condition. In the struggle to control this sector European power holders enjoyed a clear institutional advantage. The bu­reaucracies they directed reached throughout the colony and covered a wide range of activities, including ones people wanted like social services and utilities. Taxes were a steady revenue base, enough to pay high salaries to civil servants.

In sharp contrast, the typical nationalist movement found it difficult to set up and staff branches throughout the territory. It lacked the expertise of specialists in public policy issues, and it had no regular source of income. Some non-Europeans might occupy midlevel civil service positions, but their numbers were usually small and their policy-making experience minimal. A political party might hold seats in an elected legislature. But even in the most favorable situation—where the Westminster model was being transferred—a legislature’s powers were far more limited than those of its European role model. In the worst cases a movement had to operate under­ground, its leaders behind bars or continually on the run. In all cases nationalists lacked experience in governance. All they could do was promise they would do a better job if they came to power. But the promise of performance is not the same as demonstrated performance. Nationalists scored high on the will for political auton­omy, but their institutional capacity to achieve it was limited, especially when com­pared to that of rulers they opposed.