Following World War II, a large part of the world was in the hands of European powers, established as colonies in the previous centuries. As one of the nations that came out on top of the geopolitical situation, the United States was looked to with hope by aspiring nationalist movements but also seen as a potential source by European allies in the war as a potential supporter of the movement to restore the tarnished empires to their former glory. Decolonization is essentially any process where one state is moving from being a colony within a formal empire to national independence. And we use it mainly to talk about the end of Europe’s modern continent expanding, imperial system. This a process that began with the United States gaining independence in the 18th century, but when historians and most people talk about it, they’re talking about the era of decolonization, which is the period after the Second World War, when local nationalist movements forced various European empires to leave Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
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America was willing to sacrifice short-term economic interests and the defense of particular companies. Economic recovery in the capitalist world, combined with increasingly globalized telecommunications, advertised the West’s advantages far more effectively than any propaganda. In pre-contact Hawaii, he reminds us, all land belonged to the king. The kanaka, kept in their place by an elaborate religious system of taboos called kapu, handed over the majority of products they harvested from this land to the chiefs who held it as royal vassals. Traditional Hawaiian society was brutally hierarchical; it practiced human sacrifice as a means of gaining power from defeated enemies and punishing kapu violators.American-style capitalism began to make disastrous inroads on Hawaiian autonomy after the passage in 1850 of the Kuleana Act, which gave the kanaka ownership of land they had tended for generations, and the Alien Land Ownership Act, which allowed foreigners to buy it from them. This unfortunate conjunction, Haley writes, “had the net effect of evicting thousands of native Hawaiians from the countryside and leaving them worse off than they were before.” Concurrently, the whaling industry went into terminal decline, and sugar plantations came to dominate the Hawaiian landscape and economy.
What are some examples of how COLONIZATION OR GLOBALIZATION is creating challenges in your own island, community, state, nation that relates to this UN Goal / Issue?
Why is this something to consider: Do you see a personal connection to this (and please try to find at least one) - what is it and why?
What, if anything, are you learning about Colonization or Globalization and how has your understanding of the impacts of Colonization and/or Globalization perhaps influenced the way you see your group topic as a challenge or problem to be addressed?
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AuthorMy name is Curtis Lowe. I am in 10th grade at Kamehameha Schools. Archives
March 2019
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