Blog #18

The end of colonial empires focuses attention on fundamental contradictions in the entire colonial enterprise. Christianity and Enlightenment thought sat clumsily with the colonial racism, exploitation, and poverty. The democratic values of European states ran counter to the dictatorship of colonial rule and the ideal of national self-determination was at odds with the possession of colonies that were rejected any opportunity to show their national character. The force of nationalism now played a major role in its disintegration. 

Europe had weakened from the world wars while discrediting the sense of European moral superiority. The U.S and the Soviet Union opposed the older European colonial empires even as they created empire like international relationships. In the meantime, the United Nations provided a platform form to conduct anticolonial agitation. All of the contribution to the global illegitimacy of empire, transformed social values that encouraged Africans and Asians to seek political independence. 

Social and economic assets within the colonies generated the human raw material for anticolonial movements. Largely male, had arisen throughout the colonial world because they were familiar with European culture. They were deeply aware of the gap between its values and its practices, they no longer viewed colonial rule as people's progress and they increasingly insisted on immediate independence.