Anti-Colonialism

""ABSTRACT
Fredrik Petersson
Title: “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers”. Willi Münzenberg, the League against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925-1933
On 10 February 1927, the “First International Congress against Imperialism and Colonialism” in Brussels marked the establishment of the anti-imperialist organisation, the League against Imperialism and for National Independence (LAI, 1927-37). The complex preparations for the congress were though initiated already in 1925 by Willi Münzenberg, a German communist and General Secretary of the communist mass organisation, Internationale Arbeiterhilfe (IAH, 1921-35), together with the Communist International (Comintern, 1919-43). Berlin was the centre for the LAI and its International Secretariat (1927-33), a city serving the intentions of the communists to find colonial émigré activists in the Weimar capital, acting as representatives for the anti-colonial movement in Europe after the Great War. With the ascendancy to power of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) on 30 January 1933, the LAI reached an abrupt, but nonetheless, expected end in Berlin. This doctoral thesis examines the role, purpose and functions of a sympathising communist organization (LAI): to act as an intermediary for the Comintern to the colonies. The analysis evaluates the structure and activities of the LAI, and by doing so, establish a complex understanding on one of the most influential communist organisations during the interwar period, which, despite its short existence, assumed a nostalgic reference and historical bond for anti-colonial movements during the transition from colonialism to post-colonialism after the Second World War, e.g. the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955. Fredrik Petersson’s study, based on archives in Moscow, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, and Stockholm, uncovers why the Comintern established and supported the LAI and its anti-imperialist agenda, disclosing a complicated undertaking, characterised by conflict and the internal struggle for power, involving structural constraints and individual ambitions defined by communist ideology and strategy.
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"Poco a poco va ganando fuerza la necesidad de entender y estudiar los procesos coloniales en la Antigüedad desde una perspectiva que vaya más allá de las teorías aculturacionistas, lo que conlleva la necesidad de emplear enfoques teóricos como el postcolonialismo, en lo referente a las interacciones que se produjeron durante los contactos que pueblos, como griegos o romanos, mantuvieron con muchas de las sociedades con las que tuvieron contacto, a través de los diversos asentamientos que en aquellas regiones se establecieron desde época temprana.

Los procesos de construcción identitaria pueden, así, ponerse en relación con los conflictos inherentes a los desarrollos de sociedades coloniales, expresados muchas veces a través de cultos, ritos y mitos. Cualquier tipo de encuentro cultural representa un proceso complejo, a todos los niveles, entre grupos sociales, que debe abordarse lejos de las teorías basadas en la influencia unidireccional que, por este motivo, tienden a realizar un nivel de análisis superficial donde muchas facetas de interrelación se dejan de lado o se niegan, pero de las cuales tenemos noticias gracias a las fuentes clásicas y arqueológicas. Es necesario intentar ahondar en el punto de vista de los colonizados, en la medida en que ello nos sea posible (Loomba, 1998), dado que es lógico pensar en la existencia de una transferencia multilateral de ideas, costumbres, etc., entre los sujetos que mantuvieron un tipo de contacto prolongado o, al menos, regular, sin que tengamos que entender a los colonizados como meros receptores pasivos.

La teoría postcolonial ha surgido con fuerza para afrontar esa nueva concepción de los procesos de interacción cultural; sin embargo, ¿se ha logrado abandonar por completo las reminiscencias relacionadas con el marco conceptual de la sociedad que intenta definir al “Otro”? ¿Podemos emplear términos como aculturación a la hora de definir un proceso colonial sin que ellos mismos conlleven cierta carga ideológica? No es mi intención dar respuesta aquí a preguntas tan importantes y que, aún hoy, generan un intenso debate, sino sólo exponer el proceso de surgimiento de la teoría postcolonial como un nuevo enfoque teórico surgido de una realidad contemporánea y aplicado a procesos de interacción cultural colonial en diversas épocas.
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There is a rich intellectual history to the development of anti-colonial thought and practice. In discussing the politics of knowledge production, this collection borrows from and builds upon this intellectual traditional to offer understandings of the macro-political processes and structures of education delivery (e.g., social organization of knowledge, culture, pedagogy and resistant politics).  The contributors raise key issues regarding the contestation of knowledge, as well as the role of cultural and social values in understanding the way power shapes everyday relations of politics and subjectivity.  In reframing anti-colonial thought and practice, this book reclaims the power of critical, oppositional discourse and theory for educational transformation. Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance, includes some the most current theorizing around anti-colonial practice, written specifically for this collection.  Each of the essays extends the terrain of the discussion, of what constitutes anti-colonialism.  Among the many discursive highlights is the interrogation of the politics of embodied knowing, the theoretical distinctions and connections between anti-colonial thought and post-colonial theory, and the identification of the particular lessons of anti-colonial theory for critical educational practice.  Essays explore such key issues as the challenge of articulating anti-colonial thought as an epistemology of the colonized, anchored in the indigenous sense of collective and common colonial consciousness; the conceptualization of power configurations embedded in ideas, cultures and histories of marginalized communities; the understanding of indigeneity as pedagogical practice; and the pursuit of agency, resistance and subjective politics through anti-colonial learning.  The book is relevant for students, teachers, community/social workers and field practitioners interested in pursuit of education for social transformation. It is a must read for students of sociology, sociology of education, anthropology, political science and history.

The War of 1812 was more about the expansion of the United States into Canada and Florida than it was about freedom of the seas. The main support for the war came from the frontier regions in the West rather than the maritime region in New England. Vageries in the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase led to the United States annexed West and East Florida and arranging for a joint occupation of the Oregon Territory. Meanwhile in Latin America, Napoleon's invasion of Spain and placing his brother on the Spanish throne provided the opportunity for the Spanish colonies in Latin America to declare their independence. The paper compares Simon Bolivar to George Washington and Napoleon, all three military leaders, but with different views about government. Finally, the paper views the Monroe doctrine in terms of what William Appleman Williams termed "imperial anticolonialism."

Somalia is generally thought of as a homogenous society, with a common Arabic ancestry, a shared culture of nomadism and one Somali mother tongue. This study challenges this myth. Using the Jareer/Bantu as a case study, the book shows how the Negroid physical features of this ethnic group has become the basis for ethnic marginalization, stigma, social exclusion and apartheid in Somalia. The book is another contribution to the recent deconstruction of the perceived Somali homogeneity and self-same assertions. It argues that the Somalis, just like most societies, employ multiple levels of social and ethnic distinctions, one of which is the Jareer versus Jileec divide. Dr. Eno successfully portrays another Somalia, in which a mythical homogeneity masks the oppression and social exclusion suffered by some ethnic groups in the country

This paper examines Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only as an expression of natural rights, but also as a justification of the first anti-colonial revolution. It also shows how Jefferson's declaration influenced Lafayette's draft of the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens. However, Lafayette, who fought alongside Washington in the American Revolution, sided with the royalists during the French Revolution, favoring a constituional monarchy. The paper also explores the similarity in thought between Jefferson and Thomas Paine, both being Deists as well as republicans. Like Lafayette, Paine who took part in both the American and French Revolutions, but he broke with the Jacobins over the issue of regicide. Finally, the paper explores how the French Revolution influenced the Haitian Revolution, even though in the complicated politics of this French colony in the Caribbean, Toussaint L'Ouverture navigated a course between the British, the Spaniards (who occupied the eastern part of the island of Hispanola), and the French. Since it was in part a slave rebellion, rather than an anticolonial revolution, Thomas Jefferson refused to recognize formally the legitimacy of the Haitian Revolution. When Napoleon overturned Toussaint and sought to reinstitute slavery, the island finally achieved its independence. It was Napoleon's failure to retain control over Haiti that convinced him to sell Lousiana to the United States.