On October 7th, 2023, Hamas (the de facto government of Gaza) attacked Israel (which nominally owns but does not govern Gaza). Since then, we’ve all been hearing a lot about “decolonization.” Literally, this means the process of ending colonialism. A colony is a territory subject to rule by a foreign state. The persons exported from that state are colonists.
In most meaningful senses of the word, Gaza ceased to be a colony in 2005 when Israel unilaterally withdrew settlements and turned over governance of Gaza to local Palestinian authorities. Since that time, it has been a de facto independent state. Yet many postmodern academics celebrated the attacks by Hamas as an act of decolonization or decolonial resistance.
In what follows, I’ll discuss where these ideas come from and why they are misguided, both in general and in terms of their specific application to the present Israel-Gaza conflict. (See also my previous piece discussing the history of the region.)
The breaking of the British Empire
The greatest imperial power of the 20th century was the British Empire, which at its peak governed almost a quarter of the world.1 The largest colonial possession of the British Empire was the British Raj. India today has the largest population, one of the five largest economies, and is one of only five countries that actively build and operate aircraft carriers.2
India had effectively been part of the British Empire since the 1700s.3 Indians had rebelled violently against the rule of the British repeatedly to no avail. When India gained independence, it could be credited mainly to a campaign of non-violent resistance spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi. A disciplined Indian independence movement faced off against violent colonial repression with non-violent tactics and won.4
With the notable exceptions of the United States (1775-1783), Afghanistan (1919), and Ireland (1919-1921), organized violent rebellion against British colonial rule was generally ineffectual (as in India in 1857) or counterproductive (as in Kenya 1952-1960).5 Largely nonviolent protests, work stoppages, and polite requests from local elected governments were much more effective.6 Out of somewhere between sixty and seventy countries formed from British colonies, only three gained independence through organized violence.7
A strong argument can (and has) been made that in general, nonviolent action was more effective than violent action within the 20th century, and few cases are more clear-cut than the dismantling of the British colonial empire after the formation of the League of Nations.
Frantz Fanon and the French
The idea that violence in the pursuit of decolonization is good and necessary was popularized in academic circles through the work of Frantz Fanon (mostly posthumously). The Wretched of the Earth is required reading for any student of postcolonial thought and has earned roughly 50,000 scholarly citations.8 The analysis in The Wretched of the Earth is based largely on the example of Algeria.
While it is true that the French were more reluctant to give up their colonial possessions than the British, eighteen other French colonies in Africa became independent nations from 1956 to 1967 as the result of normal democratic and diplomatic processes, fourteen in one large wave in 1960 before Algeria’s independence in 1962. The only French colony to attain independence from France by force of arms in the 20th century was North Vietnam.9
While the claim that Algeria’s independence required “cleansing” violence cannot be tested directly, Algeria’s post-colonial outcome was not better than peers with less violent independence movements.10 In spite of Fanon’s emotional rhetoric in favor of violence, there’s little reason to believe that Ghandi’s tactics would have been any less effective at swaying either international leaders or French public opinion.11
The big picture of decolonization
Violent rebellion, especially with the kind of mass peasant mobilization envisioned by Fanon, was not the key to decolonization.
Of over a hundred countries formed from colonies of Britain, France, the United States, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States during the 20th century, fewer than ten gained independence in the way envisioned by Fanon.12 Far from being the necessity claimed by Fanon, successful violent rebellion by natives was the rare exception. Most independent nations today do not owe their formation to violence.
That is not to say that violent rebellion by natives was the most important force for 20th-century decolonization behind nonviolent negotiation and resistance. Of those former colonies which do owe their formation to violence, the large majority became independent because of action by other great powers rather than because of internal rebellions.13
Arguably the Soviet republics outside of Russia could be considered Russian colonies, along with Soviet satellites. In that case, the fall of the Soviet Union would be classified as a decolonization event similar in scope to all successful violent native rebellions of the 20th century combined.
The specific case of Israel
In World War I, Ottoman and German colonial possessions became mandates under the League of Nations, to be administered by Britain, France, and other allied powers. Former Ottoman possessions were supposed to eventually become independent states; France divided its Middle Eastern mandate into a Christian-plurality region (Lebanon) and a Muslim-majority region (Syria), while Britain’s mandates were divided into two Arab regions (Iraq, Transjordan) and one region designated as the site of a future Jewish state (Palestine).
The other four Class A mandates were granted significant levels of local autonomy in the 1920s and 1930s and full official independence no later than 1946. Significant tension in Mandatory Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews left the British unwilling to grant autonomy to locals until 1948, when they unilaterally withdrew.
The newly-formed autonomous Israel was not subject to rule by any foreign state, and thus could not be considered a colony. When Israel occupied the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza in 1967, and began to place settlers in those regions, that settlement activity was arguably “colonization,” but Israel withdrew all settlements from Gaza in 2005 and ceased attempting to govern Gaza in 2005.
The argument over Israeli occupation being “colonial” is one that has broad bearing on the rest of the world. Because Israel is not a colony itself, the territories are adjacent, and the citizens of Israel are largely native to the region, Israel’s annexation is materially very similar to many other wartime conquests. Was it “colonial” for France to annex Alsace-Lorraine, or the Soviet Union to annex Königsberg? What about China’s invasion of Tibet? Was Azerbaijan’s recent invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh a colonial act? Answering “no” to some of these examples poses problems for the classification of Israel’s conquests as colonial.14
While it is possible to claim that the Golan Heights and West Bank are colonies of Israel using a broad definition of colonialism, Israel had withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. Hamas’s attack was not a colonial revolt; it was an invasion. What we see right now in 2023 is not an internal conflict; it is a war between two neighboring states.
Nor is the “occupied territory” invaded by Hamas “colonial” territory by any reasonable definition of the term. Hamas’s soldiers attacked territory that has been part of Israel since its founding in 1948. Israel itself is not a colony of any foreign nation, and the aim of Hamas is not resistance against an occupying nation or even the establishment of enduring Palestinian autonomy, but explicitly genocide of a neighboring nation.
Even if one believes that Fanon’s analysis of Algeria was correct for Algeria in particular, the broader context of nonviolent decolonization elsewhere means there are few if any good reasons to believe that violent terrorist attacks would be more effective at advancing the interests of the Palestinian people than a disciplined nonviolent movement. Politically and culturally, Israel is similar to the developed American and European 20th-century societies that proved responsive to nonviolent activism.
Postmodern anti-pacifism
In the 1990s, American activists who embraced Fanon’s ideas were, much like the Critical Race Theory movement, a small fringe group, a visible minority within the academic left but with limited influence. As with many other postmodern movements and schools of thought, postcolonialists rose in prominence within academia in the early 2000s, and postcolonial beliefs became widely endorsed among young college-educated people during the 2010s.
Postmodern thought tends to elevate personal stories (micronarratives) over scientific and empirical study (grand narratives). Inevitably, since those stories are in opposition, postmodern groups select some key stories to elevate and use as templates for how to answer questions about justice and activism. While older generations of liberal American activists embraced the factual account of how Gandhi broke the back of the world’s most powerful empire, the postmodern American left has brushed that story to the side in favor of Fanon’s passionate but incomplete story about Algerian independence.
The historical reality is that violent rebellions of the 20th century were neither more effective nor more morally pure than nonviolent movements. Fanon was wrong.
The fact that Hamas has pursued violent terror in pursuit of its goals is worthy of condemnation; it is also the direct cause of the loss of autonomy that Gaza faces today. In 2005, Gaza was liberated from Israeli rule; in 2023, Hamas chose to plunge Gaza’s existence as an independent state into peril with an attack that was neither morally effective nor strategically sound.
Both in terms of land area and share of the global population.
Economy 5th place by nominal GDP, 3rd place by purchasing power parity. Other nations currently operating domestically-built fixed-wing aircraft carriers include the US, UK, France, and China, with Russia having exited the exclusive carrier club in 2018.
Exact dates vary, as the East India Company was a complicated creature.
The most difficult part of nonviolent movements is arguably the discipline required to be willing to face violence with nonviolence.
Kenya and Malaya (now Malaysia and Singapore) both were cases in which violent rebellion by some groups led to protracted British colonial rule.
One particularly straightforward example of how smoothly independence from the British Empire could work after Ghandi had broken its back: Ghana’s local government politely asked for independence in August of 1956. The British government politely agreed in September of 1956 after minimal deliberation.
Precise counts will vary depending on definitions of colony and independent.
For context on this figure, various contemporary papers that won Nobel prizes around the time The Wretched of the Earth was published (1961) have generally no more than a tenth as many citations. Fanon has about 130,000 scholarly citations in total as of 2023.
Vietnam was liberated from French rule by the Japanese, with the French Indochina protectorates being declared an “associated state” by the French in 1946, a status expected to involve significant autonomy. In 1954, the French not only recognized the independence of North Vietnam, controlled by the Viet Minh rebels, but also granted independence to the areas they had retained military control over (Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam).
Algeria has experienced a bloody civil war (1992-2002) involving brutal massacres of civilians. The other two former French colonies in North Africa, Tunisia and Morocco, have generally had better outcomes.
Pointedly, Fanon’s works do not mention Gandhi at all, in spite of the fact that Indian independence was (and remains) the largest single episode of decolonization. His analysis, such as it is, betrays no awareness of the success of nonviolent tactics. Nor was Algerian independence the result of military victories by Algerian separatists; the French military had the strategic upper hand throughout the conflict. Internal French opposition to colonialism was decisive.
North Vietnam and Indonesia can be considered arguable cases based on the fact that they were first liberated by the Japanese, but are the two most significant cases of violent decolonization. Portugal’s three African colonies engaged in successful violent rebellions, and organized violence featured prominently in Algeria and Ireland even if it was not militarily decisive. It’s worth noting that Portugal, in contrast to most other 20th-century European colonial powers, was ruled by a military dictatorship.
The British and the French liberating Ottoman, German, and Italian possessions, the Japanese liberating European possessions, and the United States liberating Japanese possessions. If we look at earlier periods, the role of great powers in liberating each others’ colonies remains significant throughout the later colonial period, such as France assisting in the formation of the United States, the United States playing a role in dismantling the Spanish colonial empire, et cetera.
In general, victors seizing territory at the conclusion of a war has been the norm of warfare. Israel seizing territory from Syria, Jordan, and Egypt in 1967 was very ordinary, especially given the presence of ancient historical claims. The only thing unusual given the context is that Israel did not expel the existing population en masse at that time. Most modern discussion of colonialism focuses on relationships mediated by distance, e.g., European colonies in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas.
Examples of military conquest or the displacement, exploitation, and mistreatment of ethnic minorities by Russia and China in contiguous territories tend not to be discussed as forms of colonialism, even when the historical claims are more clearly imperial in nature.