A huge proportion of the world was still under direct colonial control after WWII. Like most of Africa, swathes of Asia. Pick a country on a map and look at the date it was granted independence. I can almost guarantee that it will be later than you expected. Post-WWII is not a low point for colonialism.
I would further argue that many of the countries that were granted independence only received the ability to install administrators who were of an indigenous ethnic group. Trade agreements and terms dictated by loans from groups like the international monetary fund still directed a large proportion of domestic and foreign policy. So even though the government of a country may have had a constitution and veneer of democracy it was still operating at the behest of foreign interests (ex. Shell in Nigeria, Firestone in Liberia, Exxonmobil in Indonesia, etc.), who propped up puppet leaders that allowed them to continue to extract resources under the same or similar agreements they enjoyed under colonialism.
I was thinking creating new colonies, not maintaining existing ones. Ofcourse dismantling colonial government structures is also important, but arguably not creating new ones is the most important first step. Just pulling out all presence from all colonies over night would have most likely been disastrous for the natives too in most cases. But yeah the West definitely overstayed for far too long in many areas of the world and still does to this day.
One of the more jarring facts is that the so-called “post-colonial” era was more of a move to outsourced administration of colonies than actual independence. The fact that “intervention” is still performed basically only when some area has valuable resources or some kind of strategical advantage really says it all.
A huge proportion of the world was still under direct colonial control after WWII. Like most of Africa, swathes of Asia. Pick a country on a map and look at the date it was granted independence. I can almost guarantee that it will be later than you expected. Post-WWII is not a low point for colonialism.
I would further argue that many of the countries that were granted independence only received the ability to install administrators who were of an indigenous ethnic group. Trade agreements and terms dictated by loans from groups like the international monetary fund still directed a large proportion of domestic and foreign policy. So even though the government of a country may have had a constitution and veneer of democracy it was still operating at the behest of foreign interests (ex. Shell in Nigeria, Firestone in Liberia, Exxonmobil in Indonesia, etc.), who propped up puppet leaders that allowed them to continue to extract resources under the same or similar agreements they enjoyed under colonialism.
I was thinking creating new colonies, not maintaining existing ones. Ofcourse dismantling colonial government structures is also important, but arguably not creating new ones is the most important first step. Just pulling out all presence from all colonies over night would have most likely been disastrous for the natives too in most cases. But yeah the West definitely overstayed for far too long in many areas of the world and still does to this day.
One of the more jarring facts is that the so-called “post-colonial” era was more of a move to outsourced administration of colonies than actual independence. The fact that “intervention” is still performed basically only when some area has valuable resources or some kind of strategical advantage really says it all.