In today's episode on Empire and Decoloninsation, our podcast will be considering the following question where the colonial regimes that held power in Asia and Africa in the final decades of empire, weak and doomed to fail. Why or why not?

In today's episode on Empire and Decoloninsation, our podcast will be considering the following question where the colonial regimes that held power in Asia and Africa in the final decades of empire, weak and doomed to fail. Why or why not? Today we'll be considering this question in relation to the British Empire in Singapore, the French Empire in Vietnam and finally the French Empire in Algeria, considering the ways in which empire was doomed to fail, the impacts of the Second World War and these varying colonial regimes, as well as specific political instances through which empire was weakened in each of these countries.

I'll be starting off by considering whether the British colonial regime in Singapore was weak and doomed to fail in the final decades of empire.

The way in which Britain viewed and presented to these events does not suggest that Britain viewed empire in Singapore as being doomed to fail. However, it must be considered that Britain at this point would have been unlikely to spare it a rhetorical weakness, regardless of the reality of the situation, the language used in the source demonstrates this through a focus on loyalty and triumph following disaster for the weakening state of the British Empire in these final decades, had begun with the fall of Singapore.

This quotation presents a differing view of the strength or weaknesses of Britain as an empire. Now defeated, Britain was no longer perceived as strong. This was a common problem facing empire following the Second World War. The balance of power had shifted world wide and colonial regimes were often met with more resistance. The process of decolonisation was already beginning.

Over a decade later, Britain had not regained strength as an Empire.

As in other Asian countries, colonial status is considered to derive the people of self respect.

This primary source clearly demonstrates that whilst Britain still held power throughout the colonial regime, its time was limited.

And while Singapore now had some form of representation, the country had not yet become independent, and the colonial regime of a weakened Britain was harsh in many aspects. The use of policing is a key example of acts of violence within the colonial regime. In Decolonization and Conflict: colonial comparisons and legacies, Thomas and Carless examined this violence. Carless considers the actions of the British Empire in Singapore focus on this.

Another place to consider when questioning whether colonisation was doomed to fail towards the end of the 20th century is Vietnam.

Under the thumb of French colonisers, the Vietnamese people became outsiders in their own lands, strangers to lives that were rightfully theirs. Yes, they had experienced different ways of colonisation for many years before the French took over.

But as Bradley notes, whilst the experience significant challenges with the Chinese, Vietnam had survived by being quote, organised in ways that worked the limits of their gaps between rich and poor that grow communal land. 25% of village land was periodically redistributed To support poor and limbless peasants.

The alterations made by the French colonisers left Vietnamese people struggling and after years of the profits made on Vietnamese soil being taken to benefit the French, the Vietnamese citizens were desperate for change.

As I see it, my fatherland has been conquered by the French for more than 60 years. Under your tyrannical rule, my compatriots have had to bear countless sufferings. My nation will be completely and gradually destroyed in accordance with the law of natural selection.

France’s longstanding neglect of the Vietnamese people was highlighted by the outbreak of the First World War, exasperated by the outbreak of the Second World War and many of the subsequent wars that followed, all the while enforcing a need among the Vietnamese people to resist colonisation from the French powers. While the French were weakened and their attention on matters elsewhere, the Vietnamese were able to rise up against the French authority, challenging the control that they were held under.

A lasting change in the way the world perceived colonisation was but one result of the First World War. With their forces embedded in other parts of the world, France began to lose its grip over Vietnam.

Allowing the Vietnamese people a chance to fight back and whilst it was not as simple and as easy as they might have hoped, Vietnam was eventually recognised as an independent country with, albeit slowly, power over his own political structure to this extent, colonisation in Vietnam alone was seemingly doomed to fail.

Whilst the consequential uprisings and challenges to French authority caused issues for the protesters, the changes were irreversible and, as stated in decolonisation, as moment and process.

It led to, quote, state independence into more comprehensive and intricate processes of ending colonial rule and extending political, economical and cultural sovereignty.

The world was awakened to the conditions under which colonialism was enforced.

The World War, the Vietnam War, and all of the clashes between coloniser and colonised meant that surely the colonial world wasn't to survive. Vietnam, along with many other colonised areas across the world, some of which are identified throughout this episode, were angry and ready for independence. Francis's power was to be short lived, with it being pointed out, that, quote, following the Second World War, political elites of Great Britain and France, the last remaining colonial powers of any consequence, believed that they could engineer the transfer of power to trustworthy indigenous leaders in the colonial territories previously under their control. This alone highlights the ways in which colonialism was doomed towards the end of the 20th century.

The remaining colonial powers has become laxed with their responsibilities, which was another proverbial nail in their colonial coffin.

Across this portion of the podcast, we will discuss the French colonial empire through the perspective of Algeria, a key colonial territory for France due to the economic value it held, and large European population. However, what we will also explore within this section of the podcast is how Algeria became independent in relation to a politically weak France and her approach to containing social uprising.

France as a colonial empire was in fact doomed to fail. Several historians, including Stephen Fallon, author of French failure in Algeria, and Francois Banderita in World War 2 and social change in France, suggests how France was politically weak in the aftermath of the Second World War and how it had to adapt thanks to modernisation and state planning to avoid an economic and demographic stagnation.

Historians believe that the French exhibited their greatest weakness by failing to accept the political requests of the FLN, which claimed French cultural and economic interests will be respected as will persons and families, and how all Frenchmen will have the right to choose either an Algerian nationality or their nationality of origin, in which case they will be considered foreigners.

Multiple historians in the book Paths to victory stated how after eight years of brutal conflicts, French government was forced to concede its political and military defeat.

One last thing to consider before we conclude the podcast is how the memory of colonial empire may suggest that colonial empire was not weak, but in fact strong in legacy. In an article written by Ruth MacLean in the New York Times in April of this year, McLean states how there has been a sharp rise in criticism of France.

Across its former colonies in Africa, and she also suggests how years after African nations gained independent.

Hence, France maintained a web of political and business ties with its former colonies, and would often corrupt governments or dictators for its own benefit.

Therefore, there are indications that French colonial empire across parts of Africa remained intact years after independence was gained. However, it was the colonial memory and legacy that made it strong.

The French colonial regime in Africa was ultimately doomed to fail, as despite French efforts to maintain a political influence, those efforts prove futile in today's society. And that concludes today's podcast.

We understand that this is a lot of information to unpack, especially if you have never come across Singaporean, Vietnamese or Algerian independence before. So just to break that down a little bit and summarise the content we have said today in Singapore, colonial Britain was becoming weak as presented by their defeat by Japan in Southeast Asia during the second World War.

The fall of Singapore and its ramifications, including the weakening of British power in Asia, meant that the British colonial regime in the later decades of empire was deemed to fail whilst in Vietnam being somewhat comfortable with colonial life under the Chinese, the French exploited Vietnam for profit at the expense of its own people and new political leaders.

Began to emerge.

With growing ideologies to defend their fatherlands when the French became focused elsewhere due to the Second World War, then Vietnam seized the opportunity to gain their indepedence.

Similarly, Algeria used the aftermath of the Second World War and emerging Cold War as an opportunity for their independence through political shifts in France and an emerging one in Algeria, as well as growing and global opposition to the French approach of containing colonial Algeria. Eventually, a vote for independence was passed and accepted.