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20.4: The Non-Aligned Movement and Immigration

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    132615
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    The Nonaligned Movement started with the Bandung Conference of 1955. In the Indonesian city of Bandung, leaders from countries in Africa, Asia, and South America met to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition that might push back against superpower dominance. These countries earnestly hoped that their collective strength could compensate for their individual weakness vis-à-vis the superpowers. A French journalist at the conference created the term “third world” to describe the bloc of nations: neither the first world of the US and western Europe, nor the second world of the USSR and its satellites, but the allied bloc of former colonies.

    The real, meaningful effect of the conference was at the United Nations. There, the Nonaligned Movement ended up with over 100 member nations, wielding considerable power in the General Assembly of the UN and successfully directing policies and aid money to poorer nations. During the crucial decades of decolonization itself, the Nonaligned Movement served as inspiration for millions around the world who sought independence for its own sake, as well as creating a more peaceful and prosperous world.

    NAM_Member_states_and_observers_map.svg.png

    Figure 20.4.1 Current members of the Non-Aligned Movement. The light-blue color denotes countries with observer status. Full screen resolution is located here.

    Even as former European colonies were achieving formal political independence, millions of formerly colonized peoples were flocking to Europe for work. A postwar economic boom in Europe created a huge market for labor, especially in fields of unskilled labor. Thus, Africans, Caribbeans, Asians, and people from the Middle East came in droves to work at jobs Europeans did not want, because those jobs still paid more than even skilled work did in the former colonies.

    The result was an ongoing struggle over national and cultural identity. In places like Britain, France, and postwar West Germany, the official stance of governments was that European culture was colorblind, and that anyone who culturally assimilated could be a productive part of society. Unfortunately, as soon as significant minority populations became residents of European countries, there was an explosion of anti-immigrant racism among whites. Europeans were forced to grapple with the idea of cultural and racial diversity in a way that was entirely new to them.

    One group of British Marxist scholars described this phenomenon as “the empire strikes back”: having seized most of the world’s territory by force, Europeans were now left with a legacy of racial and cultural diversity that many of them did not want. In turn, the Universalist aspirations of “Western Civilization” were challenged as never before.


    20.4: The Non-Aligned Movement and Immigration is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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