The Broad, Toiling Masses in all the Continents: Anticolonial Activists and the Atlantic Charter
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The 1941 Atlantic Charter’s references to self-determination galvanized anticolonial nationalists during the Second World War. These activists used the principles enumerated in the Atlantic Charter to frame their demands. This thesis examines three cases in the broader global context during the war, from vastly different colonial and wartime situations: British-ruled India, French-ruled Syria, and the U.S.- ruled Philippines. Across these different situations, anticolonial nationalists used the Atlantic Charter in an attempt to legitimate their own projects. This thesis shows that the elite nationalist movements examined here used a common rhetoric from the Charter, but in variable ways. Each case study is examined in depth, concluding with comparisons of how Indian, Syrian, and Philippine nationalist movements cited, used, or ignored the Atlantic Charter. Broadly speaking, movements in each of the case studies diverged between either dismissing the Charter as colonialist hypocrisy, necessitating the rejection of political dialogue for more radical options, or using the Charter as a tool to extract concessions from European and American colonial regimes.
Author: Mark Reeves
Institution: Western Kentucky University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Western Kentucky University
OpenAlex ID: W132224766