Decolonization: Unsung Heroes of the Resistance

Historian Singaravélou (coauthor, A Past of Possibilities) and documentary filmmakers Miské (the novel Arab Jazz) and Ball deliver an accessible overview of colonial independence movements from their 19th-century origins to modern-day programs of reconciliation and reparations in postcolonial states. Briskly profiling individual freedom fighters and their respective movements, the authors cover in the span of just 20 pages the 1927 Anti-Imperialist Congress, Sarojini Naidu’s 1928 U.S. tour promoting Indian independence, Nguyen Ai Quoc’s creation of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s call for the abolition of the caste system in India. The overall mosaic touches on the particularities of indirect rule in British India, the racialized roots of modern anatomy and neurology, the role of “high-yield wheat seed” in cooling tensions between India and Pakistan in the 1960s, the neoliberal preservation of postcolonial dictatorships, and more. Throughout, the authors make clear that victims and oppressors alike were imprisoned by the ideologies of exploitation and racial superiority, and pay moving tribute to the “iron will” of generations of people who found injustice “more unbearable than death itself.” Enriched by copious photographs and standalone summaries of such critical yet lesser-known events as the 1982–1983 Talbot Automotive Strike by immigrant workers in France, this is a valuable overview of the people and forces behind decolonization. (Nov.)