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the Suez Canal background tension

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how does the United States reconcile its anti-communist goals with the imperialist goals of the British and French

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imperial interests are creating colonial rebellions that are playing into the hands of the communists

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the United States wants to be on the side of aspiring nationalists for the sake of its anti-communist confederation

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that puts it in conflict with the empires, yet these empires are their allies, that's the tension which came to a head in 1956 with the Suez Canal

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1954: French lost Indochina

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French were locked in an intense struggle to retain Algeria, it's North African department of France

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Egypt under Nasser

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Nasser overthrows 1952 government, cracked down on Muslim Brotherhood and ousted president

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1956 nationalizes Suez Canal

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obliges British to withdraw their forces from Egypt, forces that had been their since 1882, also because of a dispute over the Suez Canal

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the French don't like Nasserian Egypt either since they think he is supporting Algerian rebels

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British see Nasser's move on Suez Canal as a way to cut one of their historic imperial life lines

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British and French secretly collude with the Israelis so that all three countries launch a joint military occupation which will seize the Suez Canal while the Israelis will attack Egypt in Sinai

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Lester B. Pearson from Canada had proposed a UN peacekeeping force

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U.S. supported this and put pressure on the British financially

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unlike 1882, the British and the French had to take a humiliating withdrawal, Israelis forced to withdraw from Sinai

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significance of the Suez Canal outcome

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for the West: Americans had reaffirmed the centrality of the anti-communist confederation

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British and France began looking toward the dismantling of their empires as something that was inevitable

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the process of decolonization accelerated rapidly

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as French and British gave up their colonial identity, they started focusing on European identity

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and some of this European identity excluded the United States, as there was hostility toward the U.S. coming out of the Suez Canal crisis

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for the East, it gave the Soviet Union more opportunity for taking sides in the Middle East, finding states who wanted Soviet arm supplies

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to the Soviet Union, Nasser was a hero who stood up to the west and vindicated the cause of nationalism

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Nasser symbolized the new power of the Third World

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Third World

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countries not included in NATO or Communist Bloc, the uncommitted middle

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from the point of view of the superpowers

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Third World countries were very important as objects

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1. dependent patron/client relationships

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not formal colonies but junior partners on one side or the other

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2. development models

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experimental laboratories for American or communist ideas about development

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enormous infrastructure projects such as dams to generate electricity

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3. geopolitical locations and strategic pivots

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to control choke points to important areas of the world

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4. examples of authenticity and liberation

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striving against hierarchical oppression

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idealized image of "the natural person", e.g. Che Guevara, who became a symbol of revolution against oppression

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5. in all the Third World seemed important

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from the point of view of Third World countries

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a non-aligned movement

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Sukarno

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1955 president Sukarno in Indonesia

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organized the Bandung Conference to unite developing Asian and African countries into a non-aligned movement to counter the competing superpowers at the time

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interesting that China also attended

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Jawaharlal Nehru

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prime minister of India from 1947-1964

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there was a notion that whichever way the Third World swung would determine future balance of power between the rival blocks

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leaders felt pressured to be subjects

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the shape of their countries had been shaped by and inherited from imperial rule

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kind of government

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property laws

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court system

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armies

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political vocabulary

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shaped by the anti-imperialist struggle

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they are simultaneously products of imperial rule and the hatred of imperial rule

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decolonization was going on globally in the 1950s and 1960s, little countries getting their independence but with weighted dependence toward the superpowers

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fragility

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structure of some of these states are very small

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e.g. one radio station, one newspaper, a small capital

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loyal army units you can count on might be a few battalions

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leaders were conscious of what it would take for someone to suddenly overthrow them and how foreigners might meddle in the affairs of your country

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affected deals they made to buy goods, promises they made, relations they entered into

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leaders were both worried by their fragility and tempted by it

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independence

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want to feel more independent

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leaders are trying to manipulate the foreigners to serve their interests

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modernization

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catching up

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lifting their people out of poverty

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this was a very strong notion for Third World countries

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there were multiple meanings of modernization

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banks

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who controls the modernized banks in my country?

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who gets access to credit in credit?

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key industries

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what is the relationship of my government to key industries: tin, copper, etc.

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land

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are you satisfied by who owns land or do you need to redistribute it?

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trade

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do you like the trading system that the imperial power left you with?

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raise or lower tariffs?

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wages and prices

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do you let the market set the price for e.g. bread and gasoline?

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justice

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guarantees property rights

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will it be independent?

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communist model

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the government controls all of these issues

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democratic socialism model

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e.g. Nehru, Mexico

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state would control quite a lot of these issues

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land

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key industries, e.g. oil

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import-substitution industrialization (ISI)

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e.g. Brazil

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increase barriers to trade to develop your own industries

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low trade and increased local industry

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reducing local imports of foreign goods

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export-oriented industrialization (EOI)

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e.g. Japan, South Korea

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barriers to imports might still be high

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keep out foreign imports

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high trade

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depress wages

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depress currency

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rich countries will think: that stuff they are making is so cheap, we want to buy it

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problem: you are keeping the wealth of your own people is lower

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their buying power is being reduced to keep your exports high

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your companies are happy but your workers are not

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this define politics in Japan and South Korea in the 1970s

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liberal stance along the 19th century lines

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keep government out

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only regulate capitalist system as much as necessary

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old-fashioned predatory state

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the choice of dictators who didn't want to fuss with all of these choices

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like states that had been around for thousands of years

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find out what in your country makes money, grab control of it, then squeeze out as much of it as you can for yourself

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these pressures shaped Third World countries leaders

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Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah

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oversaw liberation from Britain in Ghana

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saw himself as African Lenin

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Vietnam's Ho Chi-Minh

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Vietnamese Communist revolutionary, president of North Vietnam 1945-1969

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Egypt's Nasser

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Algeria's Ferhat Abbas (1899-1985)

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involved in revoluationary struggle of Algeria

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Kenya's Tom Mboya

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spearheaded the negotiations for Kenya's independence from Britain

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during this time was when Obama's father came to Hawaii on a scholarship sponsored by the United States

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China's Mao Tse Tung

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took land and food away from the rural peasants and redistributed it to the cities

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this "Great Leap Forward" caused a famine as Stalin's similar attempt in the 1930s

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probably caused between 20 and 30 million lives

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Indonesia's Sukarno

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1946 menacing insurgent figure

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1958 weary, battled president of a country suffering from civil war

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India's Nehru

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split into India and Pakistan

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Pakistan had divisions of its own

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a part of Pakistan, East Bengal succeeded from Pakistan and became Bangladesh

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pressured by China

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Cuba's Castro

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led 26th of July movement against Batista in 1959

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then chose a communist model for his country

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variety and similarities

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even though these people indicate a wide variety of personalities, each of them had to deal with the same sorts of questions and issues in their countries

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important to remember that super powers were using Third World countries for their purposes, just as Third World country leaders were using the superpowers for their purposes