Thursday, March 31, 2016

What countries earned independence from Britain through negotiation?

There are essentially two ways for a country to gain its independence: Diplomacy, and revolution.

The United States of course attained independence from Britain via revolution, as did several countries in Africa (such as Kenya and Zimbabwe). But Canada and Australia did not; they were granted independence by rulings of Parliament after negotiation by their national governments. South Africa and New Zealand also attained independence via diplomacy rather than war.

Yet it's not always clear-cut whether independence was obtained by diplomacy or revolution. Even Canada and Australia likely couldn't have become independent if not for the revolution in the US. Ireland had no single revolution, but a long period of unrest and conflict before it finally officially declared independence. India never had revolution, but the intense public pressure of widespread nonviolent protests seems a bit stronger than "negotiation". And of course, a certain amount of diplomacy was involved in preventing Britain from returning to forcibly reclaim countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe. It's more like a continuum from the most direct, violent revolutions (Kenya) to the most amicable, diplomatic negotiations (Canada).

The simplest way to tell is probably to see if a country still maintains some notion of formal ties with the United Kingdom, as Canada and Australia do, or is considered a totally separate country, like the US and India. When Britain loosened its grip on countries by negotiation, they generally maintained some concept of retaining the country in the UK, while countries that fought their way out generally sought immediate and total independence.

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