🗺️💥 World War II: 75 Years On
A look at how global politics in 2020 has been shaped by the end of World War II
Hello! Welcome to a special free edition of Inside the Newsroom where today’s piece has been written by Amy Sokolow, our very first guest contributor! Today marks 75 years since the end of World War II, when Japan signed its surrender aboard the USS Missouri, and what better way to encompass everything that this newsletter is trying to accomplish than to dissect the news and history from a global perspective, by journalists with endless curiosity. If you want to support what we’re trying to do, or just simply want a job or internship in journalism, please consider chipping in. In the meantime, I’ll hand it over to Amy…
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Hello everyone, my name’s Amy and I’m a recent master’s graduate from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and have previously worked for The Atlantic and STAT News. It’s hard to believe that today marks 75 years since the end of World War II, the war that rattled loose structures, and killed archaic systems and ways of life across the globe. The events in the aftermath of WWII made way for new institutions, countries and conflicts. Here are just four global developments over the past 75 years that can be traced all the way back to September 2, 1945.
Middle East Turmoil
Perhaps the most infamous and violently affected regions has been the Middle East, specifically the area of land we know today as Israel. Israel is of course the holy land for Jews, whose earliest existence can be traced back to Abraham, whose own existence is pretty much untraceable. Regardless, Abraham is revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims, with the latter two in particular at the centre of the bitterness that’s afflicted the region since 1948. That’s the year Jews were given their own independent state, previously the British-controlled Palestine since 1917, and Zionists — those who advocate for a Jewish state — had been immigrating to the land since then and finally had a place they could call their own.
Independence was cause for celebration for the Jews, but Palestinians living there at the time had called that same land their home since the 12th century B.C. Palestinians remember this period of forced expulsion from their homes to make way for the Zionists as the Nakba, which is still a major sticking point in negotiations between the two sides. While Palestinians want a right of return to be included in the negotiations, the Israelis refuse, arguing that the Palestinian population would outnumber Jewish Israelis and defeat the intended purpose of Israel. The establishment of Israel thus set off unrest in the region that started with the Arab-Israeli War that immediately followed the country’s creation, and arguably continues to this day. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have led to simmering tensions throughout the region, despite the United Nations declaring the settlements illegal. But Israel’s recent deal to normalize diplomatic relations with the U.A.E. is historic and could set off a domino effect in the Gulf like we’ve never seen before.
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The Scramble for Africa
Prior to WWII, almost the entire continent of Africa was colonized by just a few European countries, namely Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Many African nations’ liberation was foreshadowed by the Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt Atlantic Charter written in 1941, which planned for a post-war world. It was Roosevelt who called for the autonomy of imperial colonies to be included in the agreement and, soon after the war ended, the newly formed UN declared that colonial rule was unjust. The first sub-Saharan country to free itself from this oppressive arrangement was Ghana in 1957, and by 1977, 54 countries had followed suit.
Unfortunately, we’re yet to experience lasting peace in many of these countries because, similar to various states in the Middle East, history is rarely forgotten and forgiven. Take Cameroon for example, whose previous occupation by the Europeans has left its population to be made up of around 80 percent French-speaking and 20 percent who speak predominantly English. As Inside The Newsroom covered earlier this year, any attempt to hold democratic elections to create a more stable future has been pegged back by Cameroon’s bloody past.
Africa: States of Independence — The Scramble for Africa
U.S. Merges, UK Fades
Prior to the war, the U.S. was in the midst of an economic depression (yep, that one). But once the war ended, its economy soared, in part from the enormous wartime production demand. The U.S. quickly became the world’s richest country and they spread the love with the G.I. Bill in 1944, a benefit that provided veterans money for schooling and housing, boosting the economy and expanding the suburbs further, both in size and population. These new homeowners with fresh disposable income bought appliances, cars and other forms of consumerism, which were mass-produced for the first time thanks to faster and more advanced assembly lines. Women also entered the workforce in droves during and after the war, starting when their skills were needed on the production lines while the majority of the men fought on the front lines. (This is where Rosie the Riveter comes from!) Between 1940 and 1945, the female labor force grew by 50 percent, peaking at 37 percent of all women in 1944. Today that figure is approaching 60 percent.
As the U.S. rose, the UK declined, weakened and bankrupted by two world wars and pressured to give up its remaining colonies. Historians consider its retreat from India in 1947 to be the beginning of the end as a global superpower. It’s incredible to think that Britain still controlled parts of the Middle East until relatively recently — most of the Gulf gained its independence in 1971 and 1972 — and Hong Kong was only given back to China in 1997. And still to this day the likes of Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands remain under British control. As the UK embarks on a new chapter post Brexit, it’ll be fascinating to witness what direction it goes in and whether it can regain its global political and economic power.
How Women Dealt With the Horror of the War
The Cold War
Although the U.S. and the Soviet Union had been allies during WWII, their relationship quickly disintegrated into what George Orwell first dubbed “the Cold War” in 1945. Communism was gaining traction in Russia and eastern Europe, and both the Americans and the British were concerned over its increasing influence in the region. By the late 1940s, the Cold War was in full swing. On one side was the U.S., whose Marshall Plan provided aid to Western European countries plagued by the economic damage caused by defeating the Nazis. On the other side were the Soviets, who were busy swallowing Eastern European countries into their reign and influence. This sparked the arms race, the atomic bomb race and the space race, as the two countries competed to out-technology each other. The U.S. laid claim to the space race in 1969, when the first humans walked on the moon, though Russia also has a case as they had previously launched Sputnik I, the first manmade object to orbit the Earth.
Although the two superpowers never actually went to nuclear war with each other (though they became frighteningly close multiple times), the bitterness between the two nations existed in many ways other than between the two governments. The Red Scare, for example, developed in the U.S. and saw many people in Hollywood expose and blacklist suspected communists in America, including actors, directors, and others in the entertainment industry, putting many out of jobs through the 1950s. And as anyone who pays an ounce of attention to the news knows, things aren’t exactly rosy between the U.S. and Russia 75 years on.
That’s it for today. Thanks for making it all the way to the bottom. Subscribe today to make sure you’ll get summaries of every major election around the world delivered straight to your inbox, starting tomorrow with Montenegro, and a special referendum on women’s rights in Liechtenstein. Thanks and stay safe!
Good job, Amy!! Very informative and impressive! Thanks so much for your hard work!!!