Frantz Fanon, in his classic study of colonial dynamics, The Wretched of the Earth, states that following World War II, no colonial power was "capable of adopting the only form of contest which [had] a chance of succeeding, namely, the prolonged establishment of large forces of occupation". Faced with little choice, England and other European colonial powers in most cases relinquished colonial rule willingly and as expediently as possible. India gained its independence in 1947 without serious incident, although the partition of the colony into two separate countries following independence led to sectarian violence. In 1957, the Gold Coast became the first African colony to gain independence, adopting the name of a great, pre-colonial African civilization, Ghana. Nigeria followed in 1960. In Kenya, however, where many British colonists hoped to settle permanently, an entirely different situation unfolded. There, the British colonial authorities went to great length to discourage the growing independence movement, and finally declared a state of Emergency in 1952. The result was the Mau Mau Revolt, a bloody civil conflict creating a rift in the country between loyalists to the British and the Mau Mau rebels. Although the revolt was put down, it accelerated the drive for independence and prompted the British realization that Kenya was no longer a "white man's country," as it had come to be known. The West Indies, where independence movements were marked by a series of labor strikes and riots, eventually followed the example of India and the African colonies. Jamaica and Trinidad became independent in 1962, and Barbados followed in 1966. (Bart Moore-Gilbert, 1997)
The British relinquishment of rule did not suddenly erase the effects of decades of colonial domination. In most cases, British influence and institutions, such as the English language, a Parliamentary form of government with heads of state determined.......
