D. INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN ASIA AND AFRICA
After World War II, a wave of independence movements marked the beginning of the end of European imperialism. In an era when the United States and Western Europe were fighting a Cold War in part to defend people’s right to choose their own futures (self-determination) under democratic systems, it became difficult for Western colonial powers to reconcile their post-World War II principles with their imperialist policies. More importantly, it was increasingly difficult for the subjugated peoples to tolerate their treatment, so they rose up and demanded independence.
The Indian Subcontinent
After the Indian National Congress, a mostly Hindu political party, was established in 1885 to increase the rights of Indians under colonial rule, and then the Muslim League in 1906 to advance the causes of Islamic Indians, it took years for momentum to build into an organized resistance to colonial power. In 1919, the Amritsar massacre catapulted the movement.
In Amritsar, 319 Indians, some Hindu and some Muslim, were slaughtered by British General Dyer during a peaceful protest in a city park. They were protesting the arrest of two of their leaders who also were doing nothing other than protesting, were unarmed, and entirely surprised by the attack. Because the park was walled, there was no way to escape from the attackers. By all accounts, the slaughter was unprovoked and entirely unwarranted. When news of the massacre spread, Indians joined the self-rule cause by the millions. It was now a full-fledged movement.
During the 1920s, Mohandas Gandhi became the movement’s most important voice and organized huge protests against colonial rule. Gandhi’s philosophy of passive resistance, or civil disobedience, gained popular support in the struggle against British colonial rule. Instead of fighting with weapons, Gandhi’s followers staged demonstrations and refused to assist the colonial governments. This included massive boycotts of British imperial goods as well as strikes, such as when hundreds of thousands of workers refused to act as labor for the British colonial government’s salt factories. Gandhi’s nonviolent teachings, and his success, became enormously influential. They also partly inspired the civil disobedience of the U.S. civil rights movements led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
At the same time, there was an increase in violence between Hindus and Muslims. While both groups worked together peacefully against the British, radical members of each group found it hard to tolerate the other. This disturbed Gandhi, who was raised Hindu but yearned for mutual respect among people of both religions. In the late 1920s, Gandhi began to call for Indian unity above religious considerations. Instead, the Muslim League actively pushed for the creation of a Muslim nation, and even bounced around a name for their future country: Pakistan.
Independence Won: Nations Two
After World War II, Britain finally granted independence to the Indian subcontinent. The long and relatively nonviolent struggle for independence had finally paid off. The terrible irony was that once independence was granted, the real bloodshed began. Radical Hindus and Muslims started killing each other.
There were two schools of thought regarding the newly independent subcontinent. The first, promoted by Mohandas Gandhi and, at first, the British, called for the establishment of a united India where both Hindus and Muslims could practice their religions. The second was a movement byMuhammad Ali Jinnah, whose aim was to partition the subcontinent and form a separate Muslim nation in the northern region, where Islam had become the dominant religion. The British eventually were convinced that a partition would save lives by separating people who seemed intent on killing each other, so when the British turned over the reigns to new leaders of independent India in 1947, it separated the country into thirds: India in the south and Pakistan in two parts, one to the northwest of India (Pakistan) and the other to the east (East Pakistan, currently Bangladesh).
Both parts of Pakistan were Muslim, while India was predominately Hindu, although officially secular. The result was chaotic. Millions of people moved or were forced to flee due to religiously motivated violence. Essentially, India and Pakistan exchanged millions of citizens, with practitioners of each religion moving to the nation where their religion was dominant. Gandhi’s worst nightmares were realized. Nearly half a million people were killed as they migrated to their respective “sides.” The move of so many people along religious lines only served to create an international conflict between Pakistan and India. Within a year, Gandhi himself was assassinated by a Hindu who was upset with Gandhi’s secular motivations. Today, the two nations are still fighting, especially in Kashmir along their borders, where religious self-determination still remains the big issue. What’s more, both countries have since become nuclear powers, and 2008 saw a significant increase in terrorism between the two nations as Pakistan became less stable.
Africa
After World War II, African nations also began to assert their independence. They were partly inspired by events in India and the rest of the world, but they were also motivated by the war itself. Hundreds of thousands of Africans fought for their colonial powers during the war. Many of them felt that if they were willing to die for their governing countries, then they had earned the right to live free.
Other than South Africa, which had been independent before World War II, the nations north of the Sahara were the first colonies to win independence. These nations had strong Islamic ties, and the mostly Muslim Middle East had already won its freedom in the decades prior (more on that later). Egypt, too, had won its independence early, in 1922, although it kept extremely close ties to Britain. In the 1950s, as the independence movement gathered steam in Africa, Gamal Nasser, a general in the Egyptian army, overthrew the king and established a republic. He nationalized industries, including the Suez Canal, and then became embroiled in Middle Eastern conflicts. Nasser’s actions emboldened other Islamic nationalists to seek independence, and soon the African nations along the Mediterranean were free.
South of the Sahara, independence was a trickier issue. The problem was that while nearly everyone wanted independence, most of the colonies had been raped of their resources. There had been little investment in human beings. The vast majority of Africans were uneducated, or only educated through grammar school. Unlike in India, where a substantial number of upper-caste Indians were highly educated and even attended universities in Britain, many African nations had few natives who were skilled professionals: doctors, scientists, lawyers, diplomats, businesspeople. This meant that once the colonial powers left, there would be few people left with the education and skills to immediately take charge and begin to build a productive, self-sufficient society.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, national unity among the natives was also hard to foster because the boundaries of so many African colonies had been drawn according to European needs, and took no account of African history or needs. Africans within the same colony spoke different native languages and had differing, sometimes opposing, customs, histories, and loyalties. For all of these reasons, even after attaining their hard-won independence, many African nations struggled to build strong, stable, independent countries.
Decolonization and nation building occurred in a variety of ways across Africa. The Algerians fought a bitter war for independence from France (1954–1962) while in the early 1960s Nigeria and Ghana negotiated their freedom into a Parliamentary governing style borrowed from England, but after a series of military coups, have adopted presidential systems. Kenya, under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, negotiated their constitution with Great Britain after a brutal crack-down engineered by coffee planters unwilling to lose such profitable property. Others, such asAngola and Belgian Congo, overthrew colonial governments, only to become involved embroiled in civil wars or in Cold War tensions. Zimbabwe was among the last to establish African majority rule in 1980 (see following section on South Africa).
Fifty-three of Africa’s 54 nations belong to the African Union, a political and economic confederation formed in 2001 to replace the Organization of African Unity or OAU. But success and stability is not guaranteed for any of these nations. Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia, andRwanda (see on the next page) as well as the newly renamed Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) have been wracked by on-going and devastating civil wars since the turn of the twenty-first century. Attempts to form stable democracies have been thwarted by a reversion to “big man” politics, corruption, military coups, and escalating debt payments (to IMF and World Bank—see Alphabet Soup later in chapter). Even relatively stable governments such as Kenya’s have seen political violence escalate in recent years.
Economically, most of Africa is still rich in natural resources, albeit different ones than the colonial powers were interested in. Palm oil and rubber have given way to petroleum and metals including nickel, cadmium and lithium—prized for batteries to power cell phone, laptop computers, and hybrid cars. So the former colonial powers plus some new industrial players (China!) remain interested and invested in the nations of Africa.
Note the Change: Globalization and the Rise of NGOs
NGOs, or nongovernmental organizations, have become an ever-increasing presence in our modern world. NGOs are typically private, often nonprofit, agencies that provide relief services and/or advocacy for groups that are generally not serviced or represented by their governments. Some familiar examples of NGOs include the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and even the American Civil Liberties Union. It is often NGOs that lead relief efforts following natural disasters and during wars, particularly to countries and people who cannot afford to pay for such efforts. Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund provide advocacy for the world’s animals, which of course do not have any representation in the world’s governments. But why have most of these organizations formed only in the years since World War II? Well, the major international governmental organizations that formed after World War II, such as the UN and World Bank, were criticized for only representing the interests of the world’s wealthier and more powerful nations (as they had been created by the victors of the war), and so many well-meaning individuals formed private companies to fill needs that were not being met by the world’s governments. Globalization, which has increasingly made it easier to communicate and travel around the world, has not only made it easier for NGOs to provide their services on a global scale, but has also made it much easier for them to raise the money needed to fund their operations.
Rwanda: Ethnic Genocide
The difficulties of establishing stable nations in Africa are exemplified by the situation in Rwanda. Ethnic strife, genocide, and human rights violations in Rwanda stem from conflicts between two groups: the Tutsi (15 percent of the population in Rwanda) who governed the Hutu (85 percent of Rwanda) during German and Belgian colonial occupation. Belgian rule in particular exacerbated interethnic tensions, setting the stage for bloodshed as soon as colonial authorities withdrew. Upon Rwanda’s independence in 1962, the Hutu revolted against the Tutsi leadership, leaving thousands dead and the two groups locked in bitter, bloody conflict. In 1973, a military coup by Juvenal Habyarimana unseated the government and eventually established a one-party republic in 1981. The military government worked to keep peace but encountered only modest success. That, too, was destroyed when Habyarimana’s personal airplane was shot down over his presidential palace in 1994, assassinating the Hutu general. Almost immediately, conflict escalated, with the Hutu needing little encouragement to exact revenge on the Tutsi population whose leadership they blamed for the assassination. One hundred days of genocide left as many as 800,000 Tutsi dead, and by the following year more than 2 million mostly Hutu refugees were sent or fled to neighboring Zaire, where many died from disease. Because the entire country has only 7 million people, the genocide and displacement in Rwanda ranks among the most devastating in recent history.
Compare Them: Independence in Africa and India
Both India and Africa successfully gained independence in the years following World War II, and both areas were tragically torn apart by ethnic and religious strife shortly following independence. In India, the tensions between Hindus and Muslims, which existed before the British colonized the subcontinent, re-emerged as they departed. In many African nations, independence served only as an opportunity for long-held tribal hatreds to resurface in power struggles. The colonial powers, of course, were no better. They had been killing each other for thousands of years.
It is a mistake to think that the colonial powers assimilated the native peoples entirely or completely eradicated the underlying cultures. While there’s no doubt they raped the colonies of their resources and in many cases ruthlessly subjugated the natives, they couldn’t erase the native people’s memories. Even after generations of colonial rule, Africans remembered old rivalries and hatreds and, in many cases, acted on them.
Developments in South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid
The year after the South Africa Act of 1909, the Union of South Africa was formed by combining two British colonies with two Dutch Boer republics, and although the British and Dutch colonists were given considerable rights to self-government, black people were entirely excluded from the political process. In 1923, residential segregation was established and enforced. In 1926, blacks were banned from work in certain skilled occupations that whites wanted for themselves. When South Africa won independence from Britain in 1931, the racial policies didn’t improve. In fact, a system of apartheid (“separation of the races”) was established in South Africa in 1948 as an all-encompassing way of dividing black (80 percent of the population) and white. By the late 1950s, apartheid was extended to the creation of homelands, areas of the country that were “set aside” for blacks. The homelands were in the worst part of the country, and comprised less than 15 percent of the nation’s land. The whites were given the cities, the resource-rich mines, and the best farmland. While many blacks were compelled to move to the homelands, others stayed in the cities, where they were segregated into black slums. If this starts to sound like District 9 (2009), there’s a reason a sci-fi movie about segregating aliens was set in South Africa.
In response, the black community organized. In the 1950s, Nelson Mandela became leader of the African National Congress, an organization determined to abolish apartheid. At first, he advocated peaceful protest, following the example of Gandhi. But in 1960, after the Sharpeville massacre in which 67 protesters were killed, the African National Congress supported guerrilla warfare. At Sharpeville, blacks were protesting a policy that forced them to carry passes to be in the cities in order to go to their jobs. The passes were issued at places of employment. This meant that if you worked and your wife didn’t, you couldn’t go into the city with her because she wouldn’t have a pass. The massacre rallied the anti-apartheid movement. Mandela was arrested in 1964 for his role in anti-apartheid violence and sentenced to life imprisonment.
After decades of increasing pressure from the black majority and the international community, South Africa finally released Mandela in 1990 and agreed to negotiate on the policy of apartheid. The government more than negotiated, it crumbled. In 1994, after apartheid was abolished, Mandela was elected president in the first free and open election in the nation’s history.
The Middle East
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern nation of Turkey at the close of World War I, the Middle East, which was largely comprised of old Ottoman lands, was temporarily put under the control of the League of Nations. As if the two European powerhouses didn’t already control enough of the world, France was put in charge of Syria and Lebanon, while Britain got Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. Persia (Iran) was already carved up into spheres of influence between Britain and Russia during the nineteenth century. As for Arabia, it united as a Saudi kingdom immediately following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
The Middle East during the twentieth century is complicated stuff, but a good chunk of the essential information involves the creation of the modern nation of Israel, so that’s where we’ll start.
Israel: Balfour Declares a Mess
If you remember way back four chapters ago, the Hebrews (Jews) occupied lands in Palestine at the time of the ancient Roman Empire. As is the case everywhere else on the globe, between that chapter and this chapter a series of conquests shifted power over the region a mind-numbing number of times. While a few Jews managed to stay in the region, most bolted for Europe or other areas as Palestine became increasingly entrenched in Islam. All the while, however, many Jews had wanted to return to what they believed was the “promised land.” But in the meantime, generation after generation of Muslim Palestinians had made that land home.
During World War I, Zionists (Jewish nationalists) living in Britain convinced Arthur Balfour, Britain’s foreign secretary, that a Jewish homeland in Palestine was both desirable and just. He issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which explicitly stated the right for a home in Palestine for the Jewish people, but he also stated that it should in no way displace the Palestinians who currently lived there. As history would have it, Britain gained control of Palestine in 1920 as a mandate from the League of Nations—which meant that it was to govern on behalf of the League of Nations—and was therefore in a position to make good on its declaration.
But the declaration was messy because it essentially provided that the Palestinians and Jews were to divide land that they both claimed. Not long after, many Jews, mainly Russian Jews fleeing violent, anti-Semitic mobs (pogroms), began streaming into Palestine. As their numbers grew, the Palestinians started to get uneasy. In the 1930s, huge numbers of Jews flooded the region to escape Germany as Hitler came to power. By the beginning of World War II, nearly 500,000 Jews had emigrated to Palestine. While Palestinians still outnumbered Jews, the Jewish population was now large enough to pull some serious weight, especially because money was pouring into the region from Jewish communities worldwide.
The Jewish Wait for a State Ends in 1948
In 1948, the United Nations (which had replaced the ineffectual League of Nations) officially created two Palestines, one for Jews and the other for Muslims (Palestinians). Sound familiar? It should. The same arrangement was made with India and Pakistan. The Indians and Pakistanis have been fighting ever since. This should give you a clue for what’s coming in the next paragraph.
As soon as David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, announced the official creation of the Jewish homeland on May 14, 1948, Muslims from six Arab countries attacked Israel in what became known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. But the Israelis shocked and awed them with their quick organization and military capability. Within months, the Israelis controlled most of Palestine, including the Palestinian parts, while Jordan held the remaining portions (the West Bank). Suddenly, Palestinians were without a home. They had no land to call their own.
As Jews flocked to Israel from all over the world, Israel and Arab countries continued to have skirmishes. In 1967, the amazingly short Six Days’ War resulted in total victory for the Israelis who took control of the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. With the West Bank came control of the city of Jerusalem, Judaism’s historical homeland. However, Muslims throughout the region resented Israeli control of the Dome of the Rock, a revered Islamic shrine dating back to the Abbasid caliphate which is also the site of the Temple Mount, an important Jewish historical site. The territorial gains resulted in new waves of Palestinian refugees to Jerusalem. In 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Begin and EgyptianPresident Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, an agreement that did not mention Golan Heights, Syria, or Lebanon, but which led to Israel pulling out of the Sinai and Egypt becoming the only Arab country yet to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This was a huge blow to the Palestinians and other Arab nations. Sadat was assassinated and the lands gained in the Six Days’ War remain some of the most contested in the region.
In the years since, the Israelis and the Palestinians have been fighting over the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Gaza Strip. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a group dedicated to reclaiming the land and establishing a Palestinian state, has so far been unsuccessful in negotiating a homeland. The efforts are complicated by the intifada (uprising), an on-again off-again movement that sometimes uses terrorism against Israeli citizens in an attempt to either destroy Israel or force it into withdrawal from the occupied territories.
In 2000, a new intifada reignited violence between Palestinians and the occupying Israeli forces. As suicide bombings became more frequent, newly elected Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon approved the construction of a wall to be built between the Palestinian West Bank and Israel in order to protect Israelis against suicide attacks. Often compared to the Berlin Wall, Israel has been criticized by the international community for employing such a draconian measure to fight terrorist attacks.
Not limiting itself to criticism, however, in 2003 the international community, led by the United States, the European Union, the UN and Russia, proposed a “Roadmap to Peace,” which outlined a set of goals to achieve peace in the region. Progress on the Roadmap remained stalled until the death of Palestinian president (and former PLO leader) Yassir Arafat in November 2004. Arafat had been consistently blamed by Israel and the United States for blocking such progress. Following his January 2005 election, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas quickly signed a cease-fire with Israel that effectively ended the intifada that began in 2000.
Under a “disengagement plan” adopted by the Israeli government, all Israeli settlers were supposed to have vacated the Gaza Strip by August 2005. Residents of the settlements who did not leave were forcibly removed by the Israeli army, a military action which greatly divided the Israeli public. Additional settlements were disbanded in the West Bank as part of the same plan. It is likely, however, that lasting peace will remain elusive until the Israelis and Palestinians can reach agreement on issues such as movement into and outside of the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, the disarmament of militant groups, and the potential independence of a Palestinian state.
The situation is made even more complicated by limited financial stability and political divisions among Palestinians. The governing Palestinian Authority is divided into two factions: Fatah, a branch of the former Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Hamas.
Translating to “Islamic Resistance Movement,” Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987. Because of their open willingness to support terrorist tactics, Hamas is frequently the target of Israeli military attacks. Despite similar goals for a Palestinian state, Hamas and Fatah are deeply divided, and violent clashes occur with increasing frequency. After the creation of a unity government in 2006, Hamas led a coup in 2007 which concluded with a Hamas-imposed government in the Gaza Strip and a Fatah-run West Bank. Further complicating governance, in retaliation, President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) named Salam Fayyad Prime Minister. Hamas contends that Fayyad’s appointment is illegitimate, as he was not voted into office. Israel’s current government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the United States show willingness to work with Fatah; the United States and a number of European countries list Hamas as a terrorist organization and so do not negotiate with that party.
Israel’s border with Lebanon and Syria is another hotspot. Hezbollah, a militant Shia group backed by Syria and Iran, operates in the region. In 2006, Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah after two Israeli soldiers were captured in Israeli territory. These new hostilities threatened the stability of a country which had been the scene of intense fighting between Syrian, Israeli, and PLO forces throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Syria is widely seen to have a controlling hand in Lebanese politics. In 2005, when Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, fingers quickly pointed to Hezbollah and Syrian sources. A UN Special Tribunal was formed to investigate the assassination and the newest announcements state that findings can be expected in 2015. The Tribunal has already issued arrest warrants for four Hezbollah operatives.
The Iranian Revolution: The Shah Gets Shooed
Reza Shah Pahlavi rose to power in 1925 by ousting the then-ruling shah, who had allowed Persia to fall under European spheres of influence. Taking a stance similar to the Japanese during the Meiji Restoration, Reza Shah decided that the best way to beat the Westernizers was to join them. Iran (formerly Persia) modernized slowly at first, but once the Europeans left after World War II, the Westernization efforts gained momentum, and in the 1960s, the shah instituted land reform and education reform, and increased the rights of women, including the right to vote. Women also pursued higher education and careers, and began to adopt Western dress. All of this infuriated many Islamic fundamentalists who wanted to make the teachings of the Qu’ran the law of the land. Believing that the influence of the West was too strong, they sought to reverse the economic and social changes. Others believed that the shah was not reforming enough, especially with regard to the political system, which lacked significant democratic changes.
The shah reacted violently against dissent from both sides, pressing forward with his own mix of social and economic reform even in the face of strong public opposition. When President Carter of the United States visited Iran to congratulate it on its programs of modernization and Westernization, the Islamic fundamentalists had had enough. In 1979, the shah was ousted from power during the Iranian Revolution, which sent Iran back to a theocracy led by Ayatollah (“Mirror of God”) Khomeini. Iran is primarily Shia, and the ayatollah is the Shiite caliph (this was important during the Iran-Iraq war, as Iraq was ruled by Sunni Muslims). Immediately, modernization and Westernization programs were reversed, women were required to wear traditional Islamic clothing and to return to their traditional roles, and the Qu’ran became the basis of the legal system.
In 1980, soon after the revolution, Iraq invaded Iran following a series of border disputes between the two countries. Iran’s position was further complicated by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s quiet support from the United States, which was still quite furious over Iran’s taking of U.S. hostages during the revolution. Even with some U.S. support, the Iran-Iraq war turned into an eight-year war of attrition with neither side gaining much ground until a cease-fire was signed in 1988.
Since the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989 (watch out—he was succeeded by the differently-spelled Ayatollah Khamenei!), Iran has been characterized by a power struggle between powerful Islamic fundamentalist clerics and an increasingly vocal reform-minded and somewhat pro-Western minority. Most recently however, Iran has caused international concern (particularly in the United States) by pushing ahead with efforts to develop what they deemed “peaceful” nuclear technologies, claiming they have a right as an independent nation to develop such technology as they see fit. Along with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Union, the United States is currently calling on Iran to sign an international agreement limiting or even eliminating its nuclear programs.
In 2005, Tehran’s ultra-conservative mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected president. The American-led war in Iraq that began in 2003, the relationship of Iran and Iraq’s Shia populations, and Iran’s development of weapons programs and nuclear research have only complicated matters further.
Compare Them: Role of Women After Chinese Revolution and Before Iranian Revolution
In the West, women have benefited from substantial societal and legal changes, but the change has been gradual, over many generations. In China and Iran, the changes were quick. Within a single woman’s lifetime, she went from an extremely traditional, oppressive society to one in which she could vote (in the case of Iran), dress less traditionally, divorce her husband, become educated, and pursue a career. Of course, after the Iranian Revolution, those reforms were reversed immediately. At that point, women in China and Iran were in completely different situations.
Oil: Enormous Amounts of Goo
The Industrial Revolution was a huge bonanza for the Middle East. That’s because they’d been sitting on over two-thirds of the world’s known oil reserves since the beginning of civilization. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was goo. After the Industrial Revolution, it was fuel. As multinational corporations rushed to the Middle East throughout the twentieth century to obtain drilling and production rights, Middle Eastern governments like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq started to earn billions of dollars annually. But the goo also meant that the rest of the world had become very, very interested in the Middle East, because oil allowed the West to do one of its favorite things: drive. This world interest sometimes led to intervention and war.
Once the oil-producing nations of the Middle East realized how much power they wielded, they organized. In 1960, the region united with a few other oil-exporting nations, like Venezuela, to form a petroleum cartel known as OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). With three-quarters of the world’s petroleum reserves, OPEC members collectively cut supply dramatically in the 1970s, sending the price of oil through the roof. Billions of extra dollars flowed into OPEC member nations’ coffers. Nations like Saudi Arabia used the extra money to modernize their infrastructures, and spent billions on attempts to improve their agricultural sectors. Since the 1970s, OPEC hasn’t been able to keep its members in line, and is therefore a much less powerful organization, but the individual members who make up the organization continue to wield huge power over the world economy.