In the 1930s the first symptoms of change began (revolt in Indochina in 1930, status for India in 1935, independence of Egypt in 1936), aggravated by the world conflict that demonstrated the weakness of some of the powers and endangered others. Powers like Great Britain and France overcame the war thanks to the economic and human resources of their colonies. Several reasons caused the new phenomenon: the enormous growth of the indigenous populations of the colonies, the access to education of part of that population and the appearance of cultured indigenous elites who wanted to occupy the highest positions, and the emergence of a national consciousness. . Furthermore, the two new powers (USA and USSR) d themselves openly anti-colonial.
From 1945 onwards the process became irreversible: Syria and Lebanon (1946), India and Burma in 1947, Sri Lanka in 1948, Indonesia in 1949, ...
Now, the decolonization process was by no means uniform; in Africa the process initially consisted of the simple replacement of the European government and positions by Westernized African elites, and the shadow of the old metropolises remained over the new countries. A large part of the former colonies, under the rule of Westernized elites, tried to maintain the process of urbanization, industrialization and transformation of traditional structures, but the maintenance of political s based on Western liberal regimes was not possible in countries where the great majority The mass of the population did not present the training of their elites nor did they share their moral and intellectual concepts. Thus, internal conflicts and successive totalitarian regimes became widespread, fueled largely by the economic interests that the old metropolises still maintain. The main challenge that these regimes present is to reinforce national unity as opposed to tribal unity.