Cartoon by Behrendt on decolonisation

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‘Farewell to colonialism!’ In the early 1950s, Berlin-born Dutch cartoonist Fritz Behrendt criticises the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, which aims to take advantage of the wave of decolonisation in Asia and the Middle East to promote communist ideology in these newly independent countries. In a world dominated by two superpowers engaged in a Cold War (the United States and the USSR), Behrendt speculates on the future of the decolonised countries, represented by a group of four people with stereotypical features (an Asian woman, a man with a turban wearing a traditional Indian costume, a black man in a boubou and a Muslim in Bedouin dress). Although these four welcome the permanent departure of the European coloniser (a seemingly British moustachioed man in colonial garb, holding an umbrella, golf clubs and a suitcase), they do not realise that two new characters are already trying to replace the former coloniser. From left to right, Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, wearing a colonial helmet and holding a file with ‘Stalin’ written on the front, and Nikolai Bulganin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, carrying a backpack with a Soviet flag, try to enter on tiptoes by the back door of the house, which symbolises the newly independent states.

Source and copyright

Source: BEHRENDT, Fritz. Weg met het Kolonialisme!. In: BEHRENDT, Fritz.. Kijken verboden: Een kijkje Achter het gordijn in 70 Caricaturen door. Rotterdam: Nijgh & van Ditmar. 1961.

Copyright: (c) Fritz Behrendt
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Cartoon by Behrendt on decolonisation