Colonizers that bad?

Colonizers that bad?

I think Budi Setiawan must have read some very strange history
books at school (Your Letters, On colonialism, July 19). I wonder
who wrote them? I refer to his last paragraph: "Colonialism is a
bad dream of the past...,". Let me tell him a true tale to
illustrate this misconception. When I was in Pakistan some years
ago, one of the "bearers" (servants) in my hotel said to me one
day -- maybe I had made a friendly remark to him -- with tears in
his eyes, "Oh, Sahib, we wish you (i.e. the British) were back!"
Does that sound like the voice of one who had lived "in great
misery" under British rule?

If Mr. Setiawan has ever stepped outside Indonesia, even as
far as Singapore or Malaysia (especially Penang), he may have
noticed how many street names remain as they were in the colonial
era. If they were reminders of "a bad dream" I have no doubt that
they would long since have been changed.

My father was a colonial judge (in British North Borneo, The
Gambia, The Gold Coast, Ghana, and Penang, where he died and was
buried), and whenever he left one post for the next, he left with
kind words and tokens of respect and affection from the local
community.

One only has to look at the situation in the former British
colonies in Africa to see how terribly they have deteriorated
since they were given their independence.

RB SAWREY-COOKSON

Jakarta