Throw away pith helmet!

Resuming the debate on colonialism, allow me to express the following:

* If I were a European in this postcolonial age, I would have thrown away my mental pith helmet a long time ago. South Asians would not be allowed to call me Sahib, equatorial Africans would not call me Bwana, and black South Africans wouldn't have to call me Baas. Instead, I would introduce myself by saying: "Hello, my name is James (or Thomas, or Richard, or whatever). And may I know your name?"

* Remember these lyrics from the Bob Dylan song? They were directed at the earlier generation and are still valid today: "Your old road is rapidly aging/Please get out of the new one/If you can't lend a hand/For the times they are a-changing..."

* It is curious that feelings of antipathy against colonial domination are misconstrued as envy toward past and present superpowers.

* I do not begrudge the United States for its current status of preeminence in the world. In fact, when the British economy was nearly ruined after World War II, Britain had to rely heavily on U.S. aid. And after the liberation of Europe, the American government was not in the least sympathetic to the continuation of the British Empire in India and elsewhere. The cry was: "Let freedom ring!"

* Royal Air Force pilots who won the Battle of Britain were courageous heroes. But the same Winston Churchill who led the fight against Nazi rule was an archcolonialist who refused independence for the people under British rule.

* The reason Indonesia is not under Japanese, or anybody's imperial rule today, is due to the mood of freedom after our national reawakening, plus international pressure at the time against the Dutch. Britain gave independence to its colonies because it clearly saw the writing on the wall. But before that, behind whose troops did Dutch soldiers try to reclaim this country for themselves in September 1945?

FARID BASKORO

Jakarta