>In any case, what's the alternative? To 'take up the white man's burden'
>and colonize them all and 'teach them democracy'? That's an old and
>discredited program, although not dead.
In Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden," there's an apt statement:
"By all ye will or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent sullen peoples Shall weigh your God and you."
Though an advocate of "The White Man's Burden," Kipling was smart enough to see that colonized peoples will be silent & sullen, weighing colonizers' characters, interests, methods, beliefs, etc. And judgements of the colonized will never be the same as those of the colonizers'.
Yoshie
P.S. For an excellent anthology of responses to "The White Man's Burden," visit Jim Zwick, _"The White Man's Burden" and Its Critics_ at <http://www.boondocksnet.com/kipling/>.