EMPIRE AND AFTER^439against the Afrikaners (1899-1902)—gave arguments to anti-
imperialist liberal and radical writers and politicians. Empire, pride of
the powerful and consolation of the little people, the thing that made
small countries big and big countries huge, lost legitimacy.*
World War II dealt the coup de grâce. Not only did Western nations
lose their reputation of invincibility, but their war aims deprecated do
minion. Now the burden of mastery grew unbearably heavy. Some
countries, prouder than others, held on (France in Indochina and,
even more, Algeria). Others (Britain in India and Palestine, Holland in
Indonesia) could not wait to let go. They were right. To the disap
pointment of the anticolonialist doctrinaires, the ex-imperial nations
suffered not a whit by the loss of these territories; on the contrary.
The second thesis also proved to be wrong. In 1961, an Indian
economist named Surendra Patel published an essay that demonstrated
by irrefutable arithmetic that India, now free of the British Raj, would
in some thirty years pass France in income per head, and in another few
years, the United States.^27 He was not alone; one could find other ro
mantic predictions. They reflected fair hope and tenacious doctrine;
also national pride and a kind of virtual revenge.
It's Easy to Remember, and
So Hard to ForgetOne of the worst legacies of colonialism has been the explosion of ill-
will against the former masters and their representatives—not so
much on the level of governments, where deals and money are to be
made, as of relations between people. A number of colonies, among
them some of the most important, became outiets for overseas
- Among the powerful anti-imperialist statements: Joseph Conrad's short novel Heart
of Darkness (1902). This eloquent testimony to the abuses of imperialism and the-
hypocrisy of the West was based on personal experience in the heart of Africa: "Going
up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world. ..." The
novella has since been denounced as a racist, "orientalist" document and hence to be
excluded from the literary canon. Conrad, we are told, presented the native Africans
as primitive and helpless (Africa as the heart of darkness), and we can't have that. Such
are the anachronistic imperatives of political correctness. This assault on what has al
ways been considered a masterpiece of empathy and humanity has produced what the
current jargon awkwardly calls a "site of contestation." See the fascinating article by
David Denby, "Jungle Fever."