Khan 377goals among these students not just because of their bourgeois back-
grounds but because of the presence of other options in resisting their
colonial status. During the interwar era, expatriate colonials felt there
were only two choices before them: the status quo or Socialism. For these
young men, before World War I, there were still other games in town.
Thus the public sphere of Europe was an instrumental cause of, and not
just the inspiration for, the demand for similar space in the colonies.
Many recent discussions of the public sphere address contemporary
postcolonial societies and the various relationships between the public
sphere, civil society, government structures and international institutions.
Still more are concerned with the role of new media, most immediately
the Internet, in expanding or modifying such spheres; and, of course, the
idea that a truly global public sphere is being created has profound impli-
cations and has attracted an understandable amount of attention. To date,
however, there have been few studies of the public sphere and civil society
in the colonial context and how these institutions have shaped the char-
acter of postcolonial societies. This information can help us understand
the challenges these societies face today in the development of a public
sphere, and indeed, whether or not promoting such a sphere is necessar-
ily the best route to stronger civil society or democracy in these situa-
tions. The more fundamental issues still being debated among Habermas’s
commentators—for example, whether consensus is or should be the pur-
pose driving public discourse—may also become clearer with a more
sophisticated grasp of how such discourses have been conducted in other
contexts.