Suchergebnisse

The words that serve as a motto for this paper are taken from the finest novel about Dutch fin de siècle society and indeed, in my opinion, the finest novel in Dutch literature, Louis Couperus' De Boeken der Kleine Zielen (The Books of the Small Souls). They form part of a dialogue between the widow of a former Governor-General of the Netherlands Indies and her, obviously, very dis-appointed grandson, a young colonial civil servant in the beginning of his career.

Decolonization has finished. It definitely belongs to the past, but somehow it has refused to become history. A great deal has already been written on this subject, and yet it seems that there is little to say about it. After the Second World War, the colonized countries wanted to become independent, struggled with their oppressors and threw off the yoke of colonial rule. Within a few years they all achieved their aim. That is the song that has now already been sung for about thirty years, in various keys, it is true, but with a remarkable consistency of tune and melody. The entire colonial history seems to have been no more than a prologue to an inevitable and triumphant independence. A new Whig interpretation of history has come into being.