Imperialism and motherhood
Wednesday, 5. August 2009, 15:18:40
Miss Kingsley repeatedly chided the colonial powers for abolishing political systems they did not understand and for then showing pained surprise when the natives failed to reveal a proper gratitude.
The imperial story, she wrote, was very like "that improving fable of the kind-hearted she-elephant who, while out walking one day, inadvertently trod upon a partridge and killed it, and observing close at hand the bird's nest full of callow fledglings, dropped a tear, and saying 'I have feelings of a mother myself,' sat down upon the brood."
- Mary Kingsley on British impreialism in Africa in the 19th century,
as rendered by Basil Davidson in African Kingdoms, page 167-168.
WIDGETIZE
Kaffekatten # 6. August 2009, 06:51
Loki Aesir # 6. August 2009, 11:10
But yes.