Kneel-colonialism

Among the letters - from Perry Anderson, as well as on George Kennan, Karl Popper, and the British empire, in the LRB for June 7, 2012:

The Real Thing

Bernard Porter’s account of the ambiguities of anthropology as it played in our ‘civilising mission’ in Africa brought to mind a story told by the American anthropologist Elizabeth Colson, who has studied the Tonga people of South Zambia for sixty years (LRB, 10 May). In the 1940s some earnest young Tongans told her they’d come to the conclusion that the Bible contained the knowledge that was the secret of European power over them. They didn’t trust the Bibles available from the local missions because they believed that the key passages had been cut out before the Bibles were distributed to Africans. They were hoping she had brought some unexpurgated copies with her.

Derek Summerfield
London SE5