Dear John
I would have to agree with the comments made by Michael Jefferson in his
e-mail re: Kipling and racism.
Kipling was a product of his time. Every generation feels that they are
more enlightened than the previous one. To quote L P Hartley, "The past
is a foreign country; they do things differently there".
By his contemporaries was Kipling a racist? Was Churchill? I don't
think so. Why don't we accept that Kipling was first and foremost a
good journalist and a bloody good story teller. He, like any other
person, had his good points and bad. Let him be remembered for what he
wrote, not nitpick of what he was.
Cheerio
Robbie White
PS I too lived in Burma/India for the first 22 years of my life, and I
must concur with the comments made by Michael Jefferson regarding his
"ethnic" position.
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