Zimbabwe's crisis has incited an unsettling feeling of déja vu . The reason is clear: it is, thankfully, no longer fashionable to decry colonialism's evils in assigning blame for every national misfortune. The imperial statues are toppled, cities and streets renamed, the vestiges of foreign rule either abandoned or adapted. With the sole exception of Zimbabwe, no leading politician in any post-imperial country has made a notable speech in recent years attacking colonialism. That great staple of political rhetoric appears to have been buried across the developing world.
Zimbabwe's crisis has incited an unsettling feeling of déja vu . The reason is clear: it is, thankfully, no longer fashionable to decry colonialism's evils in assigning blame for every national misfortune. The imperial statues are toppled, cities and streets renamed, the vestiges of foreign rule either abandoned or adapted. With the sole exception of Zimbabwe, no leading politician in any post-imperial country has made a notable speech in recent years attacking colonialism. That great staple of political rhetoric appears to have been buried across the developing world.