As for colonialism, this third-world feminist of color should get down on her knees and thank Siva that her country was the beneficiary of British colonialism. Without it, she would never have heard of feminism or even of the third world, since the very concept depends upon the freedom, education, and language that the West brought to savages countries in the 18th and 19th centuries. India is such an economic powerhouse today because of the legacy bequeathed by her former colonial rulers -- a legacy that includes Western technology, the rule of law, better health and hygiene, education, and democracy. It also includes the absence of certain things -- suttee, for example, the barbaric practice of incinerating a widow on the funeral pyre of her dead husband, one of many "traditional" customs that the British put a stop to. If the British sinned, it was not because of their colonial rule, but because of the failure of nerve that led them to withdraw too precipitously from colonies that were ill-equipped to govern themselves -- colonies in Africa, for example, and India itself…

Of course colonialism comes in different flavors. The Belgians did not acquit themselves honorably in the Congo. But everywhere that Britain went -- I cannot think of a single exception -- it left better off…