The White Man's Burden

Sometimes an old title can say more about our time than headlines in today's online newspapers. "The White Man's Burden", which Kipling wrote in 1899, has been interpreted as both ironic and literal - a kind of colonial call to "civilize" others. The white man's burden back then was to raise the "primitive" up to European standards, of course defined by the white man himself. Back then, the burden came with guns and missionaries. Today? Today it…