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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 18, No. 11. August 12, 1954

Revolt Against West

Revolt Against West

But Asian revolution has not been merely a matter of the acceptance of Western ideas, or of Western Ideas transmuted by Russian experience It has also been a revolt against the West. This is again especially the case of Indo-China. The civil war there was simultaneously a war against French colonialism. One lesson of Indo-China Is that the West has no longer the strength or the will to enforce its nineteenth century domination over Asia, and the question is not whether it can retain control, but only how and when it will surrender its power.

The answer to these questions are now, disastrously, confused by another and basically quite extrinsic, issue: the conflict between the West and Communism, or, more accurately, the struggle between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. This issue cannot possibly be resolved by war In Indo-China or Korea, any more than it could be settled by conference at Berlin or Geneva. Whether or not it eventually leads to a titanic struggle, embroiling most of the rest of the world, we cannot escape the fact that it will be with us, and will dominate the political scene, for years to come—probably, on present showing, for at least a generation.