you guys carry the guilt of your forefathers ... the british, the portuguese, the spanish, the germans ... that's why you are so touchy about this subject. us, the maltese, we've always been a colonized nation, we have been passed from one colonizer to the other, we have always been downtrodden, that's why we tend to feel less guilty and hung up about such things
because let's face it, the people who are most sensitive to these issues, ironically, are not the downtrodden themselves, but rather the ones frantz fanon would call 'the other'.
(and often it does feel patronizing ...)
of course, had we been a huge nation with an empire to match, we would have done the same as the others. and guess what ... so would the native americans, the australian aborigines, the people of the south pacific etc etc. no ethinicity is less evil than another.
the 'noble savage' philosophy belongs to the 19th century.
it's basic human nature, whether we like it or not