i mean, what do we want, here?

do we want to end up more like them by importing their problems?

or do we want to help them become more like us?

it's hardly colonialism, when we're talking about what are, after all, spanish and portugese colonies - and the legacies of them. we should be looking at commonalities and asking what wrong there that went right here. but, i think we should separate our criticism of colonialism from our criticism of the methods colonialism used during less enlightened periods, too.