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Johannesburg (AND) Colonialism may have ended long time ago, but an award-winning Hatian writer ? Rene? Depestre - insists that colonialism is not over yet.

?For me colonisation isn?t over. There has been decolonisation of institutions, and of the relations between the old colonial empires and their African, Asian and American colonies. There has also been a certain decolonisation of mentalities,? he said.

Addressing the United Nations Education and Science Organisation (UNESCO) the writer said, "there is a more subtle colonisation that we should have achieved, it is the decolonisation of semantics, at the level of words, starting with ?black?, ?white?, ?yellow?. This means that 50 years after the Congress, young people, particularly in the suburbs, hang on to myths supposedly related to identity, based on skin colour. They form ?black? associations. This phenomenon is a regression in relation to the progress made by the generation of Senghor and Césaire, mine and the one that followed.?

"Today it is not a question of affirming black cultures versus others,? he said.

?What is cruelly lacking in globalisation is ?globality? ? in other words the totality of the values of different civilisations. All civilisations are concerned. Some panic and fall into fundamentalism,? he said.

?Others make the transition with much greater ease and joie de vivre (joy). Some have bigger obstructions, like Africa, like Haiti. Globalisation should also provide the opportunity to raise the level of solidarity in the world for those who have been left behind.?

Depestre is regarded as a prominent figure in contemporary Haitain literature. He was present at the first international congress for black writers. He has written several books including an award-winning ?Hadriana dans tous mes rêves? (?Hadriana in All My Dreams).

Johannesburg bureau, AND