Dear Juba

Independence was a vision shared by hundreds of millions of people culminating in decolonization and independence for most after the Second World War. Being involved in the Timorese cause for self-determination I got a taste for what that must have been like. But in the years following, I also got a taste of the “after.”

I remember one of the lines of conversation most repeated in East Timor. I have had this conversation multiple times over the past ten years. To paraphrase