western imposition

HISTORY OF VALUES

Ok, slavery has existed across all cultures and all times until the present. It is not a fundamental characteristic unique to the west. The same with colonialism and conquering so called native peoples and taking their land. In antiquity, when new successful civilizations expanded, they displaced or absorbed less successful ones. The original native Americans were displaced many times by new groups of asian/pacific peoples from the pacific islands or across the Bering strait long before Columbus showed up. And the borders among the various tribes of native Americans were always in flux, with the stronger conquering the weaker before the Spanish, British and French warred over the new world. Europeans gave the west "indians" small pox, they gave Europe tobacco (organic and not grown by multi-nationals though) and maybe syphilis. The only thing unique about western culture is that it ended slavery world-wide, even against the protestation of African tribal kings who greatly profited from capturing rival African tribes and selling them into slavery. The Barbary pirates may have enslaved more Europeans into Africa than the number of Africans taken to the new world, yet this was ended by western society (with their evil western tradition and moral vanity). It is also the present western culture that dominates the international system with rules regarding the static freezing of national borders. Colonialism brought many advances into the third world that would not have been achieved otherwise (including the excuse of colonialism to explain ones present backwardness). The concept of a nation state with fixed borders was more advanced than many primitive people had yet discovered and this is why most of the worlds national borders were drawn by the west. The concept of the individual with natural rights and equality under the rule of law are western in origin. These concepts have been forced on the benighted mostly against their will. This is not an argument that colonialism or slavery are justified by the results. But it reminds me of that scene in Life of Brian, where the Palestinians are making a decree against Roman tyranny but have to exempt all the good things the Romans brought such as: law and order, the aqueduct, roads ect., ect. We should pay reparations to the real victims here: Neanderthals.