[P2P-F] Fwd: The West

[Michel Bauwens]

what do people think of this narrative ?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: r kanth <involutegandhian at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 11:39 PM
Subject: Fwd: The West
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>





*                                                                   The
West*

*                                                              A View from
Without*                                              *

**Europeans has been , for centuries, a ruthless, aggressive  Empire,
leastways as viewed by many of its  Non-European subjects: Can  such
Empires  do good? It’s possible: but virtues achieved via vicious means may
not be perceived/received  as such by its victims;  much like slaves, who
might baulk, at being asked to consider  benign aspects -if any- of
Slavery. *

*More importantly,  the glories of European achievements are all too well
eulogized  by Europhiles, and fill libraries upon libraries, the subject
matter of  legend and lore;  less so, criticisms of this kind, whence I
feel  no compulsion to be ‘balanced’ in what I say. This is,  unabashedly,
a Critique:  but  a verifiable one; neither specious,  nor casuistic. *

*And why do I articulate it? As in the  current, highly visible, struggles
against racism and sexism, the historical  iniquities of Empire and
Colonialism must be kept in focus: lest we forget. Of course, as a
‘Gandhian’ ( at least , in some regards) , forgiveness for such sins  is
assumed, here,  as an article of faith, ipso facto: the tale being told
with reason, not rancor.*





For at least four centuries, the world has lived/struggled under the
European heel/harrow.

The latter  did not streak ahead of the former by virtue of its prowess in *any
field* , but one:

*War.*

And *genocide*, wherever/whenever it was meet.

The primary, if not sole, motivation was - in summary abbreviation -
*commerce*.

*It is so still:* with* finance* and *war *the only  really robust, active
agencies , today,  within the NATO ambit.

Amongst the European tribes – yes, *tribes: *it’s not just Africans and
Native Americans who were tribal –the Anglo Normans pulled head of others
(notably France and Spain and the Dutch: later, Germany, Italy, *et. al.)*
, again largely  by virtue of their *martial *superiority.

At least in the first instance , this  *intra-Euro* superiority  of the
Anglo-Normans did *not* stem from *technology*: naval technologies were ,
arguably, broadly similar between France , Spain , and England.

But, rather , I venture, from sheer *valor* , (*i.e., * readiness to die,
take improbable risks,  for King and Country) , irrepressible
aggressiveness, and  dogged, superhuman  persistence against,  often ,
impossible odds.

Unfathomable *Heroism*, even of the idiot kind (*vide* ‘The Charge of the
Light Brigade’) was a sort of a *cachet.*

A  taste, nay *zeal,*  for war, one might say,  unequalled by any -  other
than  a few  martial tribes of North West of India, no less valiant,
violent, and aggressive.

Lands , labors, minerals, and ideas/techniques were,  thereby, willy-nilly,
 extracted/appropriated wherever/whenever possible: with resisting natives
decimated  without ruth, or compunction.

Pirates and plunderers, in short.

*

*Via* such lofty means/ mechanisms, Europe, the *poorest , least endowed of
the continents* (* imp. caveat*: * Europe is NOT a continent,* but rather a
*sub-continent* like India)  amassed the enormous ‘wealth’ ( *as
 defined/understood  within  an EM calculus, that is)*  it has now.

Now it is easy to see why the empires of India and China did not go about
pillaging the  rest of the world.

They had resource blessings in abundance *within their   own bounds,* so
much so that  in  the 17th century India and China  accounted , perhaps,
for about 50% of world’s  GDP.

India (*i.e.,* its  various *empires,*  in aggregate terms)  was
*fabulously* wealthy: and  China was thriving.

*Which is why  Europe –  with its chronic poverty/dearth of resources ,
specially specie - made a bee-line for it*, like Senor Columbus,  buccaneer,
pirate, and mass-murderer: to catastrophic effect.

In less than two centuries   *of outright marauding*,  the region  of India
, home to amongst  the oldest *continuous* civilisations ( preceding Greece
by thousands of years)  on the planet,  was reduced to its  beggarly ‘third
world status’ , when the Brits  finally left , mid-century, after making
their  due  , if quite forgettable, ‘contribution’ to the sub-continent.

*Needless to add , the enrichment of Europe was related to the imposed
destitution of the Non-European world.*

Arguably, ancient India, long before  the European (so-called)
‘Enlightenment’,  made  contributions to  arts, science  and   philosophy
not merely comparable to  pre-Enlightenment Europe , but  ineffably  superior,
and far, far prior.

Yes,  to  note, purely  *en passant*,  but two indices, they had  something
close to flushing toilets in  ancient Mohen Jo Daro: and calculus was
invented not by Messrs. Newton and Leibniz,  but in India (Kerala),  from
whence it travelled , unacknowledged , as  usual, to Europe (*btw I use
‘India’ to refer to the original  civilization that inhabited the
sub-continent,  not to the modern(ist) political entity that bears that
name today*), centuries later.

No , they won’t teach  that  bit of trivia (!) in most of the European
world,  even in academe, like  so much else.

*It doesn’t fit the narrative *

In much the he same way,  Hegel described Africa, of his time, as at the
very  ‘infancy’ of human history incapable of civilization: in effect
denying that Egypt was a Black , Nubian , civilisation , a denial that
racist Europe maintained late into the 20th century.

At any rate, most European languages ‘derive’ from Sanskrit, and the
dominant ‘Christian’ ideational prepossession  of Europe today  - real or
phony - also hails from India: *Christianity , arguably, is an offshoot of
Classical Buddhism,* whose  mighty philosophical sweep extended from the
Mediterranean to Japan,  in its heyday .

Of course, Europe swiftly  ‘*modernized’* classical Christianity (after its
‘enlightenment’*)  via* the so-called ‘Reformation’ , to make  it ‘fit’ its
zeal for *capital accumulation* (by repealing  various restrictions
placed  upon
it by  the Catholic  church, as, *e.g.,*  in Canon Law).

Interestingly, *no major (or minor) religion ever evolved within Europe*,
unless  a heartfelt *Mammon worship  *is ascribed that status.

I happen to think that significant.

*

Once launched ,  and stabilized,   18th century on, commerce and industry ,
within European empires, expanded  (after their  own native, peasant
populations  were suitably dispossessed) *via *technical and commercial
innovations , even as more  conventional expropriations  from its colonies
continued, enhanced ( as  to this day)

The Anglo-Normans pulled ahead of Europe  in  productive and military
technologies, until their German cousins( eventually to be  , if only
grudgingly acknowledged , world leaders, in such areas ) caught up , and
surpassed them, by the end of the 19th century,  much to their chagrin.

The so-called ‘World’ Wars were no more than *European Wars of Empire*,  that
dragged in the ‘world’ (Japan was the only *Non*-European empire to be
so  involved,
much like Ottoman Turkey, long prior).

This, of course,  is an imminent  possibility even now.

War is , and has ever  been, to European rulers both an  important
amphetamine and  aphrodisiac, aside from being the lead activity/sector  for
generations.

Indeed,  I would venture, *if they had their will*,  NATO would have branch
offices in New Delhi, Beijing , Seoul, and Tokyo.

*

The origin of European *Racism -*  the clear scourge of our  times -
lay  simply
in their relatively facile domination of the world for centuries ( a casual
review  of ancient Greeks - as  the great Martin Bernal notes -  who had
much interaction with Eastern ideas , does not betray any overtly
*racist *ideology
of superiority).

After all,  if you have subdued the peoples of this world ,  at nominal
cost/effort , the belief may follow,  like the US,  in ‘manifest destiny’:  or,
like Europe (and not merely amongst Nazis) ,  in   a ‘master race’ of
‘supermen’.

Of course,  the ‘cure’ for such pretensions  is the  turn of history
itself: by any reckoning, China, India,  and Russia (perhaps in that order)
are the emergent  ‘super powers’ of the future(again using Western indices).

And they will  indubitably tone down  any and all  fantasies  of white
supremacy  - like Trump’s boast of making the US ‘great’ again -not by any
direct action,  but by their very (countervailing) presence.

*Thus does ambition check ambition, and diamond(s) cut diamond(s).*

So,  *Euro-Racism* will , over time, succumb, harmlessly,  to   the  rank
of petty chauvinisms that characterize(d) most so-called  ‘developed’
societies on this planet.

Genocide, also, will, as such,  will/might  gradually recede from history.

*

So,  can we  then conclude that all’s headed to the good here, despite the
manifest  iniquities of our times?

No.

I fear not.

In fact, far from it.

The EM legacy is now wantonly embraced by the entire  world (including
China, India , and Russia).,* via* generations  of overt regime
change,  clandestine
subversion, and  endless propaganda.

Whence we may well  have the same game on, as we do  at this time :  *of
 continuing,  untrammeled , societal and ecological destruction -*  albeit,
 with  brand new players.

As a *curiosum,* this was an outcome  at least partially- if not  entirely
correctly -  foreseen by Marx in his final years (of a ‘socialist’ Europe
undermined by an emergent ,  ‘capitalist’ Asia).

*In effect, we are all Europeans (i.e., EuroModernists) now.*

Doubtless,  as the *ancient regime gradually * slips,  in its  economic  and
political reach , it will turn to a hypertrophic enhancement of its *military
*capability, a  fact already visible in our times.

Faltering  dragons may be more aggressive than normal ones.

But it will not prevail:* save in  the  intent  (if any) to blow up a
 world it can no longer rule.*

Will it?

Remains to be seen.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, with unusual compunction,  in a relatively more
circumscribed  era:

‘*when I consider  there is a just god in heaven,   I tremble for the fate
 of  my country*’.

Of course: If he merely *trembled *then, might he not  be *shuddering* now?

I wonder.

                     R  E  F  E  R  E  N  C  E  S

Kanth, R.  *Breaking with the Enlightenment*, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997

_______   *Farewell to Modernism*, NY: Peter Lang, 2017

*[©R.Kanth 2018] *




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