By Shenali Waduge
When people are the same all over the world to understand how the West came to rule the world we need to go back 15,000 years. From nomadism, the world has reached universal settlement, agriculture, large populations, labor, centralized power and a phase we refer to as modern.
Those promoting the West would argue that the West are biologically superior and have better leaders while the others would argue they possess unique cultures and a rich history. Be that as it may the great civilizations evolved from Asia, Mesopotamia, Mexico and Peru. With time while some groups stuck to hunting others built empires after realizing the value of location, geography and climate. Thus it was in South West Asia around 9000 BC that farming began and spread across Europe as well as China and Mexico.
The first city emerged 6000 years ago in Iraq (Mesopotamia), out of sheer jealousy most of these monumental buildings and historic sites have all been brought to ruins by US/NATO air strikes. Soon states turned into empires created armies that moved round the seas resulting in the introduction of taxations. The world’s greatest empires spread from Rome in the West to the Han China in the East when the East became far ahead of the West in terms of innovations.
It was Western Europe inspired by the East’s ships that helped them gain geographical advantage and thus began the modern trade, slavery and the new economy. The Western Europeans discovered, plundered and colonized the Americas moving on to Asia and Africa. Western Europeans were soon involved in production and tapping into the power of fossil fuels. The first industrial revolution emerged in the UK and the British began to dominate the global economy and then came the American dominated economy until the present where the Asian tigers have once more arisen and China, India and hopefully a united Asia will regain its rightful stake.
Undoubtedly, the rise of Asia and the East has rattled the West. The importance of the rise of the East means that Asian societies are rising and Western societies are crumbling. This is not difficult to perceive. The West’s “freedom” slogan has only produced children out of wedlock, low marriages, a trend in homosexuality, complete collapse of the family, overflowing prisons, drug addicts and people addicted to prescription drugs, large numbers drawn to psychiatric therapy and the list goes on. What ails the culture of the West is that it has afforded its people multiple options which have altered the value of faithfulness in love, for children and even taking care of parents once old. These traits have been advanced through Western influenced media into Asian cultures as well.
The West is suffering a financial crisis, massive unemployment etc whilst continuing its policies of invading nations on the pretext of securing human rights, democracy and freedom for these people. This new trend is nothing to be surprised over and in fact it simply reveals that the West is now drained out and is out to secure new wealth. Thus the re-entry to the East to once again squander as they did in colonial times – this time with a touch of sophistication, using corporates to enter as investors and then to walk off with a country’s key assets.
The brutal colonization of the Third World went hand in hand with religious and economic expansion. Once “divide and rule” became the principle and slavery became the norm the rich cultures and civilizations of the East fell apart one after the other not helped in the least by the wars and conflicts that were purposely instigated in a game that the West contrived to ensure they would reign supreme by dividing and disintegrating others whilst bribing Asian leaders to function on behalf of their strategic interests denying rights to their own natives. With time the West developed a model to ensnare and enslave countries further by introducing the World Bank and IMF – always led by a person from the West. These policies were nothing but enslavement of generations of people in taxes where the West end up living off interest paid on the invisible loans given. And we have to be thankful for these loans and grateful to the local leaders for securing them!
The desire to maintain its security at the helm of world governance has prompted these Western nations to go to any lengths to ensure the empires they have built do not fall apart and so “terrorism” was created and with it a drive called “war on terror” which has now been tied to a doctrine called “responsibility to protect” enabling countries to legally enter and take over nations simply on an “assumption”. Leaders of Third World nations especially the politicians have not helped to counter these maneuvers since they have been enticed by commissions and love for money falling prey to the machinations of the Western governments leading them to betray their own nations and their own people. Such local leaders have enabled the West to walk over and completely destroy nations.
It is no secret that the West has been trespassing on other cultures. The British strategy during colonial times was to introduce alcohol to the natives on top of the overall divide and rule policy, the British created divides among castes further dividing the people! Thus the strategy to introduce a non-cultural item into another culture and show that to be far superior than the existing culture has certainly made inroads in Asian towns and cities….just count the number of Asian youth attempting to have size 0 bodies! Asians are always competing to own the latest mobile phone or possess the latest car in the market….these are all western influenced outcomes.
So while spirituality is beckoning most people of the West who are giving up their religions and turning to philosophies like Buddhism and mind calming meditation and yoga, the people of the East are in severe competition attempting to all the while live and act like the West. So we certainly see the lifestyles of the two inter-changing reiterating the need for the wise leaders ruling the East to get to grips with the present scenario and think of how to ensure East does not give up its cultural heritage.
Asians need to decolonize their minds. With Asia’s rise, Asians need to think as Asians and not follow or practice all that is West. It will only facilitate the decay of Asia despite its rise.
We are all aware that the rise of the East is headed by China which means China needs to keep the Asian nations together and to foster greater ties not in the manner that the West has been doing. Certainly China has done a great job sharing its prosperity, signing free trade agreements, using its state services to forge partnerships instead of having corporate take over nations. What China now needs to do is to encourage Asian nations to value Asian cultures because the fall of Asia will come about by following false Western cultures.
What people of the East need to realize and remember at all times is that Modernization is not Westernization.
What is keeping the West at the helm however is the United Nations with its pretext of fostering unity and protecting the world from another war whilst doing nothing to stop mini-wars and conflicts which have been covertly created by the West. The UN is carrying forth the West’s dogma – Reform. Yet does reform have to be according to the West?
It is not difficult to see that the real power of the UN is concentrated among 15 members and 5 permanent members of which China and Russia balances the scales. Yet for most part, the West has dominated every resolution passed in the UN and has managed to manipulate the secretariat to endorse its “new colonialism” strategies.
Yet, without a doubt the 21st century will be Asia’s century and before our eyes we see power shifting. Nevertheless, as of now Asia’s biggest enemy remains Asia and that will continue to be until Asia and Asians realize their own values, respect their culture and cultural heritage and not fall prey to the Western culture that is being steadily incorporated into Asian society through western media channels.
Geography, location and climate was what induced the West to take over the East and tap into its wealth – these very ingredients remains the secrets to Asia’s growth and it is for that very reason that every inch of Asia in terms of its geographical focal points, strategic locations be protected by Asia’s leaders and climate is used to advantage to foster every aspect of sustainability drives possible. With these areas strategically taken care of by Asian leaders led by China, Asia is unlikely to fall. The only challenge to this is India which has become manipulated by the West and is being used as a pimp to tap into countries of Asia in order to keep the pro-US agenda in tact and US very much part of whatever Asia decides. Whilst Indians as a whole may not be aware of this and are unlikely to agree to Western influence, the reality remains that India is controlled by a handful of aristocrat Brahmins. It is time India woke up to the realization that Asia’s fall will come because of India compromising Asia – otherwise Asia will be a force to reckon with.
- Asian Tribune -
