The West, Andrews will argue, prides itself on being founded on the three great revolutions of science, industry and politics. But the cornerstones of the West, he asserts, are in fact genocide, slavery and colonialism. And the European Enlightenment, which underpins every part of modern thought, was deeply racist from the start. Colonial oppression, he will say, is not just part of our history: it still exists today, with America in charge, perpetuating global inequality through corporations, governments and institutions like the the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.
This is false, says eminent historian Jeremy Black. All of this is a complete distortion of historical and current facts, Black will retort at this timely event. It is simply not correct, he will say, to deny the importance of science, industry and politics in the formation of Western culture – or even the benefits we still derive from them. All our modern ideas of freedom, equality, individual rights and universal values go back to the Enlightenment, he will argue. Yes, racism still exists in modern societies, but it is disingenuous to claim that it defines life in the 21st century as fundamentally as it did during the era of slavery and direct colonization. “Western values” do not only belong to white people: they are the tools available to all humanity to build a better world.
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