In the aftermath of the events of 11th of September there has been much discussion regarding the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ a
s Samuel Huntington put it. America and the Western powers have portrayed the current conflict as a war between the ‘civilised world’ against the ‘uncivilised world’. George W. Bush said on September 20th 2001: “This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.”
Todays world is dominated by Western civilisation and the root of many problems facing the world today whether on a domestic level or an international level are sprouting from it.
The governments survey figures of Western countries like Britain show that one-fifth of the population, that is 12 million people, live in poverty. Three million children in the UK live below the breadline. In US there are 4 million people homeless. About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line. In New York City 10,000 children are homeless and the mayor has issued beggars with credit card machines, so that local people can give them donations with their American Express card?
At the domestic front, the crime figures show that in the last year there were 38,000 sexual offences committed, over one million cars or something stolen, nearly one million burglaries, and almost three-quarters of a million violent crimes committed. There is unlikely to be anyone who has not experienced first-hand the crime epidemic in one form or another.
Drug addiction is rampant in the Western societies where the number of heroin and cocaine addicts are growing to the extent that in Australia they have now have official government centres where people can go and inject heroin safely.
The ideas of freedom and democracy espoused by the West which are supposed to bring about equality have come to nothing. The issue of racism exist with the same severity as in the past and is even institutionalised as proven by the Stephen Lawrence affair and in the famous killing of Rodney King in America. Right wing racist groups find breeding grounds on dilapidated council estates and areas. After the events of 11th of September we found that many immigrants were attacked in Western societies, mosques were stoned and Muslim were subject to verbal and physical abuse. Currently Indians also witnessing racism in Australia where there are incidents of racial harassment everyday reported by the media. This also reflect the intellectual heights that western civilisation has developed into its people!
The situation is no different in the United States, Germany or other Western countries. Recently a book entitle “The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq” by Helen Benedict exposes the harsh realities of life in the US military for women. While proclaiming the champion of women’s right globally, the US is proven to be spectacularly failing to protect the security and needs of females in armed services. With female soldiers often fearing rape and harassment from their male colleagues more than the enemy they are fighting in order to spread ‘freedom and democracy’, it is the values of the US forces which are exposed as being barbaric and backward rather than those of ‘the enemy’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. If according to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% sexually harassed, one has to wonder if this is how the men of the US armed forces treat their own women, what sort of behaviour would they exhibit with those they consider to be their enemies?
We need to understand what is the root cause of these problems and why these societies have been unable to deal with them? If we go the depth of these problems we find that the foundation upon which Western society and Capitalism is based upon is flawed and corrupt.
Capitalism, which calls for the separation of the religion from life. It insists that man has the ability to decide right and wrong for himself according to his natural impulses and has inbuilt guide of pain and pleasure. He should be free to do as he pleases, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. It does not matter whether they believe in a Creator or not. The ideas of freedom, individualism and utilitarianism or expediency or self benefit are a lethal cocktail that produce corrupt personalities.
We find that Western societies are characterised with all of these problems, so people will steal to satisfy their material benefit – even the politicians of the West do this as all the scandals have proven.
Even the former President of the United States Bill Clinton was prepared to lie under oath in order to save himself. In reality petty theft and the corruption in Western politics have the same cause.
Harold Shipman, the Hyde general practitioner, killed at least 15 of his patients who had come to him expecting care, compassion and empathy. In pursuit of some perverse form of pleasure and joy he murdered his innocent victims.
Dennis Nilsen killed 16 young men; the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, killed 13 women; Fred West murdered 12 people including his first wife and daughter.
John Haigh who was known as the “acid bath vampire” drunk the blood of his six victims before disposing of them in vats of acid; these people are all the products of the capitalist way of life.
On the other hand it has been widely propagated that Western civilisation has eradicated sexism and racism and other prejudices – a claim that is completely false.
Women here only earn on average 60% of what men earn thirty years after the sex discrimination act? Women are portrayed as objects and are used to sell everything from chocolates to cars. The media coverage is full of reports of racist attacks undertaken by people exercising their freedom. Even if we look at the foreign policy of the Western powers we can see that these same values of greed and material benefit are the basis for their actions.
Everyone knows that the Western powers entered the Gulf War due to the Oil in that area. Not to help the people of Iraq. Senator Bob Dole of the United States said in the Gulf War “we are not going to war to bring back the Emir of Kuwait because that does not deserve a single American life”. Once American senator even said, “God made a mistake when he put the oil in the Middle East, we are here to correct this mistake.”
As far back as 1944 the US State Department outlined the reasons for its involvement in the Gulf when a document described the Arabian peninsula as constituting “a stupendous source of strategic power and the greatest material prize in the world’s history”
America and its allies have attacked Afghanistan without a shred of evidence in order to achieve its interests. It is clear that America wants to achieve its strategic and economic interests in the region. To quote the American House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Committee on International Relations:
“One hundred years ago, Central Asia was the arena for a great game played by Czarist Russia, Colonial Britain, Napoleon's France, and the Persian and the Ottoman Empires…One hundred years later, the collapse of the Soviet Union has unleashed a new great game…Today the Subcommittee examines the interests of a new contestant in this new great game, the United States. The United States has energy security, strategic, and commercial interests in promoting Caspian region energy development.” [THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1998]
The results of the American foreign policy are clear:
Over a three million people have died in Iraq since the Gulf War; this is the so-called ‘ethical’ foreign policy that characterises the capitalist nations. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are thought to have killed 140,000 and 70,000 people respectively the effects of which we still see today. The US has provided arms and support to Israel which has committed atrocities against the Muslims. Even some of the thinkers, journalists and officials in the West have realised this.
Steve Erickson of the Herald Tribune said, "How can you call a nation civilized that massacred the indigenous red Indians and brought in Africans as slaves to build it?"
John Pilger wrote in The Irish Times “Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims - that is, the victims of American fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth.”
Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General said, “The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.”
The United States uses the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to keep the so-called developing world under the shackles of poverty and economic hardship.
Countries like Pakistan spend almost three-quarters of their wealth in paying back the interest on their debts; new loans are taken to pay back the interest and the vicious cycle continues.
Millions go hungry in Africa, even though at one time it was the bread-basket in the medieval ages. At the same time the Western countries dump wheat, coffee and other produce in the sea in order to artificially inflate the price.
According to UN statistics there are over two billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day? The disproportion of the wealth from the First world to the Third world is massive. It is estimated that the 3rd world has 75% of the worlds population but only 17% of the world GNP and 8% of the worlds Industry. Despite the fact it contains most of the worlds resources.
It is no secret that the Capitalist multi-nationals like Gap and Nike exploit the people in third world due to cheap labour and have devastating working conditions with women working 12 hour to 18 hour shifts.
The poisonous fruits of Western civilisation are apparent. The reality of the world today is that it stands in an abyss of exploitation, chaos and despair; the strong oppress the weak, the rich oppress the poor, and the ignorant rule over the enlightened.
The solution is not that an individual stood up to eradicate all this corruption like what we see in Hollywood or Bollywood movies, which is a myth and self-deception. Neither it should be resolved with the patch work in the current system as it has been already done hundred of times. Until the emergence of a whole new system which should be based on rational creed from which emanate the system of life addressing all problems of mankind, these problems will persist. It should be neither Capitalism nor Communism but rather radically different, which provide a different outlook to see the world and define it with new concepts.
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s Samuel Huntington put it. America and the Western powers have portrayed the current conflict as a war between the ‘civilised world’ against the ‘uncivilised world’. George W. Bush said on September 20th 2001: “This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.”Todays world is dominated by Western civilisation and the root of many problems facing the world today whether on a domestic level or an international level are sprouting from it.
The governments survey figures of Western countries like Britain show that one-fifth of the population, that is 12 million people, live in poverty. Three million children in the UK live below the breadline. In US there are 4 million people homeless. About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line. In New York City 10,000 children are homeless and the mayor has issued beggars with credit card machines, so that local people can give them donations with their American Express card?
At the domestic front, the crime figures show that in the last year there were 38,000 sexual offences committed, over one million cars or something stolen, nearly one million burglaries, and almost three-quarters of a million violent crimes committed. There is unlikely to be anyone who has not experienced first-hand the crime epidemic in one form or another.
Drug addiction is rampant in the Western societies where the number of heroin and cocaine addicts are growing to the extent that in Australia they have now have official government centres where people can go and inject heroin safely.
The ideas of freedom and democracy espoused by the West which are supposed to bring about equality have come to nothing. The issue of racism exist with the same severity as in the past and is even institutionalised as proven by the Stephen Lawrence affair and in the famous killing of Rodney King in America. Right wing racist groups find breeding grounds on dilapidated council estates and areas. After the events of 11th of September we found that many immigrants were attacked in Western societies, mosques were stoned and Muslim were subject to verbal and physical abuse. Currently Indians also witnessing racism in Australia where there are incidents of racial harassment everyday reported by the media. This also reflect the intellectual heights that western civilisation has developed into its people!
The situation is no different in the United States, Germany or other Western countries. Recently a book entitle “The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq” by Helen Benedict exposes the harsh realities of life in the US military for women. While proclaiming the champion of women’s right globally, the US is proven to be spectacularly failing to protect the security and needs of females in armed services. With female soldiers often fearing rape and harassment from their male colleagues more than the enemy they are fighting in order to spread ‘freedom and democracy’, it is the values of the US forces which are exposed as being barbaric and backward rather than those of ‘the enemy’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. If according to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% sexually harassed, one has to wonder if this is how the men of the US armed forces treat their own women, what sort of behaviour would they exhibit with those they consider to be their enemies?
We need to understand what is the root cause of these problems and why these societies have been unable to deal with them? If we go the depth of these problems we find that the foundation upon which Western society and Capitalism is based upon is flawed and corrupt.
Capitalism, which calls for the separation of the religion from life. It insists that man has the ability to decide right and wrong for himself according to his natural impulses and has inbuilt guide of pain and pleasure. He should be free to do as he pleases, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. It does not matter whether they believe in a Creator or not. The ideas of freedom, individualism and utilitarianism or expediency or self benefit are a lethal cocktail that produce corrupt personalities.
We find that Western societies are characterised with all of these problems, so people will steal to satisfy their material benefit – even the politicians of the West do this as all the scandals have proven.
Even the former President of the United States Bill Clinton was prepared to lie under oath in order to save himself. In reality petty theft and the corruption in Western politics have the same cause.
Harold Shipman, the Hyde general practitioner, killed at least 15 of his patients who had come to him expecting care, compassion and empathy. In pursuit of some perverse form of pleasure and joy he murdered his innocent victims.
Dennis Nilsen killed 16 young men; the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, killed 13 women; Fred West murdered 12 people including his first wife and daughter.
John Haigh who was known as the “acid bath vampire” drunk the blood of his six victims before disposing of them in vats of acid; these people are all the products of the capitalist way of life.
On the other hand it has been widely propagated that Western civilisation has eradicated sexism and racism and other prejudices – a claim that is completely false.
Women here only earn on average 60% of what men earn thirty years after the sex discrimination act? Women are portrayed as objects and are used to sell everything from chocolates to cars. The media coverage is full of reports of racist attacks undertaken by people exercising their freedom. Even if we look at the foreign policy of the Western powers we can see that these same values of greed and material benefit are the basis for their actions.
Everyone knows that the Western powers entered the Gulf War due to the Oil in that area. Not to help the people of Iraq. Senator Bob Dole of the United States said in the Gulf War “we are not going to war to bring back the Emir of Kuwait because that does not deserve a single American life”. Once American senator even said, “God made a mistake when he put the oil in the Middle East, we are here to correct this mistake.”
As far back as 1944 the US State Department outlined the reasons for its involvement in the Gulf when a document described the Arabian peninsula as constituting “a stupendous source of strategic power and the greatest material prize in the world’s history”
America and its allies have attacked Afghanistan without a shred of evidence in order to achieve its interests. It is clear that America wants to achieve its strategic and economic interests in the region. To quote the American House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Committee on International Relations:
“One hundred years ago, Central Asia was the arena for a great game played by Czarist Russia, Colonial Britain, Napoleon's France, and the Persian and the Ottoman Empires…One hundred years later, the collapse of the Soviet Union has unleashed a new great game…Today the Subcommittee examines the interests of a new contestant in this new great game, the United States. The United States has energy security, strategic, and commercial interests in promoting Caspian region energy development.” [THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1998]
The results of the American foreign policy are clear:
Over a three million people have died in Iraq since the Gulf War; this is the so-called ‘ethical’ foreign policy that characterises the capitalist nations. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are thought to have killed 140,000 and 70,000 people respectively the effects of which we still see today. The US has provided arms and support to Israel which has committed atrocities against the Muslims. Even some of the thinkers, journalists and officials in the West have realised this.
Steve Erickson of the Herald Tribune said, "How can you call a nation civilized that massacred the indigenous red Indians and brought in Africans as slaves to build it?"
John Pilger wrote in The Irish Times “Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims - that is, the victims of American fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth.”
Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General said, “The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.”
The United States uses the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to keep the so-called developing world under the shackles of poverty and economic hardship.
Countries like Pakistan spend almost three-quarters of their wealth in paying back the interest on their debts; new loans are taken to pay back the interest and the vicious cycle continues.
Millions go hungry in Africa, even though at one time it was the bread-basket in the medieval ages. At the same time the Western countries dump wheat, coffee and other produce in the sea in order to artificially inflate the price.
According to UN statistics there are over two billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day? The disproportion of the wealth from the First world to the Third world is massive. It is estimated that the 3rd world has 75% of the worlds population but only 17% of the world GNP and 8% of the worlds Industry. Despite the fact it contains most of the worlds resources.
It is no secret that the Capitalist multi-nationals like Gap and Nike exploit the people in third world due to cheap labour and have devastating working conditions with women working 12 hour to 18 hour shifts.
The poisonous fruits of Western civilisation are apparent. The reality of the world today is that it stands in an abyss of exploitation, chaos and despair; the strong oppress the weak, the rich oppress the poor, and the ignorant rule over the enlightened.
The solution is not that an individual stood up to eradicate all this corruption like what we see in Hollywood or Bollywood movies, which is a myth and self-deception. Neither it should be resolved with the patch work in the current system as it has been already done hundred of times. Until the emergence of a whole new system which should be based on rational creed from which emanate the system of life addressing all problems of mankind, these problems will persist. It should be neither Capitalism nor Communism but rather radically different, which provide a different outlook to see the world and define it with new concepts.
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