This figure of thought that the West is morally inferior to everyone else because of its never-ending imperialism has only become more fanciful as it has been used. But Fifa is probably setting a new record here. Three thousand years.
The attack on Troy took place roughly three thousand years ago. Up here in the high north, it is, therefore, time to pick out the horsehair shirts and start sprucing up. But hand on heart, we knew this thing with the Vikings would catch up with us in the end because the fact is that both North Africa and the Caucasus had to feel the axe. The Italians are finally responsible for all Roman roads and aqueducts in Africa and the Levant. But the Greeks manage by a hair’s breadth.
Yes, it is outstanding nonsense. But it is now politically correct normality to regard the West as the main villain in everything to do with colonialism and slavery.
How about taking history seriously instead? Because then it is immediately noticeable that slavery is a universal and common human phenomenon. As soon as anyone anywhere has had the opportunity, he has enslaved the weaker party. Arabs have been the historical champions in the branch. Second are perhaps the African tribes that sold their neighbors to, above all, Arabs. The Europeans have not been angels, but Western culture is the only culture that finally relented on purely moral grounds – and forced others to relinquish.
Incidentally, suppose one takes a multi-thousand-year perspective seriously. In that case, the question is whether Europe has not been the victim of aggression to a greater degree than the other way around. Huns, Alans, Magyars, Arabs, Cumans, Turks, Mongols… Mongolian governments have all managed to put a lid on that. In genetic studies, it has recently been established that Mongolia is indebted to the Mongols and the Avars half a millennium earlier. I guess the Avars have been allowed to go under the radar in historiography.
You can’t take outbursts like this seriously. Nobody should do that. The idea of the West’s outstanding debt is a myth, and many countries are happy to fuel it to gain economic or political advantage. Such as precisely avoiding being blamed for dictatorial ways.
If you want to be like that, then it’s also quite piquant that if you are to take this Fifa jerk at his word, only Western countries have reacted to Qatar’s lack of rights. Nobody else.
Tiny Qatar has made itself more significant internationally than its low population suggests. This is mainly because the government has made a concerted effort to attract Western universities to open branches in the country. The wretched West still has something everyone wants. It has something to do with ideas. Well, that and football. Where would we be if the West hadn’t invented football?