Quote:West is West, and the rest is East, right? Actually, technically we should say Oriental, but that term is out of vogue. I'd say the largest Western kill was entirely unintentional. It was when they traveled to the new world bringing their diseases to the natives who had no resistances. I can't think of a culture (Eastern or Western) historically without any blood or repression on its hands. As an example, even Mr. Gandhi will have heard about the Conquest of Kalinga. That meager battle pales in comparison of what has been wrought in the Orient during the past few centuries.
I'm consciously not buying into your self loathing. We are at the present, and what we can do relates to now. Because you are a product of the excesses of the British empire doesn't mean the repentant thing to do is to offer up your booty to Somalia pirates.
No, no, no. That's not the way this goes. You have to wait for me to actually *say* something about the pirates before you accuse me of wanting to surrender to them because I'm a self-loathing liberal who's still desperately trying to scrub the blood of the British empire off his pathetic skin!
So, let's see if I can do this right...
*ahem*
"I hate myself so much because my ancestors were very white. Sure, they may have been farmers and pianomakers in Devonshire, but I'm sure in their own way, they contributed to the voracious dragon of empire! Now, in order to assuage my personal white-liberal-rich-male guilt, we all must be kidnapped by Somali pirates, who, by virtue of having been born in a country with a history of not being Britain, are definitionally blameless!"
Should I throw in a good word about Hugo Chavez as well? Might make it more convincing.
Or, alternately, we could go back to what I've actually said, which is to question whether our being "Western" or having "Western" values mitigates the danger caused by *modern weapons* (not ancient empires, not diseases from five centuries ago) when "Westerners" have killed more people (mostly Westerners as well as Occhi rightly points out) with those weapons than the rest of the world put together. (The increasingly strangely named "East", or "Orient", a category which would surely surprise the average Somali to learn that they are a part of.)
-Jester