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About 100 miles south of Delhi, where I live, lie the ruins of the Mughal
capital, Fateh-pur Sikri. This was built by the Emperor Akbar at the end of
the 16th century. Here Akbar would listen carefully as philosophers, mystics
and holy men of different faiths debated the merits of their different
beliefs in what is the earliest known experiment in formal inter-religious
dialogue.
Representatives of Muslims (Sunni and Shi’ite as well as Sufi), Hindus
(followers of Shiva and Vishnu as well as Hindu atheists), Christians,
Jains, Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians came together to discuss where they
differed and how they could live together.
Muslim rulers are not usually thought of in the West as standard-bearers of
freedom of thought; but Akbar was obsessed with exploring the issues of
religious truth, and with as open a mind as possible, declaring: “No man
should be interfered with on account of religion, and anyone is to be
allowed to go over to any religion that pleases him.” He also argued for
what he called “the pursuit of reason” rather than “reliance on the marshy
land of tradition”.
All this took place when in London, Jesuits were being hung, drawn and
quartered outside Tyburn, in Spain and Portu-gal the Inquisition was
torturing anyone who defied the dogmas of the Catholic church, and in Rome
Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake in Campo de’Fiori.
It is worth emphasising Akbar, for he – the greatest ruler of the most
populous of all Muslim states – represented in one man so many of the values
that we in the West are often apt to claim for ourselves. I am thinking here
especially of Douglas Murray, a young neocon pup, who wrote in The Spectator
last week that he “was not afraid to say the West’s values are better”, and
in which he accused anyone who said to the contrary of moral confusion:
“Decades of intense cultural rela-tivism and designer tribalism have made us
terrified of passing judgment,” he wrote.
The article was a curtain-opener for an Intelligence Squared debate in which
he and I faced each other, along with David Aaronovitch, Charlie Glass, Ibn
Warraq and Tariq Ramadan, over the motion: “We should not be reluctant to
assert the superiority of western values”. (The motion was eventually
carried, I regret to say.)
Murray named western values as follows: the rule of law, parliamentary
democracy, equality, and freedom of expression and conscience. He also
argued that the Judeo-Christian tradition is the ethical source of these
values.
Yet where do these ideas actually come from? Both Judaism and Christianity
were not born in Washington or London, however much the Victorians liked to
think of God as an Englishman. Instead they were born in Pales-tine, while
Christianity received its intellectual superstructure in cities such as
Antioch, Constanti-nople and Alexandria. At the Council of Nicea, where the
words of the Creed were thrashed out in 325, there were more bishops from
Persia and India than from western Europe.
Judaism and Christianity are every bit as much eastern religions as Islam or
Buddhism. So much that we today value – universities, paper, the book,
printing – were transmitted from East to West via the Islamic world, in most
cases entering western Europe in the Middle Ages via Islamic Spain.
And where was the first law code drawn up? In Athens or London? Actually, no –
it was the invention of Hammurabi, in ancient Iraq. Who was the first ruler
to emphasise the importance of the equality of his subjects? The Buddhist
Indian Emperor Ashoka in the third century BC, set down in stone basic
freedoms for all his people, and did not exclude women and slaves, as
Aristotle had done.
In the real world, East and West do not have separate and compartmentalised
sets of values. Does a Midwestern Baptist have the same values as an urbane
Richard Dawkins-read-ing atheist? Do Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama
belong to the same ethical tradition as Osama Bin Laden?
In the East as in the West there is a huge variety of ethical systems, but
surprisingly similar ideals, and ideas of good and evil. To cherry-pick your
favourite universal humanistic ideals, and call them western, then to imply
that their opposites are somehow eastern values is simply bigoted and silly,
as well as unhistorical.
The great historian of the Crusades, Sir Steven Runciman, knew better. As he
wrote at the end of his three-volume history: “Our civilisation has grown .
. . out of the long sequence of interaction and fusion between Orient and
Occident.” He is right. The best in both eastern and western civilisation
come not from asserting your own superiority, but instead from having the
humility to learn from what is good in others, as well as to recognise your
own past mistakes. Ramming your ideas down the throats of others is rarely a
productive tactic.
There are lessons here from our own past. European history is full of
monarchies, dictatorships and tyrannies, some of which – such as those of
Salazar, Tito and Franco – survived into the 1970s and 1980s. The relatively
recent triumph of democracy across Europe has less to do with some
biologically inherent western love of freedom, than with an ability to learn
humbly from the mistakes of the past – notably the millions of deaths that
took place due to western ideologies such as Marxism, fas-cism and Nazism.
These movements were not freak departures from form, so much as terrible
expressions of the darker side of western civilisation, including our long
traditions of antisemitism at home.
Alongside this we also have history of exporting genocide abroad in the worst
excesses of western colonialism – which, like the Holocaust, comes from
treating the nonwestern other as untermenschen, as savage and somehow
subhuman.
For though we like to ignore it, and like to think of ourselves as paragons of
peace and freedom, the West has a strong militaristic tradition of attacking
and invading the countries of those we think of as savages, and of wiping
out the less-developed peoples of four continents as part of our civilising
mission. The list of western genocides that preceded and set the scene for
the Holocaust is a terrible one.
The Tasmanian Aborigines were wiped out by British hunting parties who were
given licences to exterminate this “inferior race” whom the colonial
authorities said should be “hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed”.
Many were caught in traps, before being tortured or burnt alive.
The same fate saw us exterminate the Caribs of the Caribbean, the Guanches of
the Canary Islands, as well as tribe after tribe of Native Americans. The
European slave trade forcibly abducted 15m Africans and killed as many more.
It was this tradition of colonial genocide that prepared the ground for the
greatest western crime of all – the industrial extermination of 6m Jews whom
the Nazis looked upon as an inferior, nonwestern and semitic intrusion in
the Aryan West.
For all our achievements in and emancipating women and slaves, in giving
social freedoms and human rights to the individual; for allthat is
remarkable and beautiful in ourart, literature and science, our continuing
tradition of arrogantly asserting this perceived superiority has led to all
that is most shameful and self-de-feating in western history.
The complaints change – a hundred years ago our Victorian ancestors accused
the Islamic world of being sensuous and decadent, with an overdeveloped
penchant for sodomy; now Martin Amis attacks it for what he believes is its
mass sexual frustration and homophobia. Only the sense of superiority
remains the same. If the East does not share our particular sensibility at
any given moment of history it is invariably told that it is wrong and we
are right.
Tragically, this western tradition of failing to respect other cultures and
treating the other as untermenschen has not completely died. We might now
recognise that genocide is wrong, yet 30 years after the debacle of Vietnam
and Cambodia and My Lai, the cadaver of western colonialism has yet again
emerged shuddering from its shallow grave. One only has to think of the
massacres of Iraqi civilians in in Falluja or the disgusting treatment meted
out to the prisoners of Abu Ghraib to see how the cultural assertiveness of
the neocons has brought these traditions of treating Arabs as subhuman back
from the dead.
Yet the briefest look at the foreign policy of the Bush administration surely
gives a textbook example of the futility of trying to impose your values and
ideas – even one so noble as democracy – on another people down the barrel
of a gun, rather than through example and dialogue.
In Iraq itself, we have succeeded in destroying a formerly prosperous and
secular country, and creating the largest refugee problem in the modern
Middle East: 4m Iraqis have now been forced abroad.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, the US attempt to push democracy in the region
has succeeded in turning Muslim opinion against its old client proxies – by
and large corrupt, decadent monarchies and decaying nationalist parties. But
rather than turning to liberal secular parties, as the neocons assumed they
would, Muslims have everywhere lined up behind those parties that have most
clearly been seen to stand up against aggressive US intervention in the
region, namely the religious parties of political Islam.
Last week, the Islamic world showed us the sort of gesture that is needed at
this time. In a letter addressed to Pope Benedict and other Christian
leaders, 138 prominent Muslim scholars from every sect of Islam urged
Christian leaders “to come together with us on the common essentials of our
two religions.” It will be interesting to see if any western leaders now
reciprocate.
We have much to be proud of in the West; but it is in the arrogant and
forceful assertion of the superiority of western values that we have
consistently undermined not only all that is most precious in our
civilisation, but also our own foreign policies and standing in the world.
Another value, much admired in both East and West, might be a simple
solution here: a little old-fashioned humility.
William Dalrymple’s new book, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi
1857, published by Bloomsbury, has just been awarded the Duff Cooper Prize
for history
In William Dalrymple’s article on the smug West, he has shown how the use of force is often very blunt, and how being Holier-than-Thou is not the best way to conduct Foreign Policy.
Dalrymple suggests that we should lead purely by example and dialogue.
It doesn’t work. The United Nations and The League of Nations have routinely failed with dialogue while watching helplessly as self-interest and organised violence have devoured weak governments.
Peace and prosperity is not the same as power.
Power can be seized through violence. Hitler’s Nazis offered to out-violence the Communists. Hitler was voted in.
Violent leaders are often incompetent, and corrupt, none of which is likely to enamour them to our Western model of a free press, democracy, and the rule of law.
Dialogue? Example ?
The bad elites are not interested.
Joshua Vanneck, Cambridge, England
Someone once asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought of western civilisation. Gandhi's reply was 'I think it would be a good idea'.
Those who think that the West is somehow superior should ask the Jews what they think of Western 'civilisation' and what Iraqi and Afghan families think of western 'freedom and democracy'.
If you have to brag about how wonderful and superior you are, then you must be awfully insecure, inadequate, and what you have to offer must be poor indeed.
Bilal Patel, London, UK,
Mr D should read Simon Jenkins in the S Times same issue, and Alek Wek's story of a Sudanese southerner, front page of News Review.
Mr D's polemic is against 'the west' but in the name a religion, 'Islam', so he is setting up a wholly asymmetrical comparison. By doing this he destroys his own argument and takes Islam, now, as monochrome, as he takes the West to be, the secular West incidentally.
Poor and desperate stuff, no shades of grey here at all, and picking out arbritary shafts of light on one side while seeing the other as totally dark and negative.
Yaya, Homerton, UK
it's quite obvious from this article that the "East" has been degenerating in the past 1000 years or so, while the "West" has been clearly progressing. There are very few modern examples that these doctrines of tolerance, equality, pursuit of reason etc have taken hold and are earnestly practiced in the "East" especially the Middle East. It's there that the humility and honest introspection is sorely overdue.
Robert Leffe, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Dear Mr Dalrymple
Having read with avid and keen interest your thought provoking article, I am afraid I am unable to accept your theory that the Muslim ruler Akbar was a model of tolerance and reason. It was further from the truth and the history judged him otherwise.
Akbar was the ruler who introduced punitive taxes (ZIZIYA KOR) on his Hindu subjects; temporarily withdrawn and then reintroduced again. He was responsible for demolishing temples, forcibly converting Hindus into Islam and killing 30000
Hindus in Chitore in Rajasthan alone.
The facts should be put right.
Yours truly
RONEN DAM
RONEN DAM, London N16 8DH, UK
I am looking forward to Dalrymple's next piece where he will hopefully elaborate where in the East I can find CURRENT widespread examples of the spirit of Akbar he mentions. 'No man should be interfered with on account of his religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to any religion that pleases him' or 'the pursuit of reason' etc.
praxeologue, dublin, ireland
It's a pity these "Easterners" that he admires so much aren't as humane and enlightened today as they were 1000 years ago. What utter twaddle. I wondered what the point of this article was then I realised he has a book to sell.
Ellen Morris, Leeds,
I am not an historian, but something struck me whilst reading the above article. The only TWO leaders of the east who fought for freedom for all including women and slaves lived in the 3rd Century BC and the end of the 16th Century. What happened in between and since, certainly not freedom for women, or education for the masses.
No doubt everyone agrees that a lot of the roots of civilisation began in the East, but I would suggest that they were carried on and fought for in the West.
I'm not saying the West is perfect but maybe the middle east has paid an enormous price for teaching its people too much humility and not enough about human rights and equality.
Pat Dunphey, London, England
An interesting article that speaks some truth, but veers bit towards shrillness near the end. One gets the impression that the author's request for more humility from "we" in the West is really directed towards others less enlightened than he. I suppose it'd be fair (although politically incorrect) to say that my opinion is that the West (whatever its faults) currently does have a sizable edge in human rights, science, government and, yes, culture. Of course, that is not to say this was always so, or always will be. Just as we have learned much from the East in the past, they could learn some things from us nowadays that could make them much stronger. This process has already begun in places such as China and India -- much to their improvement. One day, inevitably, the cycle will repeat again...
Epaminondas, Chicago, IL
I converted to Islam when I married my Arab wife but the two things were not directly connected ... I had felt estranged from the CofE for some time. But I was surprised that, as a Moslem, I am required to reverence Prophet of God Jesus Christ and his 'new testament' teachings more intensely than had ever been 'required of me' as a British Christian. And I am required to reverence Abraham and Moses and all the 'old testament' Prophets and Messengers of God and live by the Word of God in the Torah as devoutly as any Jew (I grew up with Jews). The Koran stresses this 'message' of all-embracing reverence and observance and it is very real to my wife and all our Arab friends. As a journalist I am driven to say there should not be this grievous conflict with Islam. Today's problem is the way the label 'Islam' has been hijacked by Arabs who have no legitimate banner to claim for their violence and which, after that, is casually & ignorantly taken-up for political and editorial slogan-making.
alan kellett, Estepona, Spain
No matter what the truth is, people will always say where is the evidence? The fact is there are certain values west should learn from from East equally values such as human rights, equality, ( I would not say Democracy) should be learned from the west.
S.Muthusamy
S.MUTHUSAMY, Colwyn Bay, UK
I am not an historian, but something struck me whilst reading the above article. The only TWO leaders of the east who fought for freedom for all including women and slaves lived in the 3rd Century BC and the end of the 16th Century. What happened in between and since, certainly not freedom for women or education for the masses.
No doubt everyone agrees that a lot of the roots of civilisation began in the East, but I would suggest that they were carried on and fought for in the West.
I'm not saying the West is perfect but maybe the middle east has paid an enormous price for teaching its people too much humility and not enough about human rights and equality.
Pat Dunphey, London, England
Once again, another article that promises one line of thought and veers off to American and Bush bashing.
I am waiting for a thank you from just about anyone for all that we have done right. However, I will not hold my breath.
I survived the German occupation of my country and I am proud to be a naturalized American. As for religion, it seems to be the root of all evil. Church, Synagogue, Mosque or Temple never made anyone a better person. By the time one understands the meaning of a sermon, their values, or the lack of, are already in place. Thank you for allow me this time and space.
Marlis Buckner, Granite Falls, NC
its as though the writer had a clear target and sewed together a number of historical facts in order to reach that target. had he mentioned a lot of other things it might have been a different article.....there are many ways to climb a mountain but the writer is obviously unaware that there are many mountains out there on the horizon and he has chosen quite simply to climb a particular mountain using a specific route that corresponds to his personal ability to percieve history religion and mankind etc. the article is weak, shallow. a very important subject handled badly. someone should tell him that if he wants to write on this subject it would be wiser not to have a particular target message but to let the facts do their own mathematics. you cant describe the view from the mountain top until you climb the mountain and this writer is simply fantacising about a mountain few have climbed, a mountain that he doesnt have the mental stamina to climb...another dan brown wanna be
datlen johnathan swift, london,
After all this debates about civilisations is it not true that the root cause of most of these problems have something to do with race? Hands on our hearts! is it not true record of History that after all these "advancements in western culture"there are plenty of Idiots who still thinks and belives that they are better then next person simply because of the colour of his/her skin?And to justify this animalistic behavior it is quite acceptable to kill,criticise and still claim moral superiority.I am sorry to say that "the dark ages" are still here.
ilyasnorat, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire
Whatever the immediate and direct causes of 21st century
Conflict of Civilization wars Dalrymple is right in reminding your readers of the falsity of many of the 'Western' Cultural Pretentions and Claims underlying them. The decline of the 'real power and relative influence' of the 'West' since the 2nd World War is now beginning to be felt in all 5 continents and that cannot be reversed and indeed is painful to admit for some. Whilst there is much to admire in the 'West' especially when it comes to Human Rights and Democracy, ironically these advances became 'real' to the average cityzen in the 'west' only after 1945 and during the Cold War that followed. These very rights are now being restricted in the name of fight against terrorism. Might we be now seeing the 'West' revert to its historical reality pre1940? Declining living standards for large sections of the population? Huge economic disparities? Environmental destruction? Oligarchical governments? Take heed ye all!
ton, paris, france
Really? Where's your evidence , your effort to study,Jon?
Neil, Birkenhead, england
Josh from Washington sadly mistaken - does not appear to have been outside Washington. Obama was accused of having a muslim history, the entire US media set out to destroy him. Hilary Clinton was told to shut up and stand by her man, whilst he struggled to keep his zipper up. Mccain only wants a Christian to be US president and Charles waiting to be King wanted to be defender of faith - the entire UK establishment attacked him. It was the West that created genocide of the Jews - in fact only when their own interests were the US and the rest of Europe decided to get involved. Okay, so that is history - now look at the US in Iraq, in Iran funding terrorists, supporting Musharaff the dictator, providing chemical weapons to Saddam the champion of freedom, the list is endless, those democratic kings in Saudi, Osama the fighter against communism, Egypt, Kazastan, China, Turkmenistan - all US sponsor client states. There are the US and Wests real values - sell your mother in the name of oil.
Shaffiq Mahmood, Halifax, UK
Great article!
matilda, oxford, UK
According to Karen Armstrong, an acclaimed religious historian, The Jews, the Christians and the Muslims lived and worked together in peace for 600 years in the Muslim Empire that stretched from Spain in the north to India in the south and from China to the western Africa. The libraries in Cordoba, Spain contained 400,000 books before Queen Isabella burned them. Yes, the progress of the West in separating the religion and state is admirable, but the foundation was laid by the eastern values.
Maqbool Qurashi, Leesburg, Florida
Gosh, another lesson in hate the west.
Don Tharp, Hawesville, KY
The historical origins of our culture are irrelevant - what matters is how we act today. On the one hand - respect for individual rights, respect for women's equality, general freedom of expression and religion; on the other hand, honor killings, 2nd class status for women, unequal ability to practice religion. Yes, we need to carry ourselves with more humility; but ultimately we must recognize that the greatest Western value - the recognition of the individual human being as the baseplate for all other values - is inherently superior to any other conceivable system.
Josh, Washington, DC
Douglas Murray doesn't know what the word value means. Rule of law, parliamentary democracy, equality, and freedom of expression and conscience are the criteria of Western governance, but they are being improperly named as values.
According to the Spanish Language Royal Academy, value is the meaning or importance of an action or thing. Therefore, freedom and justice are both values indeed, but rule of law and equality would be derivative from the basic core values of freedom and justice. Eastern values do exist, and they are mainly inspired from the Confusian philosophy, founded on the ideal of equilibrium. Equilibrium is at the same time a source of strength and weakness. Chinese history is a good example of it. The same goes with the history of Freedom in the West. In short, there are Western and Eastern values. Both are human constructions, so they are as bleary as human nature itself.
Hector Lopez, Lima, PERU
A balanced reading of history will find plenty of horrors no matter where you look. Unfortunately, the essay by William Dalrymple seems intent in digging out Western horrors to contrast with Eastern enlightenment. One could equally well write the converse essay. Neither is very fair.
JF, San Francisco,
In response to Maggie from Brittany: Erm...the East has had societies faith based or otherwise with longer and more established traditions of enlightenment, its not an invention of the West. Western civilisation has been an abberation, oppurtunistically benefiting from a period of slumber in the east. The rise of the East is now correcting this anomoly. It may comfort ur little heart to think that praying 5 times a day means muslims are weak but as we see around us its a source of strength both spiritual and social binding. The "superior values" you fantasise about are failing to promote social cohesion and a sense of community within inner cities across Europe.
Wasim Akhtar, Glasgow, Scotland
Typical American response to this article. When will the Americans realise that they did not invent the world. The world was invented before Hollywood's version of history!
Abid, Shipley, UK
Right or wrong what you have written shows , we can recognise & accept we did wrong in the past, we learn't from those mistakes, the problem lies with those who don't .
Our values & principles are superior, we have progressed & understand justice. I do not know why you bring God into it , life can be full & rich without getting on ones knees to be a decent human being.
I see prostrating oneself, being controlled by the clock & a man made dogma , as a backward & primitive step. Gathering in a church or Mosque is fine as a grouping & social occasion but to go through rituals practiced from the beginning of time is simply archaic & unfruitful. Islam is the most controlling thing & to demand 5 times a day prayer shows how weak it is.
The need for this crutch shows also the weakness of it's adherant's , only in war are they released from this tenet , even the family take second place to this dogma. This is not a modern way to live, So my answer is a definitive yes, we are superior .
Maggie millington, Brittany, France
Well, now. That is a very weird vision of history. Every detail in this 'story' is wrong, inaccurate or deliberately misleading.
Jon Carry, las Vegas, NV, USA