Don't be Fooled by Western Rationality,Universalism or Cosmopolitanism

Friends,              This is to bring to your notice the refreshingly original book by Pankaj Mishra entitled From the Ruins of Empire.An interview of his appeared in The Hindu Magazine of August 19th.                 In this book the author has given voice to the Asian perspective of history, as opposed to the Western perspective which resort to deliberate generalization and distort the rich diversity of Asian culture. For example, when they use the term Islamism,they distort facts because Islamism is itself  such a broad swath, from West Asia, to the Indian subcontinent, to Indonesia where the Muslims even have Hindu names.The eminent anthropologist, K.S.Singh in his book, The People of India, found that Hindus share about 96% traits with Muslims in terms of ecology, settlement,food habits, occupation and the like.          Such simplistic theory to couch complex facts of life are deliberately concocted to hide the great imbalance of power between Western nations and the rest.By loudly invoking religion, culture,race or nationality, the Western theorists seek to mask the material basis of global inequality. Why some countries are rich and some,like sub-Saharan Africa, permanently poor.How the violence and genocidal wars waged by the neo-imperialists enjoy moral sanction and respectability thanks to the Corporate Media and the bully pulpits of mainstream institutions such as Harvard and the BBC, to which we, the "natives", pay unquestioning obeisance.                The dominant forces in the West,and their collaborators throughout the world, have deliberately used War as an ideology to pauperize the world because sale of armaments yields super-duper profits.Religion,race and nationality are used as masks to hide the real enemies.And,like fools, we remain divided while the racists and imperialists laugh their way to the bank.Unfortuately, the Media and repressive Govts throughout the world play ball while our water and air are despoiled and the majority of the world's populace wallow in malnutrition and disease.                 We have to first understand our world before we can change it.And the unfortunate irony is that less than 1% drive this suicidal agenda while Rome burns.