"Third World" countries had philosophies of governance before Western contact.
https://x.com/nxt888/status/2111854393335361671
"Third World" countries had philosophies of governance before Western contact.
Had systems of land use, of conflict resolution, of economic exchange, of artistic production, of astronomical knowledge, of medical practice.
Had ways of understanding the relationship between human beings and the rest of the living world that Western modernity is only now, in environmental crisis, beginning to take seriously.
Had, in short, complete civilizations.
Not pre-civilizations.
Not proto-civilizations.
Not civilizations-in-progress that would eventually mature into something recognizable by Western standards.
Complete. Whole. Their own.
The "Third World" label, and the development industry it spawned, and the structural adjustment programs, and the democracy promotion, and the modernization theory, and the entire apparatus of Western guidance over non-Western futures, is built on the denial of this.
Built on the premise that something was missing.
That the missing thing was supplied by Western contact.
That the contact was therefore, whatever its costs, ultimately a "gift."
This premise is not a finding.
It is a requirement.
Required by anyone who needs to believe that what was done was ultimately for the good of the people it was done to.
It was not a gift.
It was a story about a gift, told by the people who came to take.
posted by Satish Sharma at
13:13
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