In Criticism of the Western Mind and Practices: Towards a New Vision for African Development

Abstract

According to the jargons of a new language, outright aggression on foreign nations is now termed preventive or preemptive strike or even self-defense. The occupation of foreign territories is named liberation and national resist ance to occupation is considered terrorism that needs to be contained at any cost. Freedom fighters are murdered without investigation and illegitimate force is employed to set a precedent to be used in the future by the hegemonic nation. The destruction of the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been carried out using the most lethal of weapons. Millions of besieged children have been killed and subjected to hunger, famine and disease in the name of human rights and in search of a more democratic world order. This is the bleak picture of today's world in the aftermath of the cold war and under the banner of globalization, which aims at subjugating the global south to a nation embarking upon an imperial project at any cost, in the shortest possible time frame and at the lowest price, the victim being ordered to pay the price of its occupation, the repression of its people and the plundering of its riches. Is this new reality a reflection of a new western thought that has emerged in the aftermath of the cold war, or has it been part and parcel of the fabric of the western mind since the dawn of history?