Infectious diseases expert Jeremy Farrar has himself been at the center of the debate over the mysterious origins of COVID, which first broke out in China in late 2019.
The West is quite literally the only civilization that ever dominated 80% of the world. The West is the only civilization to engage in full on extinction hunting, from the buffalo in America to steal treaty land to the deer on Taiwan to many other animals. The West is the only civilization to develop fascism. What we all know and understand as systemic racism is a Western system. The West developed capitalism and spread it. The West created the most effective and brutal forms of chattel slavery, apartheid, and genocide.
But more importantly, none of those things are merely “in the past”. Unlike the ancient histories of atrocities, the atrocities of the West have been happening in an unbroken chain of events for the last 600 years to the present day. Your daily coffee, tea, banana, coca-cola, potatoes, corn, sugar, and many many other foods are the direct heritage of the brutality of the West and it has never let go of its spoils. The king of England was photographed on his recent coronation wearing literally millions of dollars of stolen resources from India. The West forced famines on people, continues to extract billions from the people they have subjugated, and continues to launch wars of dominance destroying the lives of millions.
No one has killed more people, dominated more land, systematized more brutality, dehumanized more thoroughly, and benefitted from it all more profitably than the West. And when we finally dismantle the West and reverse the damage it’s done, then maybe a new violent force will arise and after a couple centuries you can argue that it’s not just the West. Until then, drop the whataboutism.
The West is quite literally the only civilization that ever dominated 80% of the world. The West is the only civilization to engage in full on extinction hunting, from the buffalo in America to steal treaty land to the deer on Taiwan to many other animals. The West is the only civilization to develop fascism. What we all know and understand as systemic racism is a Western system. The West developed capitalism and spread it. The West created the most effective and brutal forms of chattel slavery, apartheid, and genocide.
But more importantly, none of those things are merely “in the past”. Unlike the ancient histories of atrocities, the atrocities of the West have been happening in an unbroken chain of events for the last 600 years to the present day. Your daily coffee, tea, banana, coca-cola, potatoes, corn, sugar, and many many other foods are the direct heritage of the brutality of the West and it has never let go of its spoils. The king of England was photographed on his recent coronation wearing literally millions of dollars of stolen resources from India. The West forced famines on people, continues to extract billions from the people they have subjugated, and continues to launch wars of dominance destroying the lives of millions.
No one has killed more people, dominated more land, systematized more brutality, dehumanized more thoroughly, and benefitted from it all more profitably than the West. And when we finally dismantle the West and reverse the damage it’s done, then maybe a new violent force will arise and after a couple centuries you can argue that it’s not just the West. Until then, drop the whataboutism.