Following Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, US president speaking at G20 summit called the incident 'an attack on the civilized world.' President Obama’s rhetoric is a reminder of an old western prejudice which divided world people into two categories of civilized and uncivilized and provided the former with the ‘right’ and ‘mission’ to ‘civilize’ the latter.
The belief dating back to Age of Enlightenment represented racist views that believed white Christians were superior to others, thus able to decide for them. Despite modern life in 21st century, it seems that the idea has long-lived to the date in form of a Hidden Racism.
Based on this Hidden Racism, ‘differences’ are based on cultural, constitutional and geographical criteria, not genetic attributes. This kind of racism emphasizes on superiority of the West and assumes that the inferiors must get cured through ‘civilizing mission.’
Relying on teachings from ancient Greece era, the followers of this belief considered a single uniform version of civilization; a model based on White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) supremacy which could not consider any other versions of civility.
This discourse is based on a kind of apartheid mentality that separated the West from the East. Based on this attitude, the Europeans should dominate on all dimensions of Asians and Africans life, because of their superiority in talents and their ingenuity.
Western arrogance which roots in growing apartheid mentality is one of the factors resulting in formation of anti-imperialistic discourses in the world and meanwhile, the main reason of expansion of Western Capitalism.
But the question is what really the standards of civilization are? Based on teachings of Protestantism, the westerners are God's chosen people. According to this teaching, their welfare is sign of God's specific attention to them. In practice, this attitude led to colonialism in the past and unilateralism in the present. Certainly, narcissism in the west is one of the main and unfortunate reasons of present miseries in the world.
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