Explain a Meme: Westen Civilization
Who copied whom? And where did they find something to steal?
I have been thinking about this meme a lot of late, especially as western interests return to “settle things in the Middle East” with bombings and refugee-inducing terror. I grew up in the United States watching leaders and media clutch pearls about areas once known as the “Third World” then as the “Developing World” and now as the “Global South.”
It’s hard to keep up with the ‘othering’ that goes on in the West.
America’s once and future president, Donald J. Trump, described the Global South with his celebrated diplomatic bluntness. We never got a list of which countries he thought were “shitholes.” Frankly, he wouldn’t know the names of most of them anyway.
But it turns out that people living in the Global South have perspectives, too. And this meme takes a pretty strong shot. The ‘westoid’ in the meme is a balding blonde Skandinavian with a goatee, crooked teeth and blue eyes. The civilized man is ruddy with gorgeous, curly hair and a beard, the type of person one finds living in the Levant (eastern Mediterranean area).
“Western Civilization” describes a process by which ideas that were developed in Greece and strengthened by Rome found flower in Europe and eventually conquered the world. Christianity — an eastern religion that morphed into a Western/Roman facsimile — gets a lot of credit for this civilization.
This is the version of history that I grew up with, which I studied in my secondary and undergraduate history courses, and which now fuels efforts by western nations to “fix” problems in the Middle East and Africa — to treat as inferiors nations whose empires had risen and fallen many times before the forests of northern Europe and North America featured any civilization housed in residences much more sophisticated than wooden hovels.
What was Stolen, Exatly?
Humans, Bananas, Oil
My first argument comes from Peter Frankopan’s book, The New Silk Roads, which I read earlier this year. He points out how, from the 17th through the 20th centuries the wealth of the West came from the Global South, first in slaves, then in raw materials, and finally in oil. The trade in these items dwarfed the trade in spices and textiles that had made up the famed Silk Road of the Middle Ages.
Those countries from which human slaves were stolen, or in which bananas were harvested at rock-bottom labor prices, or where oil is still drilled remain unstable, ruled by plutocratic or kleptocratic families (at best) or in a state of constant civil war (at worst). A “Banana Republic” is one where a western corporation calls the shots. And a “petrostate” is one where western-allied ruling families call the shots.
The Culture of the Global South
But I think a far better argument can be made for cultural appropriation flowing South to West.
Look at the buildings. Domes and arches dominated the west until the mid-20th Century, when steel and glass took over Western skylines. The Gothic style came from northern Europe, along with the Gothich Arch, true, but Roman and Greek designs still held sway, even at the height of the Gothic Revival in the Victorian Era (or Wilhelmine Era, if you’re in Germany).
And then there is the art. Until World War 2, “Western Art” was really Mediterranean art, from the Italians of the Renaissance and Baroque, to the Impressionists and Modernists around Picasso. Sure, northern Europe contributed Rembrandt and others, but the ideas were from the south — or at least south of the red line in the meme.
Conclusion
Look, I’m a proud W*stoid, OK? A leopard can’t change its spots. An American can’t become a Levantine. I get it.
But I’m always looking for a new perspective on my culture, as well as others. That’s why I enjoyed this meme. That is why I share it with you.