WHAT HISTORY DO WE KNOW IN THE WEST?

Foreword

What history do we know? Perhaps only that which we were taught in school through textbooks written according to immutable didactic criteria. That is, an exclusively (or absolutely predominantly) European history.

This Eurocentric narrative, combined with the narrative of the United States (the conquerors of the world who succeeded the European conquerors), gives rise to a distorted image not only of Europe, but of the entire West. The time has come to know history in its entirety, remembering that its function is to know the past in order to understand the present and plan for the future, avoiding (wherever possible) repeating the mistakes and horrors of the past.

Historical knowledge must also provide the ability, willingness, and humility to put ourselves in others' shoes and understand their reasons. We cannot expect the entire world (8 billion people) to think with the same mindset as the 10% of the world's population who define themselves as Westerners.

Even though the West possesses 90% of the world's resources, it cannot afford such arrogance,  pride, and hypocrisy.

Limiting knowledge of world history limits our worldview

The purpose of teaching history as part of general education is to provide an adequate context for the modern world and to promote understanding of different cultures. Unfortunately, the way history education is structured makes it nearly impossible to have a comprehensive understanding of non-Western or non-Eurocentric ideas.

The general lack of attention to non-Western cultures excludes Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other regions from history. In the current political climate, understanding other cultures is crucial to combating misconceptions that can lead to xenophobia and racism.

The near-total disregard for non-Western cultures is unacceptable. This does not mean that European and American history are unimportant. All history is important for making informed judgments about current events and understanding their causes. Instead, we spend our time studying only Western civilizations, while the rest of history is ignored.

But, above all, we must be aware of the limited worldview we have based solely on school teaching. Reading books, conducting research, and engaging with people from different cultures is valuable in today's world. Recently, building walls and keeping others out has been considered more important than understanding others and their situations. Education is the only way to combat the ignorance that divides us from other cultures.

The Religious, Philosophical, Cultural, and Political Arrogance of the West

The West has the illusion of being the center of the world and that everything revolves around it. It admits that other cultures exist, but believes its own is better and superior, forgetting that every civilization and people makes a fundamental contribution.

The West must realize that it is one among many. It is pure arrogance to think that the West is the first, the only one, the true one, that it has understood which political, economic, and religious system it should convince others to adopt. This is evidence of mental obtuseness.

Enough of this idea that the West (800 million people) is the first, the best, and everyone else (the rest = 7.2 billion people) is useless!

The philosopher Zimmer (one of the greatest scholars of Indian thought), author of "History of Indian Philosophies," analyzes religions and philosophical currents: Jainism, Yoga, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Tantrism. Zimmer argues: "India was already very ancient and very wise when the Greek thinkers (who in our schools are considered the founders of Western thought) uttered their first cries in the sixth century BC.

We maintain that our Western civilization was born with the Greeks. That the Greeks learned nothing from anyone. That they were born from the sea foam, already perfect and formed! Instead, they learned a great deal, especially from Egypt: the great Greek mathematicians Thales and Pythagoras went to Egypt to learn and to wash their clothes in the Nile."

We are Eurocentric, Western-centric, and we are wrong because we have blinders on. We do not learn the thought, art, literature, and philosophy of others. Our philosophers say that Indians may have thought, but philosophy is only Western. But, as explained in "A Comparative History of World Philosophy," in Indian philosophy, centuries, if not millennia earlier, there were often the same schools that later arrived in Europe: rationalism, empiricism, criticism, with concepts that are repurposed.
We, on the other hand, believe we are unique, unrepeatable, and superior: this is our great original sin. It's also what leads us to be colonialists. We indoctrinate others, believing we are better and superior. Travelers of the past (Marco Polo, Matteo Ricci) lacked this arrogance: they went, observed, and appreciated what they saw and learned.

China
Moving from India to China, how many know that China, with over four thousand years of documented history, is the world's oldest and most uninterrupted civilization? That China, from approximately 600 to 1500 AD, was the largest, strongest, and most populous country in Europe and Asia?

China has been technologically superior to Europe since ancient times. Some of the many Chinese inventions, largely spread by the Arabs, were used in Europe for centuries and millennia. Paper, movable type, the compass, steel, and gunpowder are all Chinese inventions.

When Columbus arrived in America in 1492, his flagship, the Santa Maria, was 26 meters long and 8 meters wide. From 1405 to 1433, a Chinese fleet commanded by Admiral Zeng He, consisting of over 200 large ships (some over 100 meters long and 25 meters wide), with 20,000–30,000 men aboard, reached Java, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the east coast of Africa.

Unlike subsequent bloody conquests by Europeans (Cortes, Pizarro, etc.), Zeng He, despite having warships and a large army, did not massacre the local population, but established friendly contacts and agreements through the mutual exchange of gifts.

Conclusion
The practice of viewing the world from a European or generally Western perspective, with an implicit belief in the preeminence of Western culture, serves to justify a historical vision centered on white supremacy and explain why Western nations have engaged in various forms of warmongering racism and imperialistic exploitation.

To succeed in learning history, it is essential that students understand world history, its contested and antithetical narratives, and move beyond the outdated labels of Western civilization alone.

Only genuine cultural engagement provides a framework for historical inquiry and critical thinking. Students must do more than simply slavishly recite the past. Students must be able to question why certain events are historically significant at certain moments in history.

The West won the Cold War, but it cannot and must not impose its distinctive values ​on other civilizations around the world. Samuel Huntington, in an elaboration on his 1993 essay "Clash of Civilizations," argues that the West can prosper in a more hostile world only by abandoning its universalistic aspirations.

Non-Westerners are quick to point out the gaps between Western principles and practice. Hypocrisy and double standards are the price to pay for universalistic pretensions. Democracy is promoted, but not if it brings Islamists to power; nuclear non-proliferation is preached for Iran, but not for Israel; free trade is the elixir of economic growth, but not for agriculture; human rights are a problem for China, but not for Saudi Arabia.

A Eurocentric history cannot provide the fundamental elements for understanding historical change, and furthermore, its shortsightedness clashes with the global dimension of the problems.

It is therefore a matter of achieving a true Copernican revolution, one that removes Europe from the center of the world and is capable of providing a global vision of history through the identification of universally valid interpretative keys across both time and space.

The United States is infamous for studying its own 200 years of history in detail while ignoring that of the rest of the world. In contrast, China teaches both its own history and that of Europe, Asia, the United States, and Africa. The world history curriculum in Chinese public schools lasts six years, starting in the first year of secondary school. The historical knowledge the Chinese have of Europe is astonishing!