West Asia

“ The story of the commerce of Central Asia, which centred itself in Herat in the days of Arab supremacy, has a strong claim on the student of Eastern geography, for it is only through the itineraries of these wandering Semetic merchants and travellers that we can arrive at any estimation of the peculiar phase of civilization which existed in Asia in the mediæval centuries of our era; a period at which there is good reason to suppose that civilization was as much advanced in the East as in the West. ”

“ The west coast, with its alternation of sea and promontory, of rugged mountains and fertile valleys, its bright and varied scenery, and its fine climate, is almost a part of Europe. These conditions are unfavourable to permanence, and the history of Asia Minor is that of the march of hostile armies, and rise and fall of small states, rather than that of a united state under an independent sovereign. At a very early period Asia Minor appears to have been occupied by non-Aryan tribes or races which differed little from each other in religion, language and social system. ”

“ This pattern of the Western nations revolving around Asia makes me think that... it is the East who is at the core, one could say: the East, roughly since 1950, has not only become (again) the world greatest phenomenon, but has also, slowly, shifted to the center of gravity of World History. ”

“ Despite the evidences of the “other humanity”, a civilization that went down the inductive path, ship after ship of enthusiastic but ignorant Western scholars set their sails for Asia, their eyes set on analyzing and deconstructing the hype and propaganda of ‘the exotic Other’, denying the existence of the East-West dichotomy, ignoring all warnings, only to discover the same old truth all over again: The East constitutes an entirely different type of humanity: it is holistic, non-analytic and spiritual – it is integration-based. ”

“ And when we contemplate and contrast the structure of Asia and of Europe—the vast forces which have produced the stately body of eastern Asia dying out towards the west in the insignificant but widely ramified elevations of the European mountain chains—we may readily understand how different has been the influence exercised by structural features upon the peoples of either continent. In Asia such features are a factor of the first importance, determining climate, controlling migrations, [427] setting barriers to intercourse or relentlessly fixing the highways which it must pursue. ”

“ That was unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old. ”

“ There is a very active Western part... some Western nations recently fought tooth and nails on Eastern soil during the Cold War, and now the West is back again with thousands of business contracts and globalizing catechisms. Asia is indeed very busy, busy studying all those new theories and techniques from the various Western ‘invaders’, infinitively more so than the invaders could possibly learn or could possibly be willing to learn from the East... yet, all the same, it is the inductive East that attracts all these energies, all this Western attention. ”

“ Such, indeed, is the history of every Mussulman, whether Tartar, Arab, Persian, or Turk, as soon as he becomes thoroughly acquainted with our western civilisation—a complete transformation but seldom occurs. The highly important question, whether the civilisation of the East or West is the better—whether the teaching of Christ or of Mohammed is the true religion, will long remain undecided by the nations of Asia;—nay, so long, I feel inclined to say, as the rays [165] of the sun produce with us a temperate, with them a burning, heat; so long as distance separates the east and the west. ”

“ We forgot that in Asia great kingdoms were founded, philosophy, science, arts and literatures flourished, and all the great religions of the world had their cradles. Therefore it cannot be said, that there is anything inherent in the soil and climate of Asia that produces mental inactivity and atrophies the faculties which impel men to go forward. For centuries we did hold torches of civilization in the East when the West slumbered in darkness, and that could never be the sign of sluggish mind or narrowness of vision. ”

“ That’s a no-no in the Western world, where we expect the unwavering truth - and one truth only.
China in particular never made any great attempts of covering her own truths and her aim to hold up Eastern values and wisdoms (why should the East throw away its 5000 years of successful history and culture?) , and at the same time profit from the practicability of foreign learning; her ability to adopt herself, even if it meant aggressively copying from the Western others:
师夷之长技以制夷。
Study the foreigners so that you will have the upper hand over them. ”

“ There is a most lamentable lack of knowledge among the millions inhabiting eastern Asia: yet, we do anticipate the day, (may it come quickly,) when all that which is most valuable to man, and now so richly enjoyed by the nations of the West, elevating and yet still more to elevate them, shall be equally enjoyed, and produce the same results, among the nations of the East. The efforts to accomplish a work so vast, must be various, well directed, and long continued ”

“ To sum it all up, we have in Asia somewhere near 800,000,000 of people, who are certainly increasing by 10,000,000 a year, probably many more, and these people pressed on by Russia on the north and west, by Great Britain and France on the south, as well as by the wonderful energy of the Japanese on the east. ”

“ The psychological conundrum for Asia is that due to its induction-based views on the world, it does not perceive those European countries as isolated and self-sufficient, but rather as integrated and dependent part of humankind, and thus - out of need for universal tolerance and harmony – readily believes them; at least will always consider Western views. ”

“ China, with her teeming millions, is separated from western Asia by the whole bulk of the broadest and least hospitable portion of the system of lofty plateaux with peripheral ranges. The echelon of chains, which seam the continent in a north-easterly direction, are the nurseries of the hardiest tribes. The valleys which space these ranges are the arteries of human movement, and they lead from west to east, from east to west. ”

“ What Asiatics were seeking in their industrial revival was well expressed a decade ago by a Hindu, who wrote in a leading Indian periodical: “In one respect the Orient is really menacing the West, and so earnest and open-minded is Asia that no pretense or apology whatever is made about it. ”

“ The legalists stressed the universal importance of promoting capable people as officials no matter their confession or creed. Throughout history the inductive way in Asia manifested in ever-higher inductive reasoning ability and, consequently, in cultural output (in art, religion, music, literature etc.) ”

“ The facts have changed, global power has shifted, but not so the Western feelings of total superiority. That is why the otherwise easily predictable rise and proportional dominance of the integration-based Asia in the 21st century still looks somewhat like a miracle or bogus to most Europeans, even today. ”

“ As a matter of perception, till today, the Western ways are universally associated with ‘war’, ‘aggression”, and ‘exclusiveness’, while the Eastern ways are associated with ‘peace’, ‘tranquility’, and ‘inclusiveness’; notwithstanding both hemispheres showing the tendencies to project their own psychological outlook onto the other. For the vast majority of Americans and Europeans, Asia is a place for all those fanatics, dictators, terrorists, and immature cultures. ”

“ The fall of the Turkish power in this Euphrates region will, in some manner, prepare the way for "the kings of the East" to come up to the final conflict. [Pg 344]
The Awakening of the East
The same spirit that has been stirring up the West in preparation for the contest has been working in the East also. Year after year observers have pointed out the great changes taking place in Asia. September, 1909, the London Contemporary Review said:
"The whole of Asia is in the throes of rebirth. ”

“ ASIA MINOR, the general geographical name for the peninsula, forming part of the empire of Turkey, on the extreme west of the continent of Asia, bounded on the N. by the Black Sea, on the W. by the Aegean, and on the S. by the Mediterranean, and at its N.W. extremity only parted from Europe by the narrow straits of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. ”

“ Not only China but East-Asia in general consequently ‘borrowed’ from the West whatever seemed fit: from aestheticism - in a Wildean or Byronic sense – (Zhou, 2000) , architecture, art and cinema, economics, film and documentary, law, literature, sports, music, post-modern theory, through Darwinism, Marxism (e. g. the sinification of Marxism) , to socialism (e. g. Socialism with Chinese characteristics) and new forms of democracy. ”

“ After communism was ‘ejected’, and after the demise of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, that same process of ‘ejection’ is now taking place with ‘harmoniousness’, and all ideas about tolerance that go with it.
The West, despite all its patronization and sympathy for Asia, is fundamentally rejecting the Asian “inclusive approach” right from under our very eyes. The more of Asia is insisting on the universal of ‘oneness’, ‘balance’, ‘harmony’, or ‘integration’: “Our goal is a harmonious world!” the more those theories become hers, and hers alone. ”

“ I cannot conceive it possible to imagine a greater contrast than an Asiatic, and more particularly a Central Asiatic, who, as late as two years ago, wrapt in his national garb of ample width, hanging about him in loose folds, was feeding on the simple and primitive fare of a nomadic people, and who, at the present moment, booted and spurred, moves about in the closely-fitting costume of the Hungarians, and is already accustomed to the food and manners of the West ”

“ In praxis, as we all know, economic growth – although more or less stagnated in Western Europe and America - still went rampant and plentiful in developing places of ‘westernized’ Asia, albeit with the huge presence of Western companies and corporate money. ”

“ We have already mentioned the profound love for learning and the respect for traditions in Eastern societies. As a consequence, the teacher-student relationship in Asia has always been far more spiritually important and guided by mutual respect, love and humility than in all Western societies. ”

“ Yet, other forms of cultural superiority in Asia remain, such as ‘Dahan zhuyi’ (大汉族主义, the chauvinistic Han) , Nihonjin-ron (Japanese uniqueness) , the Vasudeva (the supreme man) etc. - all highly complex models not so much of biological but more of moral superiority or even intellectual superiority (we come to that later) ”

“ I said “rather lucky than good”, because some scholars, by bending history to the point of breaking, want us to believe that “evil” Western dominance in Asia can only be explained by the lucky insensitive of scientific discoveries like rifles and cannons (Chirot, 1991) on top of innocent China’s gunpowder. ”

“ Post-colonial theory essentially says that Orientalism, the study of Eastern cultures, religions and languages, is the creation (‘brain-child’ is the term of fashion, I believe) of Western scholars. Western scholars had written Asia’s history from a perspective of European-centred norms, just like the Greeks fashioned the Persians in their way, thereby only intensifying the exotic ‘otherness’ of the Eastern hemisphere. Said and Hutcheon both argue, that first ‘post-colonial’ and then ‘post-modernist’ theories both are Western concepts. ”

“ Today’s de-Westernization is not only taken place in the obvious places like China, Japan, Russia, Korea etc., but also in the Middle East, Africa, and South-East Asia. Many people have serious doubts about the West, its intentions and deeply flawed views. ”

“ It is, therefore, of great interest to mark how this change in physiognomical type continually decreases from the east to the west—how this Deturkism, if I may so express myself, is perceptible among the various races of Central Asia, and in what degree their various gradations through social circumstances came, more or less, in contact with foreign elements. This will especially be seen by a cursory view of the Turkish nations of Central Asia from Inner China to the Caspian Sea ”

“ For the integration-based East on the other hand, what might be called ‘truth’ is given at any time (the ‘one’) and always justifiable through ‘being a part of the whole’. In other words, there are many truths, many more than the West can bear, and the mere existence of the more inductive East as an alternative a priori to the more deductive West qualifies it to provide a genuine, believable non-Western experience of history: history as a non-directional but time-less tangible realm. ”

“ Yet, in the intellectual output of those great cultural figures no foreigner took part; the Chinese intellectuals – no less engaged in protecting their cultural sovereignty with nationalism than the Japanese before them - read Western theories, studied Western theories, improved them - sinosized them.
In the integration-based East, were knowledge comes from traditions, ancient concepts of the inductive Eastern ‘moral superiority’ vs. Western deductive ‘scientific superiority’ were soon identified as the nucleus of the East-West dichotomy and the struggle for the Eastern soul. ”