IT'S important we remember not just the big ideological struggles but also the individuals who took

up the cause of cultural freedom and the defence of liberal democracy against its enemies. – John
Howard

To those who want to portray the West as anti-Muslim, I would say that it was not the Arab League who
went to war in the '90s on behalf of Muslim minorities in the Balkans. It was the governments of the US,
the UK and their NATO allies.
At Quadrant's 50th anniversary dinner 3/10/2006

And we are a Western liberal democracy with a profound interest in the structures and ideas that govern
the international system.
John Howard 31/3/2005

“Australia is a western country with western values. Nothing will or should change that.”
John Howard said on the 20th March 2003,

Extremists in your midst spread propaganda claiming that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. This
propaganda is false, and its purpose is to confuse you and justify acts of terror. We respect Islam….
President Bush Addresses United Nations General Assembly 19/9/2006

………..what we in the West really stand for and believe in.

Tony Blair’s Foreign Policy speech in May 2006

This is not the place to digress into a history of what subsequently happened. But by the early 20th
century, after renaissance, reformation and enlightenment had swept over the Western world, the Muslim
and Arab world was uncertain, insecure and on the defensive.
Tony Blair’s Foreign Policy speech in March 2006

"We" is not the West. "We" are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. "We" are those who
believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by
secular courts. This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation…. Tony Blair’s
Foreign Policy speech in March 2006

Their case is that democracy is a western concept we are forcing on an unwilling culture of Islam. The
problem we have is that a part of opinion in our own countries agrees with them…. Tony Blair’s Foreign
Policy speech in March 2006
What does the Word WEST Mean?

Brief timeline in the explanation of the “West”.

• Pre 600 BC Greece is the period/era classified as “Myth”. An era whose thought was dominated
with stories of the gods which “explained” the origins and course of the earth.
• Post ~650BC Greece. The society went through a transition to “Logos”. An era of a philosophical,
scientific and rational explanation of the world.
o 650-500BC Philosophy begins
• 480-320BC – Classical period of Greek civilization. The Greeks produced their highest
achievements during this are.
o Enter the famous philosophers
 Socrates
 Plato
 Aristotle
 and others
 • 323 – 1st Century BC – The Hellenistic period. Where the Greek culture began to mix and
encounter non-Greek speaking cultures. Here the Greeks ruled over large parts of the Middle East
as far as northern India.
• ~40BC the Roman Empire came into existence (from being a Roman “Republic” or a city state
founded in the 9th century BC). The empire encompassed Western Europe the Balkans and the
entire area around the Mediterranean.

Below: Roman Empire as at 117AD

• late 4th century the Roman empire was split into Eastern and Western Empires. (Due to pressure
from the Germanic tribes in the north and internal dissolution). Capital of the Western Empire was
Roman and the capital of the Eastern Empire was Constantinople.
• 476AD the Western Roman Empire collapsed due to the corruption, civil wars and the invasions of
Germanic tribes (like the Goths, Franks, Vandals)

• The Eastern Roman Empire survived the fall of the West and Constantinople remained its capital.
This was referred to as the Byzantine Empire and marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. The
Byzantine Empire protected Roman legal and cultural traditions combining them with Greek and
Christian elements (over the next thousand years).
• Up until now, the Bytanzine proceeded according to a “faithless” philosophical basis.
• 529 AD Symbolic date marking to transition from classical philosophy to medieval (christian)
Philosophy
• Enter Scholasticism – Rational explanation of the verities of faith.
• 8th Century – Muslim Philosophers made know the writings of Aristotle to Western Europe (as the
Muslims opened Spain).
• 12th Century – High Scholasticism. The Arabs translated the works of the Greek scholars and
introduced an “Islamic” philosophy. This was influenced by Aristotles writings and al-Farabi was
the first to apply it on a revealed religion. Also Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was also instrumental in
advancing scholatisicm.
• 1300-1400 – Late Scholasticism. (Began to decline).
• 1453 – Constantinople is taken by the Muslims marking to end of the remnants of the Roman
Empire. A lot of the scholars in constantinople who were masters in philosophy migrated to
western Europe.
• 14th – 17th century. Enter the Renaissance (“re-birth”) (beginning in Italy) - It encompassed a
revival of learning based on classical sources.
o Italian Renaissance Philosopher: Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527).
o English Renaissance Philosopher: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• 1517 CE – Martin Luther unleashed the Reformation (re-borth of the pristine convictions and
religious practices of the revealed Christian faith), leading to the eventual Catholic/Protestant split.
• 17th and 18th Century. The Age of Enlightenment – Reason as the primary basis for authority.
Politcal changes: government consolidation, nation-creation, greater rights for common people,
decline in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and church. advocated
reason as the primary basis of authority. It Developed in France, Britain and Germany, and
influenced most of Europe, including Russia and Scandinavia. (start 1688 -British revolution, End
1789-French revolution).
o Birth of Secularism.
o Beginning of England’s industrial revolution(>1775)
o English Enlightenement Philosopher: John Locke (1632-1704)

• !9th Century CE. The beginning of Modernity.

o Immanuel Kant’s German Idealism (properties of objects result from our perceptions).
o Karl Marx’s materialsim was a response to Idealism.
o Influential Liberal Thinker: John Stuart Mill
• th
20 Century. The Cold War (East v West). East = those alliened with RUSSIA. West = Those
Alligned with America (NATO).
So what is the West? (from Wikipedia)

Western society is sometimes claimed to trace its cultural origins to both Greek thought and Christian
religion, thus following an evolution that began in ancient Greece, continued through the Roman Empire
and, with the coming of Christianity (which has its origins in the Middle East), spread throughout Europe.

The exact scope of the Western world is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural,
economic or political criteria are used. In general however these definitions always include the following
countries: the countries of Western Europe(UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc), the United States,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These are Western European or Western European-settled nations
which enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, have chosen democracy as a form of
governance, favor capitalism and free international trade, and have some form of political and military
alliance or cooperation.

From a Curtural Point of View

From a cultural and sociological approach the Western world is defined as including all cultures that are
(directly derived from) European cultures, i.e. Europe, the Americas (North and South America), Australia
and New Zealand. Together these countries constitute Western society These are generally countries that
share similar history, religions, languages, values and traditions. Culturally, many Latin Americans,
particularly Argentines, Uruguayans, Colombians, Cubans, Chileans, and Brazilians, firmly consider
themselves Westerners, especially the ruling classes.

From a Political pont of View

Countries of the Western world are generally considered to share certain fundamental political ideologies,
including those of liberal democracy, the rule of law, human rights and a high degree of gender equality.
Additionally countries with strong political and military ties to Western Europe, NATO or the United
States, such as Japan, Israel and South Korea can be said to be Western in a political sense at least.

As such, this definition of the term "Western" is not necessarily tied to the geographic sense of the word. A
geographically Western nation such as Cuba is sometimes not considered politically Western due to its
general rejection of liberal democracy, freedom of the press, and personal liberty. Conversely, some
Eastern nations, for example, Japan, India, Israel, Taiwan, South Africa, and South Korea, could be
considered politically Western, due to their adoption of indigenous liberal democratic political institutions
similar in structure to those of the traditionally Western nations.

Huntington’s view

The West is based on religion, as the countries of Western and Central Europe were historically influenced
by the two forms of Western Christianity, namely Catholicism and Protestantism. Also, many Anglophone
countries share these traits, i.e., Australia and New Zealand, as well as the more heterogeneous United
States and Canada. Of course, so does Latin America.[

"The West" (Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand).

Western Europe as per CIA factbook

• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• Isle of Man
• Belgium
• France
• Netherlands
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Monaco

• Andorra
• Portugal
• Spain
The Personalities
Plato
• All conventional political systems were inherently corrupt.
• The state should be governed by an elite class of educated philosopher-rulers.

Aristotle
• Man is by nature a political anmal.
• A truly ethical life can only be lived by someone who participates in politcs.

Niccolo Machiavelli
• No moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power.
• In his works, the most famous of which is The Prince, he describes techniques of acquiring and
maintaining power; these, he said, were needed to maintain public order regardless of whether the
government was legitimate or not.
• Machiavelli held that public success and private morality are entirely separate. The question is not
what makes a good himan being, but what makes a good prince.
• In order to achieve success in public life, the ruler must know precisely when and how to do what
no good person would ever do.
• Although private morality may rest on divine approval, personal character, or abstract dutuies, in
public life only the praise and blame of fellow human beings really counts.

Thomas Hobbes
• His whose famous 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political
philosophy.
• Every person had equal right to every resource in nature and was free to use any means to acquire
those resources.
• His book, Leviathan, is his major work on constitutional theory, he explains that each man’s
pursuit of his own interest will inevitably lead to a war of each against all. But as no one wants to
see his existence subjected to constant threat, individual power is surrendered and put in the hands
of the law and a ruler (the state).

John Locke
• His writings influenced many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American
revolutionaries. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.
• Rejected theological foundations of the monarchy
• In his work “Two Treaties on Government,” classical piece on liberalism , Locke attacked
patriachal views of monarchy and demanded the seperation of the legislative and executive
powers. Supreme political power he said, implied a duty to pass laws which protected the life,
rights and property of its citizens.
• This established the legal principle of a “social contract” between the government and its peoples.

John Stuart Mill

• Liberty was the most important right of human beings, and that the only just cause for interfering
with the liberty of another was self-protection. Influential thinker with reference to liberty.
What can we deduce? (from the timeline)
o Greek Philosophers started the logical process
o Roman empire split into West and East
o The East survived longer and preserved the Greek Philosophy
o Greek Philosophy was combined with christianity
o Arabs re-introduced philosphy to Western Europe
o The West is not really the West? It is the East
o But the East was taken over by Muslims
o The West adopted that which originated in the East and which was brought to them by
Muslim philosophers
o Renaissance
o Reformation
o Enlightenment
o Modernity