Occidental Revisions of World History

Omar Alansari-Kreger
There are many anthologies of history that detail events of the past. Yet, it can be argued
that the history of the victorious is the only history that matters. At least that applies to history
used to shape the future. The enterprises of human intelligence have been seized by a world that
demands absolute adherence to the supremacy of Western Civilization. Thus, it can be amply
maintained that the world of the twenty-first century is an era defined by heliocentrism of the
West. As a direct consequence, we have been conditioned to believe the only frequency of
intellectual perspective worth considering is that of the West. After all, they are the originators of
our modern utilitarian civilization; at least in the totality of its utilitarian form. For example, why
do our current enterprises of higher education fail to study and reference the philosophic works
of Ibn Sina, the peripatetic logic Ibn Rushd, and the foundations of sociology as established by
Ibn Khaldun?
What happened to those vast repositories of knowledge that once housed the works of
Islamic Civilization? Are philosophers, scientists, and inventors citied as frequently as their
Western predecessors, peers, and contemporaries? It hardly seems so; it is for that reason why we
live under the disproportionate shadow of Occidentalism. The greatest ode made to the imagery
of Imperialism was established in schools of orientalist thought. Since the Age of Colonial
Empire, the Near East in addition to the whole of the underdeveloped South is traditionally
portrayed in abject backwater. There is a reason why the World of Islam is synonymous with
obscurity. When the heritage of a multifarious people is dismissed as an irrelevant anachronism
of the past, its legitimacy is contemporaneously lost when viewed in the eyes of the victors.
Such a perception presumes that intellectual discoveries made during centuries of Islamic
Civilization are obsolescent. When victors are psychologically absorbed in the sociological
suspense of their own might and power, an aura of cultural decadence is adopted as a trophy of
high civilization. As a direct implication, a culture of imperial triumphalism was formed which
considered the likes of the Non-Western world to be nothing more than an outmoded hindrance
to the development of man. It is easier to divide, conquer, and subjugate a civilized people in
decline when they are viewed as less than human. Therefore, history is seemingly lopsided and
salient when observed through that particular corollary. The development of a people is achieved
wherever and whenever cultural positivism prevails. A defeated people is demoralized when the
victorious begin subliminally flaunting their superiority.
The development of man demands the equanimity of the human condition. A world of
lopsided proportions is one of absolute polarity. The subordination of one civilization to another
ends with the permanence of its vanquishing. A world that is established on the principle of
divide and conquer demands a paradigm of absolute control. As long as a distinct people is
conditioned to accept perpetual inferiority as an inroad to modernity, powers rendered onto the
victorious will remain supreme. For the oppressed that theorize on models of liberation, an
existential query can speculate on the following: how do nations in chains break free of

hegemonic sanctimony? The totality of control begins with the foundational designs of
civilization. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries symbolically attest to the aggressive
resurgence of Western civilization.
The rise of the West began once mercantilism became a colonial affair; synergistically, the
combination of both forged the creation of imperialism. Sociological obsessions made over the
maximization of power are restless until a typological hegemony is established as the only
currency capable of ruling over the affairs of man.