Eurocentric

When I say ‘Eurocentric,’ what I actually mean is ‘America-centric.’ Most modern ideas began in Europe and were later hijacked by Americans, making it seem as if they were original American thoughts, even obtaining patent rights to use them as weapons for their world hegemony. Now that Europe has almost become the side yard of America—Canada is not even considered a separate country but an autonomous region of America, and Britain, representing the rest of Europe, always saying ‘YES BOSS’—South America is its backyard, and the rest of the world is not even an entity but mere lands to experiment with their Super Power and foreign policies. When I say anything ‘Eurocentric,’ it should mean ‘America-centric.’

Long before, I read somewhere that when the first atlas of the world map was created, some countries didn’t like the idea of pushing their country to a corner of the world and created their own atlas, keeping themselves as the center of the world. Fortunately, now a universal standard world map is recognized, separating the world as ‘East or West’ and ‘North and South.’ The personal atlases created by each country are not used widely. In hindsight, it should also be noted that some countries do not accept international borders with their neighbors and now create and publish their own country maps, creating their own international borders—China is very famous for this. Pakistan has terrorism as its state policy, and China, its boss, to whom Pakistan has become merely a colony to dump its development projects, has aggression as its state policy.

Now coming back to my main point, when Americans began to create every human index for any value for the world, it should be Eurocentric—focused on their interests and needs. One example that comes to mind is the Democracy Index. Despite its population and the way India conducted its recent Parliament election, it is still ranked 136/200, even lower than Pakistan, where the military controls everything—as it is an army with a country, whereas in the rest of the world, a country has an army.

This applies not only to the Democracy Index. Take every other HRD [Human Resource Index], human rights, press freedom, free judiciary, etc. What is right and correct for Americans alone becomes the benchmark for every other country to be measured. For example, consider the recent judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). When it declared Netanyahu a war criminal and even threatened to issue an arrest warrant [I am not sure whether it has already been issued], America immediately jumped with its gun of sanctions even against the ICJ. Whereas when the same court issued an arrest warrant against Putin for his war crimes in Ukraine, it was applauded by the same America as the correct decision. When public law and order are disturbed significantly in other countries due to mass protests [remember the Farmers’ blockade of highways in Delhi], and when local governments take strong action to remove it, it is deemed a human rights violation. However, when the same is done either in Canada or America, it is considered a law and order issue. When terrorists attack America, it is termed terrorism, even religious terrorism. When the same happens in India, they are called freedom fighters. There is no end to this.

Considering America imagining itself as the so-called Super Power, other countries have to tolerate it. But when the same attitude is applied to Mission and Theology, though it originated in the West, it is surprising that it still remains Eurocentric, not recognizing the needs and aspirations of the non-Western world, particularly Asia. As B. F. Westcott once famously said, “the great commentary on the Fourth Gospel would come from an Indian Christian scholar” {Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, New York, Orbis Books, [1996], Tenth Printing 2005, p. 151}.@ I am not surprised to see that even such acknowledgment had to come from a non-Indian and not by any Indian ‘convert,’ despite several attempts by a few pioneers in this regard [N. Ghore, R. C. Das, Upadhyaya, N. V. Tilak to name only a few]. Still, the Indian church, mission, or even theological seminaries, which remain a backyard for Western theological seminaries, never could even think in this way.

Unless the West changes its hegemonic attitude and approach on every issue, there is not much hope for the world. But a time might come, and I wish it begins at the earliest, that is good for the entire humanity.

Gurukulam, 22-6-2023Eurocentric