DesertFox
03-01-2008, 10:18 PM
Salim Mansur
The most pressing issue in the West at the present time relates to culture and not the economy.
The issue has emerged in American politics in terms of immigration, and elsewhere in the West as to how far must liberal-democracy bend itself to accommodate immigrants from non-Western cultures without undermining its own cultural identity.
This cultural identity was derived from and evolved out of the immense struggles for individual freedom and democracy spread over several centuries since the Age of Enlightenment unfolded in Europe from the 18th century onwards.
At the core of this culture is the affirmation that an individual irrespective of gender and colour represents the centre of the liberal world's ethical foundation. This was a radically altered vision of humanity rejecting the view that an individual is an appendage of the collective -- tribe, caste or class -- into which he or she is born.
The triumph of the West as the second millennium ended was a confirmation of this liberal idea, however incomplete and with distance still to go, of freedom and democracy.
More (http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Mansur_Salim/2008/03/01/4886261-sun.php)
The most pressing issue in the West at the present time relates to culture and not the economy.
The issue has emerged in American politics in terms of immigration, and elsewhere in the West as to how far must liberal-democracy bend itself to accommodate immigrants from non-Western cultures without undermining its own cultural identity.
This cultural identity was derived from and evolved out of the immense struggles for individual freedom and democracy spread over several centuries since the Age of Enlightenment unfolded in Europe from the 18th century onwards.
At the core of this culture is the affirmation that an individual irrespective of gender and colour represents the centre of the liberal world's ethical foundation. This was a radically altered vision of humanity rejecting the view that an individual is an appendage of the collective -- tribe, caste or class -- into which he or she is born.
The triumph of the West as the second millennium ended was a confirmation of this liberal idea, however incomplete and with distance still to go, of freedom and democracy.
More (http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Mansur_Salim/2008/03/01/4886261-sun.php)