The myth of Western Civilization

They tell you Western civilization began in Athens.

They recite the script that America and Europe "built the modern world."

But empires do not get to be origin stories.

They get to be looters who renamed what they stole.

Athens did not invent freedom for the planet.

It invented a myth to sanctify conquest.

The U.S. did not "build" the modern world.

It built a supply chain of coups, bombs, plantations, sweatshops, and wars.

Every skyscraper in New York has villages buried beneath its foundations.

You say China parades weapons that came from U.S. designs.

But you miss the point.

The parade was not a thank-you note.

It was a death certificate for the monopoly of Western power.

And then you wave the word "terror."

As if terror is only what the colonized do when they fight back.

Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis.

You recite the list like a spell.

But you forget who armed the Afghan mujahideen, who funded Saddam, who trained death squads in Latin America, who sent white phosphorus to Gaza.

Empire does not fight terror.

Empire professionalizes it.

You even sneer at migrants in Berlin, Milan, Paris, London.

As if people uproot their lives for sport.

They move because your wars gutted their countries.

Because your corporations stripped their markets bare.

Because your "modern world" leaves ruins behind it.

You ask for balance.

Here is balance.

Every Western achievement is written in two columns.

One for the invention, the other for the body count.

One for the patent, the other for the plunder.

One for liberty in the metropole, the other for famine in the colony.

That is the balance of empire.

That is the honesty of history.

And no myth of Athens can wash the blood off Caesar's hands.

And the lie of it