Why the West is Best

a review by Rebecca Bynum (December 2011)

Defending the West (reviewed here). Why the West is Best  is meant more for the general reader and is a thoroughly enjoyable exploration of the Western world as seen through the eyes of a man born a Muslim in Pakistan and whose appreciation of the West is fresh and stimulating. Warraq begins by taking on the attitude embodied in a flippant remark made by Mahatma Gandhi, who when asked what he thought of British civilization, replied that he thought it was “a good idea.” To Warraq, these words reveal “ingratitude, hypocrisy, arrogance and incomprehension” which characterizes fashionable anti-Western thought the world over. It was, after all, those evil British colonialists who studied and translated ancient Hindu manuscripts and who preserved their crumbling monuments, essentially restoring India’s history to the Indian people. And by establishing British law and administration (along with the unifying English language), those same terrible colonialists laid the groundwork for India’s economic success today.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky puts the following thoughts in the mind of Ivan Fyodorovitch (a staunch unbeliever who nevertheless understands that Western civilization rests upon Christian belief):

Be that as it may, this book will provide much food for thought and a considerable supply of ammunition for secularists seeking to defend the West on that basis. If it seems that I have taken issue with much, it is because this book made me think, which is naturally the highest criterion by which a work may be judged. Ibn Warraq is the best kind of public intellectual. His books always stimulate thought and by that standard Why the West is Best is yet another home run.

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