Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think The West is morally bankrupt

382 replies

Elrae · 27/07/2025 00:19

America democratically elects an adjudicate rapist who sympathises with racists, hates women and will do anything to hang onto power. The UK and it's lickspitrlw leader fawn over Trump and says that Israel has rhe right to cut off food and water to Gaza. Then wairs a year watching children die before saying it is intolerable. Except he is tolerating it.We all are.
The West is pumping out carbon at a vast rate and will no doubt reject the flood of refugees that this will cause.
The West takes more than it's fair share of the world's wealth. Much of the West is based on colonial exploration and murder of the global south.
I used to think we were the good guys.
We are not. We are one of the worst things ever to happen to the planet and it's inhabitants.

OP posts:
EmmaSheen · 27/07/2025 21:20

Elrae · 27/07/2025 21:09

I get that it is easier to think that countries like the UK and USA are morally ok. They're not. Thats why people are so upset about this. You are not ok

There isn't a single country that's morally ok.

You could remove Britain and America from the world tomorrow and it wouldn't change a thing other than making you search for someone else to blame.

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 21:20

Elrae · 27/07/2025 21:09

I get that it is easier to think that countries like the UK and USA are morally ok. They're not. Thats why people are so upset about this. You are not ok

You are not ok

So where are you from that is so morally upright?

Original poster
Elrae · 27/07/2025 21:09

I get that it is easier to think that countries like the UK and USA are morally ok. They're not. Thats why people are so upset about this. You are not ok

OP posts:
EmmaSheen · 27/07/2025 20:55

Long time lurker but I'm lonely and want to join in.

This is so much more complex than simply stating "the west" is problematic and leaving it at that. The "West" is made up of many countries with varying cultures and using the term as a boogey man to explain the world's problems is no better than bunching all "immigrants" into one category.

There's not a culture or country that doesn't do wrong or hasn't done wrong.

It's also a little ironic when it's often someone from the "West" who raises this and rants on about its historical failings while enjoying the benefits of that history good and bad on a daily basis.

I'm in no way saying I'm exempt from the above either.

I feel the constant modern focus on trying to hold groups of people to account for things they had nothing to do with only helps to push them towards predatory politicians and influencers all too happy to exploit that division.

As to what the solution is I have no idea I'm not that clever but claiming the "west" is morally bankrupt is certainly not going to solve anything either.

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 20:55

SpaceRaccoon · 27/07/2025 20:40

Britain has also been colonised, its people murdered, mistreated, stolen from and taken as slaves…

Barbary slave trade for one.

Only 100 years ago six percent of the total male population of the UK were killed defending Britain from would-be colonisers.

UsingAMansNameInAWomensWorld · 27/07/2025 20:50

Are you ignoring centuries of unrest in Palestine and the surrounding areas which goes back at least to biblical times and claiming there was no issue before Hamas????

SpaceRaccoon · 27/07/2025 20:40

Britain has also been colonised, its people murdered, mistreated, stolen from and taken as slaves…

Barbary slave trade for one.

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 20:38

Britain has also been colonised, its people murdered, mistreated, stolen from and taken as slaves…

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 20:35

Colonisation of Palestine
1
0.18 First settlers/cavemen. 0:28. Canaanites. 0:38. Ancient Egyptians. 0:48. Assyrians. 0:55. Israelites. 1:07. Babylonians/Persian Empire.. 1:10. Greeks/Macedonians (Alexander the Great). 1:17. Greeks/Macedonians (after Alexander the Great). 1:23. Ptolemaic Egypt. 1:26. Seleucid empire. 1:32. Hebrew Priest and Maccabees. 1:47. Romans. 1:56. Byzantines/Sassanids. 1:58. Arab Caliphs. 2:00. Crusaders. 2:04. Mamluk Egyptians/ Medieval Egypt. 2:07. Ottoman Turks. 2:09. Arabs. 2:12. British/Europeans. 2:27. Palestinians. 2:27. Jews/Zionists. 2:31. Jews vs Palestinians. 2:39. PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah. 2:45. State of Israel. . Guerrilla forces/Palestinians.

SpaceRaccoon · 27/07/2025 20:34

@Elrae the Colonial administration put an end to suttee in India, for instance.
Your views are incredibly simplistic and take no account of historical context.

Original poster
Elrae · 27/07/2025 20:20

Britain is a colonising nation whose history and accumulated wealth involves invading other countries, stealing their resources and murdering their people. As well as setting up colonial administrations such as in the Raj in India. One of these colonised nations was a country whose western tip almost touched the very east of what we called Asia. The religiously persecuted Brethren who first arrived in this nation, and other colonisers, made it into a white Protestant setyller nation and in the process murdered many of the people who lived there for centuries. They then imported people from West Africa to be slaves working on cotton plantations. These people, still murdered today by the white selttler police, are today known as African Americans. Another white racist group, the German Nazis, decided to throw their lot in with a psychopath who thought Jews were the root of all their problems. He murdered millions of them, and miliions of those who fought against him. This legitimised the post war colonisation of Palestine by the co-religionists of the people who had been murdered. The co religionists, unwanted by Europe, created a new nation to assuage European guilt, called Israel. This new nation then threw Palestinian people off their land and became settler colonisers themselves. Supported by colonial countries like the UK and the US, and many European countries. The settler colonial guilt derived nation mistreated the indigenous inhabitants and then, almost 2 years ago, they were delighted that a terrorist group gave them a pretext for genocide through murderous acts. They murdered and starved thousands of children. Whenever anyone said "no" they cried "antisemitism"
Alternatively, just carry on drinking your fucking Merlot, listening to your bullshit BBC, believing the crap you have been fed,

OP posts:
Kendodd · 27/07/2025 19:38

Oh, and the LAAG meetings were held in the evenings and at weekends so working people could attend.

Kendodd · 27/07/2025 19:36

Menopausalsourpuss · 27/07/2025 18:35

Yes thanks you've made my point, people like me that were working didn't have time for international campaigns. Doesnt sound like you had a job. Just like now the "Palestine" protesters are retired, wealthy off students or on benefits. Old white people over represented.

Show quote history

You said working class people didn't demonstrate about South Africa. Sounds like a homeless teenager from a deprived background was somehow not working class enough for you, or in some way too privileged so can be discarded from your measure of working class.

justasking111 · 27/07/2025 19:33

Menopausalsourpuss · 27/07/2025 19:20

Yes if only we had a leader who put us first and negotiated good deals (for us rather than Mauritians etc). Like most people I feel that the Government are my enemy, it must be great to be American (or Japanese or one of the other countries where the leaders work on behalf of the people that pay them).

Show quote history

It would make a change.

Menopausalsourpuss · 27/07/2025 19:20

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 17:33

Trump’s message was unashamedly patriotic - make America great again. We are not America so Trump is not on ‘our side’. That he thinks he got a good trade deal from Starmer should concern us just as much as the Democrats colonialism through the imposition of their political creeds.

I think Trump confuses a lot of European leaders who have got too used to ignoring their own populations - they fail to understand he doesn’t care about countries or people beyond America’s borders other than in terms of American interests.

Yes if only we had a leader who put us first and negotiated good deals (for us rather than Mauritians etc). Like most people I feel that the Government are my enemy, it must be great to be American (or Japanese or one of the other countries where the leaders work on behalf of the people that pay them).

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 19:02

TankFlyBossW4lk · 27/07/2025 18:39

They didn't vote him in though. They only like him because he'll devastate the West.

Show quote history

This mysterious ‘west’?

TankFlyBossW4lk · 27/07/2025 18:39

Trendyname · 27/07/2025 01:41

Do you know trump is loved by people in the east too?

Show quote history

They didn't vote him in though. They only like him because he'll devastate the West.

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 18:36

Boredlass · 27/07/2025 18:28

YANBU. We are the bad guys a lot of the time but we are fed propaganda so people don’t believe it

We are not significant enough to be the bad guys any more.

Menopausalsourpuss · 27/07/2025 18:35

Kendodd · 27/07/2025 16:09

You're talking bollocks.
I grew up in a deprived northern town on benefits with a dysfunctional family. Moved to London (on my own) at 15 in the 1980s, lived in squats. I spend many days and hours manning the picket outside the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square. I was a member of the London anti apparitite group (who organised the picket) and used to go to the meetings. There were plenty of people like me involved.

Show quote history

Yes thanks you've made my point, people like me that were working didn't have time for international campaigns. Doesnt sound like you had a job. Just like now the "Palestine" protesters are retired, wealthy off students or on benefits. Old white people over represented.

IHateWasps · 27/07/2025 18:32

Yes. It happened to another Mumsnetter the other week. I had no idea that it’d do that either.

justasking111 · 27/07/2025 18:31

This reply has been deleted

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

Really, thanks

Boredlass · 27/07/2025 18:28

YANBU. We are the bad guys a lot of the time but we are fed propaganda so people don’t believe it

IHateWasps · 27/07/2025 18:26

This reply has been withdrawn

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

justasking111 · 27/07/2025 17:57

This reply has been withdrawn

Message withdrawn by MNHQ

CapeGooseberry · 27/07/2025 17:33

Trump’s message was unashamedly patriotic - make America great again. We are not America so Trump is not on ‘our side’. That he thinks he got a good trade deal from Starmer should concern us just as much as the Democrats colonialism through the imposition of their political creeds.

I think Trump confuses a lot of European leaders who have got too used to ignoring their own populations - they fail to understand he doesn’t care about countries or people beyond America’s borders other than in terms of American interests.