Important issue

Ramesh Thakur has raised an important issue in his article “Is the United Nations racist?” (July 19). He has rightly said that non-westerners themselves have internalised the sense of racial superiority of westerners.

The need of the hour is to change our thinking, whether the issue is our own hierarchical caste set-up that feeds on the “sense” of ingrained superiority or the global administrative set-up.

Paramjot Kaur,

Patiala

In the western intellectual narrative, human history is about how the West conquered the rest of the world. The superiority of the western civilisation is a non-negotiable truth even for liberal intellectuals. It doesn’t matter that the white race perpetrated some of the most heinous atrocities in history. Slavery was practised till as late as the 20th century.

Atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki even when Japan was preparing to surrender. It is the technological and military might of the West that has enabled it to dominate international organisations like the U.N.

T.K.S. Thathachari,

Bangalore