Paraphrasing from Joost de Vries in De Groene:
We could say that the West only has a democratic tradition if we ignore the years between the time of Greek city states and the American revolution of 1776.
And isn’t it strange that we in Northwestern Europe tend to associate more with a Roman general who transcribed their military campaigns than the Germanic tribes they conquered—who were our actual ancestors.
Furthermore, none of the values and freedoms we like to call Western are inherently, endemically Western; every form of self-government has also appeared somewhere else in the world.
See https://www.groene.nl/artikel/avant-gardisten-van-de-beschaving
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