ABSTRACT
Crusades, colonial wars and occupation followed by imperialist globalisation were normally historically legitimised through a discourse of ‘essential cultural differences’ between Europe/ ‘the West’ and all other countries and people of the world. Although this discourse has a long history, which can be traced back over millenniums of different societies’ conflicts and wars, it has been since the establishment of modernity, and modern colonial wars and occupations, that the discourse of cultural difference became a scientific discourse. The colonial triumphs of a few European countries, and their occupation of other countries and lands, were taken as signifying the ‘superiority’ of ‘the West’ above all other nations and groups in the world.
