I maintain that Western popular culture at its best is worthy of respect and should be cherished as much as the operas of Wagner.

The greatest number of drug addicts are to be found in Teheran and in Karachi, not in the West. Not in New York believe it or not. It's the same with the roles of slavery, racism and imperialism in the world. These institutions were present in other cultures. However, it was Western civilization which did something about slavery, about racism and voluntarily dissolved its empires leaving behind a very positive legacy of institutions not to mention buildings and roadways.

I maintain that Western popular culture at its best is worthy of respect and should be cherished as much as the operas of Wagner.

The idea that the West was economically successful because of slavery, it's just nonsense.

In the West we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live as we choose. Liberty is codified in human rights, a magnificent Western creation but also, I believe, a universal good.

Abolitionism did not find positive response in Africa as it did in Western societies and cultures.

Human rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. It is in the West that human rights are most respected.