Knowing Ourselves and "The Other": A Critique of the Monopo-lization of European Civilisation in Cemil Meriç's Works

In order people to know themselves, they have to understand the others and be aware of the differences. While knowing itself, the West always detected "others", considered them as enemies and acknowledged a position with regard to "others". Allowing the West to stay dynamic, this position brought about a constant development. Cemil Meriç puts forward that we should know ourselves, as well. However, this doesn't mean considering "others" as enemies. According to Meriç, all the civilisations are paramount to each other and they should benefit from each other. Nevertheless, he rejects the West Civilisation's constructing a perception of a single civilisation with its technical, financial, military and political superiority. Being ackowledged especially by undeveloped civilisations, this perception has caused western values to be adopted as well. In this study, we try to handle the wrongness of this perception and the solutions introduced by Meriç for us to be ourselves again.