The word games we play to look good…

In the imagination of the western world, there is now a tidy distinction between the “Asiatic” empires—still definable as such, because they remain territorial, compact, bellicose, aggressive, despotic, and fundamentalist—and the western ones, which are not considered true empires because they are flexible, delocalized, peaceful, secular, progressive, enlightened, commercial, and now financial. The term “empire” is reserved for those we do not like, our adversaries, and nobody would apply it to themselves or take pride in such a label. While empires in the first category can be described as “empires of evil,” there is no corresponding expression denoting “good empires” to describe those in the second category. The “holy war,” the jihad, is a threat to humanity, but a Crusade is merely a figure of speech. Perhaps nothing expresses this duality better than the original “Star Wars” trilogy (produced between 1977 and 1983, during the Cold War), in which the empire is evil, aggressive, and impenetrable, and its soldiers are faceless and armored like ancient warriors—while “we” are a confederation, a flexible and vibrant international alliance that fights for good and for the salvation of humanity. Moreover, post-imperialistic historiography stresses intercultural phenomena such as assimilation and emulation, rather than those associated with conquest pure and simple.—Mario Liverani, Assyria: The Imperial Mission, 253