I thought you already accepted my clarification?
As far as I know, you never provided a definition for the 'Western world'. You had earlier posted a definition of the 'Eastern world', which I rejected since it was based on arbitrary geography. You also seem to believe that any entity which doesn't belong to the 'East' by definition belongs to the 'West', which doesn't make any sense.
Just for curiosity's sake, where would you place sub-Saharan Africa in your bipolar civilizational world? In the 'West' or in the 'East'? Or for that matter, what about the indigenous civilizations of the Americas, like the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas? Shouldn't they be more Western than the West, geographically speaking? Or are they part of the 'East' too?
Then why call ourselves Asians if there's no point in an amalgamation anyway or them as Europeans or Middle Eastern?
The term 'Asian' is simply a geographic term, nothing more. Just like the terms 'African' and 'European'.
This amalgamation of related civilizations or cultures cut both ways, it can be a tool for putting down a large swath of people into a group so that they can be distinguished as sub par with another amalgamated people in terms of culture or civilization (what you are alluding to in your insistence of going against the "East" and "West" thing, which you consider as a historical conspiracy by the West to put us down) or it could be a rallying cry for an amalgamated people, who otherwise would be at each other's throat for their petty civilizational differences without looking at their broader shared legacy to work together more closely.
Pan-Asianism as an ideology is very recent. It emerged in the late 19th century as a direct response to European imperialism and colonialism, by advocating the
creation a continental identity based on a singular common interest (namely, the resisting Western encroachment). This identity had to be
created because there exists no 'natural' affinity between the various, diverse peoples of Asia. The only thing that they had in common in the 19th century was the shared experience of being subjugated by various European powers. Unfortunately, Pan-Asianism was never a particularly popular or successful ideology. After the passing of Sun Yat-sen, one of the most prominent Pan-Asianists, the militarist regime in Japan hijacked and misused the ideology to justify their own imperialism and exploitation. The subsequent Cold War further sidelined Pan-Asianism.
I actually consider myself to be a modern Pan-Asianist, but this does not mean simply taking the orientalist concept of the 'East' as the opposite of the 'West' and turning it on its head. In order for Pan-Asianism to be successful, it important to first recognize that Asia is far from a monolithic entity, and that it actually comprises multiple, unique civilizations. The purpose of Pan-Asianism in the modern era should be to advocate a broad alliance and cooperation between Asian civilization
s to make possible the reclaiming of Asia's historical place in the global system.
In any case, the globalisation of culture is erasing the civilizational differences and fusing us all into a globalised civilization. This is a source of optimism for me for the future (there are of course reactionaries who are waging a violent global fight to stop this phenomenon).
Are we really being fused into a 'global' civilization? I am not seeing it happen. Sure, people move around the world a lot more than they the did in the past, and global communication is also much quicker and more pervasive than before, but civilizational boundaries are as relevant today as they ever were.
The classic example of hardcore Islamist protesters in Pakistan chanting 'Death to America' while wearing Levi's jeans and drinking Coca-Cola illustrates the fact that globalization and the spread of Western materialist culture has little impact on actual ideologies and paradigms. The day when we are a 'globalised civilization' will be when all human beings share a common paradigm of viewing the world, which will not happen anytime soon.
In other words there's really a discernable cultural or civilizational distinction between Asians and Middle Easterns.
So, if there is a "discernable cultural or civilizational distinction between Asians and Middle Easterns"
(sic), why group them together as the 'East'? Why continue the fantasy of believing that all 'Easterners' are essentially the 'same'? With the possible exception of Iran, the West Asian (I don't like the term "Middle Eastern") countries have little civilizational similarity with other Asian countries. To me personally, there is actually not much difference between a West Asian and a European in terms of how 'different' they are from Indians. The opposite is also true; countries like Algeria and Turkey have much more in common with European countries like France and Hungary than with other Asian countries like India or China.