There is some weird kind of selective amnesia in the west, we at the same time downplay our achievements and put the focus on our perceived errors. While everybody else is doing the exact opposite, so not only we teach our kids to hate themselves we give good reasons for others to do so as well.

It's as if the only empires that existed were Europeean and the only slaves that existed were from the atlantic trade

Ironic given how basically every civilisation did similar things, Europeans were just better at it for a small time but before them Arabs had a good go at it too, not even mentioning the Chinese empire. The whole world and its history is a shit show, just because you're at the tip of one of the remaining branch doesn't mean you have to hate your country and everything it did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almohad_Caliphate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Asia#:~:text=Slaver....

> There is some weird kind of selective amnesia in the west, we at the same time downplay our achievements and put the focus on our perceived errors.

There are those and those, and each side says something like this about the other, the real minority is realistically seeing the whole picture.

Also self-reflection isn't a bad thing, we can only change ourselves and then influence others (hopefully without force :)).

> Also self-reflection isn't a bad thing

Of course, but you can't call yourself a victim 24/7 while at the same time not acknowledging other countries/religions/whatever faults.

It's rarely black nor white, and the shade of grey varies depending on which side and which period you're born into

Arabs had a good go at it? As in past tense?

Last I checked slavery is still very common in many arab nations as we speak?

Do you mean the greek and roman tradition of enslaving everyone, and the American and English tradition of enslaving everyone?

What about the pan-African and Mesoamerican traditions of enslaving everyone? Slavery was pretty much everywhere in the world. Then Christians invented the idea of not enslaving fellow Christians, then Muslims did the same (which really helped the spread of both religions!).

Mathematically speaking, you reading this are the descendant of enslaved peoples. They could be so far back that it doesn’t affect your economic status, like being a Mamluk in Egypt, or a Carthaginian in Rome, or a Hebrew in Egypt. But all of humanity was touched by this non-peculiar institution.

The Arab slave trade was huge and racist in its own way (where poorer, usually darker skinned peoples were enslaved and traded by wealthier, lighter skinned peoples.) Western European colonial ambitions definitely wounded the area significantly but the Islamicate world was still practicing slavery after Western Europe had largely banned it and stopped practicing it. It's recent enough in Islamicate history that traditionalist groups lay claim to slavery as a custom even now in the region.