In today's world, it's common for Europe's achievements to be looked down on and frowned at, possibly because of the media, free speech and the transitioning of most Western governments into democracies. But is it really fair?
All groups and cultures are guilty of some kind of crimes throughout their history, and humans are inherently evil in nature (not all humans are evil, but I mean everyone is capable of evil given the right circumstances). A common part of Europe's past that's mocked, is colonialism. Let me start out by saying colonialism brought more good then harm. Of course some people will say that colonialism was the source of many atrocities, and it allowed many nations to be stripped of their wealth, or had their citizens reduced to slavery. While its true, the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, etc. caused much hardships for the people living in their colonies, they also brought peace and stability to them, and even today imperial (in a business sense anyways) ambitions are helping to industrialise parts of the world that would otherwise still be in the dark ages.
A main source of the white mans (not trying to be racist, but this does apply directly to ones skin colour) mockery, is the slave trade. Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Africans were uprooted from their homes and forced into slavery. What one leaves out though, is that nearly all the slaves were captured from by other Africans and sold to the Europeans. The slaves were either captured in the tribal warfare that was common amongst the natives, or else were guilty of some sort of crime and if not sold into slavery, would otherwise receive death, or be forced into slavery by his/her fellow Africans. Europe in no way started the slave trade, or played anymore of a role then any other group, what sets them apart is their wealth and ability to do more then other groups could.
This brings me to another point, Europe's wealth. Although gotten at the expense of others, I believe that having much of the worlds wealth centralised in European colonial powers did more good then bad. For example, the Crusades; without the revenue brought in from the conquered Arabian lands, the renaissance would've never been possible and the world would've stayed in the dark ages for who knows how much longer. Another example is the industrial revolution, if England and the rest of Europe weren't able to bring in enough foreign supplies to build and fuel their factories, cottage industry and serfdom would've remained a common way of life for that much longer. If the worlds wealth had remained in the hands of its native warlords, progress would be much, much slower.
I believe that now we're starting to redistribute our worlds resources evenly, this is evidenced by the break-up of the Worlds colonial Empires post World War 1. Whether linked or not, the worlds situation has gotten much worse, the rise of Hitler for example, claimed the lives of millions, and the turmoil in the Middle East is a current example of Europe losing its power throughout the world. Colonialism brought stability and progress, its obvious that without an external force keeping things in check, most countries go to shit.
If you'd like to argue any of my points, then go ahead, please keep this free of spam though. I don't believe this is racist or very offensive, but if anyone has valid problems I'll try to fix or reword my writing to fix them. I'll try to add more later, its getting late though.
