By Amir Nour
In an era where slogans have mingled with blood and reason has been blinded by deceit, I felt compelled to raise and analyze what I perceive as a profound intellectual and moral outcry in my forthcoming work, entitled “The Monstrosity of Our Century: The War on Palestine and the Last Western Man.”
In this study, I have endeavored, with all the effort and clarity I could summon, to unveil another face of Western civilization—one that has long prided itself on humanity, freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. These are the very values the so-called “collective West” claims to have conceived, nurtured, and defended. Yet today, this entire edifice seems to be collapsing in shame under the moral test of Palestine.
As readers will discover, this book is not a historical narrative but rather a civilizational indictment of an entire age—a tracing of the West’s transformation from a beacon of liberty into a silent, if not complicit, witness to genocide; from a champion of human rights into an executioner of silence before crimes so horrific that they defy comprehension, forgiveness, or oblivion.
I began from the war on Gaza in particular, and on Palestine as a whole, to offer a comprehensive vision of our contemporary global reality. I have come—regretfully but decisively—to the conclusion that what we are witnessing today is not merely a “political conflict,” but a historic turning point marking the collapse of the Western hegemony that has dominated the world for three centuries. I call this transformation the dawn of a new era—the Age of De-Westernization—in which power is being redistributed, universal values are being rewritten, and moral balances are being redefined.
The higher purpose of this work is to deconstruct the dominant Western narratives by exposing the falsity of the manipulated media discourse that has inverted reality—portraying the victim as the aggressor and the aggressor as the victim. To this end, I have cited testimonies and reports from within the West itself, confirming that what is unfolding in Palestine truly represents “the monstrosity of our century,” as described by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories—a crime committed before the eyes of the world under the deceitful pretext of “Israel’s right to self-defense.”
Yet this work extends beyond geography. It ventures into the philosophical and existential depths of our time, confronting a profoundly human question: Who is the “last man”? And does he still bear the essence of humanity—or did he forfeit it when he chose silence in the face of genocide, the crime of all crimes?
In this context, I revisit Francis Fukuyama’s thesis in “The End of History and the Last Man.” My reading, however, refutes his conclusion. I argue that the “last man,” embodied today in the modern Western individual, is not a symbol of Western civilization’s triumph, but rather its elegy—a man who has lost his soul, who has traded values for selfishness, conscience for power, and compassion for domination.
Through this work—where geopolitical analysis intertwines with existential reflection on the condition of modern humanity—I have reached a firm conviction: Palestine is not merely the cause of an oppressed and occupied people; it is the mirror of the world’s conscience.
Those who stand today amid the ruins of Gaza do not merely witness a city in destruction, but the moral collapse of Western civilization itself—in what may be the most profound test of humanity and ethics in our time.
Synopsis of the book:
“The Monstrosity of Our Century: The War on Palestine and the Last Western Man” by Amir Nour provides a comprehensive tour from Israel’s massive offensive against Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, to a projection of the grand transformation of the world that this is bringing into being after more than three centuries of complete Western domination.
Addressing the crimes of starvation and genocide that UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese termed “the monstrosity of our century,” Nour documents the historical events that set the stage for this tragedy, implicating the West for its decisive contribution to conditions of apartheid and the open-air prison that all but made the October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel inevitable and Israel’s genocidal reaction predictable.
The October 7th attack on Israel was a feat of no small moment, described by military analyst Scott Ritter as “not a terrorist attack»., in fact the “most successful military raid of this century.” The claims by Israel and Western media of beheaded or burned babies and mass rapes are debunked.
Disputing the Israeli state’s claims to act on behalf of world Jewry, Nour asks:
- Who are “the Jews”? He addresses the many hotly conflicting and contradictory secular and Judaic components. both within Israel and in the diaspora.
- Who were the historical instigators of the Zionist project, long before the Jews? Nour enumerates the historical markers of Christian Zionist engagement.
- What prevents antisemitism and anti-Zionism from even being discussed and what can happen when its narrative is challenged?
Nour foresees that a process of de-Westernization is dawning. While the West’s triumphal unipolar moment at the fall of the Soviet Union led to Francis Fukuyama’s claims of “The End of History and the Last Man” and the global establishment of liberal democracy, in actuality the wrenching transition from a hegemonic world order now underway is progressively leading not just to the abandonment of democratic values by those countries that pursued its ascendancy, but also to a global repugnance at their flagrant complicity in genocide.
The war on Palestine is providing a more convincing depiction of the trajectory of human civilization, more precisely of the destiny of the “Last Man,” in actuality the last Western man, whose spiritual nihilism, lack of empathy, and unbridled will to power may lead the world to destruction.
Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the books “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (The Orient and the Occident in Time of a New Sykes-Picot) Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014 and “L’Islam et l’ordre du monde” (Islam and the Order of the World), Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2021.
25 November 2025
Source: countercurrents.org