The other day I heard a fascinating programme on an American radio station that almost made me think that everything I had believed about the history of the past hundred years was wrong.

Everything was reversed. Israel has not been under attack from its Arab neighbours since 1948. On the contrary, it is the satanic Jews who have not been able to grant the Arabs a moment’s peace. And this, moreover, is how those Jewish scoundrels have behaved ever since their great-grandfather first put on his wooden clogs.

If I believed that hundreds of thousands of Iranians had taken to the streets to demonstrate against the theocratic regime, I was mistaken, for the opposite has happened: millions of devoted Iranians have turned out to show their support for the mullahs.

If I believed that Allah’s men were working to acquire nuclear weapons, I was wrong. The mullahs’ enrichment of uranium was exclusively for civilian purposes. And if Donald Trump rejects this, it is because he is an imperialist solely intent on stealing Iran’s oil.

I was otherwise given to understand that Putin is a freedom fighter against the evil of the West, but that he is fortunately on his way to seizing the whole of Ukraine.

The situation recalls the 1960s and 1970s, when we had a phenomenon called revisionist historiography, of which I too was a supporter at the time.

Historians with permanent appointments produced thick volumes intended to prove that capitalism and the intrigues of the American government were the cause of the Cold War. Stalin was in reality a man of peace, reasonable and moderate, in contrast to the American extremists. He was also a democrat, which was demonstrated by the fact that the states in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence called themselves people’s democracies.

Naturally, this explanation of the world sprang from a Western self-hatred. We hate ourselves, and therefore we must support those who wish to destroy us.

The same logic applies today. Western feminists, LGBTQ+ advocates and left-wing radicals have no difficulty condemning Trump, who combats Tehran’s terrorists, even though they themselves would have been executed from a construction crane if they agitated for their causes in Tehran. Their hatred of the West overrides any sober observation and any desire to inform themselves.

The West’s recurring self-contempt is so deeply ingrained that nothing will be able to convince its adherents. On the day when the Iranians celebrate their liberation from 1,400 years of Islamic occupation, the Western left will still be praising Allah’s men as persecuted idealists.

If one looks at the history of the West over many centuries, one will indeed find abundant material for self-reproach. But the difference between our civilisation and most others is that for many centuries we have condemned our sins and acknowledged our crimes.

The spokesmen of Islam could never dream of doing anything similar, since everything they have done has been commanded by their god.