[jakub_h]

> "descends from a multicultural, religiously tolerant empire (Ottoman)"

Where the terms "multicultural" and "religiously tolerant" apparently mean something quite a bit different from today (just like Athenian democracy from ours, for example).

[return0]

I don't think they are that different. Even romans had multiculturalism. Tolerance was not invented in the modern West.

[jakub_h]

Well, Romans, from what I can tell, had better multiculturalism than Ottomans centuries later. They did not split the society into religion-based classes. So "the West" was quite a bit more progressive centuries earlier in some ways.