Palestinian and Arab Cultures
Living in a moderately Eastern society has brought my attention to the difference in culture. I live in Palestinian and have an American mother, which would show my involvement with a Western society. The flow of knowledge and the entanglement of many cultures have been presented more in our modern age. We have come to acknowledge the existence of multi–culturism. This effect of combining our knowledge about many different cultures is what has brought my attention to cultural relativity. This has not always been something that was understood or accepted in cultures. Maybe cultures with mutual aspects and beliefs might not contradict each other. Yet when the Europeans
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Cultural relativity is the action of opening the mind to the realization that many cultures believe in good and evil differently. There are negative and positive consequences for the actions of cultural relativity. The negative aspects are mainly that we lose the sense of absolute truth. Ethics becomes a matter of complication. The positive aspect is that there is interactive knowledge of the way that cultures would do such rituals, not condemning there action, thus preventing us from making the mistake of driving some unique cultures into extinction. There are many factors that might be spawned from cultural relativity yet I will not enlist them here, because it would be diverting me from my point. To any extent, my main point is this: in my moderately Eastern society I believe there is little or no open mindedness. My society is closed, not understanding, and harsh the society becomes a prisoner of its own beliefs if not changed. As I live in Palestine I can see the people more and more sink into the inevitable trap of closing themselves off. The fatal mistake here is that the Western society, the one that is mostly colonizing and settling in our land, is the society we should study and learn about, not sink into our own. We should not take religion so devoutly, but rather come to accept
The Israel-Palestine Conflict The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a part of the greater Arab-Israeli long-running conflict in the Middle East. The main point of this conflict is the existence of the state of Israel and its relations with Arab states and with the Palestinian population in the area. The idea and concept of Israel was born in the mid 19th century. Jews of Europe and America wanted a place for their homeland, where they could go and be with others of the same race and religion. Palestine was chosen because of its religious routs from The Bible as the “promised land” from God, and the motherland of Jews fled, known as the Diaspora.
Islam, a religion of people submitting to one God, seeking peace and a way of life without sin, is always misunderstood throughout the world. What some consider act of bigotry, others believe it to be the lack of education and wrong portrayal of events in media; however, one cannot not justify the so little knowledge that America and Americans have about Islam and Muslims. Historically there are have been myths, many attacks on Islam and much confusion between Islam as a religion and Middle Easter culture that is always associated with it. This paper is meant to dispel, or rather educate about the big issues that plague people’s minds with false ideas and this will only be touching the surface.
In our society today, culture is not what it used to be hundreds of years ago. There is no more “pure” culture. Our culture today is enriched with many different traditions and customs that are being shared and adopted. Due to emigration and immigration, a variety of diverse customs, beliefs, and knowledge moved with every exiting and entering human being. Thus, changing and shaping the culture of many. Throughout the world, the beliefs and religious views of culture are dissimilar around the world. By taking the time to read, listen and learn about certain people’s culture, there will be knowledge and understanding that will be gained.
The prominent effect Islam had on Muslims everyday thoughts and actions, portrays how essential the impact of God was in social and governmental relations. Muslim religion was influenced by both the Christians and Jews. Under the guidance of Muhammad the Prophet, Islam became both a meaningful faith and way of life. Unlike just simply “adding” a church like the Christian religion, Islam society was expected to be governed. Their political and religious views and decisions had to be intertwined as one, proving the effect Islam had on everyday lives. For example, the history book The Making of The West, had written, “Arabs had long been used to
We are generally focusing this research on the time before 1500 CE, but the same concept of comparing different cultures to each other to gain a more inclusive perspective of the human experience remains applicable in any time period, from the birth of humanity to the present day. Historical and cultural comparisons can be used to gain a better, more complete understanding of the modern world. By looking outside of one’s own individual experiences, one can find a more comprehensive understanding of the world. Right now, here in the United States, there is a huge political divide that is, ultimately, a controversy over whether or not we should accept other cultures and beliefs. This has led to a growing tension among the people of this country that is just waiting to break free of its confines—this was extremely apparent in the recent presidential election. I freely admit to bias—I am firmly entrenched on one side of this great political divide—but if everyone one could just come to understand other people, people who are noticeably different then themselves, a little better, to embrace differences rather than fear them, we could work to narrow this gaping schism. Maybe then, life might be a little bit brighter for us
The idea of a clash of civilizations can be originated largely to Samuel Huntington. He describes a future where the majority of human conflicts will be due to “cultural differences”. (Huntington). In The Butterfly Mosque, Willow Wilson, an American, travels to Egypt, converts to Islam, and marries an Egyptian man. This places her at the fault lines of two cultures. Through her experiences, she sees the frontlines of this clash of civilizations that Huntington predicted, and tries to uncover if she can thread the needle between her two cultures. In this paper, I will argue that through her experiences with Muslims in Tura, other Westerners in Egypt, and in reactions to her writings, she discovers that the clash of civilizations is real. This clash results in cruelty, fear, self-hatred, and an internal existential crisis in Willow that leaves her uncertain about whether or not she can navigate her internal clash of cultures.
Some may ask what it means to be a part of a specific culture. It may be believed that it merely means to share the same qualities of race, language, and social beliefs. What is not really known are the rise of expectations to fill, repressed wants and needs, or even the binding religious beliefs. A person must begin to recognize the holdings a culture may have on them and how it affects their free will as an individual.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most controversial conflicts in modern history. The expansion of Israel since 1947 is seen as the beginning of the conflict, although its origins go back to the end of the 19th century, when Jewish immigration to Palestine began to increase. Since the start of the conflict, several peace negotiations have been carried out, resulting in variable degrees of success.
Throughout history, the rise of cultures led to the rise of cultural difference, and those differences both separated people and brought people together. Every culture must choose whether they will allow their differences from other cultures to cause political unrest and war or collaboration and growth. While most people within almost every culture strives for peace, political and religious radicals cry out that deaths of infidels will lead to the greater good. But the sons and daughters of the mothers and fathers, and the brothers of the sisters and the husbands of the wives, taken from them fail to feel justified.
When we interact with people from other cultures it is important to understand that there is a history behind how they view us and how we view them. Many cultures within our country, as well as throughout the world, have such different belief systems from ours that if we don’t make a point of learning about the history behind other belief systems
Third, I will point out the three hallmark of each of the two cultures, and show how they compare with each other. In classical culture, structure is fixing in per unit and has a certain mean. However, in modern culture, it changes and is relative to one’s frame of reference. For example, all truth becomes relative, and God is relegated to a mere conceptual expression of matter/energy or time/space. Moreover, in classical culture our knowing is deductive, but in modern culture our knowing is inductive. In classical culture, we feel about it as certain mean. However, in modern culture it is probable. Therefore, it is very important to know the three hallmark of the two culture in order to understand religion.
Religion is a subject that affects everyone in many ways. As we have learned in this class, religion is a very controversial word and has numerous definitions, but one thing that’s known is that whatever the religion a person may practice, it will affect their daily lives in some way or another. A person’s religion makes up a huge part of their culture and influences many of their decisions. Persepolis is a film that speaks volumes about how the Islam religion and oppressive government in Iran affected children and adults during the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Throughout the movie, the main character, Marjane Satrapi (also known as Marji), has a difficult time understanding why things were the way they were in society when she was growing up during the Shah’s dictatorship and the Islamic Revolution (Scott, nytimes.com). Marjane’s rebellious, heroic, and outspoken attitude got her into trouble plenty of times, but it was because of her character that she was able to view the problems in society and other parts of the world like no other. There were plenty of symbols and themes in the movie that related to Muslim traditions from what they wore and how they acted to the different experiences they encountered. Closely analyzing the film Persepolis, the audience may see the many ways in which the Islamic religion not only influences the lives of its
James Joyce’s short story Araby delves into the life of a young adolescent who lives on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland. Narrated in the boys’ perspective, he recounts memories of playing with friends and of the priest who died in the house before his family moved in. With unrestrained enthusiasm, the boy expresses a confused infatuation with the sister of his friend Mangan. She constantly roams his thoughts and fantasies although he only ever catches glimpses of her. One evening she speaks to him, confiding that she is unable to visit Araby, a bazaar. Stunned by the sudden conversation, the boy promises he will go and bring her back a small memento. In anticipation, the boy launches into a period of restless waiting and distraction
The objective of this work is to examine Islam, a highly controversial sensitive issue in today's world and specifically to examine the misconceptions, beliefs, and values of those of the Islamic faith. Most people think that the majority of Muslims live in the Middle East, while in reality there are more people of the Islamic faith living in Indonesia. Islam, just as Judaism and Christianity, is practiced in various cultures, serves to shape, and is shaped by those cultures. This study examines the perceptions of those of the three faiths in various countries and how they view one another and seek to answer how a level of threat is felt by those belonging to these three religious groups in various countries. Countries examined in this study include those of the United States, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. The depth of understanding or the teachings of Islam among the various religious groups in these various countries will also be examined in terms of how these understandings impact the ways that Muslims and non-Muslims interact and communicate with one another.
were chosen by God to set up a state of Israel where they could not be