Social Modernism And Colonialism

When discussing 9/11, the author writes about Post-9/11 America seemed determined: “Never Again.” Despite important differences, genocide and terrorism share one important feature, which is that both parget civilian populations. This led the author to ask, “To what extend is the mind-set of the perpetrators revealed by the way they frame their victims culturally (Mamdani, 11)?” The debate on this question turns around the relationship between cultural and political identity and in the context of 9/11, between religious fundamentalism and political terrorism. The ideas the author raised in the Good Muslim, Bad Muslim section, stuck out to me the most. Mamdani explained that President Bush moved to distinguish between “good Muslims” and “bad Muslims.” From the “bad Muslims” point of view, they were obviously responsible for terrorism and at the same time, Bush seemed to assure Americans that “good Muslims” were anxious to clear their names and consciences of this horrible crime and would undoubtable support “us” in a war against “them.” This doesn’t hide the central message of the discourse that unless proved to be “good,” every Muslim was presumed to be “bad.” All Muslims were now obligated to prove their credentials by joining in a war against “bad Muslims (Mamdani, 15).” This part of the reading really got me thinking about

The thesis of this article entitled, At War With Oneself, written by Ali Hossaini, is about anti-racism, anti-terrorism, anti-war, and embracing pacifism and strengthening dialogue. Ali delivers such main messages to the readers as his experiences, confusions, ponders and decisions as an involved innocent sufferer after the terror attack of 911. Being as an Arab-American, Ali states his same shocking and sorrow for the loss of the attack to the World Trade Center. But the continuing experiences of exclusion by other Americans leading him into a dilemma of identification recognition as neither being an American nor being an Arabic.

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

The process of decolonization proved to have its own struggles within those who were seeking their independence from imperialist powers. Evidently, these nationalist movements were different in many regions, but they generally shared the sentiment that “Westernization” had taken something away from them. This proved to be the case in Africa and Asia, where the colonization movement from imperialist powers was of strong presence, and that had trouble weakening during and after the Cold War. Part of this struggle was due to the forms of government that were imposed, and because many of these colonies had been in this position for such long time that they were not able to predict upcoming conflicts after their independence. However, in many cases, the problems were more complicated and often implied a combination of reaction to westernization and internal conflicts. Undoubtedly,

Since the day it is released Clint Eastwood’s new movie, American Sniper, has been causing contention in social media, concerning its ‘anti-Muslim’ and ‘American dream/life’ propagandas. The movie has been accused of spreading Islamophobia in consequence of overgeneralizing Muslim people in one group as ‘terrorists’. Based on Edward Said’s (1935-2003) argument in his book Orientalism, the American Sniper movie can be a good example of justification of the presence of American soldiers in Iraq and the whole Iraq war while every Muslim is shown as a threat which is needed to be dealt with as soon as possible for the sake of United States of America and the whole world.

In this essay I will be discussing the role of modern nationalism and how this ideology affected the transition from colonial rule to independence in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as the problems that plagued them since 1945, and how these different nations have solved them. I will be specifically concentrating on the nations of India, Algeria, and Iran.

The authors of The Bridge Betrayed and The Buddhas of Bamiyan both identify a different form of cultural eradication that occurred in within the past twenty-five years. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serbs and Croats wanted to destroy the Bosnian Muslim symbols, culture, and population. In Afghanistan, the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan, and in turn, changed the identity of Bamiyan forever. The practice of cultural eradication is not limited to these two cases. Cultural eradication has taken place throughout history involving one group’s desire to transform, absorb, and destroy a particular culture and its’ values. The desire for destruction may seem similar, however, the individual agendas that drive the eradication vary in each instance. Michael Sells explores the nationalism that is expressed by the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia that he refers to as Christoslavism. Llewlyn Morgan discusses the Taliban’s iconoclastic and political motivations to destroy the Buddhas. Both examples ultimately analyze some of the many dimensions of cultural eradication in the world.

Millions of people globally supported the ‘war on terror’ at one time, largely because the discourse around it was successful in divisively framing the identities involved and attributing a ‘truthful’ nature to that framing. Governments, with the Bush administration seemingly as the lead, created ‘the other’ to be ‘the terrorist’, and those ‘terrorists’ were probably Muslim or Arab. The fear was then created by the comparison of this ‘other’ to the self; or ‘them vs. us’.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, changes in the dynamics of society caused intellectuals to question the traditions of everyday life. From religious views to the arts of literature, traditional values and forms were rejected, thus defining a line between the two time periods, which can be considered as the start of the Modern era. Also known as Modernism, the modern era used literature as an outlet for expressing the thoughts and feelings of the time. Modern texts use city life, industrialization and globalization, and ironic and satirical themes to showcase their bleak outlook on life post both world wars. The nature of these events are aspects of society

Ever since September 11, 2001 Americans along with the majority of the world’s population have been skeptical of Muslims. It’s a sad reality but it’s hard for people to think of a Muslim without linking them directly to terrorism. But these assumptions aren’t totally out of the blue—the Muslim’s religion, Islam, teaches a low tolerance for other religions and the Islamic government has no separation of church and state, so it’s only normal to assume that their government shall have a low tolerance as well—some however, immediately translate this into terrorism. Through the Islamic government and religion, relations with foreign countries, and separation amongst themselves it can be concluded that Islamic Fundamentalism is clearly a threat

One can scarcely turn on the television, or the radio, or open up a web browser without the mention of Islamic terrorism or unrest around the world. Though the United States and the rest of the world may not be engaged in a protracted religious war, for radical Muslim fundamentalist they are. Bernard Lewis brings to light possible reasons for the issues facing the world dealing with Islamic terrorism. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror explains these issues in historical context as well as how some of the actions professed in the name of Islam and claim to

In Arafat’s case, then, terrorism is only a characteristic of the mature industrial “Western” state, whereas “revolutionary” nations have a duty-perhaps even a “logically rational” one-to condemn “designs against peace,” herein supplanting the notion of “equality.”

Walter Laqueur’s book, “The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction”, is empowering readers with the entire spectrum of terrorism. The reasons behind terrorism are not easy to understand, but Laqueur goes into great detail to try and bring the reader to an understanding of what the terrorist is thinking in order to justify the means to the end.

As Peter Berger (1967) explained religion, it is a sacred canopy under which the entirety of life is explained and regulated. Secularization theory as explained by Weber holds that modernity challenges this sacred canopy through two major ways: increased cultural and structural pluralism and increased primacy of economic pursuits (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:129). With globalisation accelerating in the post Cold War era, causing mass migration across borders, increased interstate interaction and huge growth in the global financial market, it was predicted that religious influence would be relegated to the private sectors of social life by ripping the sacred canopy, and leaving people with, at best, sacred umbrellas (Smith 1998). Despite this, what secularization theory did not anticipate is that the demystification of the world provided within it the seeds both for the re-mystification of the world and resistance to the demystification (Berger, 1992:1). Hence the world today, with some exceptions, is as furiously religious as it ever was, in some places more so than ever (Berger, 1999:8). Since the 1970s there has been a particular rise in religious fundamentalist movements, as signalled by the Iranian Revolution in 1979 led by Ayatollah Khomeini, which led to the establishment of the first Islamic State. As Almond et al note, fundamentalist movements have risen to the highest levels of power in Sudan in 1993, Afghanistan and India in 1996, and in India again

In this way, Orientalism written by Orientalists seems having troubles in faithfully representing the Orient. Said insists that “exteriority of the representation is always governed by some version of the truism” (21). The problem is this truism does not amount to the truth especially as it involves “evaluative interpretation[s]” (Said 227). In this way, it loses objectivity by including personal viewpoints. Nevertheless, the Occident takes advantage of the Orient by insisting the Orient is not capable of presenting itself. Thus, the West has to take this responsibility to represent the pathetic Orient in order to make the Orient be known. By making this statement, the Occident justifies the action of representation to the Orient and at the same time, gains the power over the Orient. As the Orient has to be represented, even though the representation is entirely wrong, it has no voice to correct any mistakes. Thus, the West has absolute power to construct its fascinating Orient. Edward Said, therefore, concludes that Orient is “almost a European invention”