Research Question
Does the ISIS phenomenon challenge the construct of the Middle East, and America’s imperial ambitions? My argument is that neo-colonial relations - between the United States and the Arab world – is responsible for the radicalization of terrorist, particularly ISIS. Considering America’s involvement in the construction of the modern Middle East, and its continued involvement in the region.
This research question is significant because it interlinks post-colonial studies with contemporary security studies. This link is important because modern terrorism and the instability in the Middle East cannot be explored without reference to past Western foreign policies. Because the Western influence – in the case of this paper,
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In addition to post-colonial studies, this paper will also evaluate Orientalist claims that established the West vs. Islam dualism that continues to persuade further imperial advancements in the Arab world. Orientalist scholars include but not limited to Samuel Huntington, Bernard Lewis, Noah Feldman, and Raphael Patai. However, also countering Orientalist claims by analyzing Edward Said’s Orientalism, and other critics of Western hegemony, such as Dan Tuastad. This paper will also explore the theory of political violence along with terrorism to explain why neocolonial relations had led to civil violence in Syria, and more recently global terrorism. And to illustrate the methods and means of violence.
This paper will examine the principles of legitimate political violence against foreign occupation or an illegitimate state authority; such as the social strain theory. The theory of political violence will be linked to terrorism studies to accommodate and understand the methods and means of violence perpetrated by ISIS. This paper will advocate for legitimate political violence - in the means of self-determination - against colonial rule. More notable argued by Frantz Fanon, a political radical that declared violence is the only means to end an unjust regime because the decolonization process is inherently violent
While the aftermath of World War II is often referred to as one of the primary creators of deep rooted turmoil in the Middle East region, the effects of the Cold War and the United States often over-zealous battle against communism is just as much a contributor if not more. The Arab world and the Middle East region were clearly going through quite an extraordinary period throughout World War II and its conclusion, primarily with the creation of most of the states we recognize today and struggling with the continuation of colonialism. These factors set the stage for the emergence of strong nationalist sentiments and Pan-Arab movements across the Middle East. Unfortunately, and much to the detriment of the region, the leaders of these young
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.
Large busy markets, snake charmers, carpet vendors, and veiled women all invoke ideas of West Africa, the Middle East, and West Asia, but all these ideas come from Oriental fantasies from the nineteenth century. Edward Said the author of Orientalism said that “Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, West, "us") and the strange (the Orient, the East, "them").” The nineteenth century was a period of imperialism and tourism that led many western artists to visit West Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Orientalist paintings depicted two major effects, many artists often portrayed something “exotic,” which was racialized, feminized, and from a sexualized culture from a faraway land. Another effect that artists mainly like Jean-Léon Gérôme often showed was an authentic glimpse of a location and its inhabitants. Nochlin mentioned that many of Gérôme’s paintings worked to persuade their audiences by carefully representing a "preexisting Oriental reality.”
The continuing successful and attempted terrorist attacks in the USA and the endless wars and conflicts in which we are involved are a manifestation of political, economical and imperialistic failures in Arab lands. This was supported by Western society with the United States as the largest of powers. Instability, oppression, poverty and political alienation that the citizens of many Islamic-Arab nations experienced within the last hundred years have led to major hatred of the United States by the people of many Arab nations. These sources of hatred can be viewed as remote causes of the endless terror attacks and conflicts around the globe. Through the analysis of these causes, it is possible to find ways to avoid such
According to Dr. Bacevich, “The Greater Middle East was to serve—indeed, was even then already serving—as the chosen arena for honing military power into a utensil that would maintain America’s privileged position and, not so incidentally, provide a continuing rationale for the entire apparatus of national security.” However, rather than helping either the Middle East or America, this approach has actually caused a great amount of harm and only creates more dictators, internal strife, and terrorist groups. The interests of the United States and the Islamic World have never aligned and the Middle East is resistant to shaping.
The United States of America’s foreign policy has been related to the Middle East since the end of World War II. The conflict has primarily been to stop the spread of communism not only in the Middle East, but also in the world as a whole. Communism has been the core dispute in American history and is still prominent in today's society. Some would argue that the specific conflicts in history directly relate to the acting president's philosophy. Based on this, historians can determine what shaped America's foreign policy. Some discovered changes in the philosophy when each conflict arose, yet it seems to shift every time a new president comes along. While historians focus on how each event has prompted a specific response from the president;
It seems that humans as a species tend to struggle with what is unknown to them. To cope, we create generalizations that ambiguous that we can apply at our leisure. Clashing norms and different beliefs for society should be constructive and help diversify us but this tends to not be the case.. “... the general understanding of the Middle East, the Arabs, and Islam in the United States has improved somewhat, but alas, it really hasn't (pg. xvii)” asserts Said. While I feel that the United States was heading in the right direction for a while (becoming more accepting and understanding of other cultures), somehow a president was elected who is radically racist against anyone in the Middle East. In this sense, I completely agree with Said.
Objectives and goals of terrorist associations vary all through the world and reach from local single-issue terrorists to the points of transnational radicalism and terrorism. As the most conspicuous vote based system and noteworthy financial, military, and political force in the world, the U.S. is a helpful and engaging focus for fanatics. For instance, Martyrdom is when a man dies in a legitimate battling safeguarding his country, his honor, his respect, his opportunity, his pride, his nobility, his territory. No slaughtering is suffering, and no passing is affliction. Martyrdom is a specific death.
Prior to the outbreak of civil war in the middle-eastern nation of Syria, the only terror-organization known commonly throughout their target of the western world was al-Qaeda. After the events that had transpired of the eleventh of September, 2001 had become etched into the hearts of nearly all advocates of western values, so too became branded on them a burning hatred for those responsible, which was greatly reflected in their foreign policy to that part of the world. Now, amidst the rise of the Islamic State, that hatred and indeed that fear has transferred to the Syrian and Iraqi conquerors, a group deemed overtly radical by even the former overlords of terrorism otherwise known as al-Qaeda. Although not renown throughout the United States
Bernard Lewis is the author of The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. This book, being one of the many volumes reflecting on Islam and Middle Eastern affairs, educates the reader on the struggle Arab nations are facing due to many causal foreign influences. Author Bernard Lewis concentrates on different factors of the conflict between Islam/Middle Eastern values and Western political agendas/democracies. He discusses the history of Islam, the definitions and misconceptions of “Jihad”, the failing dictators that presently govern each nation, U.S. policy, and the brutal struggle that has been bestowed upon
The study of terrorism is a growing field, primarily due to the world’s interest in the subject matter. Although death by terrorist attack is rare in the United States, as common as death by asteroid or comet (Jackson 2011: 132-133), many citizens view it as a primary concern that threatens the nation. Because of the world’s fear of terrorism, it has gained a huge budget of its own and has become a primary topic/focus. Terrorism: A Critical Introduction, written by Richard Jackson, Lee Jarvis, Jereon Gunning, and Marie Breen-Smyth, examines the orthodox study of terrorism. While analyzing the orthodox scholarship they find and discuss a few key issues. Their critique includes methods/research, emphasis on non-state actors, Western
Decolonisation was motivated in some of the African countries by international pressures encouraging Britain to bring an end to their Empire. The United States and the Soviet Union were both against the British Empire on ideological grounds. Americans viewed imperialism as an oppressive system, and the Soviets disliked the idea of formal Empire, as Marxist theory held it to be the result of capitalist iniquity. President Dwight Eisenhower said in his doctrine “But since the First World War there has been a steady evolution toward self-government and independence. This development the United States has welcomed and has encouraged. Our country supports without reservation the full sovereignty and independence of each and every nation of the Middle
They are imagined because it is not simple to know all the citizens of the nation as was put forward by Anderson. The argument of Anderson is connected to the imperial rule impacts in the Middle East. After the fall of Ottoman Empire, the Europeans put up boundaries that were coinciding with tribal, ethnic or economic ties that were similar to those that existed during the period of Caliphate. This led to the emerging of new states that were difficult to define
This paper seeks to understand how the same branch of Islam that encouraged science and technology saw both the establishment of Dubai and the Arab spring but also the rise of an anti-development model manifested in ISIS’ destructive ideology. A majority of Muslims are Sunnis and Sunnis can be divided into four main schools of law: Hanafis, Hanbalis, Malikis and Shafis. Hanbalis can be further divided into Salafis or Wahabis and ISIS falls under the category of Salafis Jihadism. There are many other types of Salafis and the paper aims to compare the variations between other Salafis and Salafi-Jihadists. There has been a tendency to homogenise all Salafis and relate them to radical Islamic groups and due to the nature of ISIS’ attacks, many around the world have started equating Islam with violence. The paper aims to draw a distinction between the two groups and understand the variation that they have in their ideas of development.
One of the most pressing issues in modern geopolitics is the rise of a radical and violent terrorist sect in the Middle East. Most prominently associated with Al Qaeda during the early half of the 21st century and as of 2015 it’s even more extreme splinter group The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. While many in the West are shocked by the violent motivations and anti-Western philosophy of these movements the truth is that Islamic Radicalism has roots that stretch far back through the fog of history to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of European economic, social, and military might in the region. With the partitioning of the old Ottoman territories after World War I and subsequent occupation by Western European colonial powers, the historical strategy of colonization came into play; place a foreign-backed minority-led government into power to serve as a puppet regime acting for the benefit of the controlling foreign interest. This socially unsustainable colonial strategy placed the majority of many countries, including Egypt and Syria, into conflict with the empowered minority. Other more homogeneous countries, such as Iraq and Iran, discontent to live under the oppressive de-facto rule of a foreign power, grew embittered towards their colonial patrons and puppet dictatorships and turned towards the perceived purity and social benefits of embracing political movements based in Islam and Pan-Arabism.