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Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld
The entire history of humankind has been filled with rapid change. On the timetable that began with the creation of the earth and is still continuing today, humans have rose to domination very quickly. A greater intelligence quickly led to improved survival techniques, which led to an exponentially increasing population. More people led to a need for more space which, combined with increasing technology, led to expansion around the globe and the colonization of newly discovered regions, sometimes at the expense of other humans. Recent struggles for identity in the midst of a planet filled with a great diversity of people has led to the birth of new nations and the terrorization of others.
Jihad vs. McWorld is, quite simply, an attempt to explain the surroundings that we are all living in as citizens of the world. Using his own observations as well as plenty of resources from the media, Benjamin Barber paints a portrait of a grim world. He describes McWorld and Jihad as two broad ways our world is stripping us of individualism, and in doing so, attempts to shine a light on what is happening so that we the people will be blind no more. According to Barber, our own beloved world is holding us hostage without us knowing it; Jihad vs. McWorld shows us our captors in vivid detail.
Typical Americans are usually blind to nationalist struggles that involve different peoples in a different continent. However, recently, the effects of Jihad have been near to all Americans due to the tragedy of the World Trade Center. Although these events happened after Jihad vs. McWorld, the different Jihad-related struggles Barber describes allude to many elements of the terrorism that America is currently facing. Americans are not accustomed to dealing directly with these issues; Jihad vs. McWorld is very helpful in providing backgound to this and possibly any future events.
On the other hand, McWorld is something that all Americans are aware of. Barber consistently and accurately makes the point that McWorld is inherently American. McWorld is, in a few words, the strive of capitalism and corporations to spread their products to all people, maximizing profit. This concept is not new to Americans; America was founded on free trade and capitalism. In the twentieth century, many new products were created that, with the help of technology, quickly spread throughout America.
Another important way, not entirely unrelated, of interpreting what transpired on 9/11 is to explain the attack of Islamic extremists on the United States of America as a manifestation of a “clash of civilizations.” At the center of this way of looking at these unprecedented events has been an article and book both authored by the noted Harvard professor of political science, Samuel P.
A missionary character and mandate birthed Islam. From Mecca to Indonesia and in between all over in previous 1400 years, it has spread its cultural values, beliefs, material wealth, worldview, spiritual aspirations and practices. Jihad, its “sixth pillar” of faith has constantly been a tool of religious struggles, violent wars and struggles on Allah and His prophet’s behalf
Winter, T. (2011), America as a Jihad State: Middle Eastern Perceptions of Modern American Theopolitics. The Muslim World, pp. 101: 394–411.
Shakespeare presents Antony as someone who was once very noble and respected in the Roman empire, but then as someone who was blinded by love and lost his sense of identity to an Egyptian queen. The Romans believed Antony was a military hero, but he seems to have happily abandoned his reason in order to pursue his passion (Cleopatra) in Act 1. Antony wavers between Western and Eastern ways, feeling influenced by both his duty to the Roman Empire and his strong desire for pleasure. The readers see another example of Antony going back and forth in Act 2 when Antony dismisses Caesar’s messenger and returns to Rome to lead his country. Yet another example of Antony’s wavering feelings is when he marries Octavia as a way to mend ties with his Roman roots and association with Caesar, but he still longs to be with Cleopatra and eventually goes back to her. In one of the final scenes of the book when Antony killed himself, the readers truly...
In the United States, we have Americans that are waiting and wanting to destroy anything that has to do with our country and our western way of life, all in the name of “jihad” or holy war. Just in the past year and almost 10 years after September 11, 2001, there has been upsurge in jihadist recruitment and incidents within the United States. This seems to be a call out to all the homegrown jihadist sympathizers that were waiting to come into action. According a RAND Corporation report, “there were 46 reported cases of radicalization and recruitment to jihadist terrorism in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009” (Jenkins). Young men and women are being charged with the intention to harm innocent American citizens, and destroy the United States, all of them with the proclamation of being an Islamic soldier and dying for Islam as a martyr. Faisal Shahzad, the unsuccessful Times Square bomber from Connecticut who pleaded guilty June 21, said in front of a judge, “I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attacks" (Scherer).
The Jihad is probably one of the most misunderstood and feared terms in modern day America. Ever since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11th, 2001, the Muslim religious duty of Jihad has had only negative connotations. Of course, seeing two trademark buildings collapsed and mangled on the groundwith thousands dead all in the name of religion would have anyone jump to a negative conclusion. But what most people don’t understand is that the meaning of the term “Jihad” is one greatly left up to interpretation. Each sect of the Islamic religion has a different take on this religion duty and the expectation that go along with it. Therefore, the idea of Jihad that America has learned to fear might not be the true meaning, concept, and intention of the word at all.
Christianity has been in America since the Colonial Era (1600’s - 1700’s), and for over three centuries has dominated and deeply engrained itself into American Society . Islam, however, has only been introduced recently, and this has caused Islamic Believers (or Muslims) residing in America to be misinterpreted. After the September 11 bombings in 2001, there was a huge hatred for Muslims as they were interpreted as a religion that promotes destruction in the name of ‘Jihad’, or as it is often mistranslated as ‘Holy war’ . Although, the meaning of ‘Jihad’ is much wider than just ‘Holy war’, it is an internal struggle, within each Muslim, “…to be a good Muslim as well as advance the cause of Islam.” The Western understanding of ‘jihad’ however has been twisted to become related to terrorism. Whereas, Christians claim to promote the qualities of hard-work, honesty and moderation, and are therefore highly thought of in American Society, not only because of their supposed all encompassing teachings, but also because of their dominance as a religion in the Western World.
The term jihadi was not always commonly recognized in the United States. It was not until the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that the word jihad became widely known. Since the terrorist attacks, the media and the U.S. government have used the word jihad to invoke frightening images of non-Americans coming to destroy American freedoms and to define Islam. Today, scholars have begun to try to define this complex word and its multitude of meanings. When viewers tune into the news, it is sometimes difficult to unravel the layers of information that is being fed to them by the media and the U.S. government. In its most literal form, the term “jihad is an Arabic term meaning, as a noun, ‘struggle’ or, as a verb, ‘to exert effort’ toward a goal” (International Ency 1). However, in Mary Pat Fisher’s book Living Religions the chapter on Islam discusses how the definition of the term jihad is “commonly mistranslated as ‘holy war’ (Fisher 148). While the media frequently portrays jihad consistent with the idea of “struggle,” the media almost always flips the definition on its head by suggesting that this struggle is a malicious struggle between two groups of peoples, each of whom believes that righteousness, and in many cases God, is on their side and evil is on the other side. Suggesting that jihad and violence are in connection with each other has been the case since pre-modern times. In fact, Fisher suggests that the primary associations of the word jihad are religious, specifically with reference the Prophet Mohammad and to the religion of Islam, but also invoke a sense of violence or resistance against an opposing force. While violence and jihad have typically been spoken about together, as of late, the...
In light of recent events in the global community, one word that is used frequently but rarely truly understood is the Islamic word Jihad. Jihad has become a very volatile word, so it is necessary that those who use it should understand exactly what it means, what it entails, and what significance it has in current global events.
where Antony is talking to him about how he must leave Egypt and go to
This book is written from a perspective foreign to most Americans. Historically, American students are taught from a single perspective, that being the American perspective. This approach to history (the single perspective) dehumanizes the enemy and glorifies the Americans. We tend to forget that those on the opposing side are also human.
Antony was furious at Cleopatra and wanted to kill her. When he got tricked into thinking that she had committed suicide he then decided to kill himself. This shows how much power she holds over him and how weak he truthfully is. It seems that at this point he is only acting tough because if he really did want to kill the “foul Egyptian” (211) that betrayed him he would not be upset when she died. The most pathetic part is he could not even complete the task that a warrior is supposed to do, which is kill. He could not kill himself so he asked one of the few men that he had with him to do it. Eros did not accept the request but instead stabs himself to “escape the sorrow of Antony’s death.” (223) The play made this more serious because they did not include the part where the guards come in and think that Eros just fainted. What still remained to be hilarious is Antony's death when they had to hoist him up to see Cleopatra. This shows the true death of his power and strength because he is relying on others to help him move. It also shows how much power Cleopatra has because even though she is the reason he stabbed himself he still wants to be with her in his final moments. Even when he is about to die they are making fun of him saying “how heavy weighs my lord!” when they are trying to lift him up to kiss her. This is the most awkward death I have ever heard of and the play did a wonderful job of portraying this. Almost everyone in the crowd was laughing at this unfortunate
The rise of terrorism and extremism in the Middle East during the time this piece was composed prompted Mohi-Ud Din to engage in a passionate argument about how these terrorists have ruined the image of Muslims. He explicitly highlights the main points of his argument by using transitional words such as firstly, secondly, and thirdly. He initiates his argument by proposing that the media’s one-sided focus on Muslim extremists prevent the viewers from recognizing that the majority of Muslims are not violent. Next, he debunks the stereotypes Americans have about Muslims and then he shifts his concern to how America’s political and military actions have exploited Muslim countries. He concludes his argument by explaining why Islam is not a threat to
Shakespeare presents the audience with a number of character interactions between the Roman soldiers to show Antony’s former greatness, rank and stature. They regularly use imagery of...
Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra". Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. John Russell Brown. London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1968.