Western culture and policies have shaped the modern world, especially the Middle East, in many ways. Since the sixteenth century, the nations of Western civilization have been the driving wheels of modernization. Globalization is simply the spread of modern institutions and ideas from one high power to the wider world. Technological innovation and economic growth along with such concepts as democracy, individualism, and the rule of law administered by an impartial judiciary, set Western societies above and beyond any possible rival. Other cultures looked to the West as a model, a threat, or some combination of both. One country that was most successful in their confrontations with Western states was Japan, who incorporated Western technologies and institutional arrangements into their own systems. This idea of mimicking the Western system can be used by other regions, such as the Middle East, to provide a foundation of government. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait called forth the "lessons of Munich" against the uselessness of comforting hostility. The Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, once treated as transnational phenomena that shaped the modern world, are now deconstructed and denounced as myths invented to serve Western imperialism. These conflicts come about from two key factors, the dimension of ethnic identity and the dimension of cultural/religious identity. Ethnic identity can be defined as a group of people conceiving themselves as a race, community or society. Generally, ethnicity is based on a vertical emotional border. This emotional boundary can create a barrier against co-existence and give rise to potential conflict with other ethnic groups all the time. This general definition could be applied to any kind of... ... middle of paper ... ...iginated in the American Culture through the transformation of the modern world. According to Khalidi American Power in the Middle East was highly critical and was assumed to be the post- Cold War. It should have been called for UN intervention but according to the Middle East it wouldn't have helped anything. On the other hand if the UN intervened in the first place, then the U.S. would not have gone into Iraq. Now after American lives and blood have been shed, the UN wants to intervene. Europe also has critical evaluations towards the US entering the middle east because they will always blame the US even though every nation that was in ally with each other agreed that Iraq was a threat to homeland security and the security of each nation. It was considered politically incorrect because of the highly dense population of Muslim people throughout the regions of Europe.
The major driving force, in Kinzer’s view, is the extreme nationalism and ignorance that dominated US policies for many decades. American Exceptionalism is the belief that America is superb and by consequence should take on a responsibility role in the world. Moreover, that the US intentions are inherently good and any consequences of said actions whether disastrous or negative should be disregarded. America's actions in the Middle East are explored. In the case of Iraq, the disposal of Saddam Hussein and the manner in which the US inserted itself in the affair was uncoordinated and brash- the results being only greater discord in the nation. What Kinzer does not explore in Overthrow is some of the positive and noteworthy consequences of US intervention. In Iraq itself, the US made the protection of the ethnic group of native Kurdish people a primary concern; a group who was facing widespread oppression and genocide by the hand of Saddam Hussein. The same policies that devastated some countries also prevented air bombings and orchestrated facilitated evacuations for the Kurds. Perhaps the US’s intentions were misguided- but to reduce complex situations and history to such a black and white summary seems
Saddam’s government collapse in the US impacted the country of Iraq by creating a democratic government where the citizens have rights. Two years earlier Afghanistan was invaded by the us because their government was believed to be an aid to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Later the US defeated Afghanistan’s government, the Taliban and established a democratic government like in Iraq today. We can infer that the Middle East has complicated problem going on with the region, that not even the u.s. president can figure out. (Doc C) all in all the US has impacted the region of the Middle East and build a strong relationship with it over the past
A current example of this would be the ongoing Darfur genocide. Sudanese troops and Arab Janjaweed militia have been accused of causing the deaths of more than 250,000 ethnic Fur, Masala, and Zhagwa in the Darfur region of Sudan. While religious factors have been cited as part of a reason for this conflict, one of the main factors of the genocide reside in the Arab desire to settle people of their own ethnicity and religion in areas currently occupied by largely Christian ethnic groups. The Arab-controlled government of Sudan has been accused of practicing Arab-apartheid, favoring their own people over the other non-Arab groups of Sudan. In doing so, many ethnic Arab Sudanese may now believe that they are the superior ethnic group in Sudan, leading them to think that such atrocities are acceptable or necessary for the establishment of a purely Arab territory in Darfur - a way of thinking that is on the verge of exploding into extreme nationalism. By attempting to take over the Darfur region by force and eliminating those who may pose a threat or oppose this scheme, Arab peoples in Sudan are putting the effects of extreme nationalism into their actions. These unacceptable acts demonstrate how uniting a people by force and subjecting or eliminating the opposition is appalling to the utmost - and how extreme nationalism is both
Every country was once a suffering nation and in this paper, you'll find out how successful countries like Japan adopted western methods and used that to modernize itself. How the father of Egypt helped his nation's realize it's worth and most importantly how the modernizations of these countries relate to the modernization of England.
Since the 15th century, the world has been through three major power shifts, as Fareed Zakaria describes in his book “The Post-American World”. Zakaria analyzes that the first power shifting began in the 15th century and took place in most European countries, this was the era of the development of modern science and technology, it has also produced such a long history of political dominance of the nations of the west. . The second shift was the rise of the United States. In the late 19th century, right after it industrialized, the United States emerged as the most developed and strongest country in the world, and for the last century the United States has dominated the global economics, politics, sciences and cultures.
Beginning in 1880, there was a growing desire for European countries to expand and control their rule. The only continent at that time that was left uncontrolled and, in the European's eyes uncivilized, was Africa. This was the start of Western Imperialism. All European countries wanted their piece of Africa and to get it, they would let nothing stand in their way. They would change the entire government, religion, market, and behavior of most of the African nation and affect almost every person living there. An account of the impact of Imperialism is given in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. This book shows the changes that occurred in Africa during Imperialism and its affect on the community and the people of the tribes that existed there.
European Enlightenment period often marks the start of modernity. Modernity refers to a phenomena and an age linked to a wide array of associated process such as the introduction of secular and nation-state government, the rise of capitalism, gender and race base differences, rise of classes. The basic assumption of modernity is that man with science and technology was able to understand and influence the world. However, the dark side of the desire of modern for progress and improvement is a tendency towards exclusion and categorization. The phrase genocide was not in existence before the 20th century. According to Hinton(6) similar to Genocides concepts such as human rights, race
Orientalism as termed by Edward Said is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that are flawed and underlying Western attitudes towards the Muslim societies. Evidence from his 1978 book “Orientalism”, states that the culture has been of influence and marred with controversy in post colonial studies and other fields of study. Moreover, the scholarship is surrounded by somehow persistent and otherwise subtle prejudice of Eurocentric nature, which is against Islam religion and culture (Windschuttle, 1999). In his book, Said illustrates through arguments, that the long tradition in existence containing romanticized images of Islamic stronghold regions i.e. Middle East, and the Western culture have for a long time served as implicit justifications for the European and American Imperial ambitions. In light of this, Said denounced the practice of influential Arabs who contributed to the internalization of Arabic culture ideas by US and British orientalists. Thus, his hypothesis that Western scholarship on Muslim was historically flawed and essentially continues to misrepresent the reality of Muslim people. In lieu to this, Said quotes that, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Therefore, very few details such as human density, the passion of Arab-Muslim life has entered the awareness of even the people whose profession revolve around reporting of the Arab world. Due to this, we have instead a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 1980).
Having understood that the world has taken the form it has through the domination or imperialism of Western countries, it is said that they are the agents that have greatly influenced the world; their ideologies in addition to their political as well as economic influences have spread across the globe through time (Headrick, 1981).
The role America plays in foreign affairs is debated drastically throughout the nation. Realists see the world in terms of competition and working unilaterally whereas; liberals see the world in terms of cooperation and working multilaterally. President Woodrow Wilson initiated neo-conservatism to promote liberalism and American values contrariwise, President George Washington warned against undue foreign entanglements. This day in age our foreign affairs have been dominated on the war in terrorism, a tactic that disregards lives of citizens for instilling fear in citizens. The often misconception of citizens, is that terrorism is linked to Islam when in fact it is not linked to Islam or any religion.
The Western culture has evolved over a span of several years with various civilizations specializing in specific aspects of life or nature. In essence, Western civilization dates back to the BCE periods when Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Rome reigned. Each of the Western civilizations came with a clear lineage that portrayed such attributes as property rights, free market economy, competition, personal freedoms, and innovation (Perry, 2013). Besides, the western civilizations came at different periods with some of the attributes evolving or remaining unchanged throughout the lineage. However, the non-western civilizations contributed towards such attributes to a given extent, primarily because of the interactions among
Political uprisings in the Middle East, especially in Muslim nation states have placed Arabian politics back on the focus point of international politics. Political events in certain Arab countries had an excessive impact on the political development of other neighboring states. Resistances and anxieties within different Arab countries triggered unpredictable actions, sometimes sorely to observe and believe. The authoritarian governments of Arabian countries led from various dictators have created a precarious situation for their people, especially in providing national security and maintaining peace in the region. Jack Goldstone argues that the degree of a sultan’s weakness has been often only visible in retrospect; due in part to the nature of the military-security complex common across Middle East states (Goldstone 1). In addition, the existence of various statesmen with political affiliation is concerned in faithfulness of its armed forces. Usually, the armed national forces of several states, mainly those in Arab countries are loyal and closely affiliated to their leaders, which have a major role in state regimes. Arab uprisings in their early spreading appeared legally responsible and with concrete demands from representatives’ peoples, calling for a more open democratic system and reasonable governance. Even though, the system in which popular frustration with government imposes alters considerably from one state to another. These public revolts against different authoritative governments didn’t halt just in Arab states, but they sustained also in the Far East and in the Eastern Europe. Can we say that the popular uprisings in Arab countries could be attributed to the term of globalization? In fact, globalization is a multi...
Economic and cultural turmoil within a nation always has a source. Iraq, a nation currently suffering violence due to the nation’s history, has been brought to its current state with the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein’s rule. The introduction of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party in 1968 led to the promotion of the genocide of the Kurdish citizens living in the nation (“Kurdish Revolt”). The Ba’ath Party blamed many of the non-Arab Kurds for a majority of the problems occurring in the Arab states which resulted in the genocide (“Kurdistan Democratic Party”). This was just part of the extreme ruling methods Saddam Hussein used to maintain power. In addition, Saddam Hussein was extremely manipulative and used this skill to his advantage to gain for his personal self-interest. By not ratifying the the boundaries between Kuwait and Iraq although these boundaries were clearly states within letters between the two governments, it allowed Saddam Hussein to step in and use this to his advantage to take over Kuwait (“Iraq Until the 1958 Revolution”). Saddam Hussein is often known as Saddam Hussein’s ruthless dictatorship of extreme and repressive rule, alliances that ensured the continuation of his control, and his numerous refusals to comply with international regulations prompted foreign involvement against Iraq.
The United States influence in the power struggles of the middle-east region since the ending of the Cold War is not a secret, nor is the reality that these relations have continued to this day, as we pursue that “black gold”. A combination of fundamentalist frustration to return to previous era’s before exposure to “Western culture” which has its own shortcomings, especially in regards to women's rights and sexuality and hatred for those who took their personal sovereignty away. Our subsequent destruction predominately Islamic countries via invasion(Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan), and continual drone attacks do not provide safety for the pillars of an ideology or a new form of thinking other than that in place to take root. In the wake of death and destruction, emotion dominates our logic as our primal nature for “fair” is desired in response to the attacks on 9/11. In The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton, she correlates the wretchedness of an existence from poverty, to hope for escape of “salvation”, rather than improvement of one’s material circumstances at the
Commercialization of culture: It is very obvious to see the western culture dominated all the other minor cultures by so many means. Fast food culture is wide spread around the globe. Western dressing is considered to be cool and good looking.