In the immediate wake of the September 11th, 2001 attacks, how many people would gladly place part of the blame on the United States and extend a hand of peace to Arabs and Muslims? While most Americans stood ready to bear arms and seek revenge for the gross injustice that was perpetrated against the United States, Naomi Shihab Nye stood bravely against popular opinion and advocated that peace was needed, not more violence. During such an emotionally charged time, Nye does well to utilize that emotion for her own purpose, which is part of the reason why her argumentative essay, To Any Would-Be Terrorists, works effectively as a whole. She also does a superb job of utilizing her unique heritage and perspective to establish a strong sense of credibility, which helps to further her argument. However, her essay falls short in the feasibility of the solution, in addition to suffering from a release period that had a rather poor sense of timing. Perhaps one of Nye’s essay’s greatest strengths is found not, ironically, in her essay, but rather in her personal life. As a writer of Palestinian-American origins, she stands as a uniquely positioned person to present a perspective that does not often appear in American literature. She grew up in Jerusalem in the 1970’s; the city at the center of countless culture wars over the centuries (317). As a result, Nye possesses an understanding of the intricacies of conflict between cultures to an extent that surpasses a clear majority of contemporary writers. Because she spent a good number of her formative years in such a turbulent region, she also has significant experience with the violence that can happen when two cultures cannot reconcile their differences. This makes her a uniq... ... middle of paper ... ...vents, a plea for peace would most likely fall on deaf ears. Only recently, after a measurable amount of time has transpired, would Nye’s argument begin to have a significant effect on its audience. As can be seen, Nye combines many elements of logical argumentation in order to construct an effective essay. When one has finished reading the work, it feels almost as if Nye has left a sense of optimism with the reader. While she may be slightly oversimplifying the problem, one can ignore that fact, because her main purpose in this essay is to convince her audience that the possibility for peace certainly exists; we all just have to work at it a little bit harder. If everyone does indeed “Find another way to live,” a way in which people act more kindly and more caring towards each other, then perhaps we may finally have a measure of peace (321).
Injustice still occurs in today’s society. In “Hope, Despair, and Memory” Ellie Wiesel repeats, “it would be enough” to express his frustration in how humanity has not changed. Wiesel’s point of view differs from Solzhenitsyn oration in “One Word of Truth Outweighs the World” because Solzhenitsyn believes lying and violence are inseparable. However, Wiesel and Solzhenitsyn are similar in that they are both frustrated with our society not learning from past mistakes.
...es the world today, these people always choose ignorance over reason. Most people choose ignorance as a defence mechanism to stop thinking about these problems, they don’t realize that by doing that they are becoming more indifferent and they lose one of the most important traits that makes them human, compassion. Without compassion humans would become animals and the world we live in would become a jungle. As Edmund Burke warned “all that is needed for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing”, he warns the whole world that if they do not stand up for evil, it will win. Elie Weisle also explains “ The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”, meaning that if the world does not stop their ignorance, and start to show compassion to one another , they might as well say goodbye to their precious world because it’s not going to be around for very long.
Host: On September the 11th 2001, the notorious terror organisation known as Al-Qaeda struck at the very heart of the United States. The death count was approximately 3,000; a nation was left in panic. To this day, counterterrorism experts and historians alike regard the event surrounding 9/11 as a turning point in US foreign relations. Outraged and fearful of radical terrorism from the middle-east, President Bush declared that in 2001 that it was a matter of freedoms; that “our very freedom has come under attack”. In his eyes, America was simply targeted because of its democratic and western values (CNN News, 2001). In the 14 years following this pivotal declaration, an aggressive, pre-emptive approach to terrorism replaced the traditional
Indifference is seductive, inhumane, and the line between good and evil. Indifference is helping the enemy, it is death. Writer and Holocaust Survivor, Wiesel Elie in his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, argues that being indifferent to those who are suffering assists the enemy. He supports his claim by first defining and describing indifference as “seductive”, “tempting”, and “easier.” Wiesel goes on to illustrate the dangers of indifference by using personal experience and historical events as examples. Finally, the author creates awareness of indifference from the past, present, and future. Wiesel’s purpose is to describe why indifference is inhumane in order to persuade people not to be indifferent. He establishes a serious tone, critical, and somber tone for Politicians, Ambassadors, Mr. President, and members of congress.
Likewise, Goodwin illustrates how the use of categorical terrorism can be seem being used by Al-Qaida during the attacks of 9/11. Nonetheless, it is evident that Al-Qaida is unusual in terms of using terrorism to influence the rise of unity rather than trying to overthrow a standing state. For the purpose of instigating a pan-Islamic revolutionary movement, Al-Qaida tries to unite all Islamic people under one state to develop umma, or Muslim community. The logic of Al-Qaida remained that if their “revolutionaries” could illicit a reaction from the powerful US state, resulting in oppression of the middle-eastern region, that Al-Qaida could, as a result, unite all Muslims to counter this suggested oppression. Although the end goal of Al-Qaida clear failed, it does suggest the organization’s attempt at implementing categorical terrorism.
When a giant explosion ripped through Alfred P. Murrah federal building April 19,1995, killing 168 and wounding hundreds, the United States of America jumped to a conclusion we would all learn to regret. The initial response to the devastation was all focused of middle-eastern terrorists. “The West is under attack,”(Posner 89), reported the USA Today. Every news and television station had the latest expert on the middle east telling the nation that we were victims of jihad, holy war. It only took a few quick days to realize that we were wrong and the problem, the terrorist, was strictly domestic. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Because America jumped to conclusions then, America was later blind to see the impending attack of 9/11. The responsibility, however, is not to be placed on the America people. The public couldn’t stand to hear any talk of terrorism, so in turn the White House irresponsibly took a similar attitude. They concentrated on high public opinion and issues that were relevant to Americans everyday. The government didn’t want to deal with another public blunder like the one in Oklahoma City. A former FBI analyst recalls, “when I went to headquarters (Washington, D.C.) later that year no one was interested in hearing anything about Arab money connections unless it had something to do with funding domestic groups. We stumbled so badly on pinpointing the Middle East right off the bat on the Murrah bombing. No one wanted to get caught like that again,”(Posner 90). The result saw changes in the counter terrorism efforts; under funding, under manning, poor cooperation between agencies, half-hearted and incompetent agency official appointees and the list goes on. All of these decisions, made at the hands of the faint-hearted, opened the doors wide open, and practically begged for a terrorist attack. So who’s fault is it? The public’s for being
In today’s society the word “terrorism” has gone global. We see this term on television, in magazines and even from other people speaking of it. In their essay “Controlling Irrational Fears After 9/11”, published in 2002, Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Harris argue that the reaction of the American officials, people and the media after the attacks of 9/11 was completely irrational due to the simple fact of fear. Chapman and Harris jump right into dismembering the irrational argument, often experienced with relationships and our personal analysis. They express how this argument came about from the terrorist being able to succeed in “achieving one major goal, which was spreading fear” among the American people (Chapman & Harris, para.1). The supporters of the irrational reaction argument state that because “Americans unwittingly cooperated with the terrorist in achieving the major goal”, the result was a widespread of disrupted lives of the Americans and if this reaction had been more rational then there would have been “less disruption in the lives of our citizens” (Chapman & Harris, para. 1).
For a second, the U.S. stood still. Looking up at the towers, one can only imagine the calm before the storm in the moment when thousands of pounds of steel went hurdling into its once smooth, glassy frame. People ran around screaming and rubble fell as the massive metal structure folded in on itself like an accordion. Wounded and limping from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, America carried on, not without anger and fear against a group of innocent Americans, Muslim Americans. Nietzsche’s error of imaginary cause is present in the treatment of Muslim Americans since 9/11 through prejudice in the media, disregard of Muslim civil liberties, racial profiling, violence, disrespect, and the lack of truthful public information about Islam. In this case, the imaginary cause against Muslims is terrorism. The wound has healed in the heart of the U.S. but the aching throb of terrorism continues to distress citizens every day.
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.
How much prejudice/partisanship does Nye show in her portrayal of the situation in the middle East? Is this really an American book about the situation? As always, explain your
Wiesel’s speech, persuasive in nature, was designed to educate his audience as to the violence and killing of innocent people across the globe. Wiesel spoke of acts that had taken place throughout his lifetime, from his youth, up through present day atrocities. His focu...
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
In Elie Wiesel’s speech “Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech”, Wiesel suggests that in times of crisis, people must stand together against injustices. Wiesel develops and supports his claim through his use of anecdotes, inclusive diction, rhetorical questions, and parallel structures. Wiesel’s purpose is to motivate the world to stand up against injustices in order to prevent the persecution of more innocent people. The audience Wiesel intended for his speech is anyone on Earth who is willing to make a difference, but mostly directed at adults who are able to go out and actually contribute to making a change. Wiesel succeeds in establishing a bond with the audience, as he comes off as very humble and trustworthy. Through his use of rhetorical
Naomi Shihab Nye’s collection of poetry teaches the reader that the people of the Middle East are human, too. After 9/11, many people’s opinions of people from the Middle East changed significantly in a negative way. I think that a lot of people were worried about other potential attacks happening in the United States. Even now, because of recent events, many people feel threatened and they are scared of what is going to happen next. Nye’s poems remind everyone that not every person from the Middle East is threat. As she says in the introduction of her book, “A huge shadow had been cast across the lives of so many innocent people and an ancient culture’s pride” (Nye xv). Through this book, she wants to convey that they have their own lives and feel misrepresented by extremist actions.
Edward Said “States” refutes the view Western journalists, writers, and scholars have created in order to represent Eastern cultures as mysterious, dangerous, unchanging, and inferior. According to Said, who was born in Jerusalem at that time Palestine, the way westerners represent eastern people impacts the way they interact with the global community. All of this adds to, Palestinians having to endure unfair challenges such as eviction, misrepresentation, and marginalization that have forced them to spread allover the world. By narrating the story of his country Palestine, and his fellow countrymen from their own perspective Said is able to humanize Palestinians to the reader. “States” makes the reader feel the importance of having a homeland, and how detrimental having a place to call home is when trying to maintain one’s culture. Which highlights the major trait of the Palestinian culture: survival. Throughout “States”, Said presents the self-preservation struggles Palestinians are doomed to face due to eviction, and marginalization. “Just as we once were taken from one habitat to a new one we can be moved again” (Said 543).