Cultural Globalization: The Role of Religion - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 17
About This Presentation
Title:

Cultural Globalization: The Role of Religion

Description:

Cultural Globalization: The Role of Religion Introduction Lechner & Boli, pp. 345-347 – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:39
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 18
Provided by: nic
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Cultural Globalization: The Role of Religion


1
Cultural Globalization The Role of Religion
Introduction
  • Lechner Boli, pp. 345-347

2
Public "Relieved" By bin Laden's Death
3
Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979)
  • Major world event" that "put fundamentalism on
    the map"
  • Outcome of long struggle to overthrow the Shah of
    Iran
  • Shah was seen as puppet of the West, esp. the
    US
  • Iran was predominantly Shi'a (the two main
    sub-groups of Islam are Shi'a and Sunni)
  • Shah was seen as an "illegitimate tyrant who had
    tried to modernize the country in violation of
    Islamic norms"
  • Revolution showed it was possible to build an
    Islamic state under modern circumstances

4
Islamic Revolution inspired active jihad among a
minority of Muslims
  • jihad a religiously motivated opposition to a
    secular, liberal global order
  • In predominantly Sunni countries, a movement
    w/similar purposes was growing, the Egyptian
    Muslim Brotherhood, which also rejected Western
    culture and advocated a restoration of sharia
  • sharia Islamic law
  • In Afghanistan, after the Soviet invasion in
    1979, an extremely conservative group called the
    Taliban took lead in resistance to invasion and
    established an oppressive, orthodox regime in the
    1990s
  • The struggle attracted militants from other
    countries, such as Saudi Arabia

5
Militants increasingly thought of jihad as global
struggle to restore Islamic caliphate and
implement sharia
  • culminating in the attack on the World Trade
    Center on 9/11
  • to some, 9/11 was the expression of a new global
    political divide, a "Clash of Civilizations" (à
    la Huntington)

6
Islam, like Christianity, is diverse
  • Believers have a range of perspectives on
    globalization
  • Muslims differ on basic questions concerning the
    relationship between religion the state, gender
    roles, democracy, etc.

7
"Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims"
  • Charles Kurzman, Ch. 42, pp. 353-357

8
Islamists, Radical Islamists, and Islamic
liberalism
  • Islamists seek to regain righteousness of early
    yrs of Islam and implement sharia
  • either by using the state to enforce it
  • or by convincing Muslims to abide by Islamic
    norms of their own accord
  • Radical Islamists have much in common w/ Islamic
    liberalism
  • Both seek to modernize society and politics,
    recasting tradition in modern molds
  • Both see multiple ways to be modern and don't
    equate modernity w/ Western culture

9
Radical Islamists (Al Qaeda) vs. traditionalists
(Taliban)
  • Traditionalists draw on less educated sectors of
    society
  • Believe in mystical and personal authority and
    are skeptical of modern organizational forms
  • "For this reason, traditionalist movements are
    finding it difficult to survive and occupy only
    isolated pockets of Muslim society" (pp. 353-4)

10
The Islamists Roots in Secular Education
  • Many Islamists have university (secular) rather
    than seminary (religious) educations
  • OBL (AQ leader) held civil engineering degree,
    but issued fatwas (religious decrees) as if he
    were a seminary educated Islamic scholar
  • Islamists have railed against seminary-trained
    scholars as out of touch and politically inactive
  • Seminaries are considered "backward" by Islamists
  • College-educated Muslims have increasingly been
    analyzing sacred texts in a "do it yourself" kind
    of theology

11
There's great diversity in Islamic opinion and
Islamic authority
  • Govts have taken a role in establishing their
    own official religious authorities and advancing
    their own visions of the proper relationship
    between Islam and the state, through textbooks,
    for example
  • There is no universally recognized arbiter to
    resolve Islamic debates
  • Any college graduate in a cave can claim to speak
    for Islam

12
Islamist political platforms share much with
Western modernity
  • Islamists envision overturning tradition in
    politics, social relations, and religious
    practices
  • Islamists are hostile to monarchies, such as the
    Saudi dynasty in Arabia
  • Islamists favor egalitarian meritocracy, as
    opposed to inherited social hierarchies
  • e.g., OBL combined traditional grievances such as
    injustice, corruption, oppression, and
    self-defense with contemporary, secular demands
    such as economic development, human rights and
    national self-determination

13
Western biases tend to wrongly lump Khomeni's
Iran together w/ the Taliban in Afghanistan
  • Both claimed to be building Islamic states, but
    Iran is a modern state and Afghanistan is not
  • Islamic Republic of Iran copied global norms by
    writing constitution, ratifying it with a
    referendum w/ full adult suffrage, holding
    elections, conducting census, etc.
  • vs. the traditionalist Taliban, which preferred
    informal and personal administration to the
    rule-bound bureaucracies favored by modern states
  • On the issue of gender, Taliban barred girls from
    school, while the Iranian Islamic Republic more
    than doubled girls education levels

14
In ideology and also in practice, bin Laden/Al
Qaeda and other radical Islamists mirror Western
trends
  • Al Qaeda operates globally like a TNC, with
    affiliates and subsidiaries, strategic partners,
    commodity chains, standardized training,
    off-shore financing
  • Insiders call it "the company"
  • It's a bureaucratic organization, with a
    modernized communications strategy

15
Radical Islamists are a minority within Islam
  • Surveys consistently show that most Muslims
    oppose Islamists and their goals
  • Islamists rarely fare well in free/partially free
    elections
  • However, the US-led war on terror may
    inadvertently benefit Islamists
  • The modernization of Muslim societies promoted by
    the US and its allies as a buffer against
    traditionalism may wind up fueling Islamism
  • Modern schools produce Islamists as well as
    liberals
  • Modern businesses fund Islamist as well as other
    causes
  • Modern communications can broadcast Islamist as
    well as other messages
  • ? Modernity may take many forms besides Western
    culture

16
Osama bin Laden Largely Discredited Among Muslim
Publics in Recent Years
17
Islam the West
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com