Skip to main content

Home/ International Comm & Culture 2009/ Group items tagged honor

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Christoph Zed

The Axis of Honour: Honour, Modernity, and al Qaeda « The Sensible Jew - 0 views

sensiblejew.wordpress.com/...-honour-modernity-and-al-qaeda

globalisation terrorism al qaeda values society capitalism pluralism secularisation colonialism moral honor

shared by Christoph Zed on 23 Aug 09 - Cached
  • So many scholars and commentators attribute suicide terrorism to such factors as poverty, foreign occupation, or religion, among many other things.
  • Over the past two hundred years, there has been a global, though highly uneven, shift within the values systems of various societies.
  • One particularly profound transformation has been the relegation of one’s religion to the private sphere, as a matter of purely personal choice.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • So societies that have embraced modernity, have effectively “privatised” religion. Indeed capitalism has been the driving force behind secularism because it required the dismantling of the communalist society.
  • Replacing the old communalism is heterogeneity and pluralism. These have eroded not only religious monopolies, but their centrality in various societies. The end result of this is a society’s secularisation.
  • Globalisation, in which western technological and cultural products predominate, is often framed as a form of colonialism.
  • Ironically, the rise of transnational Islamist terrorism is also a product of globalisation.
  • As the power of the nation state diminishes, religious ideology’s mobility allows it to permeate shifting borders.
  • The current face of modernity is therefore ideally suited to –  and an ideal breeding ground for – the creation of suicide terrorist groups.
  • In order to fortify the in group, moral strictures must become ever more rigorous, while condemnation of transgression must become ever more vociferous – and violent, thus intensifying the demarcation between “good” and “bad”.
  • terrorism implies a crisis of legitimacy
  • But can we say that such a crisis of legitimacy applies to transnational terrorists such as al Qaeda?
  • modernity is an attempt to destroy community and communalism…, all those forces which created identity and authority
  • such threats to communalism result in feelings of humiliation amongst those who do not benefit from the new order.
  • humiliation therefore “links the concepts of honor and human rights in an enlightening way, providing a framework both for ideologies and for the transition between them.”
  • Scott Atran identifies the primacy of honour throughout Arab societies, noting that the Arab perception of being humiliated by outsiders is a prime motivator for suicide attacks.
  • There emerges from the collective sense of humiliation something of an obligation to demonstrate outrage and embark on actions – even if they have little chance of success – in order to avenge honour. Martyrdom is one such example.
  • Beit-Hallahmi writes, that under such circumstances, “contemporary martyrdom can be viewed as an uprising against the end of history and the final triumph of liberal capitalism.”
sayaka uchida

Disney World: When Death Comes to the Magic Kingdom - TIME - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,1917776,00.html

shared by sayaka uchida on 20 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Over the past six weeks at Disney World, a 21-year-old monorail driver, a 47-year-old actor portraying pirate Capt. Jack Sparrow's henchman "Mack," and a 30-year-old stuntman practicing for the Indiana Jones' Epic Stunt Spectacular died in on-the-job accidents.
  • community's grief is apparent on their Facebook pages. "We lost another one of our own at Disney. Too many, too young. Just wish it made some sense,"
  • "Mark lived for that magic. That's when Mark was most Mark," Babel says. "One's person's life can touch, in Mark's case, millions of guests. And he would make a special connection with each and every one of those kids that he came into contact with. He was amazing. The shining example of someone like Mark is inspiring, and so I kind of take extra care to make the magic in honor of Mark."
  • sayaka uchida on 20 Aug 09
     
    Death could bind people? Maybe death the only thing which every single person can share/possess.
1 - 2 of 2
Showing 20▼ items per page