Muslim and globalization
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1) The document discusses the effects of globalization on integrating Muslims into the world, including increased migration, multiculturalism, and cultural integration. 2) It argues that Muslims have failed to realize their potential from Islamic teachings and need to adapt to the 21st century by integrating with other cultures instead of blaming the West for problems. 3) Muslims living in Western countries are called to play a more active role through politics and economics to foster cultural integration and avoid conflicts between Muslim and Western communities.
Muslim and globalization
- 1. Sharifah Fatin Athira bt Syed Uzir 25 November 2012 INTEGRATING MUSLIMS WITH THE WORLD The world today is facing mind-blowing changes that are the results of globalization. Effects of post-globalization such as multiculturalism, immigrations, cultural integrations and even colonization has brought upon the world a brand new global order where all human beings living in this planet have to adhere to because no matter how much they deny or even ignore it, there is absolutely nothing that they can do because it is a process that cannot be stopped and it is changing our world tremendously. Although the world globalization is a new one, its concept and essence has co-existed from the very beginning of time. In the ancient times, some of great civilizations like the eastern civilizations from India to China were co-founded and inspired by globalization where people used to migrate and some traveled the world for various purposes and caused cross-cultural relations or today known as cultural integration. They lived peacefully regardless of their differences. In fact, they even adopted a few practices from different cultures to theirs. The best example is the Muslim civilization which used to be an enormous great power in the past. Even though that globalization have been said brings the world many positive changes in the sense that its changing the world for the better, yet it also lead the world to new major problems. These include poverty which is very nerve-racking today. There is not even a single country that doesnt face this problem and surprisingly, one of the countries which have incredibly high poverty rates is America, the worlds largest power acknowledged by everyone especially their military power. Nevertheless, it is a different story now as the US is surprisingly facing a great decline due to its economics. The Afghan and Iraq wars costs America US$4 trillion and raised its state debt to US$14 trillion (Muzaffar, 2012). Chandra Muzaffar (NST, 28 October 2012) also suggest that the US must be prepared and find out how to comprehend with its fall. Apart from economics, social, political crises are also the cause that has set the US to fall. Still, America is not going to fall that easily as the country is still strong in industrial dynamism due to its flooding immigrants and its scientific productivity. However, the US cannot be at ease as other countries are also rising in their scientific output. China, with the population of more than 1.3 billion is going to beat America in terms of scientific productivity by 2013. Knowing that America is going to be in decline, should the world be pleased about this? We should consider the consequences of this is going to happen as it is likely going to affect the whole world
- 2. in many aspects. A new world could evolve in the future; a world with different rule in economics, politics and many others. The world might not be controlled by a sole governing power anymore besides, every single nation depend on each other and true means of globalization could be achieved. Even so, America is not going to fall in a few years to come in fact, probably in another 100 or 200 years considering that the country is undoubtedly still the worlds largest military power in spite of its large debts. Yet, these crises are not only experienced by America alone as most of other countries in the world are facing it too even Muslim countries. The collapse of family institutions, lack of morality, values contribute to social crisis in a way when children today are not being taught with these things (Muzaffar, 2012). Parents only give their attention and focus on their childrens education academically and in some way have made children think that only their grades are all that matters. Eventually, they will learn everything without realizing the real purpose of learning. This leads to ignorance as they have not learnt the values of knowledge. Believe it or not, these are the factors leading to social and political and even economic problems in most parts of the world. When education purposes are solely focused on wealthcreation, only children from well-off families receive decent education and will work a decent job with high salaries. Meanwhile, the poor will keep living their life and remain in the working class group as they do not get the opportunity to change their fate like the elites. Its not that none of them ever succeeded but its very unlikely as it needs a very high effort and luck as well (Michelle Asha Cooper, 2010). However, even though this feudal approach and system is being encouraged by the leaders, we cannot put all the blame on them as we have the power to escape from this way of thinking. For that to happen, everyone plays a role especially university students by inculcating the scientific spirit within them instead of merely following everything from their superiors (Mohd Nazim, 2012). Put simply, the world today is facing great challenges of social where children today are trained as wealth creations that indicate the failure of modern education. Besides, the modern technologies cause people in the globalized world particularly Muslims to be ignorant as everything has been made easy and laid in front of them. Hence, they tend to just imitate everything from the West and they dont even bother to even be curious. This is a failure especially to the Muslim world. As a proof, approximately half of the worlds illiterate people are those from the Muslim world where two thirds of them are women (Haqqani, 2012). It is sad, yes, but no matter what we have to admit it because its a fact. Muslims fail to see their hidden potential in their cultural practices and perspectives that are mainly taught in the Islamic teachings itself (Anthony, 2012). If they can really realize and explore the deeper means of those teachings, they can possibly provide solutions to the problems in the Muslim world like poverty and ignorance. Thus, this means that Muslims need to adapt to the 21st century and integrate with the rest of the world instead of continuously putting all the blame of its fall to the West. Instead of just blaming and getting nothing done,
- 3. Muslims must think of the reasons why these conflicts aroused and think of the solutions. Other than that, they should look back in the past and learn from the mistakes and avoid them from happening again where young Muslims today must be educated with Islamic history. In other words, politicians have to be proactive in dealing and solving these crises of humanity. They need to actually come out with effective solutions rather than just arguing and discussing on the same issues all over again without any actions and move away from this political gridlock which will not bring any good to them. Apart from that, the migration of Muslims to the West is one of the post-globalization effects that started a new phenomenon called multiculturalism that has started a new global order to the world. The migration of people from East to has brought upon changes to the West that they have to look upon to. Immigrants, especially from the Muslim world have been long living in Western countries since the very beginning. In fact, they have been already regarded as part of those countries. Yet, many conflicts have been arising between the Muslims and the Western people. Even though that Muslims in the West are growing large in numbers, yet they do not have a voice. Most of them merely live unnoticed. This need to change as Muslims plays a vital role in helping to make the world a better place by integrating with others and participating actively through certain platforms especially in politics and economics. Rather than just following everything that the Western have decided for the, Muslims in Western countries need to play roles like for instance holding a political posts in the political world of their occupied countries and make changes or adjustments that will benefit both the Muslims and the non-Muslims in that particular country. Hence, conflicts particularly cultural and social can be avoided as Muslims and the others live together harmoniously where Islamic and Western communities work together in finding solutions to problems of post-modernism because if these cannot be done, it will result in more conflicts that may be no longer incomprehensible to us. If these are to be done, it will lead to a new Multicultural Europe. Nonetheless, Muslims need to prepare both physically and mentally in facing these challenges of globalization and integrate with the rest of the world in adapting in the 21 st century. Moreover, Muslims who have made the West their home need to reciprocate by making cultural integration priority. Failure to do so will result in more cultural conflict. People everywhere, particularly the Muslims simply cannot live just among themselves in their own world. People of different religions and cultures need and complement each other and in some way they are inseparable. As a proof, there is not even a single country in this world that live among their selves without any other culture or religion and even now, every country depend on one another. Hence, there will be no more one single dominant country in the future where every country have equal powers and plays different role. Even though the relationship between the Muslims and the West are complicated, yet somehow they are inseparable that they both
- 4. need one another regardless of their differences in creating a new multicultural community. This new order of the world is one of the effects of globalization. Take Germany as an example; even though the country is struggling from cultural integration, the Germans today has finally regarded Islam as part of their large integrated multicultural society (The Star, 5th October 2010). They finally acknowledge the existence of four millions Muslims in the country and give them equal rights as others of the country. Hence, like Germany, other countries in the West also need to start acknowledging the existence of people of different cultures and religions especially the Muslims. The Muslims in the West are now growing large in numbers. Not only that, they are also gradually making their way up in terms of economic and political. Even now, Muslims in the West have almost equal rights as other citizens and they are somehow needed in the Western society. This could no longer be denied as it is a natural effect of post-modernism. Even today, the immigrants in the US are getting more influential as they have the power in determining the future (Ved, 2012). For instance, the election that took place in the US very recently shows the immigrant power in choosing the leader of the nation. The whites are no longer dominating and controlling the country as America is now a multiculturalized one and the immigrants are now getting equal rights which is very concerning the original Americans that they are gradually being outnumbered by the rainbows; immigrants from all over the world of different cultures. Even though they need this diversity in their world, but the fact that the power of immigrants are overcoming theirs intimidates them. So, they start to take a few approaches in securing their power over these newcomers. However, these approaches could not only be positive as negative approaches like the most obvious one that is regarding Muslims as terrorists. It has started long ago since the case of 9/11 where Muslims were accused as masterminds of the raid and America has done a fairly good job in making the world believe them. From there, people started to label Muslims as terrorists have been giving them a really hard time especially Muslims in America. Fortunately, it is a different story now as Muslims rights are starting to be acknowledged by people of the world even that they are still some who still believe that Muslims are based on terrorism. These people are ignorant as they used to believe that and they still though even when the whole world are starting to question this baseless accusation. They just turn a blind eye, refuse to find out the truth and keeps on living in that belief. Therefore, ignorance is a very dangerous thing and it could be fatal as it is in the case of poverty in the globalized world. Nevertheless, all these crises affecting the Muslim world cannot be blamed on the West alone. Muslims themselves also contribute to these problems. Looking back in the past, most couldnt help but wonder how these happened when Muslim civilization used to be a very influential power in the world back then. The most significant cause causing the great Muslim civilization to collapse is the global
- 5. recession. Again, it is caused by the process of globalization which gives a great impact on the economics of the Muslim world. Plus, the leaders are not really helpful as they are more into channeling the Muslims anger to the West rather than finding the solutions. According to Husain Haqani (Newsweek, 8th October 2012), Muslims are being treated as manipulative objects by the leaders to achieve their own agendas. They manipulate facts; make the people believe the false when the truth remains hidden. Muslims are also to be blamed though not all, some of them believe in everything that they see without really investigating to the root of that matter. For instance in Pakistan, thousands of them received a text message informing something called as miracle where an earthquake has destroyed a movie theatre in Washington D.C that screened the film Innocence of Muslims. They made a big fuss about the movie and have shown their anger and rage to the world causing even death in the process. Apparently, there wasnt an earthquake at all and the movie was not even screened. Although it is very painful to say this, but this makes Muslims, though not all, appear stupid and emotional to the eyes of the world when they held chaotic demonstrations which is a very unintelligent way of dealing with the problem. They shouldve thought of a smarter and peaceful way in handling that matter instead of going for violence. No wonder some still believe that Islam are based on terrorism. It is very heart-breaking as the matter couldve been settled peacefully without involving any death in the process. Though the rage of the Muslims regarding the film is understandable, but the true reason why Muslims should be angry is that they are being toyed by others in achieving their goals. In other words, Muslims have every right to be angry and it is definitely not because of a video on Youtube but it is far more than that (Haqqani, 2012). Like that video posted on Youtube were not only meant to trigger the Muslims anger but the hidden agenda is to polarize Muslims from the West when Muslims indirectly perceive that all the Western people have the same ideologies as the film-maker. Same goes for the polarization of the Hindus and the Muslims when a Hindu wrote a book insulting Prophet Muhammad entitled Rangeela Rasool that caused the region of Punjab to be parceled out between the two religions. Those mentioned above are most of the challenges that Muslims in todays globalized world has to face. The hardest challenge is obviously in integrating with the rest of the world when some group of people still could not accept Islam as part of their world. This is where Muslims should play a role in proving whatever bad things that the West perceives Islam as is wrong. To make this more realistic, Muslims should speak out to the world through a bigger medium like the politics and show the world what Islam and how Muslims truly are. Therefore, when Muslims are integrated with the world, it could lead to not only to a new multiculturalized world, but also a peaceful and better world where Muslims help in making the world a better place by practicing the Islamic teachings that can provide solutions to world problems like poverty and ignorance as the Islam itself teaches Muslims to be moderate and live a
- 6. life based on moral values and practices the concept of a strong brotherhood not only among Muslims but also with the whole world. REFERENCES
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