...implication of being an Arab has long been pondered upon for centuries. Whether or not religion, culture and language are specific criteria that are essential to address has long been deliberated. But are there always certain guidelines that define who we truly are as individuals or as people? Perhaps the languages spoken and the religions followed by people living in America should be considered when defining an American as well. Maxime Rodinson suggests that this ideology holds true, particularly with the Arab people. He states that in order to understand the ethnos of a certain cultural group, there needs to be “defining criteria” of the entity in order to keep the uncertainty as marginal as possible (Rodinson 44). In this sense, defining individuals based on their backgrounds comes off as a form of profiling, which cannot hold any substantial connotations. For instance, an individual’s citizenship or residential status has no direct correlation to what background or culture they identify with. This makes this method of profiling merely a tool for the outside world to use as a way to easily identify others of a different cultural background. Inherently, personal entities cannot be categorized by a certain culture, or race, because there are no quantifiable guidelines to abide by that can truly define who someone is. An individual’s identity is what he or she would fundamentally identify him or herself as. Rodinson does not take into account as to how Arab individuals would define...
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...Arab & Israeli Arab Women Minority Education Dilemma Facts The Arab minority education in Israel had been a dilemma for the ages. The Israeli educational system was built on inequality between the Arabs and the Jews and between the center and periphery. Generally. There are variations between all the categories at all levels, Jews and Arabs. Mainly, the increasing disparities between the ethical and the various social groups in Israel, besides the absence of an appropriate educational policy lead to difficulties and stress, which face the Arab minority women`s education. Additionally, other contributing factors worsened the situation such as the lack or the absence of the Arab communities within the state of Israel. Consequently, the Israeli...
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...plays like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Shakespeare’s plays have managed to gain and maintain cult followings for hundreds of years. Shakespeare is arguably one of the biggest and most notable names in literary history thanks to his extensive contribution to the English theatre. With such great influence and cultural reach comes...
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...between the Arab World and the West Mustapha Ettobi McGill University Introduction In 1990, Edward Said wrote an article entitled “Embargoed Literature” which was published in The Nation. In it, he argues that Arabic literature is “embargoed” in the West even if one of its most prominent figures, the Egyptian novelist and short story writer Naguib Mahfouz, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. Said spoke of some “singular” reasons for this situation: [...] of all the major world literatures, Arabic remains relatively unknown and unread in the West for reasons that are unique, and I think remarkable at a time when tastes here [the United States] for the non-Western are more developed than before and, even more compelling, contemporary Arabic literature is at a particularly interesting juncture (Said 372). Although Said’s article was well received by Arab and non Arab critics and researchers (such as Richard Jacquemond, 1992), its main argument was also challenged by other critics and scholars such as Peter Clark (2000). The latter maintained that Arabic literature in translation has significantly progressed since 1988 and has been more reviewed and studied than before. In this article, I do not intend to either defend or question Said’s view but would like to examine an important issue which is central to his article: the impact of geopolitical conflicts on literary translation. I will be looking specifically at the influence of conflicts between the Arab world and...
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...Di Wu 2010–06–04 Chapter 6 native Americans In this chapter, we learn about history and development of Native American. This chapter consist of three parts , history of native; how federal polices effect on native American ; what situation the native American in today. After reading this chapter, I think racism is a very painful problem in the United States. of the first acts of racism in American was against the Native Americans. At first, the Native Americans were the Europeans’ friends. The Native Americans showed the Europeans how to farm, hunt and live off the land in this new America. As time went by and the Europeans became comfortable, they no longer need the Native American people. The Native American people were in the way, they had land that the growing population of the Europeans wanted and needed. This was the start of many treaties that the American Government would make the Native people, and the start for racism against them. Out of all the treaties that the American Government made with the Native People, they kept all of them, but the United States only kept half of the treaties. For federal policies, American government gives an immense amount of respect to such diverse cultures and groups, but where is the respect for the Indians. When the United States first became an independent nation, it adopted the European policies towards these native peoples, but over the course of two centuries the U.S. adapted its own widely varying policies regarding the changing...
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...“A Silk Road Legacy: The Spread of Buddhism and Islam*” is written by Xinru Liu, a professor at the College of New Jersey. Xinru Liu is an associate professor of history on that campus. He has written many other peer reviewed history journals in his past. This specific article of his that I chose was a part of The Journal of World History in 2011 and was published by The University of Hawai’i Press. It was first presented at the 2009 Numata Conference “Buddhism and Islam,” in May of 2009 at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. A professor by the name of Lynda Shaffer has been Liu’s coauthor and the first reader of his writings for the past decade. She also edited, revised this article as well. This article endeavors the challenge of examining...
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...Arabic language First, it is important to define what actually makes an Arab. The answer is quite simple – The Arabic language! An Arab is a member of a linguistic group—and therefore, the Arab World can best be defined as the region in which people predominantly speak Arabic. Yet throughout what would be considered the Arab World, tens of thousands of people speak languages other than Arabic, ranging from the numerous dialects of Berber on the African coast of the Mediterranean to Kurdish and Armenian in southwest Asia, and so on. Arabic is a Semitic language and the sixth most common language in the world. It is a language of religious importance since it is the holy language of the world's approximately 1 billion followers of Islam. It is used as a first language by approximately 200 million people and as a second language by about 246 million speakers. It does also belong to the six official languages of the United Nations. It is characterized by diglossia, a linguistic situation in which two varieties of the same language have a functional distribution, with the spoken variety used in informal and intimate contexts and the written variety, the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), acquired through literacy and used in written and formal discourse. For those wanting to do business in Arabic-speaking markets, the Modern Standard Arabic is important, because it is common to all the countries in the Arab world, and is used in newspapers, magazines, books, and government documents...
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...(Muller, 2005). Although there are a few positive aspects to support globalization in the Arab region, the effects of this system on this part of the world are those that continue to both oppress and leave it behind in the growing world of communications and trade. Not only does globalization harm the region financially, it poses a great threat to the economy, culture and the identity of the Arab world. The impacts of globalization ultimately create negative effects on the Arab Region concerning all of the culture parts particularly religion. This cultural influence changes people’s thought, opinions, and views towards the world. As the values in the Arab Region hold strong to religion, people do not consider it as only a faith, but also as a source of laws and provisions that regulates all their life aspects including marriage and divorce, economic deals, and ruling systems in their countries. (Najjar, 2005) However, after the rise of globalization phenomenon, this belief has changes constantly because of what called secularization, which means “the separation of life and religion”. The western thought that a one should live his life with freedom, human rights, and democracy, without the need of religion is now held by a large number of Arabs. They begin to change their beliefs, act freely, and live their lives ignoring the importance of holding to their religion. For example in some Arab countries like Dubai, there is a street full of bars and...
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...Fatima Soleman Abdi Idd Hist 275 Essay 1 : Islam was born in the Hijaz in the 7th century and expanded to the rest of the Middle East where its key institutions were established. Simultaneously, it went through a rapid wave of expansion and eventually reached the African continent though North Africa and was progressively embraced in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, we cannot say there was such a thing as a unique process of expansion of Islam because an African identity was inexistent. Indeed, the continent and especially our area of focus, consisting of North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, was composed of different regions defined by their ethnicity and their ancestry. Furthermore, the physical separation created by the Sahara desert also played a major role into accentuating the disparities. We will explore here, how the introduction of Islam in both regions differed significantly and how in the secondary phase of “rooting” of the faith, this key difference in the first contacts the religion had in these two regions led to the establishment of two distinct Islams. Finally, we will demonstrate that when we look beyond the complexity of both processes, they ultimately share many similarities. The main difference in the process of arrival of Islam in North Africa and Sub-Saharan African is displayed by the rapidity of expansion. Whereas by 720, North Africa was controlled by the Muslims, the adoption of Islam below the Sahara appeared to be more slowly...
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...meet the US president to clear his and his son’s name, when his teenage son was killed in a racial violence after the 9-11 terrorist attack. It’s not a real life story; it’s the plot of the world-renowned movie “My Name is Khan”. Unfortunately real life tragedies of Arabic speaker in everyday life don’t always have happy endings like Rizwan’s, in that movie. After 9-11 Arabic speakers were blacklisted, shunned and suffered losses, and some were killed; In the catastrophic event of 9-11 along with the religion Islam, the language got agonized, anyone who speaks it, anyone who is directly or indirectly attached to it – Arabic, the most misunderstood, misjudged and unappreciated language of current Western world. The aim of this essay is to discuss the negative stereotypes of Arabic speakers portrayed in western society with examples given in relation to the role of the media and the effects of religious racism on average everyday life of users of this language. Religiously and ethnically diverse societies produce a range of constantly changing issues and challenges for society, groups and individuals. Some of these issues include exclusion of minority groups, racism, harassment, stereotyping, intimidation, denial of employment, disapproval to build religious establishments and problems...
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... Culture is shared by members of a society. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE The basic elements of culture are social structure, language, communication, religion, and values and attitudes. The way in which the elements interact affects the local environment in which international businesses operate Islamic Law (known as Shariah) forbids charging interest. Instead, lenders under Islamic Law may charge “fees” or “rent” to borrowers. Shariah scholars say there is no prohibition against using an interest rate as a benchmark to calculate appropriate fees or rents. Several U.S. lenders (including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) are now offering “Islamic home mortgages.” Such mortgages are described in detail in the textbook. The price of the Islamic mortgages tends to be very comparable to the price of traditional mortgages. Values and Attitudes * Values are the principles and standards accepted by members of a society; attitudes encompass the actions, feelings, and thoughts that result from those values. Attitudes about time, authority, education, and rewards reflect an individual’s deep-seated values and shape the behavior of, and opportunities available to, companies operating in a given culture. * Time. In Anglo-Saxon cultures, the prevailing attitude toward time is that it is valuable and should not be wasted. Conversely, Latin Americans and Arabs do not share this attitude and think nothing of starting a business meeting late, or being interrupted during a meeting. ...
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...society” as an integral part of a comprehensive programme of Arab renaissance. The first of these axes presents the premises and principles guiding the knowledge society. The second deals with the conceptual structure of the discourses that have attempted to shed light on the changes in modern societies since the information revolution. Here we have constructed an operational definition of the knowledge society in the Arab world, based on the ideas put forward in the Report’s various chapters. The third axis constructs the systems of reference that have guided, and continue to guide, knowledge discourse in the contemporary world and allows us to become acquainted with the dimensions and options underlying earlier reports on the same topic. The fourth axis examines some of the problematic issues posed today by information and knowledge development in contemporary society, believing that reflection on these issues will influence efforts to close knowledge gaps in the Arab world and achieve comprehensive human development. While subsequent chapters of the Report examine the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of the most significant foundations of knowledge, this chapter deals with the theoretical structure of Arab knowledge performance and constructs the intellectual frame of reference that underlies it. It seeks to provide insights that will help us acquire keys to the knowledge society, develop the field of knowledge in the Arab world, and support active intercommunication with the...
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...November 12, 2013 Kesha Eason Throughout the recent history of the last one hundred years Colonialism has proved to be in part a good thing for the world. It has shown to be at times violent with nations fighting war after war. But it also has brought numerous different cultures together. It has also helped to stop the genocide against people of different faiths and walks of life around the world. No matter how controversial Colonialism is in History it has proved to be a positive thing as a whole and it has helped to develop and modernize the world. 1. Negatives of Colonialism The roots of slavery quite often are varied and extensive, but often go hand in hand with Colonialism. What happens when a country invades and controls another nation or area, the controlled nation or area is forced to give up food, goods, and people usually by force. This has happened throughout history and it is very well written down and documented. Slavery has been used as a tool of colonialism all over the world. It is not uncommon that the people of the newly acquired territory will be forced into slavery to pay the debts of the war and to pay for the goods coming in to the country, clear out the land for the people that will surely come in, and it is a form of subjugation as a way to show the people that the new ruler reigns supreme now. It is well documented that the longest running slave trade is the Arab Slave Trade. The Arab Slave Trade was quite extensive with roots stretching...
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...UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ISU 6/1/2012 Mak'an Dakwal United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates is a Middle East country that is located in between Saudi Arabia and Oman. It is in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. UAE has a total land area of 36,278 square miles. (Daily Almanac, 2012). Saudi Arabia borders UAE in the west and south, Qatar borders it in the north and Oman to the west. The United Arab Emirates is made up of seven emirates bound by an official constitution. The seven emirates are also the seven Trucial states which are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Umm al-Qaiwain, Ras al-Khaiman, Sharjah, Ajman, and Fujairah. They were brought together under one government on 2nd December, 1971. (Daily Almanac, 2012). Abu Dhabi is the largest of them and it is also the official capital. It makes up 85% of the total land area of the country. The smallest emirate is Ajman. The government of UAE consists of a president, prime minister and the seven emirates are each headed by emirs. The culture and tradition of the UAE is strongly structured on Islamic rules and laws. (Daily Almanac, 2012). Almost all indigenes of the UAE are Muslim by religion; Islam is the national religion in the Arab land. Issues concerning marriage, divorce, inheritance, economics, politics, and personal conduct are governed by Sharia (Islamic) law. A majority of UAE Muslims are Sunnis and the minority sect is the Shi’a...
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...begin with a short history of Arabs. Beirut, Mount Hermon and Lebanon is where most of the Lebanese settlers in America came from. There are known also as the Armenian population and they speak of variety of language’s including Turkish and Armenian. However, Syriac is spoken by Assyrians, along with French and English. During World War 1, France and England separated the region into English and French territories. Eventually, “England assumed control of what became Palestine and Jordan, and France took over what became Syria and Lebanon” (Every Culture). The very first Arabic speaking Christian Lebanese individuals migrated...
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