Expert answer:Culture Clash: Tradition and Modernity
Expert answer:Read the case studies “The Democratization of Italy”, “Kashmir”, and “South Africa” in Chapter 2 of Cross-Cultural Perspectives and then appraise the impact of modernity on both the developed and developing worlds with respect to tradition, economic development, and politics. In your opinion, has modernity led to more difficulties in the developed or developing world? Justify your answer with examples from the text and information from at least one of the following countries, which can be found at the CIA World Factbook (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html): AfghanistanBrazilCote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)ChinaEgyptGermanyGreeceMexicoSaudi ArabiaVietnam Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references.
week_2_disc_1_soc315.docx
case_study_week_2.pdf
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Week 2 Disc 1
Read the case studies “The Democratization of Italy”, “Kashmir”, and “South Africa” in Chapter
2 of Cross-Cultural Perspectives and then appraise the impact of modernity on both the
developed and developing worlds with respect to tradition, economic development, and
politics. In your opinion, has modernity led to more difficulties in the developed or developing
world? Justify your answer with examples from the text and information from at least one of the
following countries, which can be found at the CIA World Factbook (Links to an external
site.)Links to an external site. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/index.html):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Afghanistan
Brazil
Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
China
Egypt
Germany
Greece
Mexico
Saudi Arabia
Vietnam
Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from
required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references.
2
Associated Press
Culture and Politics in
the Past and Present
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to do the following:
• Think critically about the origins of contemporary culture and politics.
• Understand the shared history of the developed and developing world.
• Identify the role that culture has played in politics throughout history.
• Analyze cultural and political differences using historical themes.
mis66623_02_c02_037-078.indd 37
1/25/12 1:48 PM
CHAPTER 2
Introduction
Introduction
“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” (Santayana,
1905, p. 11).
I
mplicit in this quote is the argument that history is a matter of recurrent themes, and in
order to understand today’s society, we must understand the past. How exactly does
a society wind up with its current culture and politics? We must look to history for
guidance. The use of history to explain the origins of a society’s culture and politics is a
standard method of social analysis. By knowing a society’s history and its relationship to
its culture and politics, you will have the ability to better analyze foreign societies.
This chapter explores the relationship between current culture and politics by looking at
history’s impact on contemporary society. The main goal of this chapter is to help you
develop the ability to connect history to contemporary politics and culture. We will integrate the themes studied in the first chapter, especially the three dimensions of culture,
and will introduce three historical themes: the state, empire, and development. By the end
of the chapter, you should have the ability to “connect the dots” between history, culture,
and politics in order to explain and understand diverse societies.
Voices: What’s in a Song?
There can be more to a song than just a beat. In the Balkans, a type of dance music is also a cultural
and political phenomenon with deep historical roots. Situated between Russia, the Middle East, Central Europe, and the Mediterranean, the people of the Balkans have been influenced by, and have
influenced, many of the world’s prominent cultures.
In the 1990s, when many of the western Balkan countries were fighting for their independence, a
new style of dance music rose in popularity: turbo-folk, a mix of traditional Serbian and Bulgarian folk
music, Western European dance music, and Arabesque, a sound popular in Turkey and the Middle
East. Turbo-folk was more than just a mix of cultures; it was a symbol of Serbian nationalism. When
the subgenre first emerged, it was most popular among the young Serbs that were fighting to keep
breakaway regions under Serbian control. People in the region
began to associate the music with Serbian pride and Serbia’s
wars (Gordy, 2002). The marriage of traditional Serbian culture
in the form of folk music, along with the energy of the modern
dance music, symbolized a modern, powerful Serbia to the
Serbs that listened to it (Kronja, 2010; Gordy, 1999).
Associated Press
mis66623_02_c02_037-078.indd 38
One of the most prominent turbo-folk singers was Ceca (pronounced tsay-tsuh), the wife of a notorious Serbian gangster
and war criminal who organized his own army to fight in his
country’s wars against Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Oddly
enough, Ceca’s songs dealt with typical disco themes like relationships and love, yet listeners still associated them with Serbian identity and politics. It was the meanings behind the folk
songs sampled in the music that made Ceca synonymous with
Serbian pride. (continued)
1/25/12 1:48 PM
Section 2.1 Origins of Contemporary Culture and Politics
CHAPTER 2
Voices (continued)
The meanings behind symbols can change over time, and such was the case with turbo-folk. Once
Serbia made peace with its neighbors, the music’s popularity spread throughout the region. Turbofolk clubs even appeared in Croatia and Bosnia, two of Serbia’s previous rivals. Without the war in
the background, other nationalities began to see the music as a source of pan-Balkan pride. Others,
however, still associated the songs with the war. As a result, turbo-folk remains controversial today as
people argue over what it truly represents to them (Kronja, 2010).
To the people of the Balkans, turbo-folk is not just another style of dance music. It has a special meaning linked to the region’s cultural and political past. In the songs, some may hear a fusion of Turkish and
European cultures. Others may hear their nation’s struggle for independence or survival. What ties these
and other reactions together is history; one cannot understand turbo-folk as a cultural and a political
phenomenon without taking into consideration the long history of the Balkan Peninsula and its people.
1. Are there any subgenres of pop music that have symbolic meaning in your culture? What are
they, and what do they represent politically and culturally?
2. Why might a person make a political issue out of popular music?
2.1 Origins of Contemporary Culture and Politics
C
ultural symbols and traditions, for example, will make more sense to you if you can
place them in a society’s historical context. The issues most important to a society
will be clearer to you if you know how they have been impacted by, and are products of, that society’s history. For example, you may have heard of the cultural symbol the
“evil eye,” a wide-held belief among many Mediterranean cultures, that a certain look or
glare can cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed (Story, 2003). As a
by-product of the “evil eye,” some cultures created additional symbols to be used as “protective measures.” Still common today, in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey,
Armenia, Iran, and Greece is the nazar, an eye-shaped amulet believed to protect against the
“evil eye.” It is a visible symbol, hung in offices and homes, and incorporated into jewelry.
Thus the nazar is the symbol that has grown out of the society’s history of the “evil eye.”
History’s relationship with culture and politics can be looked at in three ways: tradition,
legacy, and collective memory. We will start the chapter looking specifically at each of
these relationships.
Traditions
Traditions are social institutions that contribute to a society’s culture and influence how
people behave politically. Inherently, they originate in the past and, after constant practice,
become so engrained in a society that they are followed with little thought. For example,
cultural traditions in Afghanistan’s regions are so ingrained in society that the Afghan
government has found it extremely difficult to convince its citizens that they are part
of a larger Afghan identity. In general, the Afghan people have greater loyalty to their
own similar ethnic group, whether that is Pashtun, Tajiks, or Hazaras, than they do to
their governing national body. While in South America, a shared history of anticolonial
mis66623_02_c02_037-078.indd 39
1/25/12 1:48 PM
Section 2.1 Origins of Contemporary Culture and Politics
CHAPTER 2
revolution has become a tradition of defying foreign powers (Banuazizi & Weiner, 1988;
World Bank Country Study, 2005).
Case Study: Afghanistan and Tribalism
Tribalism is generally defined as loyalty to the ethnic group rather than to the state. Especially in rural
areas, tribal identities usually supersede national ones. Afghanistan was never colonized by outside powers, and it is one of the few countries of the world to have inherited the boundaries of a pre-modern,
indigenous kingdom. This kingdom emerged in the 1700s on traditional dynastic lines based on the family of the monarch. The modern, nation-state ideal never had any popularity in Afghanistan. The creators
of Afghanistan were mostly members of the Pashtun ethnic group, but they did not attempt to build a
nation-state around Pashtun identity. In fact, more Pashtuns live in Pakistan than in Afghanistan.
With that said, Afghanistan is one of the world’s more ethnically diverse countries. Its largest ethnic
group is the Pashtuns, who inhabit most of the southern portion of Afghanistan. Northern Afghanistan is inhabited by the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Turkmens. The Hazaras of Afghanistan’s central mountains
speak a form of Persian but are considered to be a separate ethnic group, in part, because they follow
Shiite rather than Sunni Islam. Smaller groups are found elsewhere in the country (Ewans, 2002).
Approximately half of the people of Afghanistan speak Dari as their first language. Dari speakers are
concentrated in the north. Three separate ethnicities are ascribed to the Dari-speaking people: the
settled farmers and townspeople in the west and north are Tajik; the traditionally semi-nomadic
people of the west-center are Aimaks; and the East Asian-appearing villagers of the central mountains
are, as already noted, Hazaras. Approximately 11 percent of the people of Afghanistan speak Turkic
languages. Other ethnic groups in Afghanistan include the Baluchis, the Nuristanis (who speak five
separate languages), and the Pashai, all of whose languages fall in the Indo-Iranian branch of the IndoEuropean family, and the Brahui, who speak a Dravidian language related to those of southern India.
Each of these ethnic groups offers unique languages, customs, and traditions (Ewans, 2002).
1. Are there any examples of tribalism in your culture? How have they influenced the culture and
politics?
2. What would have to happen for Afghanistan’s people to become more loyal to the state?
Cultural and political traditions can also be understood through the lens of path dependence. Path dependence is a way of thinking about how people and societies stick to
their traditions, even when it might seem like breaking them is a good idea. In short, path
dependence exists when the costs of changing a tradition (the path) outweighs the potential benefits therein (Pierson, 2000; Pierson 2004). A good example of path dependence can
be seen with the United Nations. This institute is often criticized for being outdated, but
the amount of leadership, time, and effort it would take to reinvent the institution and to
change its 65-year traditions is too much for the international community to bear (Fasulo,
2009). These and many other traditions that originate in history resist change and have the
potential to constrain how societies deal with political problems in the present.
Legacy
Events and traditions of the past can still be a part of politics and culture in myriad ways;
that is, they leave a legacy. The issues that mattered to people in the past leave a legacy on
mis66623_02_c02_037-078.indd 40
1/25/12 1:48 PM
Section 2.1 Origins of Contemporary Culture and Politics
CHAPTER 2
how people think and act in the present. For example, in the 19th century, Japan and some
of the most powerful countries in Europe such as the United Kingdom imposed their will
upon the Chinese people by capitalizing on a weak and fragmented Chinese government.
That led to the first Anglo-Chinese war (1839–1842) known as the First Opium War, which
was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over diplomatic relations, trade, and administration of justice. Chinese officials wanted to stop what
was perceived as an outflow of silver and to control the spread of opium by confiscating
supplies of opium from British traders. The British government objected to the seizures
and used its newly developed military power to enforce violent “redress” (Tsang, 2007).
The Chinese call this period of their history the “century of humiliation,” and their leaders often refer to it when discussing current foreign relations. While the 21st century is
unlikely to be a repeat story for China, the memory of the 19th century frames China’s
foreign policy decisions as well as its domestic politics (Cohen, 2003).
Unresolved conflicts from the past can also be important issues on today’s political agenda.
The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is a classic example of how unsettled
issues, even those that are centuries and millennia old, are still important to people. Currently, Palestinians and Israelis both claim that the land between the Sinai Peninsula, the
Dead Sea, and Lebanon belongs to them. These claims stem from a protracted conflict
between these groups that dates back to the 19th century. Other related issues, some of
which date back to biblical times, also complicate the Israel-Palestine problem.
Did You Know? Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be traced back to the late 19th century with the rise of
Zionism and Arab Nationalism. Beginning in the 1860s, Arab nationalism, the ideological movement
that celebrated the Arab civilization, was growing. The Arab nationalistic movement called for political
union in the Arab world, with its central premise being that the peoples of the Arab world constitute
one nation bound together by language, culture, and religion (Choueiri, 2000). During this time, the
Levant (the geographic region and cultural zone of Western Asia, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and
the Palestinian region) was Arabic. The language spoken was Arabic. The majority of people living in
the area were Arabic.
As Arab nationalism was rising, the Jewish “Zionist Movement” was growing as well. The Jewish desire
to “return to Zion” had been part of Judaic religious thought for more than a thousand years. However, it wasn’t until the 1870s and 1880s when the Jewish population of Europe (and to a lesser extent
the Middle East) began to actively discuss the establishment of a Jewish Nation in the “holy land.” This
Zionist Movement of the late 19th century was due, in part, as a result of the widespread persecution
of Jews in Russia and Europe (Harms and Ferry, 2008).
The desires of the Zionists to create a Jewish state in Israel, coupled with the desires of the Arab
Nationals to maintain Arab Palestine formed the foundation of the protracted conflict within the region.
1. Do you think it is possible for this Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be resolved? Why or why not?
2. If this conflict cannot be resolved, how might this legacy impact future generations?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one example of an intractable conflict, in which a protracted issue between people, based on historical grievances, is unlikely to be settled in
the future. Frozen conflicts are similar, as they are simply intractable conflicts that have
mis66623_02_c02_037-078.indd 41
1/25/12 1:48 PM
Section 2.1 Origins of Contemporary Culture and Politics
CHAPTER 2
reached a peaceful status quo but are still unresolved. Intractable and frozen conflicts exist
throughout the world in places like Moldova, Cyprus, Taiwan, Kashmir, and the South
China Sea. These conflicts are typically founded upon and passed along through the culture’s collective memory.
Collective Memory
Historians and cultural analysts tend to study collective memory, which is “the way that
people reconstruct a sense of the past” (Confino, 1988, p. 1,386). If memory is an individual’s way to remember history, collective memory is a society’s way to remember the past.
Collective memory relates to culture, specifically identity, as well as myriad dimensions
of contemporary politics.
A society’s collective memory can also include “forgetting” part of the past in order to move
forward—it is not simply failing to remember, but instead actively choosing to put aside the
past and its traumas in order to create a clean slate and make room for the new (Nietzsche,
1989). For example, while Germany was divided into a Democratic West and a Communist
East for forty years, after the fall of communism and the reunification of Germany as a
whole, Germans chose to move beyond their years of separation and now have become one
of the most powerful members of the European Union. They have actively chosen to focus
on the future and their present unified state, rather than the disjointed and unhappy past.
Collective identity is also inherently political. For example, how should a society memorialize a war? Should the war be remembered as heroic or tragic? Other dimensions of culture, such as beliefs and values, are likely to influence one’s opinion on the matter. Also,
societies are highly unlikely to
find consensus on a war memorial or any other matter of collective memory.
Collective memories can also
be manipulated by leaders to
achieve political goals. They
can use memories as analogies for current problems and
decisions—one common analogy is likening a diplomatic
standoff to Munich in 1939, when
the allied powers regrettably
appeased Nazi Germany. Leaders that wish to take aggressive
action during an international
crisis will liken their situation
to Munich and implore others
in their country to help avoid
“another Munich” (Khong, 1992).
mis66623_02_c02_037-078.indd 42
Imagebroker.net/SuperStock
A German monument in remembrance of the 1945 Dachau death
march. How do memorials like this one function in our collective
memory? Would a less tragic monument be as powerful?
1/25/12 1:48 PM
Section 2.2 The Culture of the State and the Empire
CHAPTER 2
Case Study: “Another Munich”
After British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler at the Munich Conference in
1938, he declared that he had brought “peace for our time.” The Munich Conference has haunted Western policymakers and political think tanks ever since, becoming an endemic component of international
policy. For example, the fear of “another Munich” was one of the driving forces behind NATO military
operations in Kosovo in the late 1990s (Kaplan, 2007). In the lead-up to the Kosovo intervention, Slobodan Milošević had effectively broken up Albanian cultural autonomy in Kosovo. Some 40,000 Yugoslav
troops and police replaced the original Albanian-run security forces. A punitive regime was imposed
that was condemned as a police state. Poverty and unemployment reached catastrophic levels, with
about 80% of Kosovo’s population becoming unemployed. By the time NATO issued an “activation warning” for both a limited air option and a phased air campaign in Kosovo, there was an estimated 250,000
displaced Albanians, 30,000 of whom were in the woods without shelter. Winter was fast approaching.
Before the end of the bombing, Milošević and others were charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with crimes against humanity including murder, forcible transfer,
deportation, and “persecution on political, racial, or religious grounds” (Clines, 1999; Gellman, 1999).
1. What role did collective memory play in this example?
2. What could have been done differently to avoid “another Munich”?
3. What is a recent example of “another …
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
How it works
- Paste your instructions in the instructions box. You can also attach an instructions file
- Select the writer category, deadline, education level and review the instructions
- Make a payment for the order to be assignment to a writer
- Download the paper after the writer uploads it
Will the writer plagiarize my essay?
You will get a plagiarism-free paper and you can get an originality report upon request.
Is this service safe?
All the personal information is confidential and we have 100% safe payment methods. We also guarantee good grades