constructing new political, economic, and social realities
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Constructing New Political, Economic, and Social Realities . The Global South: Known previously as the Third World , Developing countries, or Least Developed Countries During the second half of 20 th century, represented 75 percent of world’s population - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Constructing New Political, Economic, and Social Realities
The Global South:
• Known previously as the Third World, Developing countries, or Least Developed Countries
• During the second half of 20th century, represented 75 percent of world’s population
• Almost all of the fourfold increase in human numbers in 20th century
• The Post-World War II years brought significant changes to much of Africa and Asia
• Nationalist movements coupled with a weakened Europe led to the rise of many independent nations
• But unlike Latin America after independence where large landowners benefited the most; in Africa and Asia, the educated elite benefited most
• But creating national unity was often difficult; particularly in Africa where competing political parties identified primarily with ethnic or “tribal” groups
• By the early 1980s, the military intervened in at least thirty of Africa’s forty-six independent states and actively governed more than half of them
• Achieving economic development has also proved immensely difficult
• And it is important to note that a common issue affecting the Global South involves the uneasy relationship between older traditions and the more recent outlook associated with modernity and West
• And nowhere has the consequences of cultural experiments with modernity been more consequential than in the Islamic world
Case Study: Turkey
• After World War I, the modern nation of Turkey emerged from the ashes of Ottoman empire as a republic
• The republic was led by the general, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938)
• During 1920s and 1930s, Atatürk presided over national cultural revolution
• Atatürk wanted to create a thoroughly modern and Western Turkish society and viewed many traditional Islamic institutions and beliefs as obstacles
• Within a few years, the caliphate had officially ended, Sufi orders were disbanded, religious courts abolished, and sharia replaced by Swiss legal codes
• Public education was completely secularized, and the Latin alphabet replaced Arabic script for writing the Turkish language
• Religious leaders (the ulama) were brought more firmly under state control
• The most visible symbol of the movement towards modernization and westernization occurred in the realm of dress or clothing
• Turkish men ordered to abandon traditional headdress known as the fez and encouraged to wear brimmed hats
• Polygamy was abolished as was a husband’s right to repudiate his wife or wives
• Under European-style legal codes, women achieved equal rights to divorce, child custody, inheritance, and education
• By mid-1930s, women granted right to vote in national elections
• Like Japan in the late 1800s, “revolution from above” led by military and civilian officials occurred
• And these revolutionaries were unburdened by close ties to traditional landholding groups
• Yet Turkey underwent a cultural revolution in public life not a social or economic revolution
• It was still firmly attached to Islamic tradition at the local level
• Atatürk’s answer was to fully embrace modern culture and Western ways in public life and to relegate Islam to the sphere of private life
Case Study: Iran
• The epicenter of Islamic revival in the 1970s was Iran
• As opposition mounted to the modernizing, secularizing, and American-supported government of the shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi (reigned 1941-1979); an Islamic fundamentalist movement gained support
• One elderly cleric in particular, the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, organized opposition from exile in Paris and became the center of a growing movement demanding the shah’s removal
• As the nation revolted and slipped into anarchy, the shah abdicated; and in early 1979, he and his family fled the country
• Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and appointed his own government
• Iran became a theocracy; a government officials who were regarded as divinely appointed
• Sharia became law of the land, and religious leaders themselves assumed reins of government
• Culturally, the new regime sought moral purification of country under state control
• But no class upheaval or radical redistribution of wealth followed; private property was maintained, and a new privileged elite emerged
• Nor did an Islamic revolution mean abandonment of economic modernity
Iran is actively pursuing nuclear power and perhaps nuclear weapons, much to the consternation of the West