Please reply to the below comment. You can agree/disagree and add…

Question Answered step-by-step Please reply to the below comment. You can agree/disagree and add… Please reply to the below comment. You can agree/disagree and add more information or add a special insight to it. Comment: In “The New Era in World Politics” from The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, author Samuel Huntington states that: “The central theme of [his] book is that culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world” (Huntington, 1996, p. 521). Through this, it is evident that individuals seem to value their own culture, and that the beliefs they hold shape who they are as individuals, relative to the rest of society. Thus, it is important to note and further explore how the emergence of terrorist groups in parts of the world differ, and what these differences mean for us, in terms of conflict between various groups, societies, and populations.  When specifically analyzing Al-Qaeda and its start, PBS’ Inside the Terror Network mentions that “one of the principal goals of al Quaeda was to drive the United States armed forces out of Saudi Arabia and Somalia by violence. Members of al Qaeda fatwahs (rulings on Islamic law) indicating that such attacks were both proper and necessary” (PBS, n.d.). Based on what Professor McCarty explained in this week’s lecture titled, “The Cold War and “The Clash of Civilizations”” about how Huntington’s believed that conflicts are produced primarily based on the culture that is upheld by specific populations, as opposed to politics or economics, the beliefs of this terrorist group align with the claims that Huntington made, but they also include other related factors (McCarty, 2020). Particularly, while cultural differences relate back to certain values and beliefs that are important to a specific group and population, what we are able to understand through examining the timeline of Al-Qaeda is that this group and the United States are different in terms of political beliefs and general ideology, along with culture.  Additionally, Al-Qaeda focuses primarily on utilizing extreme aggression and violence in order to reach their so-called goals. It is evident that they do not think about the repercussions of their actions and how this could affect innocent individuals. Also, the fact that they utilize Islamic law in order to establish their power and dominance seems disrespectful to those who practice Islamic law and uphold these values in their everyday life. Their necessity and desire to immediately resort to violence in order to create terror comes to show the evident differences between Al-Qaeda and the United States in terms of morality and values that occur along with an individual’s cultural differences and beliefs. Therefore, by analyzing these differences, it is evident that differences in ideology, politics, culture all play a very large role in the emergence of conflict between the United States and Al-Qaeda. All in all, while Samuel Huntington makes compelling arguments about the reasons why differences may emerge based on conflict, it is important to consider the ways in which these differences are based on various relevant factors, instead of claiming that one aspect is merely superior than another; hence, while cultural differences are evident in producing conflicts, political and economic factors, along with differences in ideology also play a role.  Social Science Sociology Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)