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ETHNIC GROUP CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PAKISTAN
ETHNIC GROUP CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PAKISTANStudent’s name
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20/10/2011
ETHNIC GROUP CONFLICT
For many decades now, the Palestinians and the Israelis have been under constant conflict. Among the issues that have sustained this conflict are religious differences, ideological differences as well as land occupation among others. Israelis and Palestinians both claim a common decent. Israelis are descendants of the younger son of Abraham, Isaac while the Palestinians who are considered Arabs are descendants of the elder son of Abraham, Ishmael. They therefore both claim the territory known as Israeli/Palestine land in the Middle East (Dershowitz, 2005). Muslims who are mostly Palestinians base their claim of the territory in the holy Quran while the Jews base theirs in the holy bible.
Palestinians largely confess to the Islamic religious doctrines while the Israelis confess to the doctrines of Judaism, a religion that is based on the Mosaic Law or the torah (Dershowitz, 2005). While the Jews pray facing Jerusalem the capital of this state for centuries, the Palestinians pray with their backs turned to Jerusalem. Jews were displaced from the land they presently occupy centuries ago. It is recorded that Israel emerged as an independent nation about two thousand years before the emergence of Islam, the faith that most Palestinians confess to. This shows that the Israeli community has been in the territory under contention longer than their Palestinians or Arab counterparts. A point to note is that in the early centuries, these two racial groups lived in harmony with each other. Essentially these two people are one and the same people, only divided by historical and religious believes.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century saw the immigration of a large number of Jews to this territory. This fall was initiated by Sir Henry McMahon with the help of Husain in an Arab revolt. In return, Britain had promised the Arabs that it would help them create an Arabic nation under Hashemite (Dershowitz, 2005). This never happened as the British allowed Jews especially those in Europe to immigrate to what was before the Palestinian state. Feeling betrayed and used, the Palestinians Arabs initiated streams of terror attacks and uprising against the Jewish immigrants in an effort to reclaim the land they considered their own. Britain tried to seek the aid of the United Nations to create a two state nation with no success. During the reign of the Nazi in Germany and Europe, many Jews fled from Europe as they were being killed and immigrating to Palestine. Their number grew significantly further increasing their power in the region. Israel declared its independence in 1948 without indicating any geographical boundaries. This is what has been the major cause of conflict as each party claims this territory.
Conformity is the situation in which people in a social setting match their behaviors, cultural and religious beliefs and attitudes to what these people perceive as normal in that society. This conformity can either be direct or indirect or through free will or coercion. Conformity gives an individual a status of belonging in ones society (Beloff, 1958). In the case of Palestine and Israel, the Palestinians have in a way been forced to conform to the ways of life of the Jewish society. This is because the Jews have proven to be stronger both economically and in terms of military. Though the Palestinians have been rebelling against the Jewish rule for some time now, many of them conformed to the fact that they could not oust the Israelites and have thus been integrated in the Israelites community.
Social cognition refers how concepts or information is processed, stored and retrieved from an individual’s brain. It refers to the perceptions that individuals form in their brains of a given phenomenon or concept (Fiske, & Taylor, 2008). It is kind of stereotyping. Social perception is the manner in which individuals perceive social entities (Abrams, & Michael, 1999). These include the perception of one’s self and others and the general society as a whole. The perception of self involves the analysis of one’s behavior, physical attributes and abilities and disabilities among others.
These two phenomena in a way can be used to explain the prolonged conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Though in way they share a common ancestry, the two groups adamantly reject one another’s cultural or religious believes. Each claims that they are right in their own way. The Israelites believe that they are the chosen people. This is the social cognition they have cultivated in their brains. They believe that of the two Abraham sons, Isaac the younger son was the son of the promise. The Palestinians on the other hand believe that God’s promise was to all the of Abraham’s descendants. They thus believe that they also have a strong claim to the land under contention.
In terms of perception, which is more or less the same concept as social cognition, the Israelites consider themselves as a superior race based on the biblical believes as the chosen ones. Palestinians dispute this as they believe that god blessed every one without any favor. The two groups therefore have negative perceptions of one another and thus the tension between them.
The Palestine/Israeli conflict can be easily resolved if the two groups can be brought to a situation where they just respect one another. The key element of respect is what lacks between these two groups. Trying to split the region into two individual states will not work. This is because each group claims a given tradition and cultural history in the whole of the region. None of the two groups can exist without each and every part of that region. It would be easier therefore if the two groups could make up a confederation in which two states exist under the banner of one central government.
References
Abrams, D, & Michael A. H. (Eds.). (1999). Social Identity and Social Cognition: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Beloff, H. (1958). Two forms of social conformity: Acquiescence and conventionality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 56, 99–106.
Dershowitz, A. (2005). The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Fiske, S.T. & Taylor, S. E. (2008). Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Spreadable Media
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Spreadable Media
The current media is characterized by the idea of spreadability and stickness. A clear understanding of the difference between the two terms will help understand what the idea of spreadability offers that is missed by the idea of stickness. Spreadability refers to the idea that media content can be moved from one particular site to another, and sometimes in a messy manner (Nightingale, 2011). Stickness, on the other hand, is the feature of a media content to initiate and maintain attention to an audience, and create an engagement for the audience as well. While spreadability uses the vehicle of social interaction to have ideas flow from one to many points, stickness involves the point concentration of the attention created by a particular piece of media. Indeed, stickness has the characteristic of creating a unified experience for the audience while spreadability creates a diversified experience. It is true to say that spreadability induces the need to diffuse the content while stickness induces the need to hold the information.
The case of Susan Boyle is a good illustration of spreadability and stickness. Susan’s video spread rapidly, attracting 77 million views on Youtube. Its spread is attributed to Twitter, Facebook, and microblogging. Boyle’s case also demonstrates stickness in that a good number of channel users got held by it, and used their channels to spread it. The 77 million views on Youtube also demonstrate the idea of stickness in that these people were attracted by the media content. Spreadability is very evident in that the dispersion of the content was as a result of the sharing over the social media sites.
It is wrong to understand the spread of the media as ‘viral media’ or ‘memes,’ as many people mistake. By viral media, people simply try to mean that the media has the ability to spread very quickly. However, this is a poor way to understand the spread of the media because there is a distinct difference between spreadability and stickness (Nightingale, 2011). In truth, a media content that has the stickness feature will not necessarily have the spreadability feature.
Reference
Nightingale, V. (2011). The handbook of media audiences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Ethnic food
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Ethnic food
Ethnic food refers to foods that originate from a specific region and heritage and that the people utilize their awareness of indigenous ingredients of plants and animals. Each ethnic food is associated with particular people who find pride in these foods (Kwon). For example, baklava food from India or Chimichanga food from Mexico are regarded to be ethnic food. Persons from different countries are always eager to introduce their foods to an immigrant country. Of course, each nation’s food has its story and past as well as nutritional advantages though often the latter has inadequate information. Ethnic food consumption has been growing over the years. The perception and attitudes toward ethnic foods have been changing. Currently, people look for restaurants that offer traditional flavors and tastes. The attitude has been changing because of the perception that ethnic foods have low calories and low fat and increased nutritional content.
The process of development to ethnic Americans is long and gradual. One can only think of it as the emergence of a new social group. Immigrants often try to stick to their cultures. However, when it comes to food the perception is different. Most people try to recreate the foods from their homeland with little or no success. Several factors lead to these. For example, in a new land as in America getting basic ingredients is often stressful. A simple constituent such as flour may of a different quality from that in the homeland. Other ingredients may prove challenging to find or they may be expensive to obtain. Consequently, immigrants often proceed to adopt alternatives ingredients for the various dishes. Even getting the same cooking equipment is a difficult task. The Bosanski ionac is a Bosnian national dish that is cooked in a special earthenware pot. The Bosnian-Americans have been forced to substitute the pot with aluminum cooking ware and for most the taste is different. The home taste of the dish is gone and remains a memory (Kwon).
The breakfast dish is usually the first to undergo a fundamental change in a foreign country. This is closely followed by lunch and the most rigid one being dinner. For most immigrants, dinner does not change as it is associated with social and cultural interaction. Perhaps the most rigid of the dishes are festival dishes since they are eaten at particular events for specific reasons that the immigrants would like to retain. Special meals are associated with specific memories. Ethnic restaurants are present and have been growing steadily from colonial times. In 2016, the business was booming with sales of $4 billion. The sales will continue to grow with the changing attitudes (Kwon).
The baklava is a sweetened pastry found in numerous cuisines of the previous large Ottoman empire. The pastry consists of films of phyllo dough packed with sliced nuts such as walnuts and almonds and sugarcoated with syrup. Baklava is so delicious that it was mainly served to royalty. The dish is claimed by both the Greeks and Turks, though it is sometimes regarded as a Greek specialty. The research into it is inconclusive. The pastry is the first to be prepared and soaked in large trays. Later on, the pastry is soaked in sweet fragrant syrup, and then lastly the baklava is chopped into smaller shapes and served after cooling. The word “phyllo” means leaf in Greek in honor of the development of the technique of rolling the dough to a leaf. The preparation process takes time. The meal was reserved for special occasions in the Greek culture (Chatzopoulou). The meal is taken before a wedding ceremony or during Christmas or Easter.
Historically, the Greeks in the US have been viewed with mixed emotions such as respect, puzzle, hate, or mockery. There is no doubt that the Greeks have contributed immensely to western civilization to an extent that most English books have to refer to the Greeks such as Aristotle. On the other hand, the Greeks are often viewed strangely. Hence the common phrase “its all Greek to me” to mean that something is beyond one’s understanding. The Greeks were also discriminated against. When the 1924 immigration law was effected, the Greeks were constrained to the lowest immigration class. The first known Greek is Don Dorotero. Male Greeks formed the majority of the population that migrated to the US (Kunkelman). The first Greeks were received with mixed feelings and generally, the Greeks developed feelings of self-hate. Consequently, the Greeks established societies with important-sounding names to massage their egos. For example, the Greeks used terms such as “supreme president”. The terms enabled them to adjust to the hostile environment.
However, following the civil rights movement of 1960, the attitudes of mainstream society changed hence, Greeks began to accept themselves. After the 1960s, the Greeks stopped anglicizing their names to get jobs (Moskos). Many immigrants came to America when it was strongly Anglo. All people that wanted to succeed had to adjust to the Anglo lifestyle. The Europeans had the least pressure to adjust to the Anglo ethnicity while the Greeks took on massive pressure. During this time, civic education was built about the “melting pot”. Translated, the term proclaimed that all the diverse cultures felt a strong desire to melt inside a particular cultural pot to form an American culture. The Greeks have strongly adapted the American lifestyle. Some Greeks such as Dukakis unsuccessfully vied for the American presidency which shows that the Greeks have blended into society (Kunkelman). One of the reasons why Dukakis lost was because Bush took advantage of the Greco-phobia in the general population during his campaigns. Perhaps the general population may still view native Greeks as outsiders even today.
Works cited
Chatzopoulou, Elena, Matthew Gorton, and Sharron Kuznesof. “Understanding authentication processes and the role of conventions: A consideration of Greek ethnic restaurants.” Annals of Tourism Research 77 (2019): 128-140.
Kunkelman, Gary A. The religion of ethnicity: Belief and belonging in a Greek-American community. Vol. 12. Routledge, 2019.
Kwon, Dae Young. “What is ethnic food?.” Journal of ethnic foods 2.1 (2015): 1.
Moskos, Peter C. Greek Americans: struggle and success. Routledge, 2017.