Assignment #3 for the Departments of English & Media Studies

Assignment: Students need to write a high-level document that helps articulate their strategic thinking — the why — behind both goal and the plan for getting there.

"We need a map," Huntington says, "that both portrays reality and simplifies reality in a way that best serves our purposes". Huntington, hence, develops a new "Civilization paradigm". 

We need as well a map; therefore this assignment.

People in the West take Huntington’s perception of reality as the portrayal of reality as his distortion of reality best serves the desire_ footed in the so called tradition of old Orientalism _of unleashing a tirade of invectives and vituperation for the core of Islam.

Students are to provide a detailed blue print that explains both: how to portray reality (the real truth) and nullify the Huntington’s portrayal of it. 

Video predates cartoons

Attempts to vitiate the core of Islam predate ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order’; and students must watch the video to understand that an unholy crusade’ against Prophet (P.B.U.M) is not animated by Huntington’s expanded thesis. The contemporary attacks have no any clear dividing points with those not in living memory; therefore, the response of the West to a book should not be seen isolated but taken as a continuum.

Students must understand that ‘the why’ — behind both goal and the plan for getting there_ can be comprehensively understood by understanding ‘the ‘the why’ behind  Western hubris that defies the all norms of media ethics and challenges Muslims, believing it will never lead to nemesis

The overweening haughtiness of the West is not only because of being inebriated with power but also because of being successful in effecting an implosion of the Soviet Union without being locked into a military combat.

Communism was Soviet Union's raison d'être". Latter was disintegrated into the patch work of states when former was disintegrated.  Intoxicated with the triumph of consigning the communism to the dust bin of history, the West feels emboldened to make Islam a spent force, thus has launched well- orchestrated assaults on the core of Islam.

The core of Muslim civilization is the personality of Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H). Muslim civilization will fall if Core is disintegrated. West justifies its mount of an assault at the core of Islam   by using the right of freedom of thoughts and ideas  as an overarching interest and development of individuals for the participation in the creation of meanings that, in turn, helps constitute them as a community.

Help: The article below (by Prof Dr Khurshīd Ahmad) contains a roadmap, a strategic plan that defines a goal and desired outcome, and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it.

For further help I recommend two more articles: EXPLORATION OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN ISLAM AND WEST: ITS RELATION WITH BLASPHEMY AND RELIGIOUS DEFAMATION by Riaz Ahmad Saeed; and ‘The cartoon controversy’ by Nazeem ML Goolam

These articles contribute to the understanding of the concept of freedom the West subscribe to and justify that difference in a concept does not justify blasphemy as the West claim so.

These articles will help students to suggest ways to make the West understand the sensitivity of the matter because the free hands is not only touching nose but also hurting the Muslim hearts, therefore, the West must revisit the concept of rights of expression and the freedom of press.

This assignment must begin with the understanding of the hypothesis of Samuel Huntington _separate civilizations in the new paradigm_ that states ‘as states stopped aligning with the ideologies of Cold War, they stopped asking each other “whose side are you on,” but rather “who are you?” People "need new sources of identity, new forms of stable community, and new sets of moral precepts to provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose’’ Islam would "experience new surges in commitment, relevance and practice by erstwhile casual believers" and as the societal factor will fill the vacuum created by a loss of political ideology. Muslim societies, unlike other societies, will assert cultural identity through the reaffirmation and resurgence of religion’’.

The concern of this assignment is to deal with the ramifications of Huntington’s concern as the concern of his but not his advice has given an orientation to the policies of west.

As West live by the Huntington’s concern, students need to begin evaluation of a complex and unwelcome consequence of this acting upon of it with the realization that significance of a hypothesis reflects in its following, thus it is successful in a sense it has convinced the West.  Students need not to analyze its meeting of criteria to determine how right West is in its conviction of it.

Students need not to contextualize this hypothesis to know the reasons for the refutation of past paradigms and development of a new one for the creation of a new understanding of the post-Cold War order, and to fill the gaps of the already existing paradigms (Description)

Students need not to explore hypothesis by examining its relationships of parts to each other and the whole and alternative responses to meet questions such as how it works in theory, practice or in context? Why this theory? Why not something else? Or What if it were wrong? What the alternatives are? Or what if this or that factor were –added- removed- altered? (Analysis)

Students need not to evaluate the underlying reasons for the West’s refusal of Huntington’s advice to stops nursing the passion for a global empire because ‘the World would not merge into one shared culture’; therefore, ‘the Western desire to dominate the world is what leads to conflict with Islam and China’. The West must reconcile to the inevitability of ‘a multicultural world that more modernized, but less Westernized’ so to deal with dynamics of fault line conflicts between civilizations.

Students need to explain the implications of the West’s refusal (manifested in confrontational path West has embarked upon) and suggest solutions and recommendation (evaluation).

In essence, critical analysis is a three-step process of description; analysis and evaluation. Students are to be restricted to evaluation that as well in restricted sense; therefore the critical analysis of theirs is to be restricted to one step process.