EXAM

                                        Monday, 22 May 2006

                                           @ 4 pm (16.00)

                                              Room 33

                                             Lecture 11
                                             17 May 2006

                                 Global culture and fundamentalism

                                       Review: Culture and G

*      Cultural imperialism debate gained force soon after decolonisation and the emergence of new
postcolonial states in Africa, Asia and the Pacific

*      Scholars began speaking of neo-colonialism

*      Argument about neo-colonialism emphasises the role of the media (esp. television) in the
spread of western influence through symbolic and psychological means of control (replacing the
former military and political control of colonisers)

                                       Review: Culture and G

*      In the early 1970s, less developed countries, led by the non-aligned states, called for a
"New World Information Order" against the domination of western media, against the one-way flow of
information from rich to poor countries

*      The UN (esp. UNESCO) got involved; conferences were held, resolutions were adopted, etc.

*      These moves made the world community more aware of the issues but little has actually been
done to solve the problems accompanying the international flow of information



                                       Review: Culture and G

*       Cultural imperialism thesis argues for changes in global media industries & for
restructuring global media along more egalitarian lines (Sean MacBride & Colleen Roach "The New
International Information Order")

*       Challenges to cultural imperialism thesis question whether the Third World is really as
dominated by the cultural imperialism of the West as was assumed (John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka,
Stuart Cunningham "Peripheral Vision")

*       Analysis and critique of cultural imperialism thesis shows that cultural homogenisation is
indeed growing but this does not mean the end of cultural diversity (John Tomlinson "Cultural
Imperialism")

*       One such example is the inability of Hollywood to penetrate the Hindi film market, faced
with a great competitor in Bollywood (Heather Tyrrell "Bollywood versus Hollywood")

                        Cultural globalisation and fundamentalist responses

                               Global culture & global fundamentalism

*      Pessimistic hyperglobalisers; e.g. Benjamin Barber "Jihad vs. McWorld"

*      BB warns against the cultural imperialism of the so-called "McWorld": a product of
superficial American popular culture, driven by expansionist commercial interests; a soulless
consumer capitalism, rapid transformation of the world's diversity into a blandly uniform market

*      Colonising tendencies of McWorld provoke resistance in the form of so-called "Jihad":
religious fundamentalisms and ethnonationalisms that represent the `dark side' of cultural
particularism; Jihad means the parochial impulse to reject the homogenising forces of the West

*      Jihad and McWorld are interdependent

                               Global culture & global fundamentalism

*      Samuel P. Huntington: "The Clash of Civilizations"

*      He proposes that the "fundamental source of conflict in this new world will (...) occur between
nations and groups of different civilizations."

*      The world is divided into several different civilizations, with often irreconcilable
worldviews, who struggle with one another and resist becoming one global culture (no one universal
civilization)

*      The differences among civilizations are "basic"

*      Huntington's idea has been very influential, controversial, it received wide response and
many criticisms

                                           Fundamentalism

*      Fundamentalism = in essence means literal understanding, interpretation of religious texts;
belief that the religious texts are infallible and historically correct

*      The term originates from the US and is connected to Protestant Christianity; 1909:
publication of a set of books named "Fundamentals" (the literal text of the Bible and the
"fundamentals" of Christian beliefs, e.g. Creationism, the Virgin Birth) `a these Christians called
themselves "fundamentalists"

*      The term became widely used because of the Fundamentalist -- Modernist controversy & the
Scopes ("monkey") trial in 1925

                                      Fundamentalism and Islam

*      Islamic fundamentalism came into widespread use because of Iran's revolution of 1979 (Islamic
Republic) and its wide media coverage

*      The use of fundamentalism in connection with Islam spread rapidly and consequently even
entered dictionary definitions of F:

*      F = "the strict maintenance of traditional Protestant beliefs" but also "strict maintenance
of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion, especially Islam" (Concise Oxford English
Dictionary)



                                      Fundamentalism and Islam

*      Fundamentalists or Islamists?

*      "fundamentalism equals Islam equals everything-we-must-now-fight-against, as we did with
communism during the Cold War" (Edward Said)

*      Late 1970s, France: "Islamism" to describe the new Islamic movements; by the mid-1980s
increasingly used to mean Islam as a modern ideology and a political programme



                                  Fundamentalism and globalisation

*      G challenges people to identify themselves, to place themselves in the world

*      "Global fundamentalism" as a reaction against modernity, but with global implications:
fundamentalism is seen as a form of antimodernism but F is in fact "a quintessentially modern
phenomenon" (Frank J. Lechner "Global Fundamentalism")

*      Collective identities are challenged and enhanced at the same time; globalisation unifies and
separates; it creates similarity and difference