scholarly journals Islamization vs. Islamophobia: A New Historicist Reading of Cold War Politics in Contemporary Pakistani Anglophone Fiction

2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Initial Support ◽  
Current Article

Islamization and Islamophobia present two different narratives. Since Cold War, these two narratives have been influencing Muslims globally, especially Pakistan due to its support of Talibanization during the Soviet (communist) invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s initial support of Talibanization in coalition with America, where the country yielded a religiously extremist status, provides a premise to suspect America and the West’s (capitalists) role in its development. The treatment of the very ‘Muslim identity in the pre-Cold War and the post-Cold War contexts reveals an interesting shift in the Western approach towards Muslims. The pre-Cold War era shows overt Western support for the narrative of Islamization in Muslim countries, whereas the post-Cold War era shows a sudden bounce of anti-Muslim sentiments in the West. This shift calls into question the role of power in the development of both narratives. Using Stephen Greenblatt’s critique of self-fashioning, subversion, containment, and power, we aim to explore both narratives concerning the selected Pakistani Anglophone fiction: Muhammad Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) and Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (1995). The current article concludes that Islamization and Islamophobia are both political policies that have been serving the interest of power to contain the subversions it encountered in different forms. We also suggest that both narratives exploit the discursive forms (literary and non-literary) of the particular era where they are recorded.

Cold War Legacies: The Migration and Transformation of Popular/Unpopular Culture

2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Roger Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Context ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This article reviews two recent collections of essays that focus on the role of popular culture in the Cold War. The article sets the phenomenon into a wide international context and shows how American popular culture affected Europe and vice versa. The essays in these two collections, though divergent in many key respects, show that culture is dynamic and that the past as interpreted from the perspective of the present is often reworked with new meanings. Understanding popular culture in its Cold War context is crucial, but seeing how the culture has evolved in the post-Cold War era can illuminate our view of its Cold War roots.

Islam, the West, and Ethnonationalism

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Iftikhar Malik
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
The Us ◽  
Western View ◽  
New Generation

Western analysis, due to its dangerous oversimplification of Islam and othermatters in the Muslim world, has traditionally seen the appearance of anyindigenous movement calling for change and improvement in the name of Islamas a major threat. Muslims continue to be viewed in the stereotypical perspectiveof the “us-against-them” syndrome, a practice which prevents a propercomprehension of the dynamics and dilemmas faced by Muslims in thepostcolonial era. The Western media and, to some extent, academia thrive onsuch themes as minority rights, nuclear proliferation, human rights, anddemocracy, which they use as barometers. Based on the data which they collect,they then pass sweeping decrees about Muslim countries. Internal diversity andconflict receive a great deal of attention, whereas human achievements andcivilizational artifacts are considered as “foreign” to the Muslim ethos. Islamas a religion is reduced to so-called “fundamentalism” and a mere puritanicaland/or coercive theological orthodoxy. Moreover, no distinction is made betweenIslam as a religion and Muslim cultures and societies, nor between Muslimaspirations for unity and the realities of national and ethnic differentiation. Theresult is a Western view which both distorts and demonizes a large part of theMuslim world.As if this were not enough, Muslims in the post-Cold War era are now beingpresented and “imagined” as the next enemy. Among the factors responsible forthis are a) the multiple nature of the Muslim world, given its geostrategic locationright next to Europe; b) Islam as the second major religion in the West; and c)the assertion of a new generation of Muslim expatriate communities at a time ...

The Emerging China, Pakistan, and Russia Strategic Triangle: India’s New Gordian Knot

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parvaiz Ahmad Thoker ◽  
Bawa Singh
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
The West ◽  
Problematic Situation ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Great Game

The primary cause for the emerging triple axis including China, Russia, and Pakistan in South Asia has been to curtail the Indo-US extended political, economic, and military connections. India in the post-Cold War era tilted significantly toward the West, the move which has been equally ostracized by the triumvirate. Hence, in reprisal, Russia’s recent rapprochement with the duo further solidified the Sino-Pak geostrategic bond. India’s wide-ranging collaboration with the US, primarily in the post-civil nuclear deal, led to the budding fusion of three atomic powers. Under such circumstances, the region has been enticing the major global powers and latterly various extra-regional players exhibited profound interests in the entire South Asia. Therefore, under the formation of power blocks, a new geopolitical great game has been emerging in the region. India, the leading South Asian player, therefore, has been facing an extremely problematic situation while making a balancing choice amongst the two hostile powers, China and the US. Against this backdrop, the study will primarily focus on the rise of South Asian Triple Axis and its possible consequences upon the rising Indo-US strategic leverage.

Sarajevo, February 1994: the first Russia-NATO crisis of the post-Cold War era

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Headley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Market Place ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This article analyses the Russian reaction to the Sarajevo crisis of February 1994 when NATO threatened air strikes in response to the market-place mortar explosion. I argue that Russia's shift to a realist great-power policy led to a crisis with the West as Russia sought to demonstrate its great power credentials, protect what it saw as specific Russian interests in the Balkans, and limit the role of NATO in conflict resolution, while Western leaders aimed to demonstrate NATO credibility and its new post-Cold War role as peace-keeper/peace-maker. This was the first major East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War, and Russian responses and actions foreshadowed its reactions to the Kosovo crisis.

Pandora's box?: humanitarian intervention and international law

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidan Hehir
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

The three books reviewed here all address the question of the efficacy of international law and advance concerns about its future trajectory, albeit in contrasting ways. As has been well documented, the role of international law – specifically in the regulation of the use of force – has undergone significant scrutiny in the post-Cold War era. To a much greater extent than during the Cold War, contemporary conflicts and crises are invariably discussed with reference to international law, and the legality of a particular use of force has become a significant factor in assessing its legitimacy; one need only think of the importance placed on the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This increase in prominence suggests that international law has become more important, and unsurprisingly those used to the discipline's previous role as exotic curio have welcomed this sudden promotion (Robertson, 2000).

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