Islam in America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Islam in America - Research Paper Example In 2005, nearly 96,000 people from various Islamic countries were accepted as legal permanent United States residents. According to a 2009 Gallup poll, American Muslims are identified to be a significant racially diverse religious group in the United States. This paper will discuss the way Muslims are perceived after the World Trade Center attack of 11 September, and the factors that contribute to the numerous issues with regard to stereotyping Muslim community. It will also put forward some thoughts and strategies to address those issues. II. Causes of Stereotyping Muslims A. Radical Muslims and Extremists While analyzing Islamism in a religious, social, and political context, the acts of some of the Islamic extremists seem to be the major cause of stereotyping Muslims. The PBS television program â€Å"Jihad in America† and the popular movie â€Å"True Lies† depicting the terrorist group â€Å"Crimson Jihad† caused the Muslims to get a negative image in the Amer ican society (â€Å"Struggling against stereotypes†). Recently, the use of the term â€Å"Jihad† is found to be the central issue of Muslims stereotyping. According to the Prophet Muhammad, the extreme form of jihad is one’s personal struggle to make himself a better Muslim. On the contrary, today some Islamic extremists link the term â€Å"Jihad† to â€Å"Holy war†. Evidently, interest groups that intend to preserve their subversive ideas on the strength of religious beliefs negatively affect the Muslim community as a whole. B. 9/11 Attacks According to Ghazali, the September 11 World Trade Center attacks by al-Qaeda, which caused the death of nearly 3000 people turned to be the major cause of Muslims stereotyping in the United States. Although al-Qaeda is not an affiliate of Islam religion, most of the people believe that the whole Muslims had interest behind the attack. The attack raised dreadful socio-economic challenges to the nation, that the government adopted a strict approach toward the Muslim immigration. This shift in governmental stance also placed the Muslim community under suspicion. In addition, the al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had delivered a set of religious sensitive speeches followed by the attack, which also added to stereotyping Muslims. C. The Media showing Muslims as Terrorists One cannot undermine the role of media in growing Muslim stereotyping since the event of September 11. For instance, newspaper headlines regularly use the words ‘fanatic’, ‘militant’, ‘fundamentalist’, and ‘terrorist’ as next to the terms ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’. To illustrate; in 1995, the British newspaper Today (reported by Fatoohi) published heart-touching picture that depicted a fireman carrying burnt remains of a killed infant from the wreckage of a severe explosion. This picture was published along with a sensational headline: â€Å"In the name of Islam†. In addition, events such as Saddam Hussein’s wartime rhetoric and World Trade Center Bombing attained enormous media coverage as evidence of â€Å"Islamic fundamentalism† (â€Å"Struggling against stereotypes†). Media seem to have given intentional coverage to Islamic terrorism while ignoring rebellious activities of other religious groups. And, attacks against Muslim community often go unreported. Edward,

Establishing a Technical College Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Establishing a Technical College - Dissertation Example The paper tells that the fundamental objective in any country in the world is to enhance different aspects of development namely political, social, and economic development. One of the keys to achieving this objective is to improve the quality of education in a given country as well as an access to these learning opportunities. Growth of national income in a country often relates to education. Quality education entails the availability of the teaching and learning resources, their equitable distribution, meeting the educational standards, meeting the needs of the students, and meeting the societal needs through providing required expertise. Various socio-economic factors can bar some potential members of the society from realizing their full potential to serve the country. This is a drawback not only to the individual but also to the entire nations and explains why the issue should be a national and global concern. The benefits of education to the society can be realized if there is an evident public investment in education. The established institutions of learning should provide adequate knowledge and skills to the learners that can easily be integrated into the different applications in the field. All these can be realized through an effective system of education in a given country. There is need to have an education system that ensures continued student progression to higher education institutions to equip them with the skills required in the society. This is thwarted, though, by the limited positions in these institutions of higher learning especially in the underdeveloped countries like Ivory Coast. Besides, not every individual in the primary schools qualify to proceed to secondary schools and neither can every student here qualify for university entrance. There is a need to establish alternative institutions that can absorb these students who have not been absorbed at higher levels. In this literature review, the writer focuses on the scholarly articles that discuss the theories on factors affecting education in a given country. Evidence is also short from other reports. The strategies that are appropriate in managing the arising social issues are also examined. The review is concerned with an identification of the central issues that affect the quality of education in a given country and an integration and generalization of these concepts. It will consider how these factors apply to the local context in Ivory Coast. The literature review involves qualitative methods of research and the researcher will not be neutral but will be bias towards his understanding of the factors affecting education. It may not be possible to exhaust all the scholarly articles addressing this issue even if it is narrowed down to the local context in Ivory Coast. As such, the researcher has opted to use representative sample of articles in academic databases that cover this topic in order to generalize the concept. The articles are analyzed according to t he key issues they focus on. Problem Definition Cote D’Ivoire (or Ivory Coast) is one of the developing nations in the West African region that was a former French colony. The country enjoyed positive economic growth and political stability after independence under the leadership of her first autocratic president Felix Houphouet-Boigny (The Economist, 2010). However, the political stability ended with the death of the founder. The country currently has a poor underdeveloped economy owing to the political unrest and violence that has hit the country in the past. In 2010, the country’s population was 19.7 million; a population growth rate of 2%, a GDP of $22.8 billion, GDP per capita of $1,154, and a GDP growth rate of 3.0% (World Bank, 2011). The country has