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Chapter29TheWestintheContemporaryEra-1.pptxThe West in the Contemporary Era: New Encounters and Transformations
Chapter 29
The 1970’s and 1980’s witnessed the post World War II political settlement begin to collapse. The old “Us versus Them” mentality of the Cold War starts to be less colorful.
Economic crisis widened divisions in some Western societies while eroding democratic consensus.
In the early years of the 1970’s, the West entered the era of Détente. This was the effort to stabilize the relationship between the superpowers through negotiations and arms control.
It shifted the Cold War status quo while the affluence of the Cold war period ended. Terrorism also starts to unsettle western European societies.
The Era of Detente
In 1969 Willy Brandt (1913-1992,) Socialist Democratic Party leader, became Chancellor of Germany. He proceeded to implement a new Ostpolitik or “Eastern Policy.” This was the opening of diplomatic and economic relations between West Germany, the Soviet Union, and its satellite states.
This policy reached its climax when both East and West Germany recognized each others legitimacy. In 1973, both Germany’s joined the United Nations.
By the end of the 1960’s, the Soviet and American economies were stagnating, they had spent large amounts of money on nuclear weapons.
In November of 1969, both governments began the Strategic Arms Limitation talks, (SALT).
Willy Brandt
Salt was signed in 1972 and it froze the existing weapons balance. Both countries were left with more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world, but it did slow the armaments race and it helped to ease Cold War tensions.
Détente also extended to the United States relations with China. In 1971, President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) lifted all travel and trade restrictions with China and then visited the country.
Economic Crisis in the West
Stagflation became the norm in the 1970’s bringing with it high inflation and high unemployment.
Stagflation is the escalating prices of an economy, combined with the joblessness of economic stagnation. War and oil helped to create the crisis.
In 1973 the Yom Kippur War occurred when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. Because America backed Israel, the oil-producing Arab countries in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC), imposed an embargo on sales to the United States. They quintupled the price of a barrel of oil.
In 1979, a revolution in Iran doubled the price again. These two problems accelerated inflation.
Yom Kippur War
Two other factors contributed to the economic crisis. (1) President Nixon in 1973 tried to help the American dollar by letting it “float.” market forces instead of exchange rates determined the dollar’s value. This decision introduced a more volatile economic era.
(2) Another factor was international competition as Asian, South American, and Latin American economies industrialized. Because Western nations possessed a well-paid politicized work force with social service benefits, many manufacturers moved their companies south and east to take advantage of the lack of labor regulations.
Consequences of the Crisis
As a result of the economic situation, the West saw much unrest. Britain during the 1970’s saw three governments fail because of conflict with labor unions. Picketing workers fighting with police became a norm.
Racial conflict also escalated. Nine-million immigrants residing in northern and western Europe became easy targets for those out of work needing someone to blame. By 1975, many countries in Europe banned further immigration. As a result, foreign workers rushed into Europe before the doors shut.
By 1991, 25% of the inhabitants of France were either immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. In Britain and France those immigrants could become citizens. In West Germany, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries, immigrants remained foreign.
The Turn to Terrorism
During the 1970’s frustrated with their failures to change society; a minority of student activists turned to terror. The Weathermen in the United States, and the Red Brigade in Italy, along with Baader-Meinhof in West Germany, resorted to bombings, assassinations, and abductions.
Their purpose was to weaken the structures of Western capitalism. In Italy, 2,000 acts of terrorism occurred per year in the 1970’s.
Nationalism also played a role in terrorism. The IRA, Irish Republican Army used acts of violence to undermine Britain in the 1970’s.
Conflict in the Middle East spilled into Western Europe in the 70’s. Palestinian nationalist groups turned to hijackings and bombings to influence international diplomacy.
In 1972 at the Olympic Games in Germany, a group of terrorists murdered 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. It became known as the “Munich Massacre.”
New Challenges: New Feminism
New feminism emerged from the 1960’s student protest movement. Female activists began to become frustrated with their limited role in society.
They worked for the election of female candidates, but they did not limit their aims to politics. There moto was “the personal is political.” They attacked beauty pageants, the fashion industry, and they demanded equal funding for sporting facilities.
They wanted to outlaw spousal rape and legalize abortion. In 1967 Britain legalized abortion, with Denmark following in 1970.
Catholic Europe followed: In Italy abortions became available in 1978 and France followed in 1979.
Feminists demanded equal pay and greater opportunities in the professional sphere.
They also promoted parental leave policies, family allowances, and childcare provisions.
They also challenged the university curriculum. They brought to light a “hidden history”of women.
New Challenges: Environmentalism
Environmentalists also brought forth challenges in the 1970’s and 80’s. The heart of the movement was the idea of “Spaceship Earth,” the vision of the planet as a “single spaceship, without unlimited quantities of anything.”
Environmentalists questioned industrial economies both capitalist and communist and the emphasis of “more, bigger, faster, now.”
Environmental destruction became a new phrase. This movement helped to create new “Green”political parties.
Green political reformers believed that the degradation of the environment stemmed from the discrimination against women and the obsession with physical power and the unwillingness to remove hierarchical political structures.
Green politics championed the goal of participatory democracy. By they 1980’s Green parties were in 15 western European countries.
The New Conservatives
Voters in the West during the 1970’s looked for new answers to the economic and social problems. In Spain and Portugal, they turned to socialist parties.
In most of western Europe and the United States, New Conservatism was popular in political society.
Three leaders demonstrated this new brand of politics: The Republican Ronald Regan (1911-2004) in the United States, the Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl (b. 1930) in West Germany, and Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) in Britain.
New Conservatives argued that rising social expenditures, funded through rising taxes, bore the blame for declining economic growth rates.
Ronald Reagan
Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher
The New Conservatives wanted to lift regulations on business, privatize nationalized or state-owned industries and restructure the welfare state.
They abandoned the idea that the state is responsible for ensuring full employment.
By imposing high interest rates on their economies, leaders like Thatcher and Kohl, lowered inflation rates, but high interest rates led to rising unemployment numbers.
The End of Detente
In 1975, 32 European states , Canada, the United States, and the Soviet Union singed the Helsinki Accords. This agreement ratified existing boarders, agreed to the joint notification of major military exercises, and promised the safeguard of human rights.
Eastern European and Soviet dissidents used Helsinki to publicize human rights abuses in their countries and demand justice.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) took office in 1976. He put human rights at the center of his foreign policy. Carter’s approach aggravated Soviet leaders.
Détente ended in 1979, when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. Carter threatened nuclear war if the Soviets moved toward the Middle East.
Jimmy Carter
The election of New Conservatives like Reagan and Thatcher intensified the rejection of détente and the renewal of the Cold War.
Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” a reference to the Star Wars film released in 1977.
Reagan revived the anticommunist rhetoric of the 1950’s and an arms build up ensued.
The Crisis of Legitimacy in the East
Western countries struggled in the 1970’s with stagnation, however; the Soviet Union boasted record breaking profits. The rigid command economy could not keep up and by the 80’s and its growth sectors were only in vodka and oil. When the price of oil fell, the Soviet economy followed.
The satellite states also fell from prosperous into crisis. During the 1970’s, there were two factors that insulated these states: (1) Eastern governments could purchase Soviet oil at below market prices. The downside, these states had to sell their products at similar discounts. (2) Loans from Western banks masked under production and over centralization.
By the 1980’s, the Soviets had their own economic problems and they began to charge higher oil prices.
The Beginning of the End: Solidarity
Poland demonstrated the fragility of the communist system. In July of 1980, an increase in the price of meat led to workplace strikes.
Lech Walesa (b. 1943) an electrician demanded the right to form a trade union. One month later, Solidarity was born.
They demanded the freedom of any political prisoners, an end to censorship, and the end of the abuse of governmental power.
Over the next few months, 11 million Poles joined the movement.
Lech Walesa
In Poland, civil society was intact mainly because of the Catholic Church. Poles could express their identity, which was not controlled by the communist government, through their faith.
Pope John Paul II (r. 1978-2005), visited Poland. This was the first time any pope visited a communist country. John Paul was born in Poland and the first Polish pope.
Many Solidarity members saw this as an important event.
Jaruzelski
The Polish government under Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in 1981 and arrested 10,000 Solidarity members including (Walesa). Solidarity refused to be defeated and it remained during the 1980’s.
Many met in small groups, organized boycotts, and published literature. Activists in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the Soviet Union were inspired by this organization.
Environmental Protest
Environmental protest helped to create an idea for a civil society in eastern Europe. For decades, communist ideology was dominated by the conquest of nature.
Communists viewed environmentalist protest as insignificant. By the late 1970s however, many Soviet and eastern Europeans had joined environmentalist groups.
Environmentalism fueled nationalist protest in the Soviet Union. As forests disappeared, and lakes dried up, many questioned their government.
By the 1980’s, schools in Latvia were issuing gas masks to students, because of chemical spills.
Gorbachev and Radical Reform
The Soviet economic system hit a crisis point during the late 1970’s.
Factories could not keep up with the needs of the consumer, and long lines outside of under stocked stores became a way of life.
The Soviet economy was controlled and it neither allowed or awarded flexibility.
Only the Communist Party elite was exempt from the economic problems, as they enjoyed the access to Western goods and services.
The Election of Ronald Reagan helped to re-ignite the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviets.
Reagan in his first few years in office, pumped billions of dollars into the defense budget, accelerating the nuclear build up.
The Soviets, trying to keep up took money away from its struggling civilian population.
Corruption and mismanagement plagued the Soviet administration.
In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev took over the leadership of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev
Glasnost is often translated as “openness, publicity, or transparency.” Under Gorbachev, this meant abandoning the deception and censorship that had always characterized the Soviet system.
Gorbachev promised an open admission of failures and problems. Citizens were wary of Gorbachev’s promise until April of 1986.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the most serious nuclear accident in history. Thirty-five workers died and over the next five years, the cleanup claimed at least 7,000 more lives. A radioactive cloud extended to Scotland.
At first, Moscow denied the accident, but when other Western countries reported the radiation, Gorbachev began to release accurate information.
Glasnost gave Gorbachev the opportunity to convince Soviet citizens to participate in reforming political and economic life.
Perestroika, is “restructuring or reconstruction.” Gorbachev felt that he could reverse the problems of the Soviet Union by restructuring the economy through modernization.
He offered decentralization, and the introduction of a limited free market.
His aim was to increase production levels while rewarding workers who met production demands for consumer goods.
Gorbachev knew that his economic reforms would be a threat to communist bureaucrats. To be successful, political perestroika would be necessary.
He opened limited political opportunities, to allow new leaders and new ideas a chance to flourish.
By 1990, Gorbachev had ended the Communist Party’s monopoly on parliamentary power.
National minorities began to express dissatisfaction with the Soviet system and dissidents were able to win political office.
Ending the Cold War
By the 1980’s, the arms race took at least 18% of the Soviet GNP. Gorbachev began to conclude that the Soviet Union could not win the Cold War. He asked to resume negotiations with the United States.
In 1987 Gorbachev and Reagan signed the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) Treaty. It eliminated all land-based intermediate range nuclear missiles.
In 1991, the Soviets and the Americans signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). This was a pledge to reduce intercontinental ballistic missiles. This effectively ended the nuclear arms race.
Gorbachev also moved to restructure Soviet policies in Eastern Europe.
Gorbachev realized that the West would not end the Cold War if the Soviets controlled policy in eastern European affairs.
The Soviets could no longer afford its satellite states.
By 1988, Gorbachev announced that the nations of eastern Europe were free to choose their own paths.
Although these actions made Gorbachev a popular leader in the West, he was not so popular in the Soviet Union.
Persistent economic stagnation, mismanagement, unemployment and shortages of goods made some citizens wish for the days of old.
Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe
The Soviets eastern satellite countries were facing the same economic hardships as Russia.
The leaders of these countries were under pressure to institute democratic political and economic reforms.
Poland and Hungary were the first states to remove communist rule.
In the early 1980’s, Hungary moved toward a market driven economy by joining both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They also established a stock market in 1985.
Independent candidates also appeared on Hungarian ballots.
In 1989 Poland, began to restructure its political system. In June of that year, Poland held the first free elections in the Soviet bloc.
Solidarity won the elections, and the first non-communist government in eastern Europe emerged since 1948.
In the fall of 1989, communist governments fell in Czechoslovakia and in East Germany. In November of that year, East Berliners tore down the Berlin Wall.
Ceausescu
Revolutions also spread to Romania and Bulgaria. Unfortunately, communism was reformed and not overthrown in these nations.
In Bulgaria, reform minded Communist Party members overthrew the government.
In Romania, the dictator Nikolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed by firing squad.
The Disintegration of the Soviet Union
Gorbachev believed that freeing the Soviet economy would save the communist system. Economic perestroika was a failure.
By 1990, food and essential goods were scarce, with prices rising by 20% over the previous year. There were dramatic increases in the homeless population and the economic problems signaled a breakdown in the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev faced opposition from reformers and hard line communists. Reformers wanted a pure capitalistic economy.
Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) became their spokesmen.
Boris Yeltsin
Anti-reform communists tried to overthrow Gorbachev in August of 1991. Yeltsin led the resistance that blocked the coup.
Yeltsin, then dominated Soviet politics, eventually becoming the President.
Separatist nationalist movements sprang up all over the Soviet Union.
On December 25th, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as President. The Soviet Union no longer existed.
Russia’s Economic and Social Crisis
The Yeltsin era was characterized by continuing economic crisis, widening corruption and criminality, and growing socio-economic inequality.
In 1992, Yeltsin applied “shock therapy” to the economy. He lifted price controls, privatized industries, and abolished all subsidies. Prices continued to climb, and business closures led to more unemployment. Government cuts to spending severed welfare benefits.
By 1995, 80% of Russians did not earn a living wage. By 1988, the country was bankrupt, and the value of the Rubble collapsed.
Corruption and crime worsened the economic crisis.
In the 90’s Russians could own property, but the state was not equipped to help them protect it.
The Russian Mafia offered protection at a high price and used extrusion and intimidation to control large sectors of the economy.
A minority or Russians experienced the 90’s as an opportunity for wealth accumulation.
For most, the end of the Soviet regime brought freedom, but 40% of the population was below the poverty line.
The Putin Counter-Revolution
In December of 1999, Vladimir Putin (b. 1952) a former KGB officer took power in Russia. He provided stable government as opposed to the Yeltsin years. The economy became stronger and prosperity was widened.
His stability came at a cost for most citizens. Putin brought back authoritarianism and the denial of civil rights. He denied the free press and the right to a fair trial.
This featured a return to the cult of personality as a means of building support for Putin and his policies. His used control of the media to project an image of a virile, decisive leader.
Putin revived the Soviet national anthem and praised Stalin for his efforts during World War II.
He called the collapse of the Soviet Union, “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.”
Vladimir Putin
Putin expressed his regret for the loss of territory in the Baltic states and Ukraine.
In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. This was followed by a war with Ukraine.
Putin holds the West in contempt of Russian interests, values and culture. He aligns with conservative nationalists, who are opposed to Western materialism, moral decadence, and democratic anarchy.
Nationalist Challenges in the Former Soviet Union
The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, allowed states such as Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic republics to reach independence. Many of these new governments faced nationalist challenges.
Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan witnessed civil wars in the 1990’s. Nationalists wanted to break away from these independent states.
Russia also faced challenges especially with Chechnya. Chechens saw no reason that they should not follow the path of the others to independence.
In 1994, Yeltsin sent in Russian troops to force Chechnya back into the fold. During the conflict, 80,000 died and 240,000 were wounded. Yeltsin negotiated a truce in the summer of 1996. Putin renewed the war four years later bringing the Chechens back under his rule.
Central and Eastern Europe: Struggles Within the Reunited Germany
After the fall of the Berlin wall, about half the population of East Germany crossed the boarder to West Germany. Helmut Kohl, recognized the power of the capitalist system and quickly forced a German reunification. When the two Germanys reunited, (1990), Kohl was the first chancellor of the new German state.
Kohl believed that West Germany’s economy could pull the East Germans into prosperity. Unfortunately, factories closed in East Germany and the economic problems came over into the western regions.
By 1997, German unemployment was at 12.8 percent, with the highest being in the regions of East Germany. A cultural gap divided “wessies” (West Germans) and “Ossies” (East Germans).
Ossie women expected full time hours, daycare, and contraceptives. West Germans, depended on the male breadwinner/head of household.
Angela Merkel
In 2005, the election of Angela Merkel (b. 1954) as chancellor was an important moment for a united Germany. She was the first Protestant woman to head the German Christian Democrats, and she was an Ossie.
By 2011, Germany’s unemployment rate was lower than it had been in two decades.
The Breakup of Yugoslavia
In Yugoslavia, the revival of nationalist hostilities led to state supported mass-murder. After World War II, the country was ruled by the communist guerilla Tito. It was a multiethnic and multilingual territorial entity.
When Tito died in 1980, riots broke out between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the Serbian province of Kosovo. At the same time, rising oil prices led to a decline in the economy. Inflation led to hyperinflation.
In 1989, the revolutions that spread through other communists' states, came to Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia was made up of Serbs, Croatians, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Albanians, and Macedonians. Under pressure, the structure holding the state together slowly crumbled. Croatia tried to loosen their ties with the poorer regions such as Serbia.
In Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic (1941-2006) became the leader and he promoted aggressive Serbian nationalism. He opposed all efforts to dismantle the Yugoslav Federation, because it would mean that Serbia would be a powerless state.
He wanted the connection to allow economic resources to continue to flow. His speeches encouraged all Serbians to realize that that security depended upon Yugoslav unity.
Milosevic
In 1991, Croatia declared independence and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army attacked the separatists. By 1992, the war spread to Bosnia after it declared independence.
Civilians bore the brunt of the war through brutality. Ethnic cleansing became the norm. Milosevic and his forces wanted to create all Serb zones in Croatia and Bosnia.
A campaign of terror was designed to force out Muslims and Croats. Homes, villages, mosques and schools were vandalized and burned.
Imprisoned women and young girls were raped. In 1994, NATO planes bombed Serb positions. A year later, peace was established on the now independent Bosnia and Croatia.
Serbia continued its campaign of violence in other parts of Europe. In 1998, Serbs and Albanians began to fight in Kosovo.
Ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and the movement of refugees began.
NATO bombed and its forces and those of Russia surrounded Kosovo and declared it an independent nation separate from Serbia in 2008.
The Postmodern Era
Postmodernism is a form of art, that began with architecture. Architects wanted to design buildings that made peoples live better, and more beautiful.
The visual arts were transformed in three distinct ways: First, after the protests of the 1960’s, artists rejected ideology based upon hierarchy and authority. This rejection led to an attack on the idea of “avant-garde art.”
Second, artists started looking to the past and to popular culture for material. Artists began to use, “the shock of recognition.”
Finally, feminism influenced new art. Feminists highlighted the exclusion of women from gallery and museum exhibits.
Marco Ventura
Women and the Struggle for Equality
The rebuilding of Western Europe after World War II had important consequences for the women’s movement.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, set forth a high standard for all the signatory states, many of which continued to exclude women from full civil equality.
In Western Europe, universal suffrage was achieved after the war, but access to quality education and employment remained unrealized.
During the 1960’s the Women’s Movement assumed a more determined stance across Western Europe and North America.
For women, the “glass ceiling,” demonstrated that the struggle for equality had to be fought on a variety of fronts against sometimes subtle opposition.
By the mid 1990’s, women’s participation in paid employment outside the home exceeded large numbers in most major European countries, but the number of women in supervisory positions remained minimal.
In 1967 the U.N. adopted the Universal Declaration of Women’s Rights.
This document was heavily influenced by European and American standards.
Equal rights with men during marriage and its dissolution, was an alien concept outside of Western cultures.
The document placed most of its emphasis on a woman’s right to choose to work breaking the centuries old “cult of domesticity.”
Postmodern Cultures and Postindustrial Technologies
Music and entertainment saw major changes in the later years of the Cold War. In Britain, “Big Beat” songs dominated the airwaves. This type of music took things from the past and recycled them in new ways. “New Wave, and Punk Rock” were also very popular.
In 1975, the VCR was introduced. It allowed film and movies to be viewed privately.
In the 1980’s and early 90’s cable television revolutionized popular culture.
“The Information Age” or postindustrial society became more involved in marketing things, instead of making things.
Transistors replaced vacuum tubes ushering in the age of miniaturization in electronics and helped pave the way for computers.
By the 1980’s the advent of the personal desk top computer revolutionized the world.
Blondie and the Ramones
Physicians and researchers made medical progress possible.
New surgical procedures and chemical interventions reduced cancer and cardiovascular mortality.
It became common to for hospitals to do organ and bone marrow transplants and heart bypass surgery.
New machines for diagnosis and treatment were utilized. These included MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Ultrasound and dialysis machines also came available.
In 1997, British scientists stunned the world with Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult.
Fears that it would lead to human cloning, led to the practice being deemed immoral and illegal.
In 2001, scientists revealed that they had decoded the human genome, meaning that they had mapped the instructions for every cell in the human body.
Postmodern Patterns in Religious Life
After the 1970’s Christianity was no longer considered a cultural bond. Regular church goers were a small minority of Europeans.
At the same time, Pope John Paul II experienced great popularity. Crowds gathered world- wide to hear him speak.
Against popular culture, he opposed birth control, married clergy and the ordination of women. While many found this comforting, his flock was moving out of his control.
In the United States, and around the world, the number of Catholics using birth control mirrored the population at large and was in direct violation of papal teachings.
The postmodern rejection of religion also led to changes in sexual practice. Many in the West abandoned the traditional moral codes. Rates of extramarital sex and divorce soared.
The rebellions of the 1960’s and 70’s glorified resistance to conventional rules. Breaking those rules seemed less risky as abortion and contraception became popular.
Sexual imaging in films, advertising, and publishing became more explicit.
The European Union
The European Union shifted Western power relations while altering geographic boundaries.
In 1957, the EEC, European Economic Community was formed. Supporters of the EEC hoped that one day they could stand as an economic, military, and political rival to the United States and Russia.
The EEC later changed its name to the European Community or (EC). In 1979, Europeans voted in the first elections for the European parliament.
The European Community established a national headquarters in Brussels and a European parliament was formed.
This body however did not supersede the sovereignty or the lawmaking ability of the member states.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the 12 member states of the European Economic Community redefined themselves as the European Union.
By the end of the 1990’s, most of the member nations had adopted a common currency simply known as the Euro.
A central bank was established to oversee the transition to a transnational financial system.
Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria were all welcomed into the European Union. By the year 2000, Europe had become the most affluent region of the world, second only to the United States.
European Union
Britain, Denmark, and Sweden refused to adopt the Euro, fearing that there economies would be dragged down by slower-performing EU states.
Many workers feared having to compete for jobs with lower-paid eastern Europeans. The Eu, despite these controversies seemed to be a success in the 90’s and early 2000’s.
In 2008, a global economic decline caused housing foreclosures, unemployment, and lost pension funds. The Greek economy required a bailout from the European Union to keep the country from collapsing financially.
As of this date, Britain is trying to leave the union under what is called “Brexit.”
Islam and the West
Europe also struggled with integrating diverse cultures within their boundaries. Europeans had to learn to reconcile European identity with a growing Islamic cultural and political presence.
In eastern European nations, particularly, Bulgaria, Albania, and Bosnia, Muslims were present that were the descendants of those who converted during Ottoman rule. Western Europe saw immigration of Muslims only after World War II.
By 2010, Muslims encompassed about 6% of Europe's population.
Most Muslims were shocked by European gender relations and sexual freedoms. Most lived in urban areas where jobs were plentiful in the 1960’s and 70’s. By the 1990’s unemployment rates were double the national average.
Cultural and generational conflicts helped to create Euro-Islam. This was an effort to allow European Muslims to create a belief system that embraced both their religion and European identities.
Proponent's of this process highlight the ways in which Islam upholds the core values of western democratic politics, respect for civil liberties and differences, coupled with liberties guaranteed for all regardless of race or religion.
The emergence of Islamism complicated the integration of Islamic communities in western Europe.
Islamism calls for a return to a traditional form of Islam. Anti-western Islamism views the West and its culture as a threat to Islamic identity.
In its most extreme form, it promotes violence and the murder of those who are not Islamic. Several issues promoted this form of extremist Islam.
First, Islamism fed on the alienation of some Muslims. Both men and women, who were third generation Europeans, became more open to transnational forms of Islamic thought and practice.
Islamism offered a simple view of the world and the opportunity to participate in a global movement. Clashes between mainstream European culture and Muslim religious values helped to strengthen the appeal of Islamism.
An example, would be the Western tradition of cartooning. Muslims regard any depiction of Muhammad as blasphemous. Cartoonists saw this as free speech, and Muslims viewed it as a violation to practice their religion without persecution.
Events in the Middle East also nurtured Islamic sentiments. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict is important because of the high level of economic and military support from the United States.
The United States is widely seen as the beacon of the West, and because 90% of Palestinians are Muslim, the conflict was framed as a battle between the West and Islam.
The Iranian Revolution in 1979 was critical.
That year, a revolution in Iran overthrew the western backed authoritarian regime of Shah Mohammad Pahlavi and placed in power the Ayatollah Khomeini (1901-1989).
Ayatollah Khomeini and Shah Mohammad Pahlavi
Khomeini emphasized the rejection of Western values and cultural influence and this was the heart of the Islamist movement.
He condemned the United States as the “Great Satan.” Khomeini inspired other extremists around the Middle East, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
He became an international hero during the “Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-1980), when Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran kidnapping 66 Americans, holding them for over a year.
Ten years later, he issued a death sentence to Salman Rushdie for his book that was considered a blasphemous portrayal of the prophet Muhammad.
Salman Rushdie
The West and Islamist Terrorism
Many Muslims were dismayed by the wars in Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990’s. Muslim women and children were slaughtered. The passivity of western Europe and the United States to respond reinforced an anti-Islamic agenda.
In 1996, American president Bill Clinton (b. 1946) identified terrorism as “the enemy of our generation.” In the post-Cold War world, this replaced communism.
Terrorism opposes a commitment to democracy. It has a history dating back to the 1890’s with the Fenians in Ireland.
Bill Clinton and the Fenians of Ireland
As the twenty-first century opened, most saw terrorism as an outside threat that came from the Islamic world.
During the 1980’s and early 90’s, violent attacks occurred in the Middle East and Africa, parts of Asia, Europe and the United States.
In 2001, one of the deadliest attacks ever occurred on United States soil. On September 11, the Islamist group Al Qaeda hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington D.C., the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3000 people died.
After the attack, intelligence linked Afghanistan to Al Qaeda. The United States invaded and uprooted Al Qaeda’s Afghan supporters.
In March of 2003, the United States led a coalition to invade Iraq, based upon faulty intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq War divided American society and it was very unpopular in western Europe.
Islamist hostility strengthened after these military actions by the West, and when it was discovered that American troops tortured prisoners on both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Al-Qaeda attacked commuters at rush hour in Madrid in 2004, and London in 2005.
The Iraq War
Madrid and London/2004-2005
The Iraq war ended in 2011, but the threat of global terrorism continued. After U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, and off shoot group from Al-Qaeda calling itself the Islamic State or (ISIS), emerged as a political and military threat.
By 2015, they held territory in Nigeria, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. ISIS promised a global transformation and it declared war against all who diverged from its beliefs. The group gained supporters in Europe and in the United States.
It is believed that ISIS has been responsible for many other attacks around the world.
The West in the Twenty-First Century
What changed?
By 2015, the European Union had embraced many states that were part of the old Soviet bloc, or Soviet Union.
Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia all joined with NATO. Russia refused to join.
The idea of Christian faith, so dominating for centuries also saw a change. Regular church attendance fell below 20% in most European states, and below 40% in Poland, Northern Ireland and the United States.
What did not change?
The West remains identified with high levels of economic prosperity, educational opportunities, and technological innovation. Western states are in the highest rankings of standards of living.
Because of the standard of living differences, immigration continues to be a major issue. Many migrants move to the West hoping to make a better living for their families and to leave behind war and oppression. This highlights the fact that there is a widening gap between was some refer to as “the West” and “the Rest.”
1/6th of the world continues to live in extreme poverty, with 95% of that group living outside the boundaries of the West.
International trade has created global systems of production, distribution, and consumption. Technological advancements have accelerated this globalization process. The internet, personal computers, smart phones, and social media have contributed to this global culture.
Finally, pollution and the environment continue to plague the West. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, half the worlds rivers were polluted. Global climate change also seems to be a problem that some want to address, while others relinquish it as a myth.
Bibliography
Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman. The West: A Narrative History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2013.
Google Images. Accessed July 2, 2019.
Levack, Brian, Edward Muir, and Merredith Veldman. "Chapter 29 The West in the Contemporary Era: New Encounters and Transformations" In The West Encounters and Transformations 5th Edition, Combined Volume, 815 - 847. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2017.
