Fundamentalism Is Here To Stay Essay

The article â€Å"Fundamentalism Is Here to Stay† by Karen Armstrong mainly talks about a modern secular movement by separating religion from society, how people respond to change and ways the world’s different groups treat others. Fundamentalism is a non-violent revolt against secular society. They fight for their religion beliefs and how they feel with political power and intelligence. On the road to modernity, our economy has changed from agricultural produce to the use of technology. However, for fundamentalists, they can’t cope with the change, instead they choose to cling to religion. Western spirit of modernization is based on independence and innovation. In developing countries, modernization came with colonization, thus people were not able to forge new beginnings of their own. Further, fundamentalism represents a clash within civilization between new and old. Armstrong mentioned about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created a modern Turkey by ordering to wear wes tern clothing, close down all religion institution and try to resist the fundamentalist way. Fundamentalists start to fight for the annihilation. There are groups in America still against the extremely modernized thinking of society, some of them even trying to destroy federal government. Armstrong said â€Å"Fundamentalism is here to stay† at the end, fundamentalism will not disappear. In my opinion, modernization gave whether the developing countries or the developed countries and economic advantage in the world. When these first countries modernized, they created such an unique and fresh idea that other countries try to modernize themselves so quickly. Although, developing countries could not innovate but only imitate. Japan is a perfect example of a country and a culture that can retain originality while undergoing modernization according to the article. Modernization can take a long and rough process based on every culture, value, traditions and etc. At the same time, modernization has changed in every aspect of people’s life. For fundamentalists, they believe what they believe, think what they think, love the life they used to live. In another word, who likes to be changed? For all the tragedies that attacked by the fundamentalists or total annihilation  that caused by modern secular society, we need to understand each other in order to coexisting bot h ideas and preventing future act of violence. Hopefully, what happened in the past will warn us something. Questions: 1. What keeps the fundamentalists not open to change? 2. What are the differences for developed countries and developing countries when it comes to modernization? 3. How does fundamentalism effect on the road to modernity now? Vocabularies: 1. Fundamentalism: Reactionary movement to establish traditional religious values and texts as the primary and/or governing ideology in a society. 2. Ideology: A belief system that determines and guides the structure of a government and its relation to its citizens. 3. Ethnic/ ethnicity: Referring to a shared sense of common religion, race national, and/or cultural identity.