Nothing of true massiveness is born in a day. Incidents are rarely as spontaneous as they appear, requiring years of growth, cultivation, and specific circumstances. 9-11 was not the product of a single-day decision or even of the lifelong ambitions of a single man. It was first planted in the grounds of a movement started nearly a century before the act for which it was most famous, continuously watered by the events that occurred in its contemporary environment, and ultimately shaped by the lives and experiences of those who directly cared for and created it. In order to understand how al-Qaeda grew to become a worldwide terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of the United States, one must look at and examine all of these features.
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Such fear and reactionary views are only escalated when said modernization happens rapidly. During the 20th century, the world developed technologically at an incredible rate; the lives of people separated only by a generation were unfathomably different. Such change was only more pronounced and extreme in the Middle East. The United States had visible buildup to these enormous changes, even if it was less than had been present in previous generations. The jarring advances in weaponry, industry, and people’s social lives (including the division of labor) of World War II followed similar changes from World War I. Revolutionary movements regarding Civil Rights and feminism followed in the footsteps of movements that dated back to the 19th century. Technology repeatedly changed and grew, but always in manners similar to before, and all of this occurred after the majority of people had already had their lives altered at least in the most general sense by the Industrial Revolution that had closed out the previous century. This granted Americans and many others some increased ease when it came to abrupt modernization, something that many in the Middle East simply did not have. In the 1950’s, “the essential experience of living on the Arabian Peninsula” remained the same as it had for centuries, with few people having ever even seen a car (99). The first oil boom, which paved the way for the …show more content…
World War II in of itself directly and indirectly through its after-effects created an environment polarized between different peoples, different countries, and different ideologies. Regarding different peoples, antisemitism sadly did not end with the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945; instead, those beliefs only spread and garnered support in areas which lacked such strong polarization when it came to opinions on the Jewish people before World War II, namely the Middle East (45). Political conflicts on both the more local and global scale also added to the extreme polarization. The British failed to deal with Palestine at the close of World War II, which set the stage for the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Even today and thousands of miles away from where it continues to take place, the Israeli-Palestine conflict is horrifically polarizing. It only makes sense that views would be more extreme in the areas directly affected. Of course, such polarized environments tend to result in extremism in general, however extremism regarding the issue of Israel in particular was encouraged by a sense of hopelessness that hung around the issue of Palestine. The failure of the 6-Day War left many Arabs feeling despondent when it came to the contemporary state of their countries and their lives (45), and such despondency only further encourages extremism.
Such fear and reactionary views are only escalated when said modernization happens rapidly. During the 20th century, the world developed technologically at an incredible rate; the lives of people separated only by a generation were unfathomably different. Such change was only more pronounced and extreme in the Middle East. The United States had visible buildup to these enormous changes, even if it was less than had been present in previous generations. The jarring advances in weaponry, industry, and people’s social lives (including the division of labor) of World War II followed similar changes from World War I. Revolutionary movements regarding Civil Rights and feminism followed in the footsteps of movements that dated back to the 19th century. Technology repeatedly changed and grew, but always in manners similar to before, and all of this occurred after the majority of people had already had their lives altered at least in the most general sense by the Industrial Revolution that had closed out the previous century. This granted Americans and many others some increased ease when it came to abrupt modernization, something that many in the Middle East simply did not have. In the 1950’s, “the essential experience of living on the Arabian Peninsula” remained the same as it had for centuries, with few people having ever even seen a car (99). The first oil boom, which paved the way for the …show more content…
World War II in of itself directly and indirectly through its after-effects created an environment polarized between different peoples, different countries, and different ideologies. Regarding different peoples, antisemitism sadly did not end with the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945; instead, those beliefs only spread and garnered support in areas which lacked such strong polarization when it came to opinions on the Jewish people before World War II, namely the Middle East (45). Political conflicts on both the more local and global scale also added to the extreme polarization. The British failed to deal with Palestine at the close of World War II, which set the stage for the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Even today and thousands of miles away from where it continues to take place, the Israeli-Palestine conflict is horrifically polarizing. It only makes sense that views would be more extreme in the areas directly affected. Of course, such polarized environments tend to result in extremism in general, however extremism regarding the issue of Israel in particular was encouraged by a sense of hopelessness that hung around the issue of Palestine. The failure of the 6-Day War left many Arabs feeling despondent when it came to the contemporary state of their countries and their lives (45), and such despondency only further encourages extremism.