Social Change in the Arab World - Case Study Example

Social change in the Arab world Social change refers to the significant alteration over time in cultural values, norms and in behavior patterns. These social changes may include the long term or the short term changes, these social changes include industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery, and also changes in the feminist movement. The Arab world has been undergoing these changes over the past; some of these changes for example in Iraq are aimed at eradicating war within the country. The Arab world has also changed in terms of feminist movement, in that the women within the Arab countries have rose in different ways. Over the past years, the Arab world has been known for the violent acts within the regions, many of these acts resulting from oppression by the governments. This is however changing as time moves on, with peaceful protests within the countries. The change in leadership within the countries in the region results to actual social and regime change, and also results to a reconfiguration of the political elite (Baffoun, 229). A driving factor of social change in the Arab world is the Arab youth and the Arab women, the youth, and the women in this world currently engage themselves in civic and political actions which play a major role in social change within the region. Over the past years the use of social media in this regions have reached a significant, it acts as a tool towards fighting the oppression and discrimination within these regions and helps achieve social change also within the regions. Social media in the region affects the way the youth and the women interact in regard to the government related issues and issues of social change. Through this, the media is now evolved, and the use now encompasses civic engagement and political participation. The governments around the Arab nations also recognize the potential of the social media to influence social change in that the government now uses the media in an attempt to show its transparency and inclusiveness in governance models. The youth within the Arab regions uses social in attempt to ensure political and civic mobilization. They now organize demonstrations aimed at ensuring that there is a change in the way the government rule in relation to discrimination against the women and oppression against the whole population. To move towards ensuring there is social change the youth and the women promote the use of social media to give information about the ongoing local events. At times in an attempt to change the social factors affecting the Arab world, the governments use the social media in an attempt to ensure that the citizens in this region are encouraged to participate in governments processes. Other states within the Arab nations block the use of social media in order to keep track on the spread of information around the youths. The increase of social media usage encourages citizens within the region; it plays a vital role in empowering people, mobilizing, influencing change, and shaping opinions. Many of the youth use the social media websites such as Facebook and tweeter to encourage the change (Baffoun, 230). An example of an event under which social media was used to raise awareness is the ‘Arab Spring period. In this period social media helped in the spread of awareness of information about the regions ongoing uprising and grievances. In Egypt, the citizens mainly the youth use the social media to spread the informations on ramifications and also promote political activism. According to past research, the number of the users of social media, (Facebook, and Tweeter) keeps on rising as time passes in the Arab nations. These social websites are used to encourage social changes within the nations. Social media now acts as a major tool in fighting oppression and promoting social change within these nations. However even the advantages of social media in promoting social change within the Arab nations, it also has some disadvantages. In some case, the use of social media within these areas has been reported to cause violent demonstrations and not the peacefully intended ones. An example is the ‘Arab Spring which included both the violent and peaceful demonstrations. Even with the disadvantages, social media is still an important tool and the most used tool that aimed towards ensuring there are social changes within the Arab world. A factor that results in social change within the Arab world is the feminist movements within the countries of the Arab world. Women in these countries play an important role in bringing change to the states, women over the past years have advocated for the legal, political, and constitutional reforms within the countries. All these are related to the concept of women rights, equal rights for men and women, the women within the countries achieve this by use of the local initiatives like the women NGOs and use of regional collaboration. The NGOs and local collaboration enable the fostering of sharing the best practices, mutual accountability, strategic analysis and international intervention and advocacy. These concepts are often posted through recommendations and reports submitted to the United nation bodies. At times, the women around some of these countries demonstrate with the aim of reminding people of the disparities and the inequalities that need to be addressed if the change is still needed. These feminist movements help improve the education systems and employment, in that now education and employment goes to both genders. Women use some national holidays as the international womens day under which they fight for international solidarity, under this the women launched the united nation women and the united nation group. These groups are aimed at fighting discrimination against women in practice and law; they are enacted in search for the vigilant lobbying for increased support. These fights by the women in Arab countries such as Egypt and Tunisia result to motivation to other Arab countries which intron results in social change. In Egypt for example, the women right revolution resulted in the understanding that men and women stand side by side, buy this women and men stood together to for eighteen days in protest in Cairo calling for social justice and freedom for all. Feminist movements in the Arab nations target freedom, gender equality, and social justice (Berger, 635). In many cases, the protests are peaceful, in most cases the women call for a secular state and civil state, all these factors describe social change in relation to women leaders, activists, organizers, in movements and women working towards ensuring gender equality. Over the past years, women in the Arab nations have faces backlash and discrimination; during the era of backlash, the achievements made by women received a lot of negative attitudes. The negative attitudes came from fundamentalism the sharia law within the nation and the patriarchal structures. For example in Jordan, tribal lords use to align against women rights. Currently within the Arab nations, there is the consideration of women rights. The women in these nations still keep on fighting for their rights which in turn causes the social change within the Arab nations. They achieve this by use of peaceful rights; they attempt to sustain the momentum of the human rights reforms, initiatives, and uprisings in all the Arab countries. The advantages of the feminist movements are that they encourage women in the other Arab nations to fight for their rights. This has also created chances for the girl child to get education and at the same time get employment, basically the feminist movement aim at causing social changes that reduce oppression and discrimination against the Arab women all over the Arab world. Some of the changes in the world have resulted from the integration of the world into the capitalist world system; this includes the collection of unprecedented and vast oil revenues. The oil revenues and the rapid economic growth in the Arab world are some of the factors that contribute the social change and the class transformation. The Arab world record massive migration in terms of labor, the labor migration of people over time results to externalized proletarianization; this is the transformation into wage labor. This is one factor that results in social change, it related to increasing in the employment levels within the countries of the Arab world. In this the poor people get employment, in this they can save some cash in which they are able to establish themselves, this relates to proletarianization. In this Arab countries people migrate to the urban areas in search of better employments and opportunities; this brings in the concept of internal sub proletarianization. Both proletarianization and internals sub proletarianization and industrialization of the countries produce a growing fragmentation and differentiation of the working class within communities of the rich and the poor oil-rich states. Some of the employees in the oil fields return with large amounts of savings, these employees later return to join the bourgeoisie in the countries, this is one example of a social change within the country. One of the factors that result in social change within the countries is the level at which people earn from the oil fields and how they spend their income, either in improving the general economy. The poor Arab countries do have trade balance deficits, huge debt services and foreign debts as compared to the oil-rich countries, which have substantial surpluses deployed overseas. Men and women around the Arab world have been fighting towards ensuring there is a social change in almost all dimensions, from eliminating oppression, inequality, and eliminating discrimination. Even with the difficulties of the nations in the Arab world, social change is seen in some sectors, for example discrimination against woman reduced since the start or the feminist movements that fight for the equality of women. Also, the oppression has reduced as the youth keep on fighting against this by the use of tools such as social media. All these factors aim at achieving social change within the Arab world (Berger, 635) Work cited Berger, Morroe. "Social and Political Change in the Moslem-Arab World." World Politics: 629-38. Print. Baffoun, Alya. "Women and Social Change in the Muslim Arab World." Womens Studies International Forum: 227-42. Print. "TBS: Transnational Media and Social Change in the Arab World." TBS: Transnational Media and Social Change in the Arab World. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. . Contents in the paper The paper focuses on social change in the Arab world, which includes some of the Arab countries in Africa The paper discuss what are the main causes and drivers of social change which includes, the youth and social media The paper also focuses on social changes that relate to feminist movements, this sections basically talks of how women contribute to social changes the last section of the paper focuses on how capitalistic systems, that is employment and social classes in wealth result to social changes Read More