MIDTERM REVIEWER CONTEMPORARY WORLD

WORLD OF REGIONS AND REGIONALIZATION

Regionalization – can be conceived as the growth of societal integration within a given region, including
the undirected processes of social and economic interaction among the state.

Regionalism – is a process and treated as an emergent, socially constituted phenomenon.

Regions are constructed and defined by policy makers, economic actors and social movements.

Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN)

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (more commonly known as ASEAN) is an intergovernmental
organization aimed primarily at promoting economic growth and regional stability among its members.

ASEAN was founded half a century ago in 1967 by the five Southeast Asian nations of Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

• ASEAN aims to promote collaboration and cooperation among member states, as well as to
advance the interests of the region as a whole, including economic and trade growth.

There are currently 10 ASEAN member states:

• Indonesia

• Malaysia

• Philippines

• Singapore

• Thailand

• Brunei

• Laos

• Myanmar

• Cambodia

• Vietnam

European Union

• The European Union comprising 27 European countries and governing common economic,
social, and security policies. Originally confined to western Europe, the EU undertook
a robust expansion into central and eastern Europe in the early 21st century.
 • The EU was created by the Maastricht Treaty, which entered into force on November 1, 1993.
The treaty was designed to enhance European political and economic integration by creating a
single currency, a unified foreign and security policy, and common citizenship rights.

• The European Single Market was established by 12 countries in 1993 to ensure the so-called
four freedoms: the movement of goods, services, people, and money.

Reasons why Countries form a Regional Organizations

1. They create regional organization for military defense.

2. Countries form regional organizations to pool their resources and get better returns for their
exports.

3. Economic crisis compel countries to come together.

Military Defense

In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other
Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its
affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international alliance that consists of
30 member states from North America and Europe. It was established at the signing of
the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. 

• Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states,
it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the
attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.

The Warsaw Pact

 The Warsaw Pact (WP), was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland between

the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern
Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War.  The Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of
power or counterweight to NATO.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

• The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an organization of 13 nations.

Founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, and Venezuela.

• It has since 1965 been headquartered in Vienna, Austria, although Austria is not an OPEC
member state. As of September 2018, the 13 member countries accounted for an estimated 44
percent of global oil production and 80 percent of the world's "proven" oil reserves, giving OPEC
a major influence on global oil prices.

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia possesses around 17 percent of the world's petroleum reserves. The oil and gas sector
accounts for about 50 per cent of gross domestic product, and about 70 per cent of export earnings.
Saudi Arabia's economy is petroleum-based; oil accounts for 90% of the country's exports and nearly
75% of government revenue.

Economic crisis compel countries to come together

ASEAN’s experience with previous pandemics such as SARS and avian and swine influenzas has led
member states and their citizens to take COVID-19 seriously. ASEAN’s experience with previous
pandemics such as SARS and avian and swine influenzas has led member states and their citizens to take
COVID-19 seriously. The economic crisis unleashed by the outbreak of COVID-19 is hurting economies,
regardless of income level.

THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION

• Religion is human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual,
divine, or worthy of especial reverence.

• It is also commonly regarded as consisting of the way people deal with ultimate concerns about
their lives and their fate after death.

• Believers and worshippers participate in and are often enjoined to perform devotional or
contemplative practices such as prayer, meditation, or particular rituals.

Importance of Religion

1. Religion explains individual suffering

2. Religion enhances self-importance
3. Religion comes as a source of social cohesion
4. Religion encourages social welfare
5. Religion is the agency of social control

World’s Major Religions

The world's faithful account for 83% of the global population; the great majority of these fall under ten
classical religions—These ten religions are the most prominent spiritual traditions that still exist.

1. Christianity
 Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered around the personage of Jesus of Nazareth, or
Jesus Christ. Christianity arose in the 30s–50s CE as a religious offshoot of Judaism based on the
teachings of Jesus, who was himself Jewish.
 Christians generally consider Jesus to be the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, as well as the one
and only Son of God.

The Ten Commandments of God

 The Ten Commandments are laws that God gave to the ancient nation of Israel. These laws are
also known as the Ten Words, which is a literal translation of the Hebrew expression ʽaseʹreth
had·deva·rimʹ.
 2. Islam

• Islam is a strictly monotheistic faith founded by the prophet Muhammad in the year 607 in
present-day Saudi Arabia.

• His teachings, collected in the Quran, claim common descent with many Jewish and Christian
beliefs. Nearly all of Arabia converted to Islam by 632, the year of Muhammad's death,

Five Pillars of Islam

• The Five Pillars of Islam are some basic acts in Islam, considered mandatory by believers, and are
the foundation of Muslim life. They are summarized in the famous hadith of Gabriel.

1. Declaration of Faith
2. Obligatory prayer
3. Compulsory giving
4. Fasting in the month of Ramadan
5. Pilgrimage of Mecca

3, Judaism

• Judaism is a strictly monotheistic religion practiced by the Jewish people, an ethnic and religious
nation descended from the historic peoples of Israel and Judah.

• Judaism as it would be recognized today originated in the Middle East in at least the 500s BCE,
although certain religious traditions or beliefs can be traced back much further. Its adherents
have long faced persecution from dominant religious groups around them.

4.Hinduism

• Hinduism is by many accounts the oldest religion in the world, due to its origins in Vedic beliefs
dating as far back as the 1500s BCE. The religion has no founder, and is a synthesis of many
different Indian religious traditions.

Karma

• Hinduism believes that what we are now is the result of our Karma in the past life. Karma is
what we do in our life. The good things we do are called good Karma and the bad things we do
are called as bad Karma or sin.

5.Buddhism

• Buddhism is a religious tradition founded by Gautama Buddha in the early 400s BCE, drawing
from (or opposing) many of the same Vedic traditions that inform Hinduism. Buddhists
engaged Hindus and Jains in religious dialogues for centuries, developing mutual competing
traditions and beliefs.

Reincarnation

• Buddhism believes in the concept of reincarnation. The soul is immortal and the death is that of
the body only. The soul changes the body as we change our clothes and is reborn again.
 6. Sikhism

• Sikhism is a young religion founded in the early 1500s CE in Punjab (Northern India) by the Guru
Nanak. Guru Nanak was raised as a Hindu in the Muslim-ruled Mughal Empire, but he rejected
both dominant faiths and began preaching his own religion.

7.Confucianism

• Confucianism, it must be said, is not a religion in a strict sense. It is a philosophy that draws
on the folk religion of China. Confucianism as a school of thought was founded by the Chinese
philosopher Kǒng Qiū (孔丘), better known as Master Kǒng or Kǒngzǐ (孔子), during China's
Spring and Autumn period in the 500s BCE.

The Golden Rule

• The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as you want to be treated. It is a maxim that is
found in most religions and cultures like Confucianism

8.Taoism

 Taoism shares some common elements with Chinese folk religion, but the core teachings differ
(unlike Confucianism). Taoism has been immensely influential on Chinese and East Asian
cultures, with Taoist thought influencing everything from literature to medicine to martial arts.

Yin Yang

 The yin-yang concept represents balance and harmony and suggests that everything in nature is
composed of opposite but complementary elements.

 These opposing forces interconnect to create chi or the binding energy force in the cosmos. Too
much of either one can be destructive, and finding their balance is essential for happiness and
health. 

9.Shintoism

• Shinto is the traditional religion of Japan, which incorporates a vast array of local beliefs and
customs across the nation. These traditions were collected and described as something like
Shinto in the 800s CE, although the different beliefs predate this.

Shinto Shrine

• In Shintoism, Shrines are considered as shelters for the places of worship of Kami. These shrines
can be any public building, a place of natural beauty such as sacred forests, waterfalls or
mountains or they can also be small shrines set up in homes.

10. Zoroastrianism

• Zoroastrianism is perhaps the world's oldest monotheistic religion, founded by the Persian
prophet Zoroaster. It is first recorded in the 500s BCE, but many historians believe it was
founded as early as the 900s BCE.

The Effects of Globalization in Religion

 • Among the consequences of this implication for religion have been that globalization
encourages religious pluralism.

• Religions identify themselves in relation to one another, and they become less rooted in
particular places because of diasporas and transnational ties.

• Globalization further provides fertile ground for a variety of noninstitutionalized religious

manifestations and for the development of religion as a political and cultural resource.

Globalization results in violence and the unjust oppression of the majority of people around the world. It
threatens local and indigenous cultures.

THE MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION

• Media is a means of conveying something such as a channel of communication.

• Media is the technologies of mass communication.

• The term "medium" (the singular form of "media") is defined as "one of the means or channels
of general communication, information, or entertainment in society.

Purposes of Media

• The purpose of a media is to give information about news, gossips, fashion and advertising.

• The role of a media has to be one way trading and marketing of products and prejudices. It
gives geographical knowledge about how people divided.

• The media claimed to be governed by righteousness and equity for the common man to the rich
man.

Marshall McLuhan

• Marshall McLuhan was associated with the University of Toronto from 1946 until 1979. He
became full professor of English Literature there in 1952.

• He was known as a theorist and educator, whose aphorism “the medium is the message”

• It summarized his view of the potent influence of television, computers, and other electronic
disseminators of information in shaping styles of thinking and thought, whether in sociology, art,
science, or religion.

• He regarded the printed book as an institution fated to disappear.

Global Village

• Global village describes the phenomenon of the entire world becoming more interconnected as
the result of the propagation of media technologies throughout the world.

• Mc Luhan coined the term 'global village' in the 1960s. It indicates daily production and
consumption of media, images and content by global audiences.
 The term "global village" means all parts of the world as they are being brought together by the
internet and other electronic communication interconnections. Other forms of communication such
as Skype allow us to communicate and connect with others, especially others in other countries,
easier.

Media and Globalization

Globalization is something that can be observed in the world around us

• in the financial crises that result in people losing their jobs and homes;

• in the spread of epidemics;

• in the trafficking of drugs and people that spills across borders;

• in the activities of the multinational corporations whose products we buy.

It is a process that has consequences for citizens, for society, for states, and for the world community.

CULTURAL AND MEDIA IMPERIALISM

Cultural imperialism is the imposition by one usually politically or economically dominant community of
various aspects of its own culture onto another nondominant community. It is cultural in that the
customs, traditions, religion, language, social and moral norms, and other aspects of the imposing
community are distinct from, though often closely related to, the economic and political systems that
shape the other community.

India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was under the jurisdiction of European colonial
powers during the Age of Discovery and successfully colonized various aspects of the Indian society like
culture, politics, economy and education.

Cultural Imperialism and Colonization

Cultural imperialism became one of the primary instruments of colonization. While colonization was
almost always initiated by some kind of military intervention, its full effects were achieved through
practices of cultural imperialism.

Islam arrived in the Philippines in the late 14th century with Arab and Malay merchants following
Southeast Asian trade networks. Muslims were dubbed Moro's by the Spanish, a reference to the
Muslim “Moors” encountered in Spain and North Africa whom the Spanish regarded with disdain.

The Spanish colonial period of the Philippines began when explorer Ferdinand Magellan came to the
islands in 1521 and claimed it as a colony.

The period of American colonialization of the Philippines was 48 years. It began with the cession of the
Philippines to the U.S. by Spain in 1898 and lasted until the U.S. recognition of Philippine independence
in 1946.

Globalization and Cultural Imperialism

  Globalization has created a new vehicle by which cultural imperialism can occur, often with
minimal resistance or acknowledgment that it is happening. Supporters of the expansion of
‘‘free markets’’ argue that cultures are fluid and therefore cultural imperialism is a ‘‘natural’’
part of the growth of trade.
 If western practices and ideas are the most successful, then it is believed that cultural practices
associated with them are better than other cultures.

Modern Cultural Imperialism

 During the 20th century, cultural imperialism was no longer so closely linked with military
intervention but rather with the exertion of economic and political influence by some powerful
countries over less powerful countries.
 Many observers viewed the Soviet Union's forceful attempts to impose communism on other
countries as a form of cultural imperialism.
 Charges of cultural imperialism have been aimed at the United States by critics who allege that
cultural-imperial control was being sought economically by creating a demand for American
goods and services in other parts of the world through aggressive marketing.

The Media Imperialism

 Media imperialism is a theory based upon an over- concentration of mass media from larger
nations as a significant variable in negatively affecting smaller nations, in which the national
identity of smaller nations is lessened or lost due to media homogeneity inherent in mass media
from the larger countries.
 The media and communication do have a role in cultural domination. It has long been
recognized that the doctrine of the free flow of information has an imperialist nature to it. It is
part of the larger phenomenon of cultural imperialism.