Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 4

Terrorism - Essay Example This implies that terrorism has been used by left-wing and right-wing political parties, religious groups, nationalistic groups, ruling governments, revolutionaries, among others (Malisow and French 24). This paper shall seek to explain the moral and political aspects of terrorism as well as the issues that define and conceptualize the terrorism phenomenon. There are several documentaries and films that have been created to explicate the origin, as well as the issues that revolve around terrorism. Some of these documentaries include; The Weather Underground by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, The Power Nightmares by Adam Curtis, among others. These two documentaries extensively explore the concept of terrorism, how it came into being, its existence and how it is perceived by people of different cadres. First and foremost, it is worth noting that the two documentaries concur that terrorism came into existence as a form of revolution against issues that were the masses assumed were against h umanity and peaceful co-existence among people. In the documentary, The Weather Underground, Sam Green and Bill Siegel have explicated the manner in which a group of students revolted against some of the issues they felt the government was not addressing. The students, under an umbrella body known as Students for Democratic Society, protested against unequal rights of the African American people and the Vietnam War (Green and Siegel). After realizing that their peaceful demonstrations were being taken for granted, they resorted to terror. For instance, the smashed windows of government buildings and even set blew some with bombs. While blowing the government buildings, they passed word for people to vacate the buildings to ensure that no one was hurt (Green and Siegel). In this case, they respected the sanctity of life while agitating for their rights. This documentary plays an integral part in giving the history of American terrorists. On the hand, The Power Nightmares documentary explicates the rise and growth of Islamic terrorism and the perceived war on terror. Just like in The Weather Underground, Curtis’s documentary demonstrates that resentment and dissatisfaction with the state of things led to the rise of terrorism. However, according to Curtis, terrorism began with the Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian civil servant and the founder of modern Islamist school of thought, resentment of the western society’s morals and virtues (Curtis). Having stayed in America and witnessed the rot in the western morals as perpetrated by individualism, he opposed Gamal Abdel Nasser’s westernization of Egypt. Therefore, he aims at saving the society by restructuring it along Islamic lines. Additionally, he is convinced that his wish can only be achieved by creating an elite vanguard to facilitate a revolution. Consequently, he creates the Muslim Brotherhood of which he becomes the leader. He motivates other Islamists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later becom es the mentor of Osama bin Laden (Curtis). They have a strong notion that westernized leaders can be killed in order to remove their corruption in the society. Curtis also reveals the rise of disillusioned liberals such as Paul Wolfowitz and Irving Kristol in America. They were agitating for th

Susan B Anthony Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Susan B Anthony - Essay Example In 1838, her father lost his cotton mill business because of the financial depression in the United States, and in the spring of 1839 he had to sell their house. They moved to a town called Hardscrabble. In the spring of 1840, she went to teach at a boarding school near New York City. While Susan was teaching, she heard people talking about getting rid of slavery. She agreed with this idea, just like her father did. She believed that all people were equal. In 1849, when Susan came back home to Rochester, her father had started inviting over his friends who were interested in talking about the achievement of making free slavery state. She listened to her father and to others who wanted to finish slavery from the society. During the 1850s, the plan of getting rid of slavery was becoming an essential issue. The people in the North were against slavery, while on the other hand, the people in the South wanted to keep slavery. Those who were against slavery were called abolitionists. A lot of abolitionists were invited to the farm for a meeting. They all supported Susan in her work for women's rights. "In 1852, Anthony joined with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer in campaigning for women's suffrage and equal pay. She also served in the American Anti-Slavery Society, and challenged barriers to female leadership in temperance societies and educational associations. Following the Civil War, Stanton and Anthony focused their efforts on voting rights, in hopes that suffrage for women and blacks could be linked in a groundbreaking constitutional amendment." Feminist leader http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/bios/2.html (Accessed January 18, 2006) She helped the administration of President Abraham Lincoln by forming the Women's Loyal League. In 1856, the abolitionists motivated Susan to classify, write and deliver speeches for a movement against slavery. In 1865, their efforts would pay off with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even though the slaves were free they didn't get the right to vote. In addition to Susan's fight to end slavery, she joined the Women's State Temperance Society in New York. Both men and women could join. Soon men started to take over the society, so Susan resigned as leader of the group. That was the end of her work with the temperance movement; she began working for women's rights. "In 1866 Anthony joined with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone to help establish the American Equal Rights Association. The following year, the organization became active in Kansas where Negro suffrage and women's suffrage was to be decided by popular vote. However, both ideas were rejected at the polls." Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted both the abolitionist and the women's right group to get combine for good results. Unluckily, the abolitionists did not want to work for women to have the right to vote. (Just as before, many of the women's suffragists did not care to get their cause tangled up with abolition.) Susan and Elizabeth were back where they had started twenty years before and focused their efforts on women's rights in order to raise money. Susan B. Anthony in politics In 1868 Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton established the political weekly, The Revolution and the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. This amendment affirmed that all people who were born or naturalized in the United States