Browsing by Subject "conflict"
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(2020)Peace has always been a pivotal issue in the core of humankind’s thoughts throughout centuries; prophets, great thinkers, poets and elites have expressed their concern, vision and ideas of peace. Major world religions have teachings for peace. As one of the new religious movements of the world, Baha’i Faith has placed peace in the focus of its teaching. There have also been academic and intellectual efforts to define peace and to present plans for making peace like the works of Johan Galtung, the founder of the peace and conflict studies. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the peace plan of Baha’i Faith with Johan Galtung’s peace theory and explore their possible crucial differences and similarities (commonalities). In Galtung’s book, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, the first chapter is peace theory which is used to explore Baha’i teachings on peace in Baha’i primary sources like writings of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of Baha’i Faith, Abdu’l-Bahá' (first successor), Shoghi Effendi (Guardian and appointed head of the Faith) and Universal House of Justice (supreme ruling body) publications. Secondary Baha’i sources are also studied which are articles, papers and books written about Baha’i Faith. The method of comparative analysis used in this study is lens comparison in which we explore A (Galtung’s Peace Theory) less than B (Baha’i Faith peace plan), we use A as a lens through which to view B. The text A is used as a framework to understand and compare with text B. Galtung’s peace theory is an umbrella under which Baha’i teachings are studied. The idea of peace and the approach toward this idea is in the center of this comparison. During this process, the differences and commonalities of A and B are listed and analyzed in three realms, i.e. in relation to peace and gender, peace and democracy and peace and inter-state systems. After every point by point comparison chapter, all common and different features of A and B are observed, listed and analyzed to verify to what degree they are similar with or differ from each other. In this way, it is possible to see the level of proximity and remoteness of two sources and to verify how much they converge or diverge. The thesis reveals in which areas of peace-building ideas, Galtung and Baha’i Faith have common approaches and in which areas they have different standpoints, i.e. this paper disclosed, on gender and peace, both approaches have high level of proximity and convergence.
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(2020)This thesis examines the relation between the young Finnish Muslim women and conflicts abroad involving Muslims. The subject of my study arises from topical questions and events which combine conflicts and Muslims strongly. The foreign fighter phenomenon has generated concerns about young Muslims, for instance. The purpose of my study is to offer Muslims a possibility to shed light on their own perspective regarding conflicts. The research questions of this thesis are 1) What is the young Finnish Muslim women’s relation to conflicts abroad concerning Islam or Muslims, 2) what role does Islam play in this relation and what kind of articulations does it receive and 3) how does the media function in forming a relation to conflicts abroad. The theoretical background utilizes a perspective, which clarifies on two levels where a relation can exist between Finnish Muslim women and conflicts abroad. The effects of conflicts on a transnational level and the impacts in Finland are concentrated. Transnational Islam and especially solidarity explain the first level. The media, as well as the whole history of how the West has viewed Islam as the other, constitute important factors on the local level. The data in my study was generated in ten qualitative research interviews, which I implemented in Helsinki during six months from December 2017 until May 2018. I analyze the data by using a content analysis to interpret the ways the informants construct their relation to conflicts abroad. My study shows that Muslim women build a relation to conflicts abroad through two kinds of paths. On the one hand, the Muslims receive conflicts via different factors, and on the other hand, they construct the relation to conflicts by themselves. Receiving consists of several negative phenomena, which especially the media generates. Islam functions as the most crucial intermediary in approaching conflicts and mostly defines the perspective. My study reveals that the Finnish Muslims’ relation to conflicts abroad contains challenges and unbalanced elements. The scope of the effects of conflicts for them appears too extensive compared to the Muslims’ limited attempts to approach conflicts. The position of religion differs remarkably in how conflicts relate to Muslims in Finland and how they in turn relate to those conflicts. Additionally, the biased picture of Muslims as active perpetrators in conflicts differs from the reality, where the Finnish Muslim women only attempt to show solidarity for suffering fellow Muslims. The relation includes the element of inevitability, because conflicts affect Finnish Muslims without their own volition and Islam urges them to look after fellow believers. This thesis contributes to the field of the research on Finnish Muslims. The themes of conflicts and the media have been addressed in previous research, but this study approaches them from a new angle. Prospective studies can draw on the findings of this study when approaching the topic in the future.
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(2020)The objective of this thesis is to utilise the frame-building perspective to study how the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat framed the case of the Chibok schoolgirls who were abducted by the terrorist group Boko Haram in April 2014 in Nigeria. The data of this study is based on 105 news articles published by Helsingin Sanomat between April 2014 and December 2018. The structure of the thesis consists of four main sections. The first section focuses on mapping the case in the Nigerian context and providing information to understand the Nigerian situation with regard to its historical background, the rise of Boko Haram, and the case of the abducted Chibok girls. The second section focuses on the theoretical frameworks. News framing theory is an appropriate tool for studying media content that deals with terrorism. While the case consists of foreign news, there are also brief references to the theory of newsworthiness and foreign news transmission processes in the Finnish media. Also, the ambiguous relation between media and terrorism is addressed: terrorists need media for conveying information about their attacks, and correspondingly, their attacks serve as material for the news media. The third section focuses on terrorism and its victims, and its relation to conflict-related gender-based violence. In the Chibok schoolgirls’ case one perspective to violence is the concept of abduction. The fourth section focuses on the implementation of the frame building perspective to examine the selected Helsingin Sanomat news data. The study reveals that in reporting the Chibok schoolgirls’ case, Helsingin Sanomat favoured material from western news agencies and the most referred to news agencies were AFP and Reuters. Local Nigerian media was referred to as a source only in five of the news. The categorization of the quote source types reveals that Nigerian authorities dominated as sources for the citations in the news. From the news data a total of 12 frame theme categories are recognized and these categories are further organized into four main frame theme groups. In the group “Understanding the circumstances” the prevailing background information is the description of Boko Haram and the dichotomy of the country, but discussion of the ethno-religious historical background of the conflict remains limited. The second group “Government inactivity and politics” reveals that the news mainly concentrate on the negotiations and the international interventions to resolve the conflict between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram. The third group “Terrorism and violence” concentrates on the case of the Chibok schoolgirls, and the other attacks are described as chains of events. The Nigerian government’s role in the atrocities is recognized but not widely discussed. In the last frame theme group “Community and compassion” the communities’ active role in conflict resolution is recognized as the voice of the victims of Boko Haram. In general, the Chibok schoolgirls are depicted as a cohesive group which is subject to terrorism and collective violence. Despite the wide media coverage, the schoolgirls’ story is told by others in the news or via the reports of human rights organizations. The conflict in the country is depicted to be that between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram, although the unstable situation in the country has developed from a complex web of socio-cultural, economic, ethno-religious, and regional elements. The Chibok girls themselves, although referred to in the news, are mainly presented as victims whose own voice is hardly heard.
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(2017)The sacrificing of Isaac, described in Genesis 22, is one of the most troubling stories in Bible. In that story, Abraham was faced with a moral dilemma and compelled to choose between two bad options: to disobey God or to kill his son. Why was Abraham willing to commit the most horrendous thing one can imagine: killing his own child? Did God really ask Abraham for such a sacrifice, and if yes, did he really expect Abraham to obey? Several attempts to explain Abraham’s behavior as well as God’s command have been made. Most often, Abraham is portrayed as a model of faith. God, on the other hand, is usually seen as ”only testing” Abraham, but not really expecting a sacrifice. Many scholars are questioning these interpretations, though. To some of them, Abraham is no more than a criminal, and God a moral monster. In this study, I am taking an analytical approach to existing literature and commentaries on the sacrificing of Isaac. I am describing, classifying and comparing different attempts to resolve the obvious conflict between divine obedience and morality. Since the command to sacrifice Isaac is often regarded as a divine test, I will also examine, what exactly might have been the focus of that test: faith, obedience, fear or something else? I am also referring to some contemporary crime cases to show that sacrificing a child in God’s name doesn’t belong only to history. Thus, contrary to some Bible commentators who claim that nothing similar could happen today, I will show that some people have used the story of Abraham and Isaac as a justification for their pernicious action. Finally, and as the title of my thesis implies, I will propose a ”kaleidoscopic” approach to the story of sacrificing Isaac. Just like an image in a kaleidoscope is prone to change with each new treatment, so is the interpretation of the story. Even more, the story in Genesis 22 is like a Rorschach test: it allows for the viewer to see what she wants to see, and to project her preconceptions of Abraham and God to the troublesome image.
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