Geopolitics and the Flat World: Chapters 12 - 14

Summary

(Continued)

The prosperity of United States--a nation many in the Arab-Muslim world perceive as frivolous, shallow, promiscuous, and bullying--is difficult to understand, because students in this world are instructed to believe that Islam is the most perfect and complete expression of God's monotheistic message and that the Prophet Muhammad is God's last and most perfect messenger. Friedman does not raise this philosophy as point as a criticism--instead, he argues that this belief coupled with the lack of economic prosperity in these nations, produces a cognitive dissonance for Muslims that results in humiliation. Friedman argues that the passive support that groups like al-Qaeda receive stems from Arab governments' refusal to engage radicals in a war of ideas (because they are hampered by their own illegitimacy) and because many good, decent people in the Arab-Muslim world are frustrated by what they recognize as the U.S.'s support (or instigation) of injustice in their world.

Friedman ends chapter 12 by noting that if the many people that live in the unflat world enter the flat world (as they are beginning to do) there will be an environmental crisis. He urges Americans to take seriously the damage they are wreaking on the environment through their waste. He believes it is in the U.S.'s best interest to collaborate with China and India to reduce energy consumption. In becoming the Axis of Energy these nations could effectively disempower the Axis of Evil.

Chapter 13, Globalization of the Local: The Cultural Revolution is about to Begin, is a short chapter that.........

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