Literature Review of the Impact of Human Resource Management on Organisational performance

Literature Review of the Impact of Human Resource Management on Organisational performance Organisations worldwide are under pressure today to continually improve their performance. The major trends behind these competitive pressures are globalisation, advances in information technology, and increasing deregulation of global markets (Becker Gerhart, 1996; Dany, Guedri, and Hatt, 2008). These changes have a strong impact on a countrys ability to maintain its competitiveness (Laprade, 2005). Without an efficient workforce organisations lose their ability to compete, both locally and internationally, eventually leading to poor organisational performance and thus ending up with little or no economic success (Tomaka, 2001). Unlike in the past when natural resources, technology, and capital used to be the key factors to determine the competitive advantage of the firms of one nation over the other nations, human resources today in modern times have become the most important resource for the firms to obtain strategic advantage over the other firms (Dany et al, 2008). This is beca use managers in both the public and private sector organisations regard the human resources of their organisation as its major source of sustaining competitive advantage by having the best of the best Human resource systems in place for recruiting, selecting, motivating, and efficiently managing their people (Mesch, 2010). As a result of these changes in the global economic environment business strategy, the field of human resource management is rapidly changing more than ever today (Becker Gerhart, 1996). Furthermore, among all the organisation factors which contribute to organisational performance, the human resources are now regarded as the most fundamental factor (Mesch, 2010). Recent researches on HRM show strong and positive relationship between HRM practices and organisational performance (Carlson, Upton, and Seaman, 2006; Collins Smith, 2006). Therefore, it is vital for managers to have a better understanding of the role of HRM in order to create successful organisational performance. Accordingly this chapter presents a review of the literature, relevant to this research study, on the relationship between HRM practices and organisational performance. HRM and Organisational Performance Human Resource Management Armstrong (2006, p3) defines Human Resource Management as, a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organizations most valued assets the people working there whom individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives. Human Resource Management is, the policies, practices and systems that influence employees behaviour, attitudes and performance (De Cieri, Kramar, Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2008, p5). Delery and Doty (1996) assert that the HRM best practices, once identified and implemented would always produce improved organisational performance. Fox and McLeay (1992) found from their landmark empirical study of forty-nine companies, composed of companies mainly from the UK engineering and electronics sectors, strong supportive influence between six critical HRM practices in achieving successful above average sector performance relationship, over a 10 year period. These HRM practices are (ibid): Recruitment and Selection, Management Education, Training and Development, Performance Appraisal, Remuneration and Rewards, and Company-wide Career Planning. Organisational Performance A recent definition of Organisational Performance is given by Antony and Bhattacharyya (2010, p43). They define Organisational Performance as, a measure of how well organizations are managed and the value they deliver to customers and other stakeholders. According to Daft (2000) Organisational Performance is the organisations ability to achieve its objectives efficiently and effectively. Organisational Performance represents the value of the organisation in terms of the total contribution made by the efficient and effective management of its human resources (Neumann Segev, 1978). Chien (2004) strongly posits that organisational performance is composed of five major critical components. And these are (ibid, p290): Motivation Models, The Leadership, The Organizational Culture and Environment, The Work Design, and The Human Resource Management Policy. Relationship between HRM and Organisational Performance The traditional role of HRM in organisations was mainly to support the operations through managing people to win the employees organisational commitment to the goals of the organisation (McGunnigle Jameson, 2000). In consequence, HR managers had to strictly comply with the detailed procedures of personnel administration which drove the ways in which the organisations handled their human resource activities (Huselid, Jackson, and Schuler, 1997). The key HRM activities included in this regard are: recruitment, selection, performance measurement, training and development, and administration of compensation and rewards (Dany et al, 2008). In addition to performing these HRM activities HR managers have to create value for the organisations in which they work (Huselid et al, 1997). However, todays HRM focuses heavily on the organisations successful outcomes through the integration of the various HR functions (Dany et al, 2008). Ulrich (1996, p2) strongly suggests that human resources determine an organisations success in overcoming major challenges facing executives today: globalisation, value chain for business competitiveness and HR services, change, attracting and retaining intellectual capital. Together these major challenges require that HR practices create and add value that can be measured reliably (ibid). Todays top performing companies pay extraordinary attention to managing effectively the HR dimensions which affect employee behaviours: morale, motivation, attitude, commitment, etc (Cadle Yeates, 2008, p28). Each of these HR dimensions plays powerful part in determining organisational success (ibid). Modern HRM global best practices include Lawlers (1986) High-Involvement Work Systems (HIWS), Appelbaum and Batts (1994) High Performance Work Systems (HPWS), and Wood and Albaneses (1995) High Commitment Management. Research shows that these modern HRM practices have a strong and positive influence on organisational performance (Ramsay, Scholarios, and Harley, 2000). More and more researches strongly indicate that that there are positive links between HRM practices and organisational performance (Carlson et al, 2006; Collins Smith, 2006). For instance, Delery (1998, p289) asserts that, the methods used by an organization to manage its human resources can have a substantial impact on many organizationally relevant outcomes. Gerhart and Milkovich (1992) conducted studies to measure the impacts of compensation and rewards systems on the successful accomplishment of organisational goals and objectives. Likewise research study conducted by Terpstra and Rozell (1993) shows that five key HRM selection practices are linked to business profit. In his review of the key empirical studies on the relationship between HRM and organisational performance Ulrich (1997) writes that these studies investigated the impact of specific HR practices on specific successful organisational outcomes; for example, effective HR practices in training and compensation were related to business turnover, labour productivity, and organisational performance. Ulrichs (1997) review summarised that the empirical studies were based on the assumption that efficient use of human resources through best HR practices would lead to successful organisational performance. Empirical studies conducted by Huselid (1995, p635) to assess the relationship between a set of HRM practices (referred by Huselid as HPWS High Performance Work Systems, which included: extensive recruitment, selection, training procedures, formal information sharing, attitude assessment, and job design) and organisational performance of 968 large companies have shown that there is a positive relationship between HRM and successful organisational performance. The key organisational performance measures used to evaluate the high performance HRM practices in the empirical studies included: labour productivity, financial performance, and turnover (ibid). Delaney and Huselid (1996) investigated the effects of recruitment and selection, compensation, training and development, decision making, complaints and grievance procedures, promotion practices, and the combined synergetic impact of these HRM practices in 590 for-profit and not-for-profit companies. Overall, their study concluded that these progressive of HRM practices were positively associated with firm performance. Harel and Tzafrir (1999, p186), based on their extensive theoretical and empirical research as well as from the prior studies conducted by other researchers in the HR field, have identified six core components of strategic and universalistic HRM best practices that are strongly related to organisational performance. These 6 core components of HR best practices are (ibid): Recruitment; Selection; Compensation; Employee Participation; Internal Labor Market; and Training. Likewise Becker and Huselid (1999) strongly agree with the seven high performance HRM best practices put forward by Pfeffer (1998) as having strong links to organisational performance. These 7 high performance HR best practices are (Pfeffer, 1998, cited in Huselid Becker, 1999, p297): Employment Security Selective Hiring Teams and Decentralized Decision-making High Pay Extensive Training Reduced Status Distinctions Extensive Information Sharing. Each of these seven high performance HRM best practices offer options for the HR professionals to choose the appropriate ones for enhancing the organisational performance and at the same time one should remember that each of these HRM best practices form an integrated high performance HRM system (Huselid Becker, 1999, p298). Approaches to Examine HRM and Organisational Performance Relationship There are two major fundamental approaches to study the relationship between HRM and organisational performance. These are termed as: Best-Practice approach, and Best-Fit approach. Best-Practice Approach The best-practice approach claims that HRM practices are universalistic and thus any organisation can obtain enhanced organisational performance by adopting the HRM best practices for managing people in any organisational context (Boxall Purcell, 2000). Best-Fit Approach On the other hand the best-fit approach argues for a vertical fit whereby the HRM systems are integrated with the corporate strategy of the organisation for obtaining improved organisational performance within a specific organisational context (Boselie, Paauwe, and Richardson, 2003). Between these two approaches, the best-practice approach is considered to be superior by HRM professionals and researchers for examining the impact of HRM practices on organisational performance ((Hoque, 1999, p422). Cautions in Examining the HRM and Organisational Performance Relationship Although there is wide support to the idea that HRM practices lead to improved organisational performance yet there are some cautions that have to be observed. Huselid (1995), states that successful organisational performance has been obtained by high-performance firms since they were able to afford expensive HRM systems and practices and this may not be affordable to most other firms. Furthermore, leadership style could have a stronger impact over the deployment of HRM practices due to the different types of influences which the leaders can exert on their people (Becker Huselid, 2006). Organisational Performance in Public Sector Organisations The power and water sector in Oman is a not-for-profit sector. As stated earlier (in chapter 1) the power and water sector in Oman is striving for reducing its operating costs. Only those not-for-profit organisations which possess human capital resources that operate with increased professionalism and more advanced multi-tasking skills through enhanced productivity (and thus ensuring and effecting control over operating costs) can accomplish their mission successfully (Mesch, 2010). Furthermore, in the times to come, the not-for-profit sector has to inevitably pursue more efficiency and with more economies of scale in order to provide cost-effective services to their stakeholders and prove organisational effectiveness (ibid). Evaluating organisational performance in the public sector organisations is not easy and this is further compounded by the fact that measurement of organisational performance in the public sector has not been developed in the organisation theory literature (Waheed, Mansor, and Ismail, 2010). This primarily because of the following factors that are unique to public sector organisations (ibid, p330): Lack of well-defined objectives and large number of multiple objectives; Central administration; Absence of generally accepted performance indicators for measuring organisational performance; Diffused and largely fragmented responsibility because of the interdependency of the performance of the public sector organisations. As a result of which accountability is difficult to extract. Evidence from their review of the limited literature available on organisational performance in the public sector organisations show that the three most common major indicators (the other not common indicators are: relevance, and efficacy) of organisational performance used in the frameworks provided by the various researchers are (ibid, pp331-336): Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Innovation. Katou and Budhwar (2006) studied 178 manufacturing organisations in Greece to investigate the relationship between the HRM systems and policies and organisational performance. Their study used the following indicators of organisational performance from their literature review (ibid, p1226) which can also be applied to service organisations as well: Efficiency: usage of fewer resources to achieve organisational objectives; Effectiveness: achieving the organisational objectives successfully; Development: developing and building the capacity of the organisation for meeting the future challenges and opportunities; Satisfaction: satisfying all the key participants customers, stakeholders, and employees; Innovation: of products and the related processes; and Quality: enhanced higher quality of products (services). Summary This chapter reviewed the available literature relevant to this study on HRM practices that can improve organisational performance. The above review of HRM literature shows that HRM best practices is distinctly composed of recruitment and selection, training and development, compensation and rewards system, information sharing, and employee participation. Organisational performance can be measured through the successful organisational outcomes in the form of efficiency and effectiveness, customer satisfaction, service quality, and labour productivity.

Fight Against Death Essay

Dylan Thomas’s poem, â€Å"Do not go gentle into that good night†, is a poignant commentary on death, inspired in part by the impending death of his own father, who faced deteriorating health and frailty during the last few years of his life. After analyzing this poem it gave it more depth and me a better understanding of the poem. I will be covering the structure/form, theme, and symbolism. The first element I will use to analyze this poem is structure/form. This poem is a nineteen line poem with five tercets and a quatrain. This poem is written using the fixed poetry format of villanelle, in which there are only two rhyme sounds. The refrains are; â€Å"do not go gentle into that night† and â€Å"rage, rage against the dying of the light.† (Clugston, 2010, Ch. 12) Line one refrains on six, twelve, eighteen, while line three refrains on nine, fifteen, and nineteen. The rhyme scheme of this poem is ABA and is written in iambic pentameter. Thomas’s use of simple repetitive language keeps the iambic pentameter, which is ten syllables per line. The theme of â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night† is darkness, death, and aging. In every stanza the reader receives an image of death or darkness. An example of the theme is â€Å"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, do not go gentle into that good night† (Clugston, 2010, Ch. 12) which represents the sun setting; in other words it is the dying of the day. Thomas tells readers to live strong lives and fight against death rather than accepting it. The whole poem speaks of fighting and raging against dying. Everyone knows that death will come to them in some way, whether that is today or tomorrow but the author wants us to not welcome it. He wants them to embrace life no matter how hard it gets and whenever death is near, to fight against it. Thomas Dylan uses different types of people to prove that his thoughts apply to all men. The wise men whose intelligent is not going to save him from dying, the good men whose good deeds won’t save him, the wild who learns too late and the grave men who sees with his blind sights. All these men lived a different life but in the end, they all reach the same conclusion which is struggling against death. The words that the author uses to illustrate these themes are â€Å"rage, rage against the dying of light and old age should burn and have rage at the close of the day†. His choice of words supports his attitude towards this theme because in these lines, he’s telling his readers to rage against dying which means to fight against death. As we grow old, life becomes a struggle for some people. Even though struggling is hard, the author believes that life is worth fighting for. The theme and symbolism in this poem kind of go hand in hand. Thomas explores the contrast between the natural symbols of light and dark. Light traditionally stands for â€Å"good† while dark traditionally stands for â€Å"bad†. In this poem the night is a symbol of death, signaling an end. â€Å"Sad heights† is also a symbolism of his father’s life. His father’s life was indeed sad because it did not amount to what the poet hoped it would. â€Å"Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray† (Clugston, 2010, Ch. 12) lets the reader know that he had more rage and strength in his dying hours than he did in life. One of the strongest images of darkness and death is shown in the last two lines of the poem, â€Å"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.† (Clugston, 2010, Ch. 12) The death of the light here shows us blackness: the ultimate darkness. This one line brings to light all of the darkness, death, and evil that is in this poem. In conclusion, Thomas’ uses the literary elements, structure/form, theme, and symbolism to enhance the poem â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.† The structure/form being that of a villanelle adds to the rhythm of the poem. The theme is darkness, death, and aging which is in evident in every stanza of this poem. There is a lot of symbolism in this poem and it adds to the theme. Without the structure and the symbolism Thomas uses it may have been a different poem. References: Clugston, R.W (2010) Retrieved from http://content.ashford.edu/books/AUENG125 http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5796

Muslim Women : the Veil Essay

OBJECTIVE To study the conditions of Muslim women in various regions and to draw the conclusions related to the topic. INTRODUCTION The veil should be considered as an oppression/suppression or it should be left upon the women to decide? Certainly, religious sentiments should never be undermined because in some or the other way it leads to humiliation which further provokes uncertainty among different groups of people. However, being a non-Muslim, it is somewhere inculcated in my mind that this practice is a landmark of patriarchal society or suppression of women, but through my research, I realized that it is not about my views but it is about those Muslim women and their opinion regarding this practice. A Muslim woman wears hijab (veil for the simple reason that God has commanded it in the Quran and Sunna. There are two verses which deal with the question of women’s dress. They are: Surah an-Nur verse 31 and Surah al- Ahzab verse 59 Mainly, many non-Muslims and few Muslims also, fail to examine and analyse this issue and openly condemn this practice. Modernization has lessened the gap between men and women but it fails to understand that though ‘Men and women are equal but not identical’. Many feminists’ approaches have been taken against the suppression of Muslim women. They argue that Islam like any patriarchal religion, subordinates women. They are committed to women’s rights and believe that Islam doesn’t allow women liberation. If we look at the scenario from broader view, we will find that there is a wide gap between anthropological perspective and the modern perspective. Quran is the command of God and must be followed in all times. In many countries, face covering is abandoned, such as France and in other countries; it is left upon Muslim women to decide about it such as India, U.S. It has been abolished in many countries due to the rise of Terrorism which has become the global issue today and also due to many feminists’ movements. THE VEIL AND FEMINIST APPROACHES A perception that the veil is a symbol of oppression of women has different adherents who embody different assumptions ad different levels of sophistication. Many westerners and non- Muslims think that Muslim women are completely and utterly subjugated by men, and the veil is the symbol of that. They are underpinned by an unconscious adherence to liberalism and modernization theory. A more sophisticated view is that of one school of feminists, they argue that Islam, like any other patriarchal religion, subordinates women . They keep every sort of knowledge about the religion and believe that it undermines the women liberation and their rights. Some of them do not listen to the covered women. There is another school of feminists that listens to the voices of covered women but reaches to different conclusions about covering from those of the liberal feminists. Often anthropologists and historians, this group of feminists has been concerned to understand meaning of a social practice from the inside. Thus, this group follows a ‘contextual approach’ in understanding the grievances of Muslim women. Many feminists have trouble knowing how to deal with the veil, Islam, and the women who embrace it. Some feminists who in differing ways aim to build on, extrapolate from, or sometimes negate, classical Islamic law, and reinterpret it for modern times. There are also feminists whose benchmark is liberal secular liberalism, who seeks to remove all aspects of Islamic law that do not conform to a secular liberal feminist standard of equality and liberation for women. METHODOLOGICAL STUDY The study of women, indeed, Islam in general, has suffered methodological problems. Until recently, the predominant methodological approach to study Muslim women has been Orientalist, or neo-Orientalist. Orientalism has viewed Muslims through the prism of religion, said by Edward said. ‘ISLAM’ has been as a static, monolithic, backward doctrine that both explains and determines Muslim behavior. After World War II, Orientalism was transformed in to modernization theory. This approach analyzed the non-western world to evolve into western style institutions. The mainstream Western media and mass market books still rely on a belief in the inherent superiority of the Western ways to make the case against Islam. In modern times, Muslim elites accepted the Western version of the meaning of the veil, and they also saw its disappearance as essential to the ‘modernization’ of their countries. Nazira Zain al-Din, the first Arab woman to publish lengthy treaties on the topic of veiling: â€Å"I have noticed that the nations that have given up the veil are the nations that have advanced in intellectual and material life. The unveiled nations are the ones that have discovered through research and study the secrets of nature and have brought the physical elements under their control as you see and know. But the veiled nations have not unearthed any secret and have not put any of the physical elements under their control but only sing the songs of the glorious past and ancient tradition.† Historians and Anthropologists in particular, have challenged Orientalism and modernization theory in relation to Muslim women by urging a focus on the specificity of Muslim women in order to understand them better. Indeed, it is useful to point out that women’s frequently deteriorated under European intervention in the Muslim world, challenging the linkage of Modernization and Westernization with liberation for Muslim women. Seclusion increased in the Ottoman Empire during European penetration. Muslim women have had right over their property owned by father or earned by themselves, without the involvement of their husband. In Aleppo, upper-class women were â€Å" property owners of some importance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries†¦In 1770, 59 percent of all property sales involved women as either buyers or sellers; in 1800, 67 percent; and in 1840 , 53 percent†. In Egypt, Muhammad Ali’s centralization programme deprived Muslim women of economic independence. Centralization excluded them, as ruler gave away land at his discretion to women’s detriment. In addition, the: New centralized system also introduced new institutions derived from Europe that militated against women. Banks, stock exchanges, insurance companies, etc, in Europe did not recognize the legal existence of women; and so they followed the same strategies in Egypt. Women were not allowed to open bank accounts in their own names or to play the stock market or to indulge in other activities in their own right. If modernization improved health and education and, after colonialism, ended seclusion, in other areas women’s â€Å"social maneuverability† deteriorated. Hence historical study reveals the condition of many women in specific places and shows that Westernization and modernization did no good to Muslim women in their advancement. The veil is seen as quintessential tradition. Colonialists, missionaries, Orientalists, and secular feminists attacked veiling as a backward tradition, but it is now known that veiling became more widespread in the Middle East after Napoleon’s evasion of Egypt in 1798, and increased during European occupation of the Middle East (1830-1936). So, ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ are unstable categories. Afshar, who admits to not understanding why women embrace the veil , writes: â€Å"The twentieth century marked the apex of Muslim women’s intellectual engagement with their religion, first to denounce it and to disengage from its gender-specific prescriptions, and then to return to the texts and reclaim their Islamic rights. Faced with this unexpected volte face researches have tended to take embattled positions to attack or defend the faith, and have all too often failed to engage with the realities and the situations in which women have found themselves† . Keddie observes that the women and Islam field is ideologically charged and tense: â€Å"One group denies that Muslim women..are any more oppressed than non-Muslim women or argue that in key respects they have been less oppressed. A second says that oppression is real but extrinsic to Islam; the Qur’an, they say, intended gender equality, but this was undermined by Arabian patriarchy and foreign importations. An opposing group blames Islam for being irrevocably gender in egalitarian. There are also those who adopt intermediate positions, as well as those who tend to avoid these controversies by sticking to monographic or limited studies that do not confront such issues. Some scholars favor shifting emphasis away from Islam to economic and social forces.† In this context, we can say that Muslim women are deprived of many rights but for this it is the Quran to blame or the interpretations of Qur’anic verse by many Scholars and jurists. Local customs and predilections are relevant, perhaps most important for an understanding of women’s actual role and involvement in society. Obviously conceptual views of women’s role and position and role in society do not count for something, and one of the burning questions of the contemporary Muslim scene is to what extent early juristic proscriptions and prescriptions for women’s status and role ought to be the guiding norm for Muslims today. Veiling is liked to an oppressive practice under Taliban regime in Afghanistan of the 1990’s, where women have been denied education, confined to the home, and barred from any role in public life; veiling may be seen as a symbol of women’s oppression in that community. Sonobol, argues that an important methodological problem I the field is with those scholars who accept methodological problem in the field is with those scholars who accept the Qur’an, Hadith, and Sunnah as â€Å"representing the actual as opposed to the normative condition of women.† Her assumption is that the normative position of women can be said to be oppressive, but actual women’s life may not have been, that actual women’s lives may not have been conformed to the description of a constricting official doctrine: â€Å"If anything, social discourse seems to point to apposition quite opposite to what the ‘formal’ discourse present us. This means that the actual lives women led caused reactionary clergymen to interpret laws more conservatively. The ‘looser’ the women, the stricter the interpretation†. Across Islamic history, this is sometimes true. Some Islamic discourses may result in an oppressively patriarchal order, but other Islamic discourses do not. Berktay, a Turkish feminist, criticizes the contextual approach, which seeks to understand Muslim women from their own perspective, for its cultural relativism. She argues following Tabari, â€Å"cultural relativism becomes a banner under which oppression may be made to appear tolerable† . Berktay refers to veiling as an example of the problems of cultural relativism: â€Å"This benevolent cultural relativism on the part of Western feminists sometimes goes far as to extend a rationalization of the segregation of women to accepting and condoning even veiling for the Middle Eastern ‘sisters’: ‘Although universally perceived in the West as an oppressive custom, it [veiling] is not experienced as such by women who habitually wear it’, writes Leila Ahmed. Leaving aside the strength of the argument about the social construction of experience and feelings, and about how misleading it therefore is to claim a special ‘authenticity’ for (only some among) them, one wonders whether Western feminists, who know perfectly well that these practices spring from a theology of the maintenance of so called female purity, would ever accept veiling for themselves- and not as an ‘alternative’ way of life, but as something compulsory, from which there is no possibility of opting out. Warne speaks of the â€Å"unacknowledged Quarantine† that has existed between feminists and religious studies, and suggests it is time o break down the barriers: â€Å"Unfortunately, there is a tendency to consider only [women’s] negative experiences [with religion] as accurate, and all positive ones, by definition as a kind of patriarchally induced false consciousness. Judgments such as these pose serious problems for scholars interested in both women and religion, because work that attempts to be more nuanced is sometimes read as betrayal or as patriarchal co-optation†. VEIL AND THE WEST At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the topic of Islam, fundamentalism, terrorism, extremism and women’s position in Islam is on many people’s minds. The discourse in the popular mind is one of the backwardness, violence and barbarity of Islam, Arabs and Muslims. This makes challenging the Western stereotype that the veil is the symbol of Muslim women’s oppression an uphill battle, all the more in light certain late twentieth century events in the Muslim world: Iran’s imposition of the chador after khomeini’s revolution in 1979; the Taliban’s imposition of the burqa after their accession to power in 1997; and the violence perpetrated by radical groups in the name of Islam in Egypt, Israel, Algeria and the like. Does not all this merely confirm that Islam is violent, intolerant and anti-women? The point is that Muslims are not accorded the same degree of care and precision, there is no recognition of special, localized circumstances that intervene between ‘Islam’ and enactment. US Administration and other western powers do not have anything against Islam and Muslims in general; actually the public rhetoric demonizing Islam is part of the Western maintenance of its global hegemony. The discourse in West is tied to western national interests. US policy in the Middle East is to protect its access to Middle Eastern oil fields and give unconditional support to Israel. Because Islam is perceived as anti-West, the contemporary Islamists movements to install shari’ah law are feared. It is thought that Muslim governments committed to implementing Islamic law will interfere with western interests and may threaten Israel. Hence pro-western, secular governments in the Muslim world are supported, even if they repress their own populace. The veil’s association with the Islamists movement is thus the link between Western power politics and an anti-veil discourse in the west. However, US and Western national interests have dictated foreign policies that are interpreted by most of the Muslim and Arab populace as hypocritical and harmful to their own interests and need: Israel is not bombed for its covert nuclear weapons program; the West remains silent over violations of Muslim’s human rights; and the West supports corrupt governments over democratic movements. MUSLIMS IN THE WEST The need to challenge the negative stereotype of the veil as oppressive is urgent for those Muslims who live in the west. Anecdotal evidence demonstrates that Muslims (male and female are hurt by the negative image of veil and Islam. Several examples are there to support it. In 1995 some Muslim school girls were thrown out of the school in Quebec, Canada, for refusing to remove their scarves. The schools ruled that scarves were an â€Å"ostentatious symbol† akin to a swastika. A teenage girl in Quebec who wore hijab to high school was mortified to see her teacher on television proclaiming, â€Å"Islam degrades women.† â€Å"I started to cry. I could not understand why someone would say something like that,† she told. â€Å"She knows me. She knows what I am like, and that I am not like that. How can she say that?† CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) reported in November 1997 that a 13 year old boy was hospitalized after being beaten by two or more teenagers who called him a â€Å"rag head† and â€Å"f—-ing sand n-gger.† Apparently the attack occurred after the father of one of the attackers called the father of the victim a â€Å"rag head† and the â€Å"rag head lover.† Thus the life of these Muslims is miserable in such countries and protective measures must be taken to protect the individual freedom. MUSLIM WOMEN IN FRANCE Muslim women in France are refrained from using face veil. The French law doesn’t allow face veil in France. Many Muslim women condemn the law and also protested against it. But the result was not changed. Instead, according to the law they were to be charged with fines and compensation. They are allowed to use the headscarves but not face veil. The government gives reason that this face veil has lead to the accidents of many ladies who wear it and fail to follow the traffic rules. It keeps them away from the world as due to it they do not see and hear properly. Many feminists say that this religious habit shows the dominance of patriarchal society and women should come up by not accepting it or refusing it. Government has also charged males of the family who impose women of the family to wear it. This law has invoked protest in the Paris where large number of France’s Muslim stay. Thus, many modern Muslims have stopped wearing face veil in the public. But few women are hurt and heartlessly follow it. The government has also asked them to shift to those countries that follow this tradition, instead of living or spending their livelihood in France. MUSLIM WOMEN IN INDIA Muslim women in India have full freedom of choosing their views about veiling. It is totally left upon them about the decision of face veil. In India, where 83 percent of majority is Muslims and Christians, the interests of people (Muslims and Christians) cannot be negated. Our politicians seek vote from these two major communities, that’s why they never undermine their interests. To make a comment upon this is quite tough that ‘Politicians to seek chair (power), ignores the truth’. But, in our topic of discussion this title has no importance, because basically it’s the discussion about ‘Muslim women and the veil’. Indian government has put forth to check that Male of many Muslim family do not threaten/impose their wives and daughters to put face veil without their consent. Thus, the Indian Muslim women enjoy their right in India and are free to choose their likes and wither away their dislikes. THE VEIL In the English language a ‘veil’ is normally â€Å"a piece of usually more or less transparent fabric attached to a woman’s hat, etc, to conceal the face or protect against the sun† This word corresponds to the Arabic niqab , the veil with which women cover their faces. As a word to convey the Islamic notion of hijab it is totally inadequate. It can include covering the face, or not. It includes lowering the gaze with the opposite sex, and applies to men as well, who must lower their gaze and cover from navel to knee. These days, hijab is also the name of the cloth women use as a headscarf for their head coverings and tie or pin at the neck, with their faces showing. Over the centuries and in different places, how a woman covers has varied enormously – what parts are covered, with what kind of material, texture, pattern etc. The terminology has varied also, region to region, of course. The word niqab refers to the face veil that some women attach to their headscarves. CONCLUSION The study of veil is not only about the religious analysis but also about understanding the complexity of issue in the contemporary world. The instructions given in Qur’an about Muslim women to veil were written according to that time. The practice taking place at that time harassed many women of that time. The instructions given were to improve the conditions of those women. But the things are changed now, the Modernization see these things as oppression of women. With the rise of Globalization, people have become advanced and do not believe in religious sentiments of those who still follow their tradition and culture. Some Muslim women are oppressed by the male members of their family and are not able to enjoy certain rights. Those women must come up and must put forward their interests. Religious sentiments should never be undermined as it can lead to uncertainty among various classes of the society. BIBLIOGRAPHY †¢RETHINKING MUSLIM WOMEN AND THE VEIL, KATHERINE BULLOCK †¢WOMEN AND GENDER IN ISLAM, AHMED WEBLIOGRAPHY †¢www.iiituk.com †¢www.sultan.org   

Is Schizophrenia A Mental Illness - 1726 Words

SCHIZOPHRENIA Kennya Castro Schizophrenia is a mental illness that plagues about 1 out of every 100 Americans. Despite this fact, most of the general public remains ignorant to the basic pathology of the disease and the mechanisms of identifying and treating it. It is considered by some to be a â€Å"scary† mental illness and is often ignored, when compared to the other equally serious and caustic ones like Generalized Anxiety Disorder (also referred to as GAD), ADHD, and Chronic Depression. This is illustrated by the mainstream media which is quick to romanticize the main character. They are written to have overt symptoms of the aforementioned diseases above and they do so without providing an ounce of fact to soften the blow or mitigate the damage that their works, being a topic of mass interest is presenting half-truths and paper tigers to an often young, uninformed, and highly impressionable global audience. This and much more causes the stigmatization of mental illness in general, especially those d eemed â€Å"scary† and unpleasant† by the masses. The biopsychosocial model that views health in a more holistic fashion. Roughly speaking, it means that biology, psychology, and social interactions don’t just play individual mutually exclusive roles in the health of a person; it states that health, disease, and overall wellness doesn’t stem from one of things, but a combination. For example, patient A has type II diabetes, patient B has cancer of the lung, and patient C has anShow MoreRelatedThe Mental Illness Of Schizophrenia1200 Words   |  5 Pagesdictionary describes mental illnesses as â€Å"any of a broad range of medical conditions that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability and that are typically associated with a disruption in normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, interpersonal interactions, or daily functioning. † Today almost more than sixty million people in America have some form of mental illness, but only fewRead MoreThe Mental Illness of Schizophrenia2374 Words   |  9 Pages Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by psychosis , apathy and social withdrawal in combination with cognitive impairment, abnormalities that cause substantial disruptions in performance work , school, family and recreation. Among psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia is the most disabling disease and demand a disproportionate amount of resources to health . However, there have been considerable advances in the treatment and at present many sufferers can lead a reasonably normal life.Read MoreSchizophrenia And Its Effects On Mental Illness Essay1270 Words   |  6 PagesSchizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, decision making, and relate to others. It’s a long-term medical illness affecting 1% of Americans. The causes of schizophrenia include genetics, environment, brain chemistry, and substance abuse. Schizophrenia occurs roughly in 10%of people who have a first-degree relative with the disorder such as a parent or sibling. (NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | What is SchizophreniaRead MoreSchizophrenia And Its Effects On Mental Illness1538 Words   |  7 PagesSchizophrenia is a mental illness that is in a very small amount of the population, 1 in 100 people (1% of the population). Symptoms of schizophrenia include, delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, not much emotion if any is present, as well as speech and socializations issues. Ways to treat schizophrenia are very limited to antipsychotic drugs and therapy. Although there is not o ne cause to this illness found, there are many factors that explain the cause or result in havingRead MoreImproving Schizophrenia With Mental Illness1591 Words   |  7 PagesImproving Schizophrenia with Risperdal Mental illness affects millions of people every day. One of the most debilitating forms of mental illness is schizophrenia. The Oxford dictionary defines schizophrenia as; A long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentationRead MoreIs Schizophrenia A Disorder Of Mental Illness?809 Words   |  4 PagesPersonal Narrative: Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a disorder of mental illness. Another way to describe this disorder is to lost the touch with reality. Schizophrenia is less common than any other mental disorder; therefore, treatments can be different. This disease is likely to occur between age of 16 to 30, or may develops in children if problem occurs during the birth. In that regard, a person with the schizophrenia suffers six months or a month or less, if proper treatments given. One of theRead MoreSchizophrenia And Its Effects On Mental Illness1388 Words   |  6 PagesSchizophrenia is a â€Å"serious mental disorder characterised by severe disruptions in psychological functioning and a loss of contact with reality† (Meldrum Wilson, 2009). The main question that arises from the many studies looking at schizophrenia and violence is does schizophrenia itself make an individual violent or are there other factors from the mental illness that contribute to this? According to Fazel, Guati, Linsell, Geddes and Grahn (2009), before the 1980’s many people made no connectionRead MoreIs Schizophrenia A Serious Mental Illness?934 Words   |  4 PagesWhat is schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. It is a complex, long-term medical illness Affects about 1% of Americans. The average age of onset tends to be in the late teens to the early 20s for men, and the late 20s to early 30s for women. Patho We do not completely understand the patho of the disease however, Neuroimaging studies show differences between the brainsRead MoreSchizophrenia: A Chronic Mental Illness2452 Words   |  10 PagesIntroduction Stress serves as a major risk and complicating factor for any illness, regardless of presenting symptoms (Elliott and Einsdorfer 1982; Hatfield and Lefley 2007; Nicholson and Neufeld 2002). For a chronic mental illness as complex as schizophrenia, the impact of environmental stress is particularly important to consider. The Stress-Diathesis Model (or Vulnerability Stress Model) places schizophrenia in the context of both biological and environmental (psychosocial) risk factors (ZubinRead MoreSchizophrenia: Categorizing Mental Illness2043 Words   |  8 Pagesï » ¿Mental illnesses have been recognized and acknowledged for thousands of years, but the way they had once been treated and handled differ from the way they are dealt with today. There was a point in time where all mental illnesses were thought of as one and they were treated in a similar way. Many theories were associated with the cause of these mental disorders and many of them today are deemed as obnoxious. Emil Kraeplin, a German physician was one of the first to categorize mental disorders