Modernization and westernization(What people don’t know about the basics)

Often we intermingle the two words as synonyms of each other. But it is not like that, modernization is quite different from westernization. If you ask any japanes what does this west means to you. Then he/she will probably say that china is in the west. Today westernization is commonly used to indicate the European countries sometimes USA is included. Let us precisely define the two terms modernization and westernization. 

Conventionally, the word weight has been used to measure the mass of a body, but that’s quite a blunder. Likely, we eastern people are confused about the aforementioned words. Islam in the 9AD was a modern religion but it was not a western religion. In short, there exists the modernization before the birth of westernization. 

To add on, westernization is the adopting of the western culture which might include their dress, language, food, rituals, religion, and from their hairstyle to their daily habits. In contrast, modernization is the acquaintance of modern sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, social sciences ), Mathematics, law, and the technological advances. Modernization is about accepting the change which is brought about by various factors of the society. Westernization is more about external manifestations, it is considering the western norms superior to all other civilizations. While modernization is about the internal manifestations. Likely, believing science is as important as religion. The notion that we can’t survive with science and the advance technology is modernization. 

Westernization without modernization is a threat to any culture. For example, love marriages were considered sinful in the Islamic culture but it was quite common in the west. Today because of westernizing without modernizing is tempting people to honor killing and all that bullshit. We have to first come up with new ways to sustain our economy and if we are to modernize then we have to change our rotten education system. Modernization is about bringing a change in literacy rate , coming up with new ways to have an economic boost, creating a culture of accepting each other. Modernization is about to come out of the snail shells which we are holding for centuries and updating our believe systems. Furthermore, our basic problem is that we are stuck in our past. To move ahead is to change the behaviors towards the basics ,the greater change will come by itself.

In addition to, Japan is a modern country, it has an economy which is larger then the economy of all most thirty combined Muslim states, the literacy is hundred percent, it is the most technologically advanced nation of the world. Japan has it modernization but not the westernization. So bring a change we can imitate countries like japan, china, and Singapore. These aforementioned countries are not westernizing but they have the modernization. We have to change the paradigm shift, resisting the change will probably destroy resisting the change will probably destroy us. As Noam Chomsky in his recent interview said that ” if Pakistan continues with the notion of resistance towards modern science and the affinity towards fundamentalism then Pakistan has no future”. 

In a nutshell, there is a great difference Between modernization and westernization. Islam has nothing to do with the downtrodden situations of the Muslims. Islam is not resisting any kind of change, it is not trashing the opportunities to higher education, it is not blaming any sort of technological advances. So we have to stop blaming our religion, we have to accept the advancement of the west. Remember we don’t need western culture and rituals but we do need the ideas, technology, the science, and the books of the west to secure ourselves in the coming future.