The Middle East Today

So, let’s take a look at Islam, what it was when it began and what it became. First, though, in this post, let’s take a look at some of our ideas about a part of the world that has always seemed threatening to Europeans. Islam started in what we call in the West the Middle East and is still largely associated with the Middle East. But why do we call it that and what is it? The idea of the Middle East is quite recent and it is a geopolitical idea. Originally it was possibly used by the British navy for strategy and to mean a much more restricted area than it is now used for (centred on Eastern Arabia). But now it seems a much more loaded term. Why? Perhaps we will need to consider Islam as a political force for reasons both within and outside Islam, in the context of European colonialism and de-colonisation and American policy. Before that we will need to consider the politics of the Crusades and before that the politics of what happened at the very beginning. They will be coming in posts soon. Religion can not be divorced from politics ever, can it? If a God or any prophet comes to earth he or she (or it) still needs to convince people in order to establish a religion and that’s politics. And what becomes of those convinced people?

As an example of how we in the West have a special interest in understanding this region, today the New South Wales police claim to use the descriptor "of Middle Eastern appearance" as an aid to policing. I now want to raise the question, though, can a religiously, linguistically and ethnically diverse population from around 25 modern states in North Africa and West Asia now all be seen from the outside as “of Middle Eastern appearance”? Why do we think it can be?

The Middle East is generally accepted today to mean countries of West Asia and including Turkey and perhaps Egypt but for some it includes the remaining North African states today, too. Some writers include some countries of the Caucasus (the today somewhat troubled region between the Black and Caspian Seas including 'Middle Eastern' Armenia, Nakhchivan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Adjara and Azerbaijan) in their definition of the Middle East (thus up to but not including the also troubled Georgia).

Please note that places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia may be nearby but are not officially Middle Eastern; they are linked by Islam and by regional history, of course, to the today largely Arab but also notably Persian, Turkish and Jewish Middle East. Today in fact the Middle East probably seems to many in the West to refer more or less exclusively to Israel-Palestine and to problems and enemies and friends such as enemy Saddam's Iraq, Ahmadinijad's Iran, perhaps Gaddafi's Libya and friend Israel and, cautiously, Turkey. I will seek in later posts to get behind these common views and to the true state of the region.