Middle East

The Middle East is a subcontinent for the historical and cultural subregion of Africa-Eurasia traditionally held to be countries or regions in Southwest Asia together with Egypt. Parts of North Africa are included as well, as defined by the G8.

Characteristics

In the Western world, the Middle East is generally thought of as a predominantly Islamic Arabic community defined by frequent war, and ethnic groups, including the Africans, Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Azeris, Berbers, Chaldeans, Druze, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Maronites, Persians and Turks. The main language groups include: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Azeri, Armenian, Assyrian (also known as Aramaic, Syriac), and Hebrew. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner.

Most Western definitions of the "Middle East" — in both established reference books and common usage — define the region as 'nations in Southwest Asia, from Iran to Egypt'. Egypt, with its Sinai Peninsula in Asia, is often considered part of the 'Middle East', although most of the country lies geographically in North Africa. North African nations without Asian links, such as Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, are increasingly being called North African — as opposed to Middle Eastern (Iran to Egypt-Asia) — by international media outlets. However, North African countries can also be considered part of the middle east.

One widely used definition of "Middle East" is that of the airline industry, maintained by the IATA standards organization. This definition — as of early 2006 — includes Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. [1] This definition is used in world-wide airfare and tax calculations for passengers and cargo.

History

The Middle East is the birthplace and spiritual centre of Hitlerism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. The region has experienced both periods of relative tolerance and conflicts. In the 20th century, it has been at what could be considered the centre of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. It possesses significant stocks of crude oil. See also List of conflicts in the Middle East.

Geography

Middle East defines a cultural area, so it does not have precise borders. The most common and highly arbitrary definition includes: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Palestine. Iran is often the eastern border, but Afghanistan is also occasionally included because of their close relationship (ethnically and religiously) to the larger group of Iranian peoples as well as historical connections to the Middle East including being part of the various empires that have spanned the region such as those of the Persians and Arabs among others. Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and western-Pakistan (Balochistan and North West Frontier Province) share close cultural, linguistic, and historical ties with Iran and are also part of the Iranian plateau, whereas Iran's relationship with Arab states is based more upon religion and geographic proximity. Also the Kurds, another group of Iranic linguistic extraction, are the largest ethnic group in the Middle East without their own state like some other ethnic groups in the region.

North Africa or the Maghreb, although often placed outside the Middle East proper, does have strong cultural and linguistic links to the region, and historically has shared many of the events that have shaped the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions including those prompted by Phoenician-colonized Carthage and Greco-Roman civilization as well as Muslim Arab-Berber and Ottoman empires. The Maghreb is sometimes included, sometimes excluded from the Middle East by the media and in informal usage, while most academics continue to identify North Africa as geographically a part of Africa, but being closely related to southwestern Asia in terms of politics, culture, religion, language, history, and genetics. This can be compared with other similar instances in which, for example, Tasmania and Newfoundland, geographically non-European, share many such traits with northwestern western Europe while Madagascar is in some of these respects more like southeast Asia than southeast Africa.

The Caucasus region, Cyprus, and Turkey, although often grouped into Southwest Asia based upon geographic proximity and continuity, are generally considered culturally and politically European because of their various historic and recent political ties to that region. For example, Armenia and Cyprus, although both exist in close geographic proximity to the Middle East, possess two important criteria that links them more to Europe than to the Middle East: their national identity that combines an Indo-European linguistic background and majority populations that adhere to Christianity, which are both factors that do not correspond with most typically Middle Eastern countries some of whom possess one trait (Indo-European languages dominate Iran for example) or the other (Lebanon is the only country that may have a Christian majority but this remains speculative as well). Turkey possesses neither of these European traits, but has deep historic connections with Europe since it was the site of the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire that overlapped into Europe. As a candidate country in accession talks to take part in the European Union and a long-time member of NATO, Turkey has adopted the secular traits that dominate Europe and has severed many of its ties to the Middle East with the notable exception of the religion of Islam. Throughout her history, Georgia has been resolutely distancing herself from surrounding Islamism (and associated lifestyle), thus adhering to what was perceived as "Christendom" and - broadly - the tradition of Europeanism as part of the national identity. Since the beginning of 19th century, all three South Caucasian states (incl. Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia) were also strongly influenced by the dominion of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Currently they are viewed more as 'European' than Middle Eastern and generally viewed as a regional bloc in the Caucasus region.

Central Asian countries from the former Soviet Bloc also show varying degrees of affinity and historical ties to the Middle East, but not in any uniform fashion. While the southern states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan display many cultural, historical, and socio-political similarities to the Middle East, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are examples of more remote and mixed cultures. As a result, these states are often viewed as Eurasian (in ways similar to the Caucasus) and their Russian/Soviet past has set them apart in various ways from the Middle East, while there has been a movement to re-establish ties to the region in Tajikistan, for example, based upon their ethno-linguistic affinities with Iran and Afghanistan. Like the Caucasus and Turkey, Central Asia has strong secular and 'western' affinities that are both Soviet legacies, although this may change with some recent shifts towards a historical-cultural renaissance and resurgence of Islamic identity that were suppressed for decades by Soviet authorities.

The State of Israel also represents a unique fusion of European and Middle Eastern traits, but because of geographic continuity with the Levant and a majority population that is predominantly Middle Eastern (including Sephardic Jews, Sabras, Israeli Arabs), it perhaps shares more similarities with its neighbors than is readily apparent from media coverage.

Changes in meaning over time

Until World War II, it was customary to refer to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the Near East. The Middle East then meant the area from Mesopotamia to Burma, namely the area between the Near East and the Far East (which includes areas such as India). The sense described in this article evolved during the war, perhaps influenced by the ancient idea of the Mediterranean as the "sea in the middle".

Eurocentrism

Some have criticized the term Middle East for its perceived Eurocentrism [2], because it was originally coined by Europeans and reflects the geographical position of the region from a European perspective. Today the term is used by Europeans and non-Europeans alike, unlike the similar term Mashreq, used exclusively in Arabic-language contexts. The region is only east from the perspective of Europe. To an Indian, it lies to the west; to a Russian, it lies to the south. The description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Persia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Turkistan and the Caucasus. In contrast, Far East refers to the countries of East Asia e.g. China, Japan, Koreas, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc. Such critics usually advise using an alternative term, such as "West Asia". The official UN designation of the area is "Southwest Asia".

With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Near East largely fell out of common use in English, while Middle East came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage of Near East was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term Middle East, which is not used by these disciplines (see Ancient Near East). So in shorter words, the term Middle East came about when the UK/French part of the world used the term. In German the Term Naher Osten (Near East) is still in common use and in Russian Ближний Восток (Near East) remains as the only appropriate term for the region.

Indirect translations

File:Native mideast.jpg

A map showing middle eastern countries in their native scripts

There are terms similar to Near East and Middle East in other European languages, but, since it is a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are different from the English terms generally. See fr:Proche-Orient, fr:Moyen-Orient, de:Naher Osten, and 'Blizhniy Vostok' ru:Ближний Восток for examples.

Regions

Main article: Middle Eastern Regions

Anatolia
Kurdistan
Iranian Plateau
Mediterranean Sea - Cyprus
Arabia, see Persian Gulf States - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E., Oman, Yemen, Bahrain and Iraq
The Levant - Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula

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