Not much has been said here about the situation in the Middle East, so I wanted to start a thread to see what others thoughts were.

It all started with the uprising in Tunisia last December, eventually leading to the removal of their President from power. From there it sparked major uprisings in Egypt and Libya, and many more major protests in Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Syria and Yemen. Even minor incidents occurred in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Western Sahara. (Thanks to Wikipedia for the list).

The major recent development is the passing of a UN resolution creating a no-fly zone over Libya, and already this has sparked international confrontations.

What really interests me in this overall situation is the impact the internet has had on the situations. Not only was it used as a way of organizing the uprisings, it also provided the people in those countries a more honest view of the rest of the world allowing them to see the injustices in their own countries better. The way these events are unfolding is vastly different then past national revolutions, due to how accessible the internet has made communications with outsiders. No longer do we have to rely on spies for reports on events in countries like these, the people involved are able to tell their own story, in some cases live as events unfold.

Between the events in Japan with the disaster, and the Middle East, it's been very eye opening to me to see the difference between first hand reports, and the reports regurgitated by the journalism world.

Politically, I'm glad to see events unfold the way they are, vs the invasion of Iraq a number of years ago. If we (as the US) wants to see democracy spread, we need to let it happen directed by the people in the nations, instead of trying to force it as part of an invasion and later handover. By letting the people in the area take control of their own destiny, we allow them to mirror our own revolution when the rule of the British was broken. I believe this is the way to ensure that people in the area will have more respect, and less resentment towards us.

Well, Mauritania, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Sudan, Western Sahar, Egypt, Morocco are far from the Middle East region.
They're all in North Africa. Morocco and Mauritania are west of UK, and France, for example, being south of Spain.

It is interesting how they can easily be perceived as Middle East, I suppose because they are culturally "non western" in many ways.

And, I suppose that cultural difference, practically often resulting in less democratic regimes, is also the common denominator of the recent uprising.

Lybia is in fact just off the coasts of Sicily, south of Italy, and in the 80is Geddafi did bomb one of our islands, as you may remember. Culture and vision of the world creates a distance way bigger than the georaphic one, and critical times like ours happen to remind us all that democracy stops just round the corner.

I'm trying to think of a better descriptor of the region if you wanted to lump them together. The only one I can think of is the "Islamic World". Or perhaps just stick with North Africa/Middle East.

All of the countries you mentioned (except Western Sahara) and then some are all considered a part of the Arab League, so I guess you could call it that.

I always find it fascinating when Turkey is lumped into the Middle East, especially in guide books and atlases. They're not Arab, nor do they speak Arabic, and aside from the fact that they are predominantly Muslim, there is little in common between Turkey and the Arab world.

I think "America" is less about "Democracy" than it is about "Business".
"American Business Interests" take chances and play hardball with their dealings in foreign lands. When they get in trouble, all of a sudden it's "Democracy" and "Our Freedoms" at stake.

In other words,


I can't really smirk properly with this puke in my mouth.
/cynic

I'm with Stew on this one. A good chunk of the 'western world' ie Britain, France, Spain etc rode roughshod over the world for years and built up a chunk of resentment. As various 'colonies' were relinquished, I think some of that resentment has decreased, time helped to heal etc.

Unfortunately the USA, UK and others, while politically stating things have changed, are still up to all the old tricks in the name of money. I can't help but be cynical when linking western military/peacekeeping activity in Africa and the Middle East with oil and other resources.

The west heads in to prevent human rights atrocities...where it benefits us financially, but if a country is our 'friend' financially then do we lift a finger against them when they commit atrocities? Nope...

/even bigger cynic

"Middle East" is geographic-related, so Turkey is correctly listed among Middle Eastern Countries.
Arabic countries are such because of their language (and, by extension, culture), so you may have Arabic countries outside Middle East (Egypt) as well as non-arabic Countries within Middle East (like Turkey, as you correctly mentioned). "Muslim" of course refers to religion, so you may have predominantly Muslim Countries anywhere in the World (there are many in Africa, others in Far East).

Of course, Most middle eastern countries speak Arabic language and are of Arabic culture, and they practive Muslim religion mostly.

That's where this one is difficult: we've cosied up to Gaddafi for business reasons and now we've turned on him (don't include me in we).
I don't see how all this can fail to escalate, dramatically.

Boundaries are apparently vague, geographically speaking, as the US State Department defines the Middle East as only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. I understand that other countries are often lumped into the term, as well, including Iran, other northern African countries, and of course Turkey. Turks, however, do not consider themselves as "Middle Eastern", nor do most who live in the Middle East classify Turks as such.

Yes, they've always been vague. I suppose that once the Middle East became unofficially and popularly synonim of "Arabic", than those who are not Arabs would not want to be called as such.

Still, if I had to stick to traditional school Gepgraphy, I would have to include Turkey in Middle East, and say that Turkey is geographically Middle Eastern, Culturally not. Or whatever.

Interestingly, while Turkey's political situation is such that they've been repeatedly kept out of the EU (lack of sufficient respect of Human Rights, as well as economic standards not beng met, as well as Greece opposing it fiercely), the few people from Turkey I met seemed completely "western" to me, whatever that means, and I would have not guessted they were from Turkey if they did not tell me.
So, I am not surprised that they don't want to be considered Arabic. They're really not.

I suppose I'm not quite as cynical as some here (yet), but I do definitely see an oil/business connection with some of the recent events. The Daily Show had an amusing skit about "Freedom Packages" on Monday.

Stepping back from the specific international intervention in Libya and the motivations there, the situation with locals uprising interests me from a history making perspective. Almost every uprising I know about is one I learned about from history books, written as a report of the situation after it occurred. The events of Tunisia were broadcast to the world live as they happened, directly from the people involved. Even growing up in a technology age, major events like the fall of the Berlin wall were summarized by others and reported on by journalists, not directly shown to the world by the people who were directly involved.

Someone on TWiT said it well, we are still at the very early stages of understanding the internet and how it will change our lives. Very similar to the changes the printing press brought to civilization in the 1400s, and the delay before newspapers really caught on during the early 1600s.

I do remember some live videos showing people breaking the Berlin wall, but indeed that was no way similar to images and videos spreading through the Internet in these days.

The main difference is, in my view, that the Internet is different in making everybody editors and publishers. While major news companies may be good enough to show live historical events as they happen, they will never succeed in epresenting so many different points of views as the Internet poitentially can.