Is There A Place Called Middle East
Is There A Place Called Middle East
Is There A Place Called Middle East
Sedat Laciner
printable version
2 June 2006
The regions, in geographical and political terms, are classified
according to their common and similar characteristics. For instance,
continents are vast territories surrounded by seas. Peninsulas,
mountains, rivers etc. determine the boundaries of geographical and
political regions. Religions, sects or languages and dialects etc. may
also be used to define a region (as for Islamic World, Latin America
etc.). The income level is also useful for defining regions (like NorthSouth). In short, for a territory to be distinctive from the others, it
must have some meaningful particularities or at least some common
characteristics.
When considered on the basis of these criteria, there is no region
called the Middle East. Such a name was even non-existent up until
the 20th Century. If we examine it carefully, the region presented in
the recent years as the Greater Middle East is formed of different
regions and the commonalities among the countries and people of
the region, contrary to the general view, are quite few:
This so-called region neighbors two oceans (Indian and Atlantic) and
six seas (Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Black Sea, Aegean
Sea and the Caspian Sea). It extends to three continents (Africa, Asia
and Europe). It consists of ten sub-regions (Southern and Northern
Caucasus, Northern Africa, Arabia, Greater Palestine and Syria,
Mesopotamia, the Caspian Basin, Central Asia (Turkistan), Indian
Peninsula). Three monotheistic religions (Islam, Christianity and
Judaism), with their numerous sects and schools of thought, exist in
this region. Thousands of religious and moral faith, including atheism
and paganism, are practiced in this wide geography and thus, it is
one of the largest laboratories of the world. Although viewed by the
West as all-Arab, the region consists of tens of different ethniclinguistic communities, with Turks, Arabs and Persians as the main
ones.
In other words, the region named as the Greater Middle East is,
perhaps, the last geography to be named as a region in terms of