Posts Tagged ‘Near East’
Who is slaughtering Hope for a better future in the Near East?
The Middle East is home to many great civilisations in the world.
One of the latest and greatest and most everlasting is the Arab civilization.
Mohamed Gohary posted:
Throughout history, the hallmark of the Middle East has been its diversity and prosperity.
From the scientific discoveries of Ibn Toulon and Al Khwarizmi, to the medical discoveries of Ibn Sina.
The Middle East has always been a prosperous region of the world with its vast and fertile agricultural lands, rich natural endowments, and its diverse people living in harmony.
Fast forward to the year 2014, go and sit in any coffee shop in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, or Marrakesh.
You will meet many young educated people, ones filled with aspirations and burning with a drive for success.
All they have in common is their desire to leave the Middle East at the first possible opportunity.
This issue is not specific to any particular Middle Eastern country; it is an epidemic facing the entire region.
The educated youth are simply leaving and their countries are left neglected. The obvious question would be why?
Why is everyone leaving once they get the chance?
The answer is the loss of hope.
It may be acceptable for a country to go through certain economic, social, or political problems every now and then. It happens to all countries with no exception.
However, the case in the Middle East is different, whereby the youth’s aspirations were raised to a very high level with the onset of the Arab spring in 2011.
Most people were hopeful about a better future. Remember that we are talking about a region where young people comprise an average of 30% of the population if not more, (45% in Gaza) with youth unemployment rates of about 30% as well.
All those frustrated youth started growing up and demanding jobs, health care, and a normal life like their peers in the rest of the world. Instead, they had to face oppressive regimes that only knew the language of autocracy and violence.
Even with the initial success of some of the revolutions of the Middle East, they were soon to be hijacked by those whom I personally consider to be the most backwards-thinking forces in society: religious fundamentalists.
Those youth ended up facing one of two choices; either accept things to go back as they were before the revolutions, or accept extreme religious ideologies that want to dictate how they should live their lives.
This duality of either autocracy or religious fundamentalism is not the product of the Arab spring; it has existed since the end of the First World War and due to the creation of the many artificial states that exist in the Middle East today as a result of the Sykes–Picot agreement.
Neither choices would satisfy the youth’s demands for a better future and a normal life.
As if that is not enough, at the time of the writing of this blog post, there are 6 military conflicts simultaneously taking place in the Middle East, two of which threaten the very existence of three of its states (Syria,Iraq and Libya).
The implications of these wars goes much beyond their immediate scope in this period.
War means more children are not going to school, more people are losing their jobs, more infrastructure is being destroyed.
Faced with a choice between stability plus dictatorship or chaos plus religious extremism, the choice was inevitable: Stability over chaos.
The general feeling in the Middle East right now is that everyone is stuck in this vicious cycle with no way out.
The reason is: These conflicts are not just political, they are also religious, sectarian, and communal conflicts, which makes the prospects of solving them in the near future almost impossible.
I personally believe that the Middle East is currently going through a period similar to that which Europe has been through in its dark ages.
The lack of education, the static state of societies, the negative role religion played in politics, the spread of military conflicts, and the barbaric images of slaughter and torture all support my belief.
The only difference is that there is no renaissance coming anytime soon because this is still in the beginning.
Many say the conflict in the Middle East is about God, I say the “Good God” has left the Middle East.
The people who revoke the principles of justice, fairness, and opportunities to a better future are the very ones who are killing the spirit of God.
Mohamed Gohary, Regional Intern at World Youth Alliance Middle East.
Urban and warlike civilizations
Posted on: June 16, 2010
Lions and lionesses along the Fertile Crescent ancient Empires
Major civilizations built empires and cities along major rivers such as the Nile, Euphrates, Tiger, Indus (Pakistan), Ganges (India), and the Yellow River in China.
At the current rate of modernization and deforestations most of the aborigine tribes would disappear within a few decades. Many civilizations have vanished but a few have managed to survive precariously so far.
The best approach to explaining the succession of civilizations and Empires in the Fertile Crescent that raided and conquered the Near East civilizations such as in Lebanon, Palestine and Syria (Phoenicia, Canaan, Aram) is the analogy of survival among the lions and lionesses.
As a young lion attains two years, after being chased out of the clan, prowls the region for lionesses to mate and establish clans of their own. Old lions are attacked and displaced and the cubs are eaten and slaughtered by the new King to quickly attract the lioness in heat and then new progenitors are formed. The lioness fights valiantly to preserve her cubs but ends up giving up.
Since a lion lives to be 10 years old, on average, while the lioness can outlive him by 7 years and diffuse many progenitors of her owns then the survival of these mammal carnivores is mainly due to the survival of the lionesses. The lionesses chase and bring meat to the clan and care for the cubs.
Almost all the ancient civilizations in the Middle East, (the Nile River excluded because in Africa), were established along the Fertile Crescent of the main Rivers of Litany, Al Aassi, Euphrates and the Tiger (for example, the people inhabiting Lebanon, Syria, the southern part of Turkey, the Western part of Iran and Iraq).
The warrior Empires were Akkad, Babylon (Iraq), Assyria (Kurdestan of Iraq), Persia, Pharaonic Egypt, Hittite (Inland Turkey), Greece, Selucian, Roman, and later Byzantium, Sassanide, Arab (Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatemid), Seljuk, Crusaders, Mamelouks, and Ottomans.
The young male lions from emerging warrior Empires, during their conquests and expansion, reclaimed the civilized glory and achievements of the Near East people as their own proper. The Near East people were constantly behaving like the lionesses: they first fight valiantly for their cubs, and when they inevitably fail against the young lions then they mate with the conquerors after the invaders had tried to kill all their progenitors.
The latest archeological discoveries located developed urban centers around the borders of Syria and Turkey that were 10,000 years old; it is these centers that later established the Sumer Kingdom in southern Iraq around 5,000 years ago.
A few citizens of City-States like Byblos, Sidon and Tyr and much later Carthage burned down their cities and then set fire on themselves to avoid servitude and surrender. While these young lions were strutting and showing off in the regions and adapting to the new civilizations, it was the constant duty of the lionesses to chase and bring the meat to the table and care for the household: They fed and civilized the conquerors.
The Near East people were bringing the food to the tables and caring for the glamour and wants of the invaders whose sole job was to making war and killing on their war paths.
I read chapters from an Arabic book by Georges Masrou3a. Masrouaa asked an archeologist about the Achmoun Temple in Sidon “Saida”, built around 550 BC and he replied that it was a Persian design from King Kourush I period.
Masrouaa then asked the archeologist why he claimed that it is Persian and the latter said because that is what the archeology archives claim to be. Persia had no such Temple at Kourush’s time; even if the Persian King paid for it at the expense of the invaded people that should not be a basis to claim achievements of other civilizations.
This is the same story with the temples in Baalbak; the archeologists would claim that it was the work of the Romans since 200 BC but if this monument was of Roman style and glory then why the Romans failed to build something close to it in Rome or in Italy?
We have the same contentions for the impressive horse track and humongous amphitheater in Tyr (500 by 200 meters) that was built before 500 BC according to Herodotus; if this amphitheater was the work and style of the Romans then why did the Roman wait another three centuries to build their Coliseum? The same goes to the Jerusalem Temple even though the architects, builders and foramens and craftsmen and master workers were from Tyre during King Hiram or “Ahiram”.
Euclid, Zenon, Plotin, Tales, Homer, Pythagoras and scores of great thinkers were born and lived in our coastal City-States stretching from Palestine to Turkey such as Akka, Tyr, Sidon (called the eldest son of Canaan in the Bible), Beyrouth, Byblos, Ugarit, Antaqia, and so on and yet they were labeled as Greeks. Is it simply because we were under Greek dominion that our famous thinkers should be Greeks, even if they didn’t enjoy the privileges of Greek Athens City-State citizens?
Scores of our famous people were labeled Romans simply because we were under Roman hegemony. For example, the eminent legal masters, in the third century, Papinian and Olypian lived in Beyrouth (Beryt); Olympian is indeed the martyr of jurists because he adamantly refused to offer a legal opinion in favor of Emperor Caracala for the killing of his brother Jeita.
If this is the case then, why Jesus is to be simply a Jew and not Roman? St. Paul was actually a Roman citizen that he inherited from his father and great father and yet Paul is said to be simply a Jew. There is undoubtedly a systematic disinformation concerning the cultural heritage of the Near Eastern civilizations.
The Europeans purposely have chosen to start their civilization from Ancient Greek in 600 BC because they claimed Athens City-State to be democratic and they had to emulate the democratic system in Greek Athens.
Democracy was developed in the City-States of Byblos, Sidon, Tyr, Ugarit and Mary several centuries before Athens existed. These City-States had democracy within their city limits as Athens and Rome emulated later on because communication and transport were limited and the administration of such a complex democratic system was not feasible at a larger magnitude at the time. Thus, democracy was not translated to the colonies as Greek Athens also failed to do.
Theaters via their verbal communications in plays were the main medium for spreading democracy and the clashing of ideas of various opposition groups; plays created a citizen consciousness that is different from immediate civic consciousness of oratorical speeches. The Near Eastern civilizations were ahead of Athens several centuries in theater plays; Athens got the attention because a few of its written literatures were preserved and translated. For example, Aeschylus wrote over 90 works but only seven of his tragedies remained to prove the dynamics of Athens’ democratic system.
Although the City-States in the Levant developed commercial empires they never built theocratic warrior Empires because their citizens focused on civilized endeavors and opted in armed struggles to just defending their central Cities. Athens managed to defend its civilization outside its City limits and even asked the cooperation of other Greek City-States like Sparta and the famous Thebes that the Phoenicians had built centuries before Athens existed and which Alexander erased completely before launching his Asian campaign.
We can confirm that the Near East region was the bedrock of all the civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea in religion, philosophy, sciences, literature and arts.
Regardless of genetic sources, which are an amalgamation of many nations and which is not that important for the purpose of this article, anyone from current States in the Near East should take pride in their ancient civilizations and their original identity as the forefathers of contemporary modern democratic civilizations in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean Sea regions.
Note: Currently, we still have the ethnic Saamis (Norway and Finland), Inuits (Siberia, Alaska, and Canada), Ainous (Japan), Indians (USA and Canada), Zapotec (Mexico), Mosquitos (Nicaragua), Quiches (Guatemala), Cunas (Panama), Yanomamis and Guaranis (Brazil), Galibis and Akawaios (Guyana), Paez ans Guambianos (Colombia), Waoranis (Equator), Amueshas (Peru), Chimanes (Bolivia), Araucans (Chili), Touaregs and Bororos (Sahel in Northern Africa), Tigres (Ethiopia and Somalia), Dinkas (Sudan), Masais (Kenya and Tanzania), Pygmees (Zaire), Sans or Bushmen (Namibia and Botswana), Kalingas (Philippines), Kachins and Rohingas (Myanmar or Birmani), Hmongs (Laos), Santals and Gonds (India), Punans (Malaysia), Uzbeks and Tadjiks (Afghanistan), Aborigines (Australia), Maoris (New Zealand), Papous (New Guinea).
Turkey is currently the main cornerstone regional power;
Erdogan next in line for Nobel Peace; (October 21, 2009)
In December 18, 2004 I wrote “Turkey: A Regional Power in the Making “. In February 4, 2009 I updated my article “A Regional Power out of hibernation in the Near East“. Another update is required because Turkey seems to vigorously and quickly act everywhere.
Turkey forgot the Islamic world for over 60 years and relied on its military to impose a secular state and emulate the Western culture in alphabet and in dress codes. Ataturk wanted to shed the image of backward Ottoman Empire that lost an Empire extending from Hungry to Iraq to Arabic Peninsula, the Near East, Egypt and all Northern Africa.
The other Empire to the east was the Persian Safafid Dynasty that extended to Pakistan. The Safafid Empire was founded by another Turkish leader and opted to adopt the Chiaa Moslem sect as the religion of his Empire.
Turkey is part of NATO (this year is its turn to lead the NATO forces in Afghanistan) thanks to the cold war against the defunct neighbor of Soviet Union: Turkey was the main effective ally to the US in the region during the cold war. Turkey was denied full membership in the European Union because the same Soviet Union disintegrated into “independent States” recognized by the UN.
France and Germany offered a rational for their refusal on ground of Turkey not satisfying the basic social and political requirement of a homogenous member. For 60 years Turkey had turned its back to the Arab problems, and allied to the State of Israel and the Shah of Iran.
Things are changing fast after the horrors of Gaza and the tearing down of the mask of the Zionist ideology of terror, expansion, and apartheid. Turkey was playing the fair mediator between Syria and Israel in order for the return of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Turkey was mediating between Israel and the Palestinians to render the life of the Palestinians under occupation more bearable during the peace negotiations for a separate Palestinian State. Israel Olmert PM lied to the Turkish PM Erdogan before the barbaric re-incursion into Gaza.
Erdogan, Turkey’s PM is undeniably the most powerful leader criticizing the Zionist State for its genocide in Gaza. He canceled a joint military maneuver with the US and Israel. The US has nobody else to conduct military maneuvers but Israel in this region; the latest naval one is to last two weeks with objective to save Israel of mass missile attack!
Turkey, under Erdogan, is currently more powerful than the whole of Europe in the Near East for establishing peace, stability and equitable political resolutions. Turkey is a self sufficient independent Nation and has ruled the whole Middle East for four centuries. Turkey has awakened from a long hibernation and decided to be a major regional power broker.
Turkey is demanding and acting as the main power broker in the Near East because it has interest in the stability of its south eastern borders with Syria, Iran, and Iraq. So far, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq were peons for the larger policies of the US, Europe, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.
Turkey’s current policies beg to differ: “no more war zones at my borders and in my back yards“.
The US and Israel must have understood the message clearly and loudly. The so-called “moderate” Arab States of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are cowering down and are taken by surprise to the emergence of the new revitalized Turkey siding with the underdogs.
We are not hearing anymore about the Turkish war on the Kurdish self-autonomous movement.
I wholeheartedly wish that negotiations are secretly and seriously underway with the Kurdish Workers’ Party for a peaceful resolution. The Kurdish problem was used by the USA and Israel to blackmail Turkey.
I have a feeling that the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran appreciate the new directions of Erdogan’s government and would find in Erdogan a viable interlocutor and would cooperate with Turkey to lighten up this heavy burden of a useless and fruitless civil war. The new policy in Turkey is to open peaceful negotiations with the opposition Kurds; around 200 Kurdish leaders in the resistance movement have turned themselves in and all indicates that a resolution is palpable.
Turkey will be asked to exercise its beneficial influence in restoring peace, stability and economic prosperity in the region. It will inevitably join the European Union with the unavoidable important changes that Turkey will have to accept and undergo in matters of democracy, liberty, human rights, social and economical constraints.
This transformation of a powerful neighbor will transcend into a drastic transformation of the societies surrounding Turkey. The benefits are already materializing in closer ties with Syria, pressures on Israel to agree on a Palestinian State, and greater normalization with Iran.
Turkey is obviously the main power that can provide autonomy to the Kurdish nationalism spreading among Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Turkey is the main power that can efficiently check US omnipotence in the Middle East and any resurgence of Russia militarism.
Turkey prevented Bush Junior to invade Iraq through its territory; the US air base in Interlink was prohibited to launch air raids on Iraq. I have great hope in this new power amongst us, especially that the current Turkish government has proven to be far sighted and confident in its power and role in this region.
For a couple of years after Europe shut off the door for Turkey entering the Union Turkey felt the need to crawl in a cave and hibernate; Turkey shook off its lethargic attitude and is now in the driving seat and operating a strategy that befits its power in the Middle East. It has surmounted tough obstacles in economic difficulties, human rights issues that are frequently reemerging, and demonstrations that are occasionally broken by brute force.
Turkey is no longer allowed to relax. Turkey is quickly learning that it has to keep pace with the culture of Europe and to fight harder to catch up with lost time. Its dialogue with Syria has brought fruits: no visas are needed to cross joint borders, seasonal water resource shortages are frequently revised, and the western world had come to term that it can no longer circumvent Syria in this volatile region with Turkey’s backing.
Europe must be appreciating the decision of Turkey to play a major role in the Near East but the US is very wary because it refuses to share pre-eminence in the Middle East. Turkey active diplomacy and clear policies should weight heavier in the decision process for joining the European Union. The frustrations of Turkey with the EU must have given it a clear hint of what its policies should be based on and where its focus should be directed to.
Turkey is the new pivotal power in the Middle East in the coming decades. It is the cornerstone for new emerging Northern Middle East Block with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. This strategic block in formation is inevitable after the US troops leave Iraq and would constitute the best guarantee for this volatile region to peace and security.
Erdogan should have received the Nobel Award for Peace instead of Barak Obama who has no active records to show for earning this prize (Read my post “What that! Nobel Prize for Passivity?” Erdogan has already executed peace treaties with his archenemies: Syria, Armenia, the Kurds, soon with Cyprus, and has definitely sided with the Palestinians against apartheid Israel.
Normally, Erdogan is in line for the peace prize. Judging from the trend, the cynical Nobel Committee never feels comfortable awarding Peace Prizes to Middle Eastern leaders unless it is shared with the devils such as Began and Peres. Erdogan got my highest prize and we all feel much more optimist in our future.
Adonis Diaries 