Michael Eppolito's List: Middle East

• SUNNI AND SHIA

• There are about five million Muslims in France – five to 10 per cent of the population – the largest Muslim population in Europe.
• France has placed an emphasis on laïcité, or secularism, in modern society. As part of this desire to separate religion and government, religion is given no special status though it is respected and can be freely practised. This system was initially established to prevent religion from interfering in government affairs.

  • Here is this word secularism again. Why is this important in France? Is it also important here in the US?

• "In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,"
• Proponents insisted such a ban was necessary to ensure France's schools remain strictly secular, while some Muslims countered the law specifically targeted them and unduly punished Muslim girls.

  • Why is secular important in this sentence?
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• Israel After Armistice, 1949

  • Use this for our first assignment on chainging borders
• Palestine and Trans-Jordan, 1922

  • Use this for your first assignment on shifting borders. You can consider this the result of the Balfour Declaration.
• The Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916

  • Use this for our first assignment on changing borders.
• UK Promise to the Arabs, 1915

  • Use this for our first assignment on changing borders.
• The Ottoman Empire, 1580

  • Use this for our first assignment on changing borders.

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• 1.) Is the Middle East a part of Africa or not? 2.) Most specifically, is Egypt a part of Africa? 3.) Why is it that others are trying to remove Egypt from Africa?

  • Here are the questions being considered on this blog
• NO! and why? because there is no such thing as The Middle East....

  • Here is Jassafari's position.
• I can see where individuals are still trying to divide the world based on their definition of what it, not, and should be.

  • This is interesting. Should we even consider trying to define the region? Is it wrong to try to define it?

• One widely used definition of the "Middle East" is that of the airline industry, maintained by the IATA standards organization. This definition — as of early 2007 — includes Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. This definition is used in world-wide airfare and tax calculations for passengers and cargo.

  Many have criticized the term Middle East for what they see as Eurocentrism, because it was originally used by Europeans and reflects the geographical position of the region from a European perspective. It is also criticized due to the fact that the term today is often used to only refer to the Arab world, making the situation more confused.
• The Middle East (or, formerly more common, the Near East[1]) is a region that spans southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. The term "Middle East" was popularized around 1900 in the United Kingdom. The corresponding adjective to Middle East is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner.
• I am not Egyptian but Egypt is a part of Africa before being one of the Middle Eastern countries , Middle East is just a term given to those countries.
  Years ago when Sudan asked to join the Arab League , the Arab countries in Gulf Area refused saying that Sudan is an African country not Arab country :)
• I actually don't like the term Middle East , and I think that many people are agree with me , here they don't use that term at all , we refer to the Arab countries in Asia by Gulf Area , and the Arab countries in Africa by North Africa , The Middle East term is only used when the Palestinian- Israeli conflict mentioned , it is a political term.
• I was in Egypt and Jordan a couple of months ago. From the people I talked to Egyptians and Jordanians of today, THEY say that generally they do not refer to themselves as African but Middle Easterns - that's the people of today. But I've also never heard them say that they are not African. Nor will they directly contradict you when they're called African.

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• The Kurds, who make up 15-20% of Iraq's population, gained political ground with the signing of the interim constitution in March 2004.
• The Kurds have the largest ethnic army in Iraq, the Peshmerga, who fought against Saddam Hussein for many years and also worked alongside US forces during the 2003 war.
• The oil-rich, disputed city of Kirkuk, home to Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, has been relatively peaceful but remains potentially explosive.

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• sectarian tensions

  • This means that the Sunni and Shia are the two major divisions in Islam. This also means that they do not get along, in fact they hate each other.
• HISTORIC SPLIT

  • This section explains clearly why the two sects split.
• Click here to see where Iraq's ethnic and religious groups live

    
    

  Enlarge Map

  • If you click here you can see where the Shia's and Sunni's live in Iraq. I think it is interesting that there are clear lines between the groups. Can you imagine where the borders might lie if Iraq were to split into 3 separate countries?

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