Tunisia
 

President has fled the country after protests continued despite him making big concessions on freedom of media, etc... Meanwhile, protests continue in Jordan (over inflation) and Algeria and Lebanon's political system is a mess. Just when it seemed like the Middle East might get boring...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/wo...5tunis.html?hp

Moved thread to Africa - Richard

SR--

Why do you define Tunisia as a Middle Eastern country?

I was recently in N. Africa, and was surprised by the mass-movement element in politics and national identity. Elsewhere in the Arab world I've seen very localized rioting or protests, usually over an external interest (i.e. protesting an American envoy vs. protesting domestic politics), or maybe local issues (tribal or religious based).

Those with longer term experience than I, is this a shift, or am I off my rocker? In one country in North Africa I was in, there were spontaneous demonstrations in the streets with some degree of frequency, in a manner that I tend to associate with socialist movements more so than Islamist or right-wing Arab politics. That could be a misconception on my part.

When I was in the Middle East (not North Africa) studying politics and religion, there was some resentment towards the governments of the Arab World, on the part of Islamists because they fail to uphold Sharia, and on the part of progressives because of perceived U.S. influence in international policy. Despite that discontentment, it was not something that people were willing to act on - crossing the government wasn't worth the cost. Now we're seeing simultaneous events across the Arab world - any theories on why?

-out

Opportunities for snark aside:D--my pink fonted contribution had me laughing before I erased it--I meant the question seriously.

Bernard Nietschmann often wondered if it helps or hinders (or both) our ability to interact with the world when we define countries by geographical region?

Somewhat similarly, historians of Eastern Europe have long rankled at the notion that the pivot of Western civilization is considered by popular audiences to be west of Poland.

As SR is a student of the Middle East, I was wondering what kind of information he'd received that had led him to conclude Tunisia is a Middle Eastern country.

ETA-- SR, to be clear, my question reflects genuine intellectual curiosity.

It's a good question, and gets to the principle difficulty in using any term with sweeping connotations (such as Middle-east, Arab, Islam, Christian, European, "Westerner" etc...) In fact, I'd say the answer is the same as why we consider Australians (or Israelis) to be Westerners instead of Asians. Geographically, they look like they're a lot closer to China, but culturally and historically, their roots lie in what we know as "The West".

Same thing goes for all the countries in North Africa: their history and their self-identification link them much closer to the Middle East than to Europe (or the rest of Africa). They share a language (even if they butcher it beyond recognition in places), a religion (for the most part) and an ethnic identity with Middle Easterners. GRANTED, a lot of Berbers disagree, but even they have adopted many of the "identifiers" of Middle Eastern life.

The really simple and most honest answer to your question is I didn't even think about it. For me, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt all fall squarely within the realm of "Middle East." It's countries in the Sahil and the Horn of Africa like Eritrea, Somalia, the Sudan, and Mauritania that are harder for me to define.

Because we don’t have a forum for the Maghreb…?
Where would you prefer he had posted this thread? (Personally, I’d have liked to have seen it in The Early Bird.)
From the NY Times piece:
No mention of a military coup, as reported by Stratfor.

Anti-Government Slogans as Crowds Gather in Amman
 

http://en.ammonnews.<net>/article.aspx?articleNO=11323

Be sure to remove the <> from .<net>.

Africa, where it belongs.

Where?
 

Where? That is a good question which has been explained.

This board has a limited number of folders right now. There does need to be a balance of some sort to the number vs function vs viewing.

Most folks post where they think the subject fits.

A good example is the sub continent of India flowing back to Iran. Much overlap from Pakiistan west into the Middle East Folder and the Same with India east into the Asian Folder.

Africa kinda' splits that way also into the Muslim North Africa (I know, I know Niger, Nigeria has problems) and the Animalistic/Christian Africa south of the Sahara Desert.

I'm sure the QPs and most milpers on the board are familiar with this, but some of the civilian readers may not realize how regional divisions vary between different government agencies.

As frustrating as it can be that they don't share the same regions as DoD, StateDept divisions make more sense IMO. Now, the downfall is when you get into interagency projects (such as the TSCTP), and suddenly you have AFRICOM projects requiring coordination with two different StateDept chains of command with both the NEA and AF bureaus. Likewise CENTCOM includes portions of NEA and South and Central Asia.

The truth is sometimes geographic boundaries are not as accurate as cultural boundaries, at the regional, national, or even district level. Take for example the linguistic map of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

I have had the problem of trying to figure out whether to follow cultural, diplomatic, or geographic boundaries back to high school when I was in charge of the extemp box for the speech team. I can't tell you how many times I had to move the Afghanistan folder back to Asia after some punk thought he was doing the world a favor by putting it in Middle East.

Back in my box now.

-out

Inky--

To be clear, my question was "why here", not "why not there." (I myself would have started the thread under Africa.)

That being said, there are SR's response and Defend's post.
Defend--

If you would, please develop your point on how/why you think DoS geographic divisions make more sense.

Regional Boundaries
 

I was hoping you'd ask ;).

Keeping this focused, I’m going to focus on the State Department’s AF/NEA/SCA versus AFRICOM/CENTCOM/PACOM. I’m sure an entire thesis could be written on the subject, so please give me some grace for writing this on limited time.

Framing your initial question into practical examples should make this easier. Should India be grouped with Thailand and Japan (DoD) or Afghanistan and Pakistan(DoS)? Should Tunisia be grouped with Zimbabwe (DoD) or Iraq (DoS)?

A region can be compared to a family of nations. Sometimes you are born into the family, sometimes adopted (e.g. Australia, as mentioned by silentreader, although clearly there are many historical reasons for this adoption and for the current population of Australia). My goal is to identify the blood relatives in the family tree. Here are the characteristics that are foundational in identifying these families.

1. Geographic (timeless): “Are these countries geographically similar?”
2. Cultural (progressive present): “Do these countries share similar cultural norms or ethnic history?”
3. Linguistic (historical): “Do these countries share linguistic roots?”
4. Diplomatic (present): “Do these countries today view each other as related?”

My personal opinion is that three of the four questions should be answered with “yes” to consider countries to be in the same region. Let’s run the test on two countries – Lebanon and Morocco.

1. Are these countries geographically similar? For our purposes, yes. Although located on different continents, both countries are coastal to the Mediterranean Sea. Morocco serves as the southern gateway to the Mediterranean.

2. Do these countries share similar cultural norms or ethnic history? Yes. Both countries were conquered by Arab Islamic invaders. Additionally, this conquest led to Arab (Berber) domination among the population of Morocco.

3. Do these countries share linguistic roots? Yes. The majority of both populations speak Arabic, as well as French (although in this case the French is almost irrelevant).

4. Do these countries today view each other as related? Yes. Both countries are members of the Arab League, and work together on regional initiatives.

So are these countries in the same region? I would say yes. Next lets test Afghanistan and Jordan.

1. Are these countries geographically similar? No.

2. Do these countries share cultural norms or ethnic history? No. Although both countries are have a strong Islamic majority, Afghanistan is not Arab and is more closely related to the cultures of Pakistan and the other “Stans, Iran, and even Northern India (PACOM) than it is to the Arab world.

3. Do these countries share linguistic roots? No.

4. Do these countries today view each other as related? No. Afghanistan has never been a member of the Arab League. Jordanian involvement in Afghanistan is linked to counter-terrorism initiatives through coalition involvement, not in bilateral regional development.

Overall, the State Departments defined regions much more consistently presents related countries as opposed to the Department of Defense command boundaries. In modern warfare understanding the culture, sociology, and psychology of our AOR is as important to the success of our mission as the weapons we carry. I don't see how DoD command boundaries reflect this truth. But maybe that's just my 37F kernel displaying it's source code ;).

If you think there is a better way to look at it, feel free to explain.

-out

Team Sergeant,

I apologize for misplacing this post. Feel free to move it to the appropriate forum (not that you'd need my permission).

Alternatively, I also mention protests in Jordan and Algeria and the Lebanese crisis, so renaming the thread something along the lines of Political Turmoil in the Arab World could also be appropriate.

Finally, an honest question. In the future, should I have something to post about either a)Israel/Palestine or b)Turkey should it be posted in the Europe thread or the Middle East thread?

Jordanian Hate towards Government "Unprecedented"
 

Sorry to hijack this thread further, but didn't want to start a new thread, and since it is under "Middle East"...

This is exactly what I was talking about in my first post about a shift in national protests. As before, remove the <> from the addresses.

http://en.ammon<news>.net/article.aspx?articleNO=11324

And the parliament's response:

http://en.<ammon>news.net/article.aspx?articleNO=11318

-out