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The Middle East is a geographical and cultural region located primarily in western Asia, but also in parts of northern Africa and southeastern Europe (worldatlas.com). Ethnic groups such as Jordanians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Iranians all come from the Middle East. In this essay, topics that will be discussed are if all Middle Easterners are Arab or Muslim, what part of Asia is most of the Middle East located, if the Middle East is exclusively located in the Asian continent, and what stereotypes and/or generalizations may come up by the problematic geography of the region. To start, from my knowledge — No, all Middle Easterners are not Muslim. No, all Middle Easterners are not Arab. No, all Arabs are not Muslim. Being Chaldean, I have been
The Middle East has historically rebuked Western influence during their process of establishing independence. When Britain and France left the Middle East after World War II, the region saw an unprecedented opportunity to establish independent and self-sufficient states free from the Western influence they had felt for hundreds of years. In an attempt to promote nationalistic independence, the states of the region immediately formed the League of Arab States in 1945. The League recognized and promoted the autonomy of its members and collaborated in regional opposition against the West until 1948 when Israel declared independence. Israel represented then and now an intrusive Western presence in the Arab world. The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict typifies this cultural antagonism. The Cold War refocused attention to the Middle East as a site of economic and strategic importance for both sides, yet the two hegemons of the Cold War now needed to recognize the sovereignty of the Middle Eastern states. With their statehood and power cemented, the Middle Easte...
It is often said that history is written by the victor, and in the race to industrialization of the past two centuries, Western Europe and the United States have emerged as the victors. This enabled them to write a history in which their rise to power was preordained and inevitable and in which Eastern cultures are viewed as backward and intolerant. These Eurocentric histories have so fully permeated the global psyche that the stereotypes they have perpetuated inform our cultural interactions to this day. However, an unbiased look at the premodern history of Asia and the Middle East reveals the inaccuracy of the Eurocentric paradigm. Contrary to the Eurocentric view, there is nothing inherently intolerant about Islam or Middle Eastern and East Asian culture. In fact, many of the societies that have existed in the East have been extraordinarily tolerant and heterogeneous.
Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000.
Clarke, John I. and W.B. Fisher (eds.). Populations of the Middle East and North Africa: a geographical approach. London, 1972.
Gelvin, James L. The Modern Middle East: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Arabic culture is very religious; family is one of the most important aspects of the Arab society. Most Arabic countries contain Muslims, Jews, ad Christianity, they pray about five times a day and have to wear certain types of clothes. We might see Arabic’s as all Muslims but Christianity is the second largest religion in the League, with over 20 million Christians living in countries. I know that Arabic culture is very strict on most things and I could not imagine my religion like that. My religion is Christian, but I am not as religious as the Arabic culture.
Imagine that you are of Arab decent you being screened more thoroughly than others at the airport. The only way the airport staff can identify that you are of Arab decent is based on your family name, Najjar. The airport staff constantly takes extra measures to confirm that you are not a terrorist. Stereotypes have existed in American culture for centuries. Early in American history stereotypes of Negroes and Mexicans predominately associate them with lower-class attributes (Campbell, 1967).
The world of today is a relatively primitive one, even with every advancement that humanity has accomplished we remain primitive in this aspect. There has been progress, even as slow in comparison to that of todays, it is progress.The ignorances and other human flaws are still very existent within every society, regardless of the boundaries between them be it geographical or cultural. Stereotypes and misconceptions exist in the modern society. Stereotypes arise when there is a single radical group who are accepted as the representation of their apparent subculture. Then the ignorant and misinformed take these “representatives’” behavior as a generalization of the entire group. While the less common misconception is made by some incomprehensible anomaly where an entire assumption is based around a single social group, that has never even proved to be true. There is a stereotype that is attached with the College educated community, they are believed to be almost guaranteed success. The fact that they have a degree in their respective field has built a stereotype of the “successful ones.”
The article, “Why Is There So Much Conflict in the Middle East?” written by Mirjam E. Sørli et. al corresponds a great deal with the text Politics and Change in the Middle East as far as the reasons for conflict in the Middle East. Sørli et. al disputes the idea of “Middle East exceptionalism,” which says that there is something different about Middle Easterners that make them prone to violence and conflict (142). Sørli et. al says this is not true, but rather there are very simple reasons as to why there has been conflict in the Middle East. As stated, the lack of regional natural resources such as water, oil, and arable la...
People being generalized based on limited and inaccurate information by sources as television, cartoons or even comic books (Tripod). This is a definition that seems to go against many public standards. The above words are the exact definition of stereotypes. Stereotypes as understood from the definition, goes mostly hand in hand with media -- only not the regular meaning of the innocent media we know. Media propaganda is the other form of media that is rather described as media manipulation. In this paper, the following will be discussed: first, how stereotypes of ethnic groups function in propaganda, why does it function so well, and finally, the consequences of these stereotypes on the life of Egyptians in particular in society. A fair examination will be conducted on this example of stereotypes through clarification examples and research results from researches conducted from reliable sources. The real association between Egyptians’ stereotypes and propaganda discussed in this paper shall magnify the association of stereotypes and propaganda in general.
Orientalism as termed by Edward Said is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that are flawed and underlying Western attitudes towards the Muslim societies. Evidence from his 1978 book “Orientalism”, states that the culture has been of influence and marred with controversy in post colonial studies and other fields of study. Moreover, the scholarship is surrounded by somehow persistent and otherwise subtle prejudice of Eurocentric nature, which is against Islam religion and culture (Windschuttle, 1999). In his book, Said illustrates through arguments, that the long tradition in existence containing romanticized images of Islamic stronghold regions i.e. Middle East, and the Western culture have for a long time served as implicit justifications for the European and American Imperial ambitions. In light of this, Said denounced the practice of influential Arabs who contributed to the internalization of Arabic culture ideas by US and British orientalists. Thus, his hypothesis that Western scholarship on Muslim was historically flawed and essentially continues to misrepresent the reality of Muslim people. In lieu to this, Said quotes that, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Therefore, very few details such as human density, the passion of Arab-Muslim life has entered the awareness of even the people whose profession revolve around reporting of the Arab world. Due to this, we have instead a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 1980).
The Arab world consists of twenty-two countries encompassing all of North Africa and much of the Middle East. The Arab people number over 360 million and while they share a common language, there is a surprising degree of diversity among them, whether in terms of nationality, culture, religion, economics, or politics. (McCaffrey, 3) Most inhabitants of the Ar...
Gerner, Deborah J., and Philip A. Schrodt. "Middle Eastern Politics." Understanding the contemporary Middle East. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008. 85 -136. Print.
...s to the politics, oil economics, and the simple-minded dichotomy of freedom-loving democratic Israel and evil, totalitarian, and terrorist Arabs, establishing a clear view of the Near East has become difficult. My experiences in these matters made me write this. The life of an Arab Palestinian in the West is rather disheartening, for the web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, and so on is very strong. The nexus of knowledge and power that creates "the Oriental" and in a sense establishes him as a human being is not (for me) an exclusively academic matter. I have been able to put to use my humanistic and political concern for the development and consolidation of Orientalism (p. 52).
The Middle East has come along way since the rise of civilization thousands of years ago. Civilization emerged in the Middle East and northeast Africa along the river systems as agricultural societies grew in population and developed new forms of social organization. For the last two thousands years the west has been drawn to the middle east fascinated by the culture, religion, resources and politics. The Middle East has an immense impact on the world globally. My goal in this paper is to explain the ancient and modern significance of the Middle East and how it impacts the world in such a globalizing way.