There is no Middle East

There are no precisely defined borders for this region.

In addition, it is a Eurocentric term originally meant to demarcate the region between the Far East and the Near East, with all these terms defined based on the regions’ geographic location in relation to Europe.

Along these lines, in relation to Mecca, Palestine could be called the Near West.

The people of Southwest Asia and North Africa should not use the appellation Middle East to describe their home region because it was coined by European imperialists.

The use of such non-indigenous terms only serves to reinforce mental slavery and subjugation. 

Geographers have never liked the terms Middle East and Near East and have always used the more precise designations Southwest Asia, West Asia, and North Africa.

The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary gives the following definition for the Middle East:

1. Also called Mideast. (loosely) the area from Libya E to Afghanistan, usually including Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the other countries of the Arabian Peninsula.

2. (formerly) the area including Iran, Afghanistan, India, Tibet, and Burma.

The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines the Near East as “an indefinite geographical or regional term, usually referring to the countries of SW Asia, including Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and the other nations of the Arabian Peninsula.”

If Sudan is included in the Middle East, then that would mean the Middle East stretches from Sudan’s borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa to Iran’s borders with Turkmenistan in Central Asia.

Is the Middle East now the region between Central Africa and Central Asia?

Some people do not include Sudan in the Middle East, and others only include northern Sudan.

Still, even with these definitions, where are the borders of the Middle East?

In the second half of the 20th century, the 19th century definition of the Middle East fell out of use, the Indian subcontinent became South Asia, Burma (Myanmar) was assigned to Southeast Asia or greater East Asia, and Tibet was assigned to East Asia or sometimes to Central Asia. 

At about the same time, the Near East and the Middle East were merged into the Near and Middle East.

Later, people began using the term Middle East for the region formerly called the Near and Middle East.

Recently, the region has been given a new designation, the Middle East/North Africa, which is abbreviated as MENA. 

The vocabulary that we use influences our thought patterns.

If Muslims use Eurocentric vocabulary, even when speaking our own languages, it will undermine our sense of identity. 

A better substitute for the Middle East/North Africa would be Southwest Asia/North Africa, which could be abbreviated as SWANA.

Language is important because of its effect on one’s thinking, worldview, and identity.  

After World War I, T. E. Lawrence, who was also known as Lawrence of Arabia, said that he, Winston Churchill, and a handful of others had designed the map of modern Southwest Asia over dinner one day.

Churchill once said that he had “created Transjordan with the stroke of a pen on a Sunday afternoon in Cairo” when he was serving as British colonial secretary.

Indeed, the imperialists did draw the borders of much of the region after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

France and Britain established Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other territories which later became independent states.

Many of these territories were never before independent nation-states encompassing the new geographic borders, so a sense of nationality and nationhood had to be created for them.

Lebanon was separated from greater Syria because France wanted to create a Christian majority nation-state.

However, the demography changed due to the higher emigration rate of the Christian community and the higher birth rate of the Shia and Sunni Muslim communities, and Lebanon is now no longer Christian majority. 

Since it was written based on the country’s former demography, the Lebanese Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, and the parliament speaker must be a Shia Muslim.

The current crisis, in which the two main alliances in the Lebanese Parliament have been unable to reach a consensus on a Maronite Christian candidate to elect as the next president, has arisen due to the anomalous constitution.

But with the memory of the 1975-1990 civil war still fresh in people’s minds, nobody wants to revise the Lebanese Constitution to bring it in line with the current demography.

The European imperialists colonized much of Southwest Asia and North Africa and many other parts of the Islamic world, and Muslims are still dealing with the aftermath of that catastrophe.  

However, it is even worse if our minds are colonized and that is what happens when we use Eurocentric vocabulary.

Thus, at this critical juncture when the Muslim youth are experiencing an identity crisis, Muslims should never use Eurocentric terms like the Middle East but should instead use Southwest Asia/North Africa.

(Jan. 16 Tehran Times Opinion Column, by Hamid Golpira)

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MNA