Thursday 14 January 2010

where exactly is the Middle East??

I started writing my research proposal on Design Education in the Middle East and my first task was to define exactly where the borders of the Middle East region lie. I came across an article which caught my sarcasm, and I had to include it as the first paragraph.
In June 2006 at the height of the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister heralded the introduction and conceptualization of the term “New Middle East”, which was introduced by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East” -advocated earlier by the Bush administration. Indeed within the same month, Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy, drew an enlightening picture of this “New Middle East” and had it published in the Armed Forces Journal. The following map is his work, which was complemented with the sub title:

“Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East would Look”.



I think I will stick to the more traditional Eurocentric terminology- ‘the Middle East’, first published in September1902 in the National Review by Alfred Mahan, a United States Navy flag officer.

The Middle East is a territory covering 16 countries and states in northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. The countries are: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the West Bank/ Gaza Strip, and Yemen.