6.2 The Geographic Setting

What Makes North Africa and Southwest Asia a Region?

To most outsiders, North Africa and Southwest Asia is a region characterized by five qualities: (1) It is the center of the religion of Islam; (2) it is the locus of a great deal of Earth’s petroleum resources; (3) it has an overall scarcity of water; (4) it is predominantly Arab in ethnicity; and (5) it is a region where women are discriminated against. While these five features are all present, they alone are a far too simplistic picture of the region.

The vast majority of people practice Islam, a monotheistic religion that emerged between 601 and 632 c.e., a faith with multiple interpretations. Most Muslims are moderate in their thinking and accept the validity of other beliefs, especially that of Christianity, because Mary and Jesus both play important roles in Islam. Only a vocal minority of Muslims is drawn to ultra-fundamentalist versions of Islam known as Islamism. The term Islamism, which gained currency in the late twentieth century, refers to Muslim religious activist movement that seeks political power to curb what is seen as dangerous secular influences that are spreading as a result of globalization. Some Islamist movements characterize Western influence as corrupt and destructively self-serving. But Islamist movements also vary greatly, are stronger in some parts of the region than in others, and have waxed with economic recessions and waned with economic booms.

Fossil fuel reserves—made up of oil and natural gas formed over millions of years from the fossilized remains of dead plants and animals—are highly uneven in their distribution (see Figure 6.25) and are found mainly around the Persian Gulf. These fossil fuels are extracted and exported throughout the world at tremendous profit, but the profits are not equitably distributed to the people in the countries from which they are generated. For example, in the oil-rich Gulf states (see the discussion of wealth disparities), profits go primarily to the members of a few large, privileged families, and only modest amounts are spread to the rest of the citizens.

Regarding water resources, the region is correctly thought of as being generally arid, as will be discussed in the next section on physical geography. The degree of aridity and its impact on development varies widely. Newly revealed underground water resources may change development options.

While Arabic culture and language is widespread, many people in the region are not Arab; the second and third most populous countries in the region, Turkey and Iran, are of non-Arab ethnicities, as are many minority populations, such as the Kurds, Berbers, Christians, and Jews.

Finally, the role and status of women, long a point of contention, is in transition, as the opening vignette makes clear. The experiences of women vary widely from country to country and from rural to urban areas. Even within a forward-looking country like Turkey, where urban women may be highly educated and outspoken and active in commerce, public life, and government, in rural areas women may lead secluded domestic lives with few educational opportunities. Women are beginning to lead the fight for gender equity in the region, and their life options are expanding.

Terms in This Chapter

In this book, as mentioned previously, we choose to not use the common term Middle East. The Arab world is used only where it applies, since many people in the region are not of Arab ethnicity.

We use the term occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) to refer to Gaza and the West Bank, those areas where Israel still exerts control despite treaty agreements; the word “occupied” is not capitalized to show the supposed temporary quality of the occupation. The U.S. Department of State uses the term Palestinian Territories. The United Nations, upon recently agreeing to give the territory observer status, now refers to it as the State of Palestine.