Tribalism in the Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East is a region centered on Western Asia and Egypt the region has generally been a major center of world affairs as the major religions of Islam and Christianity and Judaism were also established within the region. The region is made up of 18 countries and has vast reserves of crude oil. In modern times the Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region.

For this assignment the cultural manifestations I selected to discuss as being important to our Unit’s success are Wasta, Deference to authority, and Tendency to seek compromise. Of course understanding all of the cultural manifestations are important to our unit’s success, but each region within the Middle East-North African (MENA) region will have their own variations based upon which branch of Islam is dominant in the region, what that region’s experience has been with the U.S. or a Western presence in general and numerous other factors such as the prevailing socio-economic factors of the region.

Throughout Middle Eastern, beginning in the 1800’s many changes and continuities have occurred and shaped what there national identity is in present day. Religion and literature have remained a continuous factor throughout this time period; where as a very successful oil discovery and currently changing government help shape the Middle Eastern national identity

It is noted that every Middle Eastern Country are publicly fascinated of the Dabke dance. Each of the Middle Eastern nation claims they are the best at dancing Dabke. They also claim to have to have invented the dance (Hussein, 2016). However, there is the truth and reality behind the dance. Dabke is also referred to as Dabka or even Dabkeh. It is those names that the Middle Eastern people refer to the actual dance that is normally used by different dialect. The dance is universal irrespective of someone’s roots and cultural background. Whether one comes from Iraq, Lebanon, or even Palestine, the dance is still the same. The term Dabka basically means the act of stomping (Haugbolle, 2010). The dance found its inception back in the early 1990s before the segmentation of the Middle East took place. The Middle East was segmented through the colonization process. The colonies were either the French or the British. The Middle East was a single peaceful land that had a common Dabke art. The Dabke art was widely used in celebrations, joyful events, at the weddings, at the graduation, and also in birthdays. Therefore, Dabke was well known to be a tradition that was shared. Meaning the tradition was not owned by anybody and it originated in the Middle East intended for everyone to celebrate.

Baghdad, Iraq is where I was born and raised; I lived there for about 6 years during the most pivotal years of the war. My dad left when I was about 7 months. He went to Lebanon to live for a few years before settling in the United States. My mom took care of me and my siblings. War was going on in Iraq; people walked with a dying heart. Iraq was split into Shiite, Sunni, and Christianity. Sunni and Shiite do not have any issues with one another, but there are people who do not like the Shiites and caused civil strife between the two divisions of Islam. My family is Shiite and we do not believe in a separation between anyone because we are one, they are

Unlike what is emphasized by Obama in Extract 1, vast social reforms, immense welfare program, infrastructure-building were underway in Libya. As have been mentioned previously, Libya was one of the Africa’s most prosperous country due to the reforms that were done under Gaddafi’s regime. And as a result, by the time the 2011 crisis was unfolding, few people, mainly in the western world, were inclined to have any sympathy for Gaddafi or take any of his claims seriously, and the attempt of showing Gaddafi in a bad light quickly spread through the western mainstream media and Gaddafi had become hated in the western world. But the trigging factor is that, contrary to popular belief which had been transmitted by so many people, like Barack Obama, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, whom was often portrayed as “tyrant” and “dictator” was in fact, Africa’s most prosperous democracy-according to the United Nations Development Index, prior to the U.S.-led intervention in 2011; according to the same index(see fig6), Libya had the highest GDP per capta, the lowest infant mortality and the highest life expectancy in all of Africa(see

The countries present their ideologies to the outside world as holy nations. Recently there has been significant evidence on major shifts with increasing polarization and creation of new alliances. These strategic actions produce both risks and opportunities; however, in the Middle East, there has been growing sectarianism in the conflicts (El Fadl, 2005). The sectarianism plays a great role in the political conflicts within Saudi Arabia and Iran. While both Saudi Arabia and Iran claim to have theocracy model states based on Islam, Saudi Arabia is considered a Theo-monarchy with strong relations to Wahhabism, a branch of Sunni Islam, while Iran’s political system has democratic components and is based on Shiism (Al-Rasheed, 1996). The differences in religious practices and ethnicity between the two nations have contributed to the dilemma of instability in the Middle

If you had the choice of being a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew living in the Middle East, which would be your first choice? The Middle East is home to three key religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, which all face conflicts with each other that affects the Middle East region in many ways. All three of these religions were developed and established within the Middle East before sporadically spreading worldwide. (Religion: Three Religions) All three of these religions are traced back to father Abraham so Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are considered “Abrahamic religions”. (Religion: Three Religions) Judaism is dated to be the “oldest surviving monotheistic religion arising in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium”. (Religion:

1.) How were "tribes" in the Sudan formed differently from the way "races" were constructed in the United States?

When people generally think of Middle East, they either picture newly developed Arab economies or Muslim dominated volatile regions. However, the Middle Eastern society mentioned in Taking sides is not limited to the few nations defined by geo political lines drawn in the map, rather it is a complexly mixed society of religious factions, different ethnic group and political ideologies, each separated within boundaries of nations. As modern history goes, these factions within the Middle Eastern nation has always contributed hostility to the entire region. Primarily, the faction between Sunni and Shiite fundamentalist can be traced as root cause of

In this day and age, we find ourselves at odds with our “identity” as we find that not only are we representing ourselves, but we also have ties to religion, sect, tribe, and family (Angrist). This shows that despite the cohesiveness and threads that attach us, it has the power to pull people, families, and in some cases countries apart. This conflict comes to a head when religion and ethnicity are interwoven. Hence when divisions occur, this can lead to violent wars that destroy trust between individuals. This can ingrain a sense of uneasiness and distrust that plagues people’s ideas and leaves a country divided. This is particularly evident in Lebanon. Ethnic and religious division led to the festering of feelings of marginalization and discrimination, which boiled over into the Lebanese civil war, a war that claimed the lives of 150,000 people (Szekely). The anger and frustration birthed from this to chaos, and conflict has in turn increased the division between ethnic and religious factions and led to the crumbling of Lebanese nationalism. This essay is specifically aimed at assessing the relationships between ethnic and religious divisions in Lebanon and explores how it contributed to the civil war. This is done by identifying and analyzing the main actors and makes an explanation of the historical divisions stemming from the National Pact, branching out to include the consequences of the civil war on the political structures and the identities of the

The Middle East is far from monumental and homogenous. Its differences have been a source of both strength and inspiration. The most visible, most pervasive, and the least recognized aspects of

Abrahamic religions, religions that derive from the biblical character Abraham, have three main religions in the group. The first, and oldest, is Judaism, founded several thousand years ago in the Middle East; then there is Christianity, the most popular religion in the world, which was founded shortly after the death of Christ; finally, there is Islam, the second most popular religion in the world, founded by the prophet Muhammed in the 7th century ACE. Islam has over one billion followers of the Islamic faith. Although it is one of the most popular religions in the world, many people do not know much about what Muslims, followers of Islam, believe in. Due to the rising publicity of militant terrorist groups in the Middle East, Islamophobia has become rampant in many first-world countries. Although the media portrays violent and barbaric acts performed by militant Muslims, a majority of Muslims do not commit such atrocities and are wrongly persecuted. Only by educating those who do not know about Islam, can it be assured that Islamophobia will dwindle.

In recent years, the Iraqi nation has endured a crisis that will forever remain in the hearts and minds of the Middle Eastern culture. However, the outcomes of the War on Iraq will not change the long-lasting and passionate traditions and memories that have been held in the country for decades. One major event that happened in Iraq’s history is that on October 3, 1932 Iraq was established as an independent nation. Iraq has always been a country in which respect and generosity have been highly valued and play an important cultural role in everyday life. Additionally, approximately ninety-five percent of Iraqis are Muslim, and therefore Islam is the official religion of this nation (Gutierrez 1). Furthermore, Iraq is a

Death, decay, crime, war, and other horrors are at the center of Hayder Al-Mohammad’s “You Have Car Insurance, we have Tribes.” The author’s intended subject, tribes, and more specifically how they are as the author says, waxing in Iraq, however, is only briefly discussed in the article, which focuses more on the city of Basra Iraq. While the Al-Mohammad does look at historical aspects of the city of Basra through the lens of tribalism, he fails to construct a reasonable argument for why tribes are needed in modern Iraq, or for that matter, in general. This is because he commits several sins in authorship, including mixing personal experience with historical fact, self-contradiction, and switching between third and first-person writing.