#when are people going to learn how to separate extremists and terrorists from the populations they claim to be working for

[arosebyan0thername]

Probably the most controversial take I've ever posted here but I think if you assume everyone who supports Palestinian liberty is also inherently and irrevocably antisemitic, that's maybe a you problem and not their fault

[armeniaitn]

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/middle-east-of-what-on-identity-politics-and-eurocentric-definitions-51598-21-08-2020/

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

The Middle East. Illustration by Noran Morsi

Most people do not stop to ask why the Middle East has been labelled as such. As a country in the Middle East, people from Egypt have long considered themselves “Middle Eastern”. But what is this region east to, and middle of? And what binds the countries of the Middle East together?

The phrase, which is used by newspapers, airlines, and official entities worldwide, usually includes 17 countries, along with a few that are sometimes left out, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Egyptian Streets spoke to Hanan Kholoussy, associate professor of history at the American University in Cairo, to find some clarifying information.

Colonial Connections

The earliest record there is of the use of the term “Middle East” is around 1901, says Kholoussy, when American Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan coined the term to refer to this part of the world, in relation to the Far East.

“The two major colonial powers at the time, which were England and France, had valuable colonies in the Far East. The term didn’t really catch on at first. It became more commonly used during World War Two when the British built a Middle East supply center in Egypt where they housed their supplies for the war,” Kholoussy said.

Due to the significant British role in the war while using Egypt as an important base, journalists would mention the “Middle East Supply Center” in their media coverage of the war, popularizing the term Middle East.

Soldiers on Egyptian land in World War 2. Photographer unknown.

Thus, the term refers to the region central east of London and Paris, referring to transcontinental masses of land in relation to their location in relation to two major colonial powers at the time of World War Two.

“The reason the term is problematic for some of us is that we were named by outsiders who were colonizing, controlling, and dominating our region to exploit its resources. And they got to decide what to call us. It refers to a colonial past; a time when we weren’t free and equal to the people who controlled us,” Kholoussy added.

Misconceptions and Media Representation

The Middle East only makes up five percent of the world, but it is a very diverse region, with great ethnic, religious, and geographic variety.

Though the bulk of the population of the Middle East is considered ‘Arab’, the region is far more diverse. There are Berbers in North Africa, concentrated in Morocco and Algeria among other nations, Jews of a wide variety of origins, Kurds in Western Asia mostly concentrated in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, as well as Armenians, Iranians, and Turks.

Though the West also largely associates the region with Islam, religiously, the Middle East is more diverse than that. To start, it is the birthplace of all three Abrahamic faiths, so there are large numbers of Jews and Christians as well as Muslims.

“Twelve percent of the world’s Muslims are from the Middle East, only twelve percent. So, this idea that many Westerners have, and even some Arabs have, that most people in the region are Muslim, because the Arab world has kind of claimed Islam [is false]. It’s the birthplace of Islam, but Arab Muslims only make up 12 percent of the world’s Muslims,” Kholoussy said.

In addition to the three Abrahamic religions, the region is also home to a number of other religious beliefs, such as Zoroastrians and Druze.

There is also often the misconception in Western media that portrays Middle Eastern people as nomads in a desert or extremist Muslim terrorists, as reported by The University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

However, according to a report by The University of Washington, 60 percent of the region’s population lives in major cities such as Damascus, Istanbul, and Cairo, proving that the Middle East is quite urbanized and also has some of the oldest cities in the world.

A perception of the Middle East. Map by Cacahuate via Wikivoyage.

“We have everything from deserts to beaches to snow-capped mountains to olive fields. So the idea that it’s just a barren desert is also false. There are many false stereotypes about the region, the area as a whole, whatever you want to call it, to outsiders. They are always a little shocked when they learn of the geographic diversity of the region,” Kholoussy added.

Identity; To Each Their Own

The term Middle East is not specifically what perpetuates these stereotypes though, she said, and entities in the region have adopted the term and made it their own. Kholoussy believes that the fact that people from the region now use it and have co-opted it makes it less problematic, despite most of them likely being unaware of its colonial history.

“The Egyptian news agency calls itself MENA for Middle East News Agency. The national airline carrier of Lebanon is called Middle East Airlines. There’s a famous newspaper, Al Shark Al Awsat in Saudi Arabia, called the Middle East. We’ve even translated the term into Arabic,” she added.

As for Egyptians, there are further questions of identity being asked. For long, many Egyptians have had a disconnect between themselves and their geographically African identity, as uncovered in a 2012 column for Daily News Egypt by journalist Shahira Amin.

Amin surveyed a number of Egyptians on how they identified, none of whom named their African identity, and most of whom labeled themselves as Muslims or Arabs. What she attributed this to was the idea of the conceptual Sahara divide.

“For centuries, the Sahara Desert has been viewed as a vast impenetrable barrier dividing our continent into two distinct areas: Northern “white�� and sub-Saharan “black” Africa. The countries south of the Sahara have long been considered authentically “African” while those to the north have been perceived as Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Islamic,” Amin said.

She added that most anthropologists have refuted the truth of this geographical distribution of the continent that, however, has still influenced how people view the continent and the region, just as the term Middle East does.

The question hangs on what would be a better term to use rather than “Middle East” that encompasses the region without maintaining the colonial connection.

The Arab World. Illustration by Noran Morsi

“The problem is every other term we have is equally problematic,” Kholoussy said.

The term “Arab World” was likely coined by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the father of Arab nationalism, she adds, with the notion of pan-Arabism gaining wider acceptance in the seventies. At that time, Amin explained, concurrently with the Gulf oil boom, millions of Egyptians traveled to oil-rich Gulf nations to work and earn money, where many of the Gulf’s traditions were adopted by Egyptians.

“But the term excludes five key countries in the region – Iran, Turkey, Israel, Armenia and Kurdistan also…so, Arab World is not an inclusive term,” Kholoussy said.

There is also the term MENA which means Middle East North Africa, which is often used to include the countries of North Africa which aren’t always considered as part of the Middle East. The U.S. government refers to the Middle East and North Africa as two separate entities.

“And then when the U.S. government wants to group these two regions together, it calls us MENA, again, coined by an outsider who has interests in the region,” she added.

Therefore, Kholoussy thinks that this is why the ‘Middle East’ has remained so widely used since there has not been a better alternative that is inclusive, any less problematic, or a label created by its own people.

Within Egypt, even, there is a jumble of identities that differ from person to person and region to region. Kholoussy emphasizes, though, that regardless of what labels people cling to, identity is often determined by everyone else’s assumptions and not one’s own.

“Egyptians are a very diverse people. We’ve been occupied and invaded by so many other peoples. So the assortment of identities is astounding, but how we choose to identify ourselves is very much about what’s going on politically in our part of the world at the moment,” Kholoussy said.

Perhaps there is not currently a better term to identify the region accurately, and perhaps it is not the term that matters most. However, what does have impact on cultures and peoples is the misinformation on what the region does include, and the false stereotypes perpetuated by media of what the Middle East is actually defined by.

Redefining Girlhood: From Soad Hosny to Egypt’s Young Instagram Feminists

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[pro-ag-gressive-church]

X.C.R.I.S.I.S. will kill us if we don’t stop them NOW!

X.C.R.I.S.I.S. (Xrisitian Conservative Right In Seditious Insurrectionist States) The only "terrorist" group ACTUALLY posing a threat to the United States.

The "Conservative" movement in this country has become an unholy alliance between self proclaimed "christians" who ONLY quote the parts of Leviticus or Deuteronomy that validate their hate, and NEVER quote Jesus CHRIST (I call them Xristians to separate the extremists from the faithful), and the Cult of Ayn Rand who worship an economic fantasy from a badly written sci-fi novel that has NEVER worked in ANY practical application.

“You know the Bible says beware of false prophets. And there are people out there, you know, spreading noise about how much can get done. I mean this whole idea about shutting down government to get rid of Obamacare in 2013 – I mean, this plan never had a chance.” -Fmr. House Speaker, John Boehner

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/john-boehners-trashing-ted-cruz-tea-party-just-proved-liberals-right-video/

The sooner we start treating Confederate Scum like the disease they are, and stop pretend they are human beings "with an opinion", the better.

Are Conservatives even people?

“What defines a person? What defines property? What’s the difference? The anthropologist and ethicist Dawn Prince-Hughes argues that the standards for personhood include self-awareness, an ability to understand complex emotions, and the capacity for empathy.” -Ted 2.

Conservatives clearly lack both the capacity to understand complex emotions and the empathy that particular definition of a "person" requires.It’s easy to see, in this perspective, how a corporation or fetus might seem like a “person” to them since they lack all but self awareness to qualify as one.

Unlike the primates Dr. Prince-Hughs studied to come up with this theory in her book "Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism", conservatives are clearly NOT people.

While that makes them property by the logic presented in the film, the truth is they should be at least considered as other primates until they can join the human race in it's otherwise unanimous understanding of those concepts.Some wild animals need to put down no matter how we anthropomorphize them, especially when they are as dangerous to society as conservatives have proven to be.

Some will see this as satire, but seriously... why are we treating these animals like humans, when they can’t provide the simple comfort of a purring cat, or loyal dog?

As the thinking and rational members of society, we have to take responsibility for letting this destructive “invasive species” of humanity loose. Like Coy fish or killer bees, we need to recognize that they are not capable of being part of society, or even the ecology in many cases, and instead of granting them membership as a right, make them earn it. Isn’t that exactly THEIR attitude with the undocumented, refugees from terror, and the poor. Do we not owe ourselves the right to hold them to the standards they set for others? Conservatives have EARNED genocide. Like poor Anne Frank, Liberals believe that all people are basically good, and just "misguided". They still haven't learned that Conservatism is a CANCER that needs to be ERADICATED like all cancer.

Just like the Civil War Criminals that we simply allowed to have all the spoils of their slavery in order to "make peace", we didn't execute the lying Conservatives who got us into the illegal wars in the middle east when we found out what they had done to us, and made us to do those nations.

Name a single liberal policy that will kill someone.

If we taxed the top 2% who make over $250,000 at a rate of 90%, do you know how many would be below the poverty line?

ZERO!!!!

Not a single one of them would have life as tough 45 million Americans live with EVERY DAY.

The fact is, in every way, the cause of Conservatism is to kill or enslave everyone not born with money.

Executing a Conservative is no more an act of violence than spraying germs with disinfectant, or taking an antibiotic.

Something is trying to kill you, slowly, but never the less it is trying to kill you.

Killing a Conservative is inherently an act of self defense.

Conservative = Cancer

You can't negotiate with cancer.

You can't reason with cancer.

You can't yell at cancer and make it behave.

You don't sit there dying and try to figure out how much of you, you will allow cancer to kill.

You poison it with chemicals. You cook it with radiation. You cut it out.

Cancer has lost its right to be part of your body because a small part of it’s “code” has become corrupt. It ignores the rules of the anatomy, and grows out of control reproducing that altered bad code jeopardizing your life.

Sometime you lose a lot in treating cancer. Especially if you've ignored it for too long and let it get out of control.

You can lose limbs. Vital organs. Lots of good cells and tissue that are NOT cancerous will die from the treatment the longer you pretend you DON'T have cancer.

You CAN be too late. You can face your final days in agony, knowing you are going die from cancer, because you didn't act soon enough.

Cancer may be a part of you, but it is a part of you that has betrayed EVERYTHING ELSE about you.

Conservative thought is social and political cancer.

We need to STOP pretending that this is a difference of opinion that can be negotiated and reasoned out, because "We The People..." are dying from it.

It looks, upon a casual examination, like it’s following the Constitution and the Bible, but it has altered a SMALL amount of those “codes” needed to keep this nation alive, and replicates that deadly code.

Isn't that what EVERY cancer does? Tries to re-write the code that keeps the system working?

In the case of Cancer the code is DNA.

In the case of society, the code is education of future generations, It needs to be treated like the danger that it is. It needs to be poisoned, cooked, and cut out of society, TO SAVE SOCIETY.

We need to try and cure it, and hope that it is not too late.

And that is going to hurt.

The question is... is the continued life of society WORTH the pain. Can we recover enough from the losses we will endure to have a life after we've killed all the cancer?

I think we can THRIVE. Unlike our bodies, removing this cancer will just make way for us to regrow the damaged parts, but only if we stop trying to talk it out, and start fighting for our lives before it's too late.

WE ARE AT WAR AND WE ARE DYING EVERYDAY.

IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP and START CAUSING CASUALTIES ON THEIR SIDE.

Killing a Conservative is not murder because CHOOSING the cause of Conservatism is not just a abandonment from American values, or betrayal of this nation...

It is a declaration of resignation from HUMANITY!!!!!

The Jews were dehumanized BY the Nazi's to justify genocide. Conservatives have DEHUMANIZED THEMSELVES, and EARNED their genocide as no Jew ever did.

JUST FUCKING LOOK AT WHAT THESE TERRORIST ARE CLAIMING!!! AND WHY?!?!??!

SO THEY CAN VALIDATE THEIR OWN VIOLENCE AGAINST US, AS "SELF DEFENSE"!!!!!

The delusion of Liberalism is that somehow they will find an acceptable middle ground with these religious fanatics.

The very act and method of embracing the ideologies and principles that these people have, DEFIES reason. There is NO amount of education or explanation that will change their mind. They are as immune to rational thought as the Muslim extremists in I.S.I.S./I.S.I.L. or Boko Haram. In fact, comparing their goals... the groups are identical save for two things.The respective books they aren't smart enough to actually read, and the amount of money they have to wage their war.

While the Islamic Extremists have access to millions, the Xrisitan Extremists in America have access to Billions!!!! Maybe even Trillions. When you can purchase rule from an unscrupulous "representative" of a democracy, you don't need overt violence to achieve your goals.

Your "Terror" to maintain control, takes the authoritative tone of POLICE BRUTALITY!

That's a hard concept to swallow. We are used to "terrorism" being an overt act that disrupts our daily scheduled lives.

In fact, there is no generally accepted definition of exactly what qualifies as terrorism, but every definition includes two common things. The use of FORCE and FEAR to obtain a goal. Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) can't buy the election processes in the myriad of countries they seek to control, so they use horror and military power to terrorize the population there.

Conservatives in America have bought our representation, and the media that can complain about it.

They use the law and daily policing as the FORCE to keep us afraid, and the ever changing media boogeyman to divert attention from their rule.

They are, by a legal definition, insane.

Under the "Model Penal code", a defendant is legally insane if at the time a crime is committed they are unable to:

1. Appreciate the criminality of his conduct; or

2. Conform his conduct to the requirements of the law

"The second question is whether the mental illness interfered with the defendant's ability to distinguish right from wrong. That is, did the defendant know that the alleged behavior was against the law at the time the offense was committed."

Tell me this does not define the actions of the Conservative movement at this time.

So how do you protect 38-41% of the nation's population from harming others, and themselves, without allowing yourself to be the victim of their insanity? THAT is the question the left needs to answer among ourselves before we can start to move forward.

Peaceful resistance can only work if you can embarrass your opponent with their hypocrisy. The "right" in America has already convinced themselves that WE deserve to die for our "sins". They will slaughter us without a hint of guilt, and thank their god’s name for having been given the opportunity. Liberals believe that "Nobody wants war." That is our fatal flaw. THESE people DO want war. They are just not rational or reasonable. Fighting back is not the choice we WANT to make, but a necessity for our survival. We need to force these extremists to accept OUR authority, or we will cede it to them.

This really comes from the fact that "American Christianity" or as I call it, Xristianity isn't a form of Christianity at all.

It is form of "Protestant Judaism" where the Old Testament is given more weight than the word of Christ.

The hate all comes from books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

The Xristians are really a heretical form of Judaism in the belief that there WAS a Jesus Christ, and the adaptation of Baptism as a forcible means to expand their faith, where if they just accepted the fact that they were in fact Jews, they would by tradition be required to shun converts, not seek them aggressively.

They are also a heretical form of Christianity in the denial that Christ fulfilled the Covenant of the old Testament, making the word of Christ supersede most of the old Testament.

Making it worse, there is the historical "persecution" of Christians by the Roman Empire, who ALSO considered them to be "just Jews".

The Christians of the day were at odds with traditional Judaism, and basically refused to pay the tax levied by the Romans against the Jews for worshiping gods other than the Pagan Roman gods. Something the Jews had not had problems with for centuries.

That and the fact that according to Christ, prayer should be in secret and NOT a public display made the early Christian faith a target for Roman suspicion and justice, which was then rewritten from denying reasonable demands of society that provided for, and protected most of it's citizens, into history as "Persecution”.

Today’s Xristians represent the worst of all worlds. They’ve retained the “persecution” myth while forcing people to accept their faith, all the while ignoring the actual peaceful teachings of the man their faith is named after.

They SHOULD be afraid to admit they loved Jesus if they actually READ the parts of their bible that Jesus is credited with, because Jesus preached keeping your faith between you and God.

But it is a faith that has been mutated into a political entity, which goes against the U.S. Constitution they ALSO fail to read, and forced on a group that is REWARDED for ignorance.

"WHITE HERITAGE" It's time "white" people learn what they really supposed to be "proud" of instead of what they have been sold on as "white pride".

I've never had to kick ass at 6 to 1 odds with "Black Power" people. I've had to deal with that shit with "White Power" assholes, and I'm a pasty ass, pink as shit, Irishman.

Clearly I'm NOT "white", honestly... see no advantage to being one outside of prison where I would probably be pigeon holed into being by extremists into aligning with ARYAN Nation simply because my white skin would prohibit me from teaming up other groups.

A majority of Xristianity SHOULD be under attack. The fear of Jade Helm, and Obama is a representation of their collective guilty conscience.

They KNOW they have violated the Constitution.

They know they have taken God’s name in vain.

They know they have the wrath of God coming and refuse to accept that they are the "bad guy".

They are so afraid, because they knows they have this coming, and if our roles were reversed they would gladly bring US to HIS justice.

They know… deep down, that they deserve to die. That their children need to be saved from his ideology.

War is never an agreement to violence. It is one group deciding they have they have the right to kill the other to enforce their will.

You either watch those your loved ones die, and you are victim to those trying to kill you, or you fight back.

The question is, who is trying to "kill" the "Conservative Confederate South"?

We've tried to give them Health Care. We've tried to give them an equal vote.

If anything, the "liberal media" has bent over backward to try and give these inhuman monsters an equal voice to those of sane people with, fact based, reasoning.

YES!!!! I SAY WE SHOULD ENFORCE OUR WILL ON THEM.

I SAY WE SHOULD USE WHATEVER LEVEL OF VIOLENCE IT TAKES NOW, BEFORE WE ARE THE VICTIMS OF THEIRS.

We are literally fighting to make their lives better.

If we cannot find a way to remove them politically as mentally ill, we MUST take this to a level of force before X.C.R.I.S.I.S. is a threat far worse than Daesh (I.S.I.S./I.S.I.L). could be.

I know this ends with SOMEBODY in DEATH CAMPS, and I know it's usually the person willing to compromise that walks into them, and those who look at compromise as weakness who send them, leaving us with only the worst people in the world.

https://medium.com/message/how-white-people-got-made-6eeb076ade42

[armeniaitn]

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/middle-east-of-what-on-identity-politics-and-eurocentric-definitions-52334-21-08-2020/

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

Middle East of What? On Identity Politics and Eurocentric Definitions

The Middle East. Illustration by Noran Morsi

Most people do not stop to ask why the Middle East has been labelled as such. As a country in the Middle East, people from Egypt have long considered themselves “Middle Eastern”. But what is this region east to, and middle of? And what binds the countries of the Middle East together?

The phrase, which is used by newspapers, airlines, and official entities worldwide, usually includes 17 countries, along with a few that are sometimes left out, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Egyptian Streets spoke to Hanan Kholoussy, associate professor of history at the American University in Cairo, to find some clarifying information.

Colonial Connections

The earliest record there is of the use of the term “Middle East” is around 1901, says Kholoussy, when American Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan coined the term to refer to this part of the world, in relation to the Far East.

“The two major colonial powers at the time, which were England and France, had valuable colonies in the Far East. The term didn’t really catch on at first. It became more commonly used during World War Two when the British built a Middle East supply center in Egypt where they housed their supplies for the war,” Kholoussy said.

Due to the significant British role in the war while using Egypt as an important base, journalists would mention the “Middle East Supply Center” in their media coverage of the war, popularizing the term Middle East.

Soldiers on Egyptian land in World War 2. Photographer unknown.

Thus, the term refers to the region central east of London and Paris, referring to transcontinental masses of land in relation to their location in relation to two major colonial powers at the time of World War Two.

“The reason the term is problematic for some of us is that we were named by outsiders who were colonizing, controlling, and dominating our region to exploit its resources. And they got to decide what to call us. It refers to a colonial past; a time when we weren’t free and equal to the people who controlled us,” Kholoussy added.

Misconceptions and Media Representation

The Middle East only makes up five percent of the world, but it is a very diverse region, with great ethnic, religious, and geographic variety.

Though the bulk of the population of the Middle East is considered ‘Arab’, the region is far more diverse. There are Berbers in North Africa, concentrated in Morocco and Algeria among other nations, Jews of a wide variety of origins, Kurds in Western Asia mostly concentrated in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, as well as Armenians, Iranians, and Turks.

Though the West also largely associates the region with Islam, religiously, the Middle East is more diverse than that. To start, it is the birthplace of all three Abrahamic faiths, so there are large numbers of Jews and Christians as well as Muslims.

“Twelve percent of the world’s Muslims are from the Middle East, only twelve percent. So, this idea that many Westerners have, and even some Arabs have, that most people in the region are Muslim, because the Arab world has kind of claimed Islam [is false]. It’s the birthplace of Islam, but Arab Muslims only make up 12 percent of the world’s Muslims,” Kholoussy said.

In addition to the three Abrahamic religions, the region is also home to a number of other religious beliefs, such as Zoroastrians and Druze.

There is also often the misconception in Western media that portrays Middle Eastern people as nomads in a desert or extremist Muslim terrorists, as reported by The University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

However, according to a report by The University of Washington, 60 percent of the region’s population lives in major cities such as Damascus, Istanbul, and Cairo, proving that the Middle East is quite urbanized and also has some of the oldest cities in the world.

A perception of the Middle East. Map by Cacahuate via Wikivoyage.

“We have everything from deserts to beaches to snow-capped mountains to olive fields. So the idea that it’s just a barren desert is also false. There are many false stereotypes about the region, the area as a whole, whatever you want to call it, to outsiders. They are always a little shocked when they learn of the geographic diversity of the region,” Kholoussy added.

Identity; To Each Their Own

The term Middle East is not specifically what perpetuates these stereotypes though, she said, and entities in the region have adopted the term and made it their own. Kholoussy believes that the fact that people from the region now use it and have co-opted it makes it less problematic, despite most of them likely being unaware of its colonial history.

“The Egyptian news agency calls itself MENA for Middle East News Agency. The national airline carrier of Lebanon is called Middle East Airlines. There’s a famous newspaper, Al Shark Al Awsat in Saudi Arabia, called the Middle East. We’ve even translated the term into Arabic,” she added.

As for Egyptians, there are further questions of identity being asked. For long, many Egyptians have had a disconnect between themselves and their geographically African identity, as uncovered in a 2012 column for Daily News Egypt by journalist Shahira Amin.

Amin surveyed a number of Egyptians on how they identified, none of whom named their African identity, and most of whom labeled themselves as Muslims or Arabs. What she attributed this to was the idea of the conceptual Sahara divide.

“For centuries, the Sahara Desert has been viewed as a vast impenetrable barrier dividing our continent into two distinct areas: Northern “white” and sub-Saharan “black” Africa. The countries south of the Sahara have long been considered authentically “African” while those to the north have been perceived as Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Islamic,” Amin said.

She added that most anthropologists have refuted the truth of this geographical distribution of the continent that, however, has still influenced how people view the continent and the region, just as the term Middle East does.

The question hangs on what would be a better term to use rather than “Middle East” that encompasses the region without maintaining the colonial connection.

The Arab World. Illustration by Noran Morsi

“The problem is every other term we have is equally problematic,” Kholoussy said.

The term “Arab World” was likely coined by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the father of Arab nationalism, she adds, with the notion of pan-Arabism gaining wider acceptance in the seventies. At that time, Amin explained, concurrently with the Gulf oil boom, millions of Egyptians traveled to oil-rich Gulf nations to work and earn money, where many of the Gulf’s traditions were adopted by Egyptians.

“But the term excludes five key countries in the region – Iran, Turkey, Israel, Armenia and Kurdistan also…so, Arab World is not an inclusive term,” Kholoussy said.

There is also the term MENA which means Middle East North Africa, which is often used to include the countries of North Africa which aren’t always considered as part of the Middle East. The U.S. government refers to the Middle East and North Africa as two separate entities.

“And then when the U.S. government wants to group these two regions together, it calls us MENA, again, coined by an outsider who has interests in the region,” she added.

Therefore, Kholoussy thinks that this is why the ‘Middle East’ has remained so widely used since there has not been a better alternative that is inclusive, any less problematic, or a label created by its own people.

Within Egypt, even, there is a jumble of identities that differ from person to person and region to region. Kholoussy emphasizes, though, that regardless of what labels people cling to, identity is often determined by everyone else’s assumptions and not one’s own.

“Egyptians are a very diverse people. We’ve been occupied and invaded by so many other peoples. So the assortment of identities is astounding, but how we choose to identify ourselves is very much about what’s going on politically in our part of the world at the moment,” Kholoussy said.

Perhaps there is not currently a better term to identify the region accurately, and perhaps it is not the term that matters most. However, what does have impact on cultures and peoples is the misinformation on what the region does include, and the false stereotypes perpetuated by media of what the Middle East is actually defined by.

Redefining Girlhood: From Soad Hosny to Egypt’s Young Instagram Feminists

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