From a naively perceived to a instituded region
The region of my study was Near East, a naively perceived kind of region. I worked throughout it with Eduard Ortiz and across the study we can confirm that Near East is a term used to descrive a non official ensemble of countries originated/based because of a popular and cultural recongition. In the essay I will compare it to the instituted region of the Arab League, meanwhile Eduard compares it to the actual term used to refer to the region of our study, the Middle East.
Why we state that Near East is a naively perceived region? To begin, its boundaries are not really well defined. Depending of who you speak or which perspective you take, Near East will encompas some countries or some other, always, more or less the same. In the link to the blog I attach below you have a post that is really explanatory of why is naively perceived —http://nearestupf.wixsite.com/blog/single-post/2016/11/04/Region-diversity-Differences-and-similarities —. Second, the term to define the region of study has frequently changed, and this is because each ancien term not fit to the new uses and meanings used to describe the same region but with the new interests we put on it -Near East referred to the territories of the dissolved Ottoman Empire and to the countries nearer to Europe from the East that had something of the interest of the European powers and now Middle East replaced it, to refer to more or less the same region —http://nearestupf.wixsite.com/blog/single-post/2016/03/30/Top-5-Beaches-in-Corfu —. Third, when we spoke of Near East, in any of the context we can use it, we do not talk of any formal organizaiton, we talk of a region we put togheter informally the people/societies/communities within it. Because, as I will try to point later, even from a western perspective, Near East was a conglomerate of muslim and arab societies and cultures, there is much more diversity within it, and some of the actual conflicts of the Middle East, appeared because the fail of recognizing this. We do not have to forgot that Near East is one of the richest areas of the world in terms of ethnics, cultures and religions. To end, Near East is not forgot at all, it is still used in ancien history and archeological subjects, but in geopolitics, to describe the new reallity of the region of the Middle East.
We could define the region as a forced marriage. So although the idea the westerns generally have of it is that it is a muslim and arab speaking conglomerate of countries in which the state organization is infradeveloped comparing it to the European one with lot of dictatorships and militarizated states and where there are a lot of national conflicts, the true is that there is a lot of diversity, in terms of state organization, religion, lenguages or ethnics.
What we found if we look for Arab League or Near East news in Google.
In the present it might be considered a peripherical or semipherical region according to the world-system theory. Near East was an strategical land for the colonization process and also for the world trade with Asia for Europeans, specifically for British. Nowadays it is economically (and globally) important because of its oil extraction and this is also why is a source of conflict of interest between east and west.
In contrast, the Arab League has well defined limits, we know exactly how many countries there are within it (21), and has a clear organization. The Arab League concern about economic issues but also social, cultural and health affairs. As instituted organization has a hierarchy and also some economic, politic and national interests that the former countries want to defend. For example to help the Arab world to grow economically and culturally to co-operate between and safeguard their sovereignty, also the end or help with the conflicts within it. Between the former countires of the Arab League —Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lybi, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen— there also exist a lot of economic and cultural differences that some times are source of conflicts.
An interesting point is that the powerful state as Israel is not within the Arab League. This has a clear explanation. First it is not an arab country. Second it was, for the Arabs, an occupation of their territory by the jewish imposed by Europeans. Third, consequently this created a conflict between arab countries and Israel, and nowadays the relation between them is complicated and fragile. I found it interesting to comment this issue because relationates Near East and Arab League as the conflict of Israel appeared meanwhile Near East was still in use. After the Ottoman Empire dissolution the region was under the British control, the nations within asked for some recongition, their boundaries were not really well defined, also the jewish community asked for some territory to build their own state. The territory proposed was the actual Israel state. In awnser to this imposition and stolen land arab countries through the Arab League decided to boycott the state by forbiding the Israelite products, baning or disregarding entreprises that deal with Israel and the trade routes with Israel destination. Also Arab League countries —some —do not allow people form Israel to enter their boundaries or to travel if they stayed in Israel before.
The most interesting thing is how different it is when we use one or the other term, eventhough both define more or less the same countries and region of the world. Consequently, when I looked up for news typing Arab League () in the webpage of Al-Jazeerah -a communication channel which aim is to bring and explain events that impact our lives, bring to light unrreported topics, show all the sides of the story and give voice to the voiceless, but from others is the propaganda media from Qatari government. What is true is that the network shows all the prespectives, from Muslim Brotherhood, to pro-Sunni and anti-Shia, with some anti-western bias - the majority where news about political agreements, health reports or trats and meetings to arrange syria’s conflict. However when I typed Near East news, all the news that appeared were about 1) history of the region or 2) —meaning more Middle East than Near —the conflicts in (www.aljazeera.com/topics/regions/middleeast.html).
As I see it, Near East has a more humanist meaning, but also has etnocentrist and eurocentrist connotations, because it was first used by the British, to refer to the land they were interest to control.
REFERNCES
Wikipediaorg. [Online]. Available from: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boicot_a_Israel_de_la_Liga_Árabe [Accessed 8 November 2016].
Wikipediaorg. [Online]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab–Israeli_conflict [Accessed 8 November 2016].
Near East Blog. By Eduard Ortiz and Júlia Reniu. [Online]. Available from: http://nearestupf.wixsite.com/blog [Accessed 8 November 2016]
Arab League Blog. [Online]. Available from: http://arableague100.wixsite.com/arableague [Accessed 8 November 2016].
Al-jazeera. [Online]. Available from: www.aljazeera.com/topics/regions/middleeast.html [Accessed 8 November 2016].
Aljazeera. [Online]. Available from: http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/regions/middleeast.html [Accessed 8 November 2016].