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It's de-facto a M/E country. The North African countries are Arabic, Muslim, and are geopolitically part of the Arabic sphere of influence which is de-facto the
by edblarney 10y ago
It's de-facto a M/E country. The North African countries are Arabic, Muslim, and are geopolitically part of the Arabic sphere of influence which is de-facto the same thing as middle east.
'North Africa' I find to be not descriptive.
The best term would be 'Maghreb' - but nobody knows what that means.
M/E is an appropriate geopolitical designation.
- WildUtah 10y agoIf you don't say Maghreb when you mean Maghreb, how are people ever going to learn what Maghreb means?
- edblarney 10y agoIt's not a word used in the Anglo-sphere and likely never will be.
- zouhair 10y agoNo it is not. At all. Tunisia has much common things with Italy than with Oman.
- Dr0Dre 10y ago> The North African countries are Arabic Wrong my friend. Morocco and Algeria for example have more than 50% ethnic berbers [0]. Saying it's part of the middle east show your lack of knowledge of the region and its distinct culture. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers
- edblarney 10y agoMorocco and Algeria are definitely Arabic countries. They speak Arabic officially, they belong to the 'Arab league', they are Muslim (because of Arabic colonialization). I'm 100% aware of what the Berbers are, save your insults for Reddit. They were colonized by Arabs 1000 years ago, and they fit quite fundamentally into the Arab sphere of influence. Obviously, they are all different, and 'more different' the further you get from the Gulf ... but most Arab countries are in fact, quite different as well. Geopolitically - they are basically M/E countries. Our approach to them has nothing to do with 'the rest of Africa' and everything to do with the status of other M/E countries.