Noob question:
What defines who in the middle East is an Arab and who isn't?
This is a very complicated question to answer, but I'll make it as simple as possible
originally and racially, Arabs are only the ones from the Arabian peninsula, which nowadays is Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain
but with the spread of Islam 1400 years ago Muslims -mostly but not always Arabs- spread too from China's borders to the east until Spain to the west Somalia to the south (and Comoros too) and Kazakhistan to the north
with that spread Arabic language spread too, mostly to Sham and Egypt then other places to a lesser extent
nowadays, an Arab's defintion has changed, it's for Arabic speaking countires, which is:
notice that Turkey, Israel and Iran are close to us but are not Arabs.
must mention also that in Nasser's days 1956-1970, he had this Arab union idea and the older generations of Arabs appreciate it a lot, but this generation is against it mostly from what I see, and each Arab is sticking with his country only that many now deny being an Arab and prefer to be proud of other origins as Pharaos, Berber and others.
it wasn't obvious until something as trivial as football made it clear but I personally am still with the Arab union idea, politically and financially
ßüякε;2549552 said:
I didn't know the Suez was only controlled by the Egyptians...
Yeah, it separates Sinai peninsula from the rest of the country
and we could -if we wanted to have a strong role in the region- use it as a way to prevents such things from happening, or show some guts, but our wise leaders choose not to.
Maghreb people are not arabs. We are berber.
Out of curiousity only, does most of the population in Algeria hate Egypt as it seems?
I think it's a mutual misunderstanding because of something very stupid, and I personally supported Algeria in the WC, but many people here are misled by the media and I believe so are the ones in Algeria