The Middle East, Its Gifts

Never a geography of stability, the Middle East is collapsing in upon itself in utter dysfunction as Islam generates a new era of fanatically violent jihadists intent on establishing a worldwide Islamist rule, returning to the concept of the medieval-era Caliphate. Where Islam is to rule supreme, imposing Sharia law upon all those shuddering under the weight of its demands of submission.

Tribalism, clan loyalties, sectarian hatred and a treasure-house of weapons have led to a vitriolic ideology of the supreme sacrifice to be sought by the faithful to pure Islam; martyrdom. The death cult of the martyrs eager to elevate Islam to its rightful status on the world stage is convulsing the Middle East as one country after another struggles to contain the appetite of violent jihad among its young men, idle but for the promise of bloody conquest.

But there are also other concerns that impinge on the Middle East, besides the self-defeating hatreds between Shia and Sunni, the shared hatred of Israel as a Western-Jewish presence on Islamic-consecrated land, and the hatred of the despised American infidels that have embroiled the African Maghreb as well. Oil plenitude has led to water scarcity.

Ethiopia is damming up the Blue Nile, acutely diminishing its flow to Egypt. The Euphrates and the Tigris rivers are drying up, impacting Syria and Iraq. Yemen's focus on irrigation for its narcotic qat harvest has left it limited water supplies, threatening Sana'a's future in the region with irreparable drought conditions. Saudi Arabia is depleting its aquifers through its wheat-growing attempts.

The geography now suffers from increasing electricity blackouts. The birth rate always celebrated as being among the highest in the world, is undergoing a collapse. Iran has seen the steepest decline in birth rates, from 6.6 births per woman in 1977 to 1.6 in 2012, creating in the country an "apocalyptic panic" that one analyst claims fuels Tehran's aggressive streak.

Repressive governments, archaic social-cultural mores, the denigration of women, curriculum-poor schools, and leaders governing with disdain for those whose lives they control, all represent a formula for despair and ruin. Polygamy, genital mutilation, honour killing and burqas relegate women to life in the most oppressive area of the world. Foreign workers are brought in to do work that oil-rich citizens disdain, and they are inhumanely exploited without compassion.

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Biases within the prevailing cultures and their Islamic overlay focusing on religion, sect, ethnic grouping, tribal antipathies, skin colour, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, and the scourge of slavery mark out the social conscience of the area. The governments of the states in the Middle East expend vast amounts of treasury not on the well-being of their people, but on advanced weaponry.

Of that weaponry, nuclear weapons are considered the cream that many aspire to acquire for themselves. Tanks, ships and planes are all very well, but there is nothing like nuclear weapons to inspire respect in the Middle East. Even al-Qaeda plots to somehow manage its search for weapons of mass destruction, an enabling device to the achievement of their domination goal.

And as those who live miserable lives deprived of freedom and justice seek to leave and migrate to the world of the West where freedoms denied them in the Middle East are a way of life in Europe and North America, they bring along with them the culture, the religion, the social values that led them to leave their places of birth in desperation to achieve quality of life elsewhere.

In the process, settling into their new freedoms, imposing upon the societies which they join, the burdens of accepting the very issues, values, priorities and suspicions leading to conflict that infiltrate their societies, subtly overtaking the indigenous culture, values and system of justice, kindly enabled through a sense of obligation to the less fortunate.