REFLECTIONS
Danilo Anton
Middle East: religion, politics, violence (and oil)
I began to develop a Project on Peoples and Nations of the World,  including geographical, historical and political aspects that, in my view, are the most relevant to understand the situation of this important region.

Reflecting on the subject there are some conclusions that can be drawn:
1) The history of the Middle East is very long and complex
2) Political power has historically been associated with military force.
3) Religions have played a major role throughout the whole story, particularly in the political and military confrontations.
4) The last 1400 years were marked by conflicts and wars between religious organizations and churches in particular monotheistic beliefs: Christians and Muslims, Shia with Sunni Muslims with Jews, among others. In conclusion, religion appears stripped of its spiritual and philosophical content and transformed into an instrument of power.

5) They have also influenced the ethnic and cultural differences with different religious beliefs, they have allowed justify wars, massacres and genocides ..
6) The current wars are related to ancient religious and ethnic conflicts.
7) Near East conflicts have often been fogoneados by external powers (France, Britain, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, etc)
8) Generally political power has emerged of military force, kings, caliphs, sultans, dictators and presidents reached their positions by arms control.
9) The power is usually hereditary, forming dynasties that can last several generations.
10) This heritage can be from parents to children, but can also be passed to other members of the dynastic families: nephews, grandchildren, uncles, brothers, etc.
11) The power tends to be male. Are very rare women who exercised in the region.
12) has always been very minority ruling classes, who enjoy the privileges granted by the power and dominated majorities and empobrecidas.
13) The power is obtained and stored by the force. It is common to kill the enemies and adversaries, they are tortured for information or simply to make them suffer.
14) Slavery and servitude have been common throughout the history of the Near East. Only in the last 100 years these provisions have been repealed although in practice there are still its effects on society.
15) Discrimination based on religion, beliefs, ethnicity or gender was the rule throughout history and still is.
16) Democratic processes have been virtually nonexistent.

17) The few electoral processes that have taken place led to fraud that are sometimes very obvious.
18) Given the age of this historical and political evolution it does not seem likely to be able to establish reliable democratic systems in the short term.
19) The presence of significant natural resources (hydrocarbons) has exacerbated the conflicts and foreign interventions.
20) In the global world of today the Middle East conflict affect and will affect all countries and regions of the world, whether economically, politically or by the influx of migrants and refugees.
21) It can be predicted that these conflicts will continue and even worsen due to the unsustainability of regional societies with high population densities, vast unproductive arid and extremely marked privileged few and a huge number of impoverished people social structures.

Note: similar problems can also be found in other regions of the world not just in the Middle East.
Danilo Anton