"Ignorance and the Middle East". Deconstructing the present through its past

 
The Middle East is experiencing one of the darkest periods in its history and a new regional order is still far from being settled. Yet, it appears increasingly clear that few matters will affect its developments more than the ongoing regional demographic dynamics. The region’s history and spatial background provide a framework for approaching these epochal shifts and critically examining the ‘ethnic stabilisation’ thesis, which interprets current demographic movements as a kind of normalization of the region’s ‘original’ demographics. Instead of this ‘medievalization of the Middle East’, many people in the region are keen on ‘getting back into history’ and ‘regaining possession’ of their multifaceted past: a powerful antidote to “ ignorance” and the related geopolitical reductionism so popular nowadays.