MP Midterm

Europe’s Geography

• A paradise (Robert Kagan) \n • No deserts, frozen wastes, massive flooding \n • Rivers are large, flat, navigable and do not meet (e.g. \n Danube 18 countries, many languages) \n • Many natural harbors \n • Perfect geography for agriculture and trade (eventually \n Enlightenment and industrialization)

* It is a perfect geography for agriculture and trade, which eventually led to the Enlightenment, and later to industrialization. As a result, the European powers colonized the world

How many Mediterranean countries

22

4 Mediterranean countries

Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia

6 Mediterranean countries

Cyprus, Egypt, Eslovenia, France, Greece, Israel

5 Mediterranean countries

Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco

4\.2 Mediterranean countries

Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Spain

3 Mediterranean Countries

Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey

What year the National Geographical Society officially adopt a world map

1922

In what year did the NGS change the formula used to represent the world map

1988

In what year did the NGS change the map formula again and make Africa bigger

1998

Similarity with all the NGS maps

Europe is in the middle

represents the world with less distortion than the maps used by the NGS, but it is not used in geography textbooks

Gall-Peters projection

Shows that the concepts of North and South are a matter of convention and power. The Pacific-centric map is used in the geography textbooks in some countries. 

South-up map

Geography explains some things

Germany and France, which share a history of fighting against each other for centuries. On the contrary, India and China hardly ever went to war. To a great extent, the different natural borders could explain the different result.

European Union

446 million people – 27 countries

EU Motto

United in Diversity

The EU has how many official languages

24

1989

Fall of Berlin Wall – end of Communism

\-EU economic help begins

1992

Criteria set for a country to join the EU:

• democracy and rule of law

• functioning market economy

• ability to implement EU laws

1998

Formal negotiations on enlargement begin

2002

Copenhagen summit agrees to a big enlargement of 10 new countries

2004

Ten new EU members: Cyprus, Czech \n Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, \n Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, \n Slovenia

2007

\n Bulgaria and Romania join the EU

2013

\n Croatia joins on 1 July

1952

The European Coal and Steel Community

1958

The treaties of Rome: \n • The European Economic Community \n • The European Atomic Energy Community \n (EURATOM)

1987

The European Single Act: the Single \n Market

1993

Treaty on European Union - Maastricht

1999

Treaty of Amsterdam

2003

\n Treaty of Nice

2009

Treaty of Lisbon

Four freedoms of movement

• goods

• services

• people

• capital

The European Social Charter

guarantees fundamental social and economic rights. It \n guarantees a broad range of everyday human rights related to employment, housing, health, \n education, social protection and welfare

European Social Fund

Europe’s main instrument for supporting jobs, helping people get better jobs and ensuring fairer job opportunities for all EU citizens. Investment of €10 billion a year improves job prospects for millions of Europeans, in particular those who find it difficult to get work

European Employment Strategy's

main aim is the creation of more and better jobs \n throughout the EU

Youth Guarantee

commitment by all Member States to ensure that all young people \n under the age of 25 years receive a good quality offer of: \n • employment

• continued education

• apprenticeship

• traineeship

within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.

Council of Ministers

voice of the Member States

• One minister from each EU country \n • Presidency: rotates every six months \n • Decides EU laws and budget together with Parliament \n • Manages the common foreign and security policy

Council of Ministers voting

Most decisions in the Council are taken by ‘double majority’. \n A decision must have the support of at least: \n • 55% of Member States

• Member States that represent 65% of the EU’s population

Summit at the European Council

Summit of heads of state and government of all EU countries

• Held at least 4 times a year

• Sets the overall guidelines for EU policies

• President: Charles Michel

Josep Borrell

The high representative for foreign affairs and security

• Double role:

– chairs meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council \n – Vice-President of the European Commission \n • Manages the common foreign affairs and security \n policy

• Head of the European External Action Service

The European Commission

\-promoting the common interest

27 Commissioners, one from each EU country \n • Proposes new legislation \n • Executive organ \n • Guardian of the treaties \n • Represents the EU on the international stage

The Court of Justice

27 independent judges, one from each EU country \n • Rules on how to interpret EU law \n • Ensures EU countries apply EU laws in the same way

The European Central Bank

managing the euro

• Ensures price stability \n • Controls money supply and decides interest rates \n • Supervises that banks are safe \n • Works independently from governments

President of the Central Bank

Christine Lagarde

The European Economic and Social Committee

• Represents trade unions, employers, farmers, \n consumers and so on \n • Advises on new EU laws and policies \n • Promotes the involvement of civil society in EU matters

The Committee of the Regions

\n •Represents cities and regions \n • Advises on new EU laws and policies \n • Promotes the involvement of local government in EU \n matters

The Schuman Declaration

9 May 1950

* Made war unimaginable in Europe
* Called for France and Germany to create coal and steel group to create economic unification

Mediterranean languages

defined as “those spoken in the Mediterranean region prior to the immigration of Indo-European and Semitic tribes”, and of which we only have indirect evidence, i.e. traces which they (as substrate languages) have left in languages that are attested

Basque

The only living Mediterranean language is ____

Catalan Atlas (1375)

• Abraham Cresques (1325–1387) \n • Leading member of the Majorcan cartographic school \n • Jerusalem located close to the centre \n • The oriental portion of the Catalan Atlas illustrates numerous religious references, as well \n as a synthesis of medieval mappae mundi and the travel literature of the time \n • Marco Polo's Book of Marvels \n • Sir John Mandeville’s Mandeville's Travels and Voyage \n • Many Indian and Chinese cities can be identified. The explanatory texts report customs \n described by Polo and catalogue local economic resources, (real or supposed)

Lingua Franca

“FRANK, the name by which the Turks, Greeks, Arabs, \n etc. designate a Christian. It probably originated during \n the crusades, in which the French (descendants of the \n German Franks) particularly distinguished themselves. \n Europe itself, too, was named Frankistan, or the country \n of the Frank”

The Frank language

• Frank and lingua franca “the Frank language” reflect an outsider, Byzantine Greek and Muslim, perspective on Western European peoples and languages \n • Only non-Franks could have supposed that all Franks speak the same language \n • Depending on the context, period, and area, the label Frank could be applied to Westerners in general, Romance language speakers in particular, or simply foreigners \n • As a common designation of European Christians it gained currency in most Muslim states between the 16th and 19th centuries

A polysemic word

• lingua franca is understood as a (Latin) calque on Arabic lisān al-faranğ “language of the Franks” \n • Frank means foreigner

3 phases

• Western commercial expansion (10-15th centuries): Romance-speaking peoples into contact with Berbers and Arabs \n • Large-scale confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the West (16-18th centuries). Local varieties and prestige \n • During this period, LF emerges as more Italianized east n. of Algiers and more Hispanized in its central and western domains \n • Used by individuals of high social standing, such as corsair captains and various Turkish dignitaries \n • Petit mauresque and sabir (since 1830 the French military occupation of Algiers): gradual Gallicization and loss of prestige

A complex and stratified society

Following the Muslim conquest of Spain in the early 8th century \n • continuous human movement between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa \n • ethnically and linguistically mixed populations in North African cities

•Algiers (1580–1640): Immigrants may have constituted a majority of the total \n population, 60.000 inhabitants:

Lingua Franca in Algiers

• Lingua Franca was known to all the inhabitants of Algiers and was used by them for communication with the numerous European captives and slaves \n • In the absence of a shared language, it was also used by the latter for communication among themselves \n • The condition of being a slave in the Maghreb included the ability to understand orders in Lingua Franca \n • Newly captured Europeans were allowed a brief breaking-in period to facilitate their adjustment to the local ways and slave life. This included communication with more experienced slaves

The importance of the slaves

• Some of the Christians captured were sold to private \n individuals while others were owned by the state \n • The living conditions of the state-owned slaves were harsh

•The slaves’ could improve their chances by converting to Islam \n •Mortality rate: 17 % a. (hard labor, beatings, malnutrition, \n plagues, 90 % men \n • denied access to (slave or free) women and prevented from raising families \n •These conditions help explain why LF, “the pidgin of slaves and masters in the Mediterranean” never became a native language \n •LF was also used for communication between Europeans \n (consuls, naval officers, businessmen) and Algerian authorities

The end of Lingua Franca

• A letter from the Semiticist Marcel Cohen to the linguist \n Hugo Schuchardt, dated 13 November 1909 in Algiers: \n • “As you saw very well, the Lingua Franca may be \n considered dead; there no longer exists a neutral language \n spoken in the course of dealings between persons with \n different native languages (Arab and Frenchman \n conversing in Spanish- or Italian-based sabir)”

Islam

• Dominant religion in the Middle East region \n • It contains within it many different versions \n • Sunni vs Shia Muslims (632 CE) \n • Sunni form the majority (85% of Muslim population) \n • Divisions within the division

Ottoman Empire (1299-1922)

• Today’s Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and parts of Iran \n • Then divided into administrative areas based on where \n certain tribes lived \n • Today’s nation-states are young and fragile \n • No borders between them

Skyes-Picot (1916)

was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.

The Middle East in 1914

• There were fewer borders than currently exist \n • They were usually determined by geography \n • Spaces within them loosely subdivided and governed \n according to geography, ethnicity and religion \n • No attempt to create nation states

Greater Middle East

• 1000 miles west to east (Mediterranean to Iran) \n • 2000 miles north to south (Black Sea to Oman) \n • Vast deserts, oases, snow-covered mountains, long rivers, \n great cities and coastal plains \n • Oil and gas \n • Fertile region: Mesopotamia (land between the rivers) \n • Arabia Desert: largest sand desert in the world

European Colonization

• A man from a certain area could not travel across a region \n to see a relative from the same tribe unless he had a \n document granted to him by a third man he didn’t know in \n a faraway town. The document was issued because a \n foreigner had said the area was now two regions and had \n made up names for them? \n • These ideas were contrary to the way in which life had \n been lived for centuries

•The legacy of European colonialism left the Arabs \n grouped into nation states and ruled by leaders \n who tended to favor whichever branch of Islam \n (and tribe) they themselves came from

3 Regions

• Since the colonization: Sunni-led government \n • Ottoman Empire: Mosul (Kurds, mountains), Baghdad (Sunni, flatland) and Basra (Shia, marshlands) \n • Antiquity: Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer \n • Persians... \n • Alexander the Great... \n • Umayyad Empire...

But the British…

• Only a strong man could unite these areas into one country \n • Stability though fear \n • Sunni—led government \n • 5 million Kurds in the north and north-east: giant crescent \n of hills and mountains (they retained their distinct identity) \n • 100.000 murdered, 90% villages destroyed in the 1980s. \n • 1990 Invasion of Kuwait \n • 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Kurdistan

• What shape will it be? \n • What about Syria, Turkey and Iran? \n • Is unity among the Kurds possible?

World War I

• Many Arab tribes had helped the British against the \n Ottomans \n • Reward: Arabian Peninsula \n • Hashemite tribe \n • Saud tribe \n • Solution: to draw some lines \n • Each one could rule over one region

Jordan

• Hachemite \n • Originaly Beduin from the Mecca region \n • Demographic problems: \n • Today the majority of the population is Palestinian \n • + 1 million refugees from Iraq and Suria

Lebanon

• The Arabs saw it as a province of Syria \n • The French gave it to their Arab Christians’ allies in the region: the majority in the country \n • Demographics change: birth rate Shia and Sunni + Palestinians \n • 1932: Only official census in Lebanon! \n • Some parts of the country are exclusively Shia Muslim \n (Hezbollah, backed by Shia-dominated Iran), other towns are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim \n • Local militias stronger than the national army

Syria

• French strategy: “divide and rule” \n • Alawite minority, at the bottom of the social strata, were \n put into the police force and military (e.g. Assad) \n • 1982 Hafez Al Assad killed 30.000 Sunni (Muslim Brotherhood) \n • 2011 They took revenge \n • The current war could last... different warlords

Geopolitics

• Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah support the Syria \n government forces \n • The Arab countries support the opposition \n • Different countries support different opposition groups \n • Sunni jihadist fighters (Al Qaeda and Islamic State) \n • Humiliation and colonialism, romanticism and brutality \n • Golden age: empire, technology, art, medicine and government \n • Al Aqeda murdered people and captured headlines, ISIS murdered people and captured territory \n • Psychological pace, social networks, etc.

Geopolitics II

• USA vs. ISIS \n • Kurdish fighters vs. ISIS \n • Russia vs. the Free Syrian Army and ISIS \n • French vs. ISIS (after terror attacks on Paris) \n • UK vs. ISIS \n • Result: \n • ISIS Caliphate smaller and smaller \n • Second ISIS base in Libya

Balfour Declaration

a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population

Palestine Today

• Poor, divided, overpopulated, with millions of refugees in \n other parts of the world \n • Egypt, Syria and Jordan are suspicious of Palestinian independence \n • Most of the Arab countries refuse to give Palestinians \n citizenship \n • In this century there is a fierce sense of nationhood among \n the Palestinians

Israel Today

• It controls Palestine, including Jerusalem. \n • Crucial geopolitical actor in the region \n • Nuclear power \n • Close ally of the superpower \n • It faces threats to its security and to the lives of its citizens \n by attacks and rocket fire from its immediate neighbors \n • BUT not a threat to its very existence

Iran

• Non-Arabic \n • Farsi-speaking \n • Bigger than France Germany and the UK combined \n • Important oilfields (third-largest world reserves) \n • 78 million, most live in the mountains \n • Difficult to create an interconnected economy \n • Many minority groups

Iran’s Geography

• Many deserts and salt plains, surrounded by mountains \n • Defended by its geography \n • The Mongols were the last force to make any progress \n through the territory in 1219-1921. \n • 1980-1988: 1 million dead, but no territory connected \n • USA in 2003: “We do deserts, not mountains”. \n • Israel worried of Iran nuclear industry... but many \n restraining factors

Iran Nuclear Deal 2015

• Israel did not like it \n • Arab countries did not like it \n • Munich Agreement 1938 \n • Saudi Arabia (28 million inhabitants= executed 47 prisoners in a single day, including the country’s most senior Shia sheikh \n • The Saudi Arabia in Tehran was set on fire, diplomatic \n relations was broken between the two countries

Turkey in Europe

• If Turkey is European, then Europe’s borders stop at Syria, \n Iraq and Iran \n • Istanbul was European City of Culture in 2010 \n • It competes in the Eurovision Song contest \n • It competes in the UEFA European championship \n • It applied for membership of the European Union

Turkey used to be

•The Ottoman Empire

• 98% majority Muslim country \n • A democracy, but worrying evolution since the late 1980s \n • Human rights \n • Secularism \n • Increasing geopolitical tensions in the region \n • Arab countries are suspicious. A future empire? \n • Iran see it as a powerful military and economic competitor \n • Russia vs Turkey in Syria \n • Difficult relationship with Israel - both are NATO allies

Bosporus strait

a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Turkey. It forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe, and divides Turkey by separating Anatolia from Thrace.

Spain’s main conflicts

▪Catalonia \n ▪Basque Country \n ▪Morocco \n ▪Sahara \n ▪Gibraltar \n ▪Ceuta \n ▪Melilla \n ▪Migration

The Catalan Conflict

•A part of the population wants a part of Spain to become independent

• More support for independence in rural areas than in Barcelona

• In 2010 there was a turning point and support started to shoot up for independence, way more than it used to be (used to be 12% now more 45-50%)

• The Split in the Catalan Parliament

* Since 2010, is split in two halves

• Since 2010, pro-independence party has small majority, even if they don’t have the majority in votes or in-service

•Not just a conflict between Catalan and Spain but a conflict between Catalonians as well

Historical Arguments

•Catalonia used to be part of the Carolingian Empire

•Spain formed with marriage between Carolingian Empire and Kingdom of Aragon

•Some say Catalan has been part of Spain for 600 years, other people say they were integrated

Economic Grievances

•Those looking to come independent are often the richest part of the country (not always the case but usually)

•One of the main arguments is that Catalan’s are spending more money to the government in the Madrid than is being put back into the Catalan region

Political disillusionment

•Proportional systems – many considered parties in each election

•Started looking like only 2 main parties in 1980s

* PP and PSOE made up 90% of the seats
* Idea when the same parties are always the same in the government then it’s easier to have

Political Tactics

Politicians started saying that the real problem is independence, and other issues will be solved independently after that

Role of the Media and polarization

•Cycle that has to do with the media, and we have different channels – private and public

* The way things are explained are completely different
* Reinforcing sides because both sides receiving different information and having problems of communication  

Class struggles

•Argument that says there is a little bit of correlation in the sense that the higher class you are the more likely you will be in support for independent

•The working class has more important things to focus on than independence

2014 Catalan Referendum

•Asked 2 questions – had 3 possibilities

1\. Do you want Catalonia to become a State? (Yes/No)

* If the answer was in the affirmative, then they had to answer a second one:

2. Do you want this state to be independent? (yes/no)

* Trying to be like the USA, with a state within a state

•The result was yes-yes 80.76%

•The result was yes-no 10.07% - Catalans who think that this middle-ground possibilities would be a good one

Western Sahara

•A disputed territory

▪266,000 square kilometres of land, 80 % controlled by Morocco. \n ▪It also includes the coastal routes along the Atlantic Ocean which connect Morocco to Mauritania. \n ▪The rest, to the east, and bordering Algeria and Mauritania, is held by the Polisario Front – the main armed independence group. \n ▪The 650,000-strong population are known as Saharawis, meaning ‘desert inhabitants’ (a reminder of their nomadic heritage) \n ▪Most of the territory is indeed sand. \n ▪They are a mixture of people with Arabic, Berber, Amazigh, and Black heritage who speak a dialect of Arabic called Hassaniya. What they are not though is Moroccan.

A former colony

▪Western Sahara was formerly a Spanish colony (Spanish \n Sahara) \n ▪After brutally suppressing an anti-colonial uprising in 1970, \n Madrid abandoned it in 1975, having already conceded parts to Morocco. \n ▪Saharawi nationalists proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab \n Democratic Republic with its capital-in-exile in Algeria. \n ▪The same year war broke out.

Morocco’s Claims

▪Morocco laid claim to Western Sahara as soon as it won its \n own independence in 1956, \n ▪It express a desire to create a Greater Morocco and claiming the territory as part of its ‘southern provinces’. \n ▪This was a relatively new stance given that historically, Rabat accepted that the lands were outside its jurisdiction. \n ▪However, tribal leaders had long accepted the religious \n authority of the Moroccan sultan in his religious capacity – a \n fact that Morocco uses to justify its claim.

War

▪Despite its vastly superior firepower and troop numbers the Moroccan army was continually harassed by the Polisario Front, at its height 15,000 men. \n ▪Operating in pick-up trucks, they appeared out of the desert to strike at Moroccan positions before dispersing to merge back into a mostly sympathetic Saharawi population. \n ▪Morocco’s solution was to build a 2,700-kilometre-long sand barrier, mined on both sides, and patrolled by tens of thousands of troops to keep the guerrilla fighters out of the Moroccan controlled territory. \n ▪It is the longest continuous minefield in the world and has physically divided many of the Saharawi people. \n ▪The fighting continued until 1991 when the UN brokered a ceasefire and called for a referendum in Western Sahara. That has yet to happen.

November 2020

▪The Front announced it would no longer abide by the terms of the ceasefire and blocked a key trade route between Morocco and Mauritania. \n ▪Rabat sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone to reopen the road and the Front responded with rocket attacks along the border. \n ▪There have been regular exchanges of fire along the barrier.

The current situation

▪Phosphates under the sand, the fishing grounds in the Atlantic, and prospect of offshore oil and gas resources. \n ▪Although the current generations of Saharawis will not stop dreaming of self-government, their hopes of living in an \n independent state look impossible for the foreseeable future. \n ▪In 1975 about 125,000 of them escaped the initial Moroccan \n military offensive and now live in refugee camps in Algeria. \n ▪Many have been granted citizenship and are slowly merging into the state. Algeria’s support for the Saharawi has long angered Morocco which fought a short border war with Algeria over the very place where the refugees are now housed – Tindouf province.

What’s next?

▪Last sparks of a 50-year insurrection or serious uptick in \n violence, further destabilising the region? \n ▪Assuming the Biden administration does not reverse the US \n decision to recognise sovereignty the move is a major \n diplomatic victory for Rabat. \n ▪Most Middle Eastern, African, and EU countries do not \n support the decision, but Washington’s global influence is \n such that it may have sealed the Saharawi’s fate.

a difficult conflict

▪Turkish and Greek Cypriots have a different language, culture, and religion \n ▪After independence, these two ethnic groups shared the \n governance of the island until the Greek Coup of 1974 that led to two separate constituencies which resulted in two separate regions \n ▪Afterwards, the Turkish intervention divided the island into two republics

History and geopolitics

▪Cyprus connects three continents \n ▪Great geopolitical importance \n ▪Conquered by multiple empires in the region \n ▪The ownership of Cyprus has changed hands among \n different empires: Greeks, Egyptian, Roman, Ottoman... \n ▪The British were the last empire that took over from the \n Ottoman empire from 1878 until independence in 1960