Quote:
Originally Posted by Sigaba
SR--
Why do you define Tunisia as a Middle Eastern country?
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It's a good question, and gets to the principle difficulty in using any term with sweeping connotations (such as Middle-east, Arab, Islam, Christian, European, "Westerner" etc...) In fact, I'd say the answer is the same as why we consider Australians (or Israelis) to be Westerners instead of Asians. Geographically, they look like they're a lot closer to China, but culturally and historically, their roots lie in what we know as "The West".
Same thing goes for all the countries in North Africa: their history and their self-identification link them much closer to the Middle East than to Europe (or the rest of Africa). They share a language (even if they butcher it beyond recognition in places), a religion (for the most part) and an ethnic identity with Middle Easterners. GRANTED, a lot of Berbers disagree, but even they have adopted many of the "identifiers" of Middle Eastern life.
The really simple and most honest answer to your question is I didn't even think about it. For me, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt all fall squarely within the realm of "Middle East." It's countries in the Sahil and the Horn of Africa like Eritrea, Somalia, the Sudan, and Mauritania that are harder for me to define.