[silentreader]

Originally Posted by lindy

Clearly you have not spent much time in Northern Africa.

This is true; 2 weeks in Morocco is all I can claim.

Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya have a completely different "feel" than the Middle East. Way different.

Different compared to what? They may be more different than, say, Qatar and Bahrain, but aren't they still closer to that culture than they are to Uganda, for example? They seem to be especially close cousins to the Levantine countries (especially Lebanon). I think the Francophone influence has a lot to do with this.

Egypt, in my opinion, has spread their "culture" to the ME via movies and TV shows. This is similar to Russia in the mid-90's and their cravings of anything "American" thanks to American TV shows (reruns of 90201, Melrose Place, and anything uttered by Carson Daly).

This is true, though Egyptian films are starting to feel dated. American/Syrian/Lebanese and Turkish T.V. shows and movies, broadcast from the Gulf, are the new "big deal" in the M.E.

Also, guys from ME countries don't really mind each other (e.g. Kuwaitis, Emiratis, Saudis, Iraqis, etc) but bring an Egyptian to the party and things change. They all "see" a difference...why don't we?

If one were to try to keep track of all the differences Middle Easterners see that Westerners can't, one would soon go crazy. I once went to a bar-on-a-roof in Beirut by myself. I was sitting in-between two groups of people: 4 girls on my left and 2 guys on my right, all Lebanese. They each started talking to me, and it was getting difficult to keep two conversations going at once, so I kind of tried to combine everybody into a nice, gender balanced group of 4 girls and 3 guys. No way. The Lebanese girls kept telling me that Lebanese guys are scum, and the Lebanese guys kept telling me how Lebanese girls are gold diggers. Finally, I turned to the guys and said, "listen, I'm sure you're really nice. But I'm alone at a bar and can either talk with 4 girls or 2 guys.... have a nice night." That story, to me, is the Middle East in a nutshell.

The HOA and Sahel are really easy to define: Crap-hole-istan.

That is easy, and sounds about right. I got close to the Western Sahara border in Morocco, the desert itself is gorgeous but the towns... not so much.


Edit: I also think Islam takes our eye of the ball a little bit; the North African countries could just as easily be considered part of a Southern European/Levantine/Magrhebee "Mediterranean Rim" cultural group. Greeks, Italians, Spanish, coastal Turks and coastal Arabs (phoenicians?) have a lot more in common than they'd like to admit