THE CURSE OF ISHTAR
I doubt religious and cultural dynamics in the Middle east can be underestimated. In fact, the reverse is possibly true. Too many writers, politicians, decision maker seem to have overestimated them for over one hundred years, especially in terms of their paradoxical nature. Islam is not the basis of Middle Eastern culture. The ME Culture is more involved with geography, economy, trade, sociology and the all pervasive scarcities of water, food, forage, wild and domesticated animals, art, compassion, empathy, humor for too many centuries and a mysterious foundation of undecipherable ethics, far away from that which was considered and studied by Classical Greek, Roman, Asian and European thinkers. Unfortunately, the populations in the region were not taught any philosophy, ethics and art by their rulers, the Ottomans and others before and after them and in between. Humanity, having the general ability, to think, imagine, invent and explore, managed to raise some thinkers, writers and artists in the region but they had no influence on their rulers and the general public both of which believed that ignorance was to their and their progeny’s and their culture’s and country’s advantage.
The region has been a staging ground for frequent military ventures for many millenia, related to beliefs, resources and especially Abrahamic religions which downplay each other and believe in revenge and/or their race’s and/or religion’s supreme status in the eyes of supreme beings of all types and physiques. Including clandestine organizations, especially America, british and French (joined recently by Russian and Chinese), the whole region becomes a cul de sac of paradoxical quagmire in shifting sands and mountains, strangely trying to feed the greedy appetites of all the beings leading nations and organizations, totally unaware
of their mortality and possibility of entropy.
