The Role of Language in Creating Peace and Security within the Countries in the Middle East Region

Introduction

This research aims to determine the reason for insecurity in the countries within the Middle East region. The countries within the Middle East are Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen and Afghanistan (UN 2023) the total population of MENA region is 411 million with the growth rate of 2 percent (World Population Review 2023) the people in the countries within the Middle East practices religion including Islam, Christianity, and Judaism which all had Abrahamic foundation (Daniela English 2023) The Middle East is also known for its ancient history which has even founded as a title name of “Cradle of Civilization”. The main civilization, which existed in the Middle East are including Sumerian, Egypt, Persians and Phoenicians. The civilizations had their own different life style, which were very thoughtful and influential within the region for centuries. The civilizations were well known for the creation of ships, paper, architect, arts and design, medicine and language. The early Egyptians used to communicate through the hieroglyphics, the Sumerians, Persian used cuneiform form for the purpose of communication, the Phoenicians had been a number of tribes living in different areas of the ancient Lebanon and Syria which had influenced the ancient languages in the region including Hieroglyphics, Latin and Greeks. The Mesopotamian consisting of different civilizations used cuneiform as the purpose of communication while later on the Mesopotamians also adopted the Phoenicians text or the Phoenicians text influenced the languages used for the purpose of communication in the Mesopotamia. The Cuneiform had close similarity with the symbolic presentation of communication, which had different style of understanding, and creativity while the Phoenician had close similarity with the non-symbolic or text presentation of communication, which had different style of understanding and creativity. One of the languages used for the purpose of communication in the Mesopotamia had been Arabic language, which had roots to cuneiform but adopted the Phoenicians text to deliver a communication. As a result of a shift into Arabic language from Cuneiform to Phoenicians style of communication there had been also shift in the process of understanding and creativity in the Mesopotamia. As the Majority of the People in the Middle East communicate today in Arabic language but are still lacking to be creative enough shows that Arabic language is not the traditional Arabic language rooting cuneiform but it is an Arabic language which has found Phoenicians foundation. Therefor, it is important to ask that why the Arabic languages despite having a Phoenicians base is not creative enough to ensure security in the countries within the Middle East region.

Problem Statement

There are 196 countries in the world. All of these countries are in different cotenant including Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia. The majority of the populations live in Asia and Africa, which is almost 6 billion with different difficulties facing their life. The people in Africa faces with the difficulty of food security, domestic violence, climate change, inequality of social, racial and religious, tariff and non tariff barrier, regulatory obstacles, financial market governance and regulation, foreign direct investment generation and management, gender equality, good public sector governance, health services, high quality education, infrastructure, job creation, labor regulation, law and justice system, natural resource management, peaceful negotiation of conflict, poverty reduction, practical regional integration agenda, private sector development, public private partnership, rural development social security assistance, terrorism threat and urban development are the main difficulties which needs to be addressed to ensure better society in Africa (Tralack 2017) the Asia confronts with the difficulty including agriculture and food security, climate change and risk management, digital technology, education, energy, environment finance, fragility and vulnerability, gender and development, governance, health, public private partnerships, regional cooperation and integration, social development and poverty, sustainable development goals, transport, urban development and water (ADB 2023) the difficulties confronting both Asia and Africa are up to some extend are similar in nature and its impact on the security condition is also same whereas the international organization are engaged to deal with these problems to different plans and programs including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and etc. This explanation shows that the international organizations are working to improve the difficulties facing the countries in Asia and Africa but this explanation does not provide an understanding that despite the efforts of the international organizations to improving these difficulties there are still possibility of insecurity in the Middle East. Therefore, it is important to ask that why the countries within the Middle East region confront with the difficulty of insecurity despite the existence and efforts of the international organization.

This study assumes that the countries within the Middle East region communicating in Arabic language is not contributing to the creativity whereas the efforts of the international organization is contributing to the creativity for the non traditional Arabic language not the traditional one which causes the difficulty of insecurity in the countries within the Middle East region. If the international organizations consider the traditional and non- traditional Arabic language then there will be the possibility for security.

Research Methodology

The data collected for this study is based on the secondary information obtained from Internet, journal article, newspapers, magazine, books and other resources and this is a qualitative research.

Literature Review

I assume that the problem remains within the efforts of the international organizations, which is affecting the security condition in the countries within the Middle East region by not considering the traditional Arabic language values.

The term international organization refers here to any party, which is pretending to provide a contribution to changing a condition on the ground of another party without or with his permission.

The United Nation established in 24th of October 1945 to maintain peace and security after the world war two ended in 1945. The United Nation also has been established based on the purpose to ensure all humans are being valued for their life and consist of life to determine it by their own self. This purpose of the United Nation which is declared as the universal human right in 1948 consist of different meaning including right to dignity and wellbeing, right to subsistence, right to survival (Jack Donnelly, Gewirth, Monique) This explanation does provide an understanding that human right is ensured when a society claim for their right and those claims are provided or ensured and satisfied but this explanation fails to provide an understanding that despite fulfilling the claimed rights there are still possibility of human right failure in the countries within the Middle East which is causing insecurity. This is maybe because the type of human right claimed is different then the type of human right suggested whereas the international organization may include and respect the right which belongs to each countries own languages in order to prevent the influence of right in changing the local right of societies in the Middle East but it is not clear that if the right to self determination is not stable then why the social status is stable. Is it because the countries within the Middle East region share a common language?

In a study different meaning of right to self determination is listed which includes right to freely determine political status, right to free pursuing of economic, social and cultural development, right for certain ethnic or cultural groups wishing to gain certain collective right despite being a part of the state,right to self determination from colonial powers, right to self determination for minorities to create separate state and the right to self determination included in the structure of the law in a form of a universal law which can help ensure security for the entire world. This explanation does provide an understanding that the right to self determination can help ensure certain right for individuals in a country to experience a satisfied and secured life but this explanation also fails to provide an understanding that despite there had been practice of right to self determination in the countries within the Middle East region but there are still possibility of insecurity in the countries within the Middle East region.

This is may be because the countries within the Middle East consist a value of right to self determination which is different based on their own language, which is not accepted and respected by the international organization, which is causing human right violation, and failure in these countries but the possibility of social status stability depending on sharing a common language still requires further examination.

Does language has any relationship with creativity or is it related to the emotion or to the thinking part of the human understanding while determining self-values?

There are six official languages of the United Nation Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish (United Nation 2023) The most spoken languages in the world is English, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, and Arabic, Bangali, Russian, Portuguese. The majority of population in the Middle East communicates through the Arabic language with different dialects and Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Hebrew languages However, it is important to know how the right to self determination is perceived in these languages [1]. The right to self determination is proclaimed in different languages such as the Arabic and Persian language suggesting that if you want something good for yourself then do want it for someone else as well however, the concept of right to self determination embedded in the human universal declaration right only intends to emphasis on liberty and freedom from the authoritarian rule the enlightenment thinkers Immanuel Kant believers proposes the concept of dignity referring as the humanity must always be treated as an end not merely as a mean to an end [3]. The two of the believers provide the same understanding that the human is at the central of importance while making any decision related to economic, cultural, political, social and other development sectors. The other nationalist thinkers also accept and promotes the concept of self determination to promote social, economic, political, cultural and other developed sectors in their countries intending to change the perspective of the people toward development this explanation does provide an understanding that the right to self determination helps promote social, cultural, political, other development possibility in a country but it is not clear that despite there had been change in the perspective in order to achieve social, cultural, economic and political development in the countries within the Middle East but there are still possibility of right to self determination failure in the countries within the Middle East for instance, in an article the reason for the right to self determination failure in the Middle East has been the failure to materialize after the first world war and the people did not achieve self determination but classified in to different states suggested based on the winners of the war which had meet the interest of the colonial powers with the division of the Middle East and the failure of the right to self determination of the people in the countries within the Middle East region [4,5] This explanation does provide an understanding that the right to self determination has been failed in the countries within the Middle East because of the colonial powers interest but this explanation fails to provide an understanding about a type of right to self determination failure that result because of the failure of the international organizations to respect the traditional languages of the people in the countries within the Middle East region, a traditional languages which is not creative.

Its important to explain about the history of some of the ancient languages in order to find the main reason that why the Arabic language could not be creative enough to ensure security for the countries within the Middle East region.

There are more than ten languages, which has oldest recognition in the world including Egyptian, Sanskrit, Greek, Chinese, Aramaic, Hebrew, Farsi, Tamil, Korean, Italian, and Arabic [6]. In an another study suggest that there had been seven oldest languages in the world including Archaic Chinese, Mycenaean Greek, Hittite, Elamite, Akkadian, Summerian, Egyptian [7]. It was mysterious for centuries to read the text of some of the languages such as hieroglyphics used by Egyptians, demotic and Greek until the archeologist found the Rosetta stone [8]. It was discovered during world war two. It has a different story to discuss but this discovery helped to understand and improve different ancient languages. After understanding the languages of the ancient Egyptians it has been easy to find about the life style and values of the people of old civilization including economy, politics, social, culture, invention and defense and etc. In the neighborhood of the Egyptians there was another civilization which was known as Sumerians who ruled in Mesopotamia which is the modern day Iraq the Mesopotamian were also well known for trade, art, design, craft, hunting, poem and battle and rule and etc [9]. In the Middle East there were also other civilizations such as the Akkadians, and the Phoenicians that also forms as one of the oldest civilization in history. All of these civilizations consisted their own language values. The languages in general classified in two branches Semitic and Non Semitic branches [10].

The Semitic languages are consisting the languages, which expressed based on words while the non- Semitic languages are consisting the languages, which are expressed, based on symbols. The Semitic languages consist of the population living in Africa and the Middle East and the most widely used Semitic language in the present time is Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya and Hebrew [10]. The non-Semitic branches of languages consist of Hindi and Chinese languages used for the purpose of communication in Asia. In a study it is suggested that the Aramaic alphabet was developed in between the 9th and 10th century BC replaced Assyrian cuneiform as the main writing system of the Assyrian empire while the Assyrian were living in the Mesopotamia [11]. In another study suggest that the early Aramaic alphabet which has later changed in to Nabataean and early Arabic alphabets had origins from the Phoenicians alphabets the discussion of the origin of the Arabic alphabets provides two understanding [12]. if the Arabic language alphabets had cuneiform alphabets as it is base then cuneiform was also the early alphabets for the non- Semitic languages which refers to the understanding that Arabic language was a language based on symbols not text. If the Arabic languages alphabets had Phoenicians alphabets as its base then the Greeks and Latin languages also used Phoenician alphabets, which refers to the understanding that Arabic language was based on text not symbols. A study shows that the Phoenicians were the sailors across the Mediterranean sea which were living in Syria and Lebanon [13]. The Phoenicians were creative, strategist and consisted a well known culture which influenced most of the ancient kingdoms. This explanation shows that ancient kingdoms and civilizations ruling in the Mesopotamia, Egypt and Syria and other countries in the Middle East consisted of their own unique languages which was contributing to the creativity and advancement but this explanation fails to provide an understanding that despite creativity and advancement in the countries within the Middle East region there are still possibility of insecurity in this region which is showing that the it is different.

Result

The result of the study shows that the traditional Arabic language is not creative enough to contribute to the advancement and ensure security for the countries in the Middle East region. It is nature of creativity and advancement from the traditional Arabic language is different than the non-traditional Arabic language, which requires deeper and similar understanding in order to contribute to the security of the region. Therefore, it is important for the international organization to direct development of the countries within the Middle East region based on both traditional and non-traditional Arabic language values.

Conclusion

This study has aimed to determine the possible reasons for insecurity in the countries within the Middle East region. There are different factors that are causing insecurity in the countries within the Middle East, which are including poverty, inequality, domestic violence and etc. Whereas another factors which is causing insecurity is the failure of the international organizations to consider and respect the local traditional languages of different countries in the Middle East region along with respecting the non traditional Arabic language and stop promoting social, economic, political, and cultural activities to ensure creativity and advancement based on non traditional Arabic language which is causing insecurity difficulty in this region.

References

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