By BÜLENT KENEŞ
I know that the “New Middle East” is not a novel concept. Recalling that Israel’s current president, Shimon Peres, wrote a book titled “The New Middle East” back in 1993, we can acknowledge that it is an aging concept.
I am sure many had used it before Mr. Peres. The tendency to affix the label “new” to a region or phenomenon is actually nothing but a manifestation of the dislike felt for its existing state. For instance, the term, “New Turkey,” which has seen frequent use recently, is indicative not only of an act of breaking off from a suffocating atmosphere created by an old regime, but also of dislike for the old system, as well as an enthusiasm and craving for innovation and change. In the same vein, the discontent with the former state of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), a party experiencing both change and instability simultaneously, has urged its leaders to redefine it as the “New CHP.”
Similarly, as the current system in the Middle East is not something wonderful, as was the case in the past, we are frequently coming across refreshed uses of the term, “New Middle East,” though with different contexts or used in a different sense.
As a geography that remained the only patch of land unaffected by the winds of change that altered the whole world in the aftermath of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), its dominant ideology of communism, and the end of the Cold War, the Middle East became a region densely populated with despotic regimes. And today any reference to the Middle East implies a region that is falling considerably behind the times in terms of democracy, fundamental rights and freedoms, and rule of law. Consequently, many people tend to use the label, “new,” to refer to what is needed or longed for in a region where kings, despots, antidemocratic regimes and systems that do not pay the slightest respect for their people, continue to resist change.
via Bülent Keneş: The role of the ‘New Turkey’ in making the ‘New Middle East’.