Aspects of Hydrocarbon Insecurity in the Eastern Mediterranean: Maritime Claims, Access, and Quest for Energy Resources

Society and Politics in the Middle East

Shores of the Eastern Mediterranean are host to religious conflicts, historical ambitions, power asymmetries, and tense geopolitical rivalries along multiple axis at local, regional, and worldwide levels. In the past fifteen years, these frictions have intensified in terms of duration and impact. Whereas most Middle Eastern wars fought in the 20^th century were relatively small and short,⁵ emergence of non-state actors and asymmetric, borderless conflicts added another layer of complexity to the puzzle.

Revival of regions, growing megacities, and resurgent micro-ideologies challenged traditional central authority of governments, making it increasingly difficult to maintain national borders of the post-colonial states in the Middle East.⁶ Religion is often subordinated to political and economic motivations, in relation to which Huntington claimed in his famous, misleading theory of “The Clash of Civilizations” that people's religious and cultural identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world⁷ and that Islam is a serious threat to the West. In particular, he argued that these are universal, “all-or-nothing” religions, in the sense that each side believes that their faith is the only correct one.⁸ The underlying question is whether the roots of conflict between rival actors lay more in their history, and thus violence against “Others” is indeed inherent in traditions and socio-cultural norms or whether such conflict is due to more recent phenomenon. Looking at historical precedent, theological arguments, and political thoughts in their essence, these cultures are not opposed to each other, but they differ dramatically in their interpretive traditions which nourish controversy and precipitate conflict.

Although in both realist and liberal traditions religion is not a state objective,⁹ its influence on social and political institutions has been profound. Protagonists often try to legitimize relatively recent disputes and derive political power by referring to acts in the distant past, which makes people inclined to think that the root causes of clashes lay in history as far back as the rise of civilisations.¹⁰ As a consequence, followers of a particular tradition become conditioned to defend their own belief system against any potential challenge. As long as there has been a tendency in the society to perceive religion as an acceptable and capable means of resolving issues, policymakers have used it as a source of public legitimacy to stage war on seemingly competing traditions. When chaos comes to the Middle East, people revert instinctively in hierarchical order first to family, then to clan, then to tribe, and only then to religious grouping.¹¹ In essence, the post-colonial world order has transposed this cultural, tribal, familial conflict into nationalism and religious sectarianism which hinder compromises that history allowed communities to pursue in the past’.¹² There is a direct causal link between rising tensions in ethnically mixed, disputed territories and political, material economic interests that leverage sacred values to achieve desired outcomes.

Therefore, a main cause of contemporary conflict between different traditions, religions, and competing world-views in the Middle East is an unsuccessful transition from communities based on decentralised, tribal networks with informal structures, and obedience to divine law to nation-states which enforce human-made laws to increase their security and well-being.¹³ Inasmuch as religion has been transformed from a public issue into a private issue in most Western societies, some scholars argue that modernization has led to a resurgence of religiously dyed fundamentalist movements. The advent of social media, creation of slums, impersonal city life, crowd psychology, and environmental issues such as water scarcity caused resentment among ordinary people who are inclined to have religiously motivated political self-expression, empowering actors that repudiate the separation of temporal and spiritual authority into two distinct spheres.

3.