Word: continente
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After four weeks of delays, the election results are finally set to be announced in Zimbabwe following intense international and domestic pressure. The past month has witnessed violence and arrests that the opposition parties as well as foreign observers and human rights agencies claim are politically motivated. The main opposition...
Instead, I wondered, should the Middle East be its own continent?
Continents have become classifications of convention, rather than strict geography. If continents were simply “continuous bodies of land,” as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, there would be only four—America, Antarctica, Afro-Eurasia, and Australia. Since that is not the case...
...Aside from total erasure of the idea of continents, the next best answer—at least at present—is for the Middle East to become its own continent. Given the pervasiveness with which continental discourse both describes and shapes our understanding of the world and its peoples, one can only assume it is here to stay. Thus, I would argue, it is in the Middle East’s best interests to become a full-fledged continent—not because I agree with the cultural and ethnic essentialism that often follows suit, but because the contemporary...
...Though it does nothing to overturn the fundamentally problematic notion of “the continent,” a continental Middle East would do much to change the external and internal perceptions of the region, starting at the elementary school level. It would provide geopolitical unity, while counteracting the Eurocentric paradigm that for generations has shaped our worldview. Our nomenclature is long overdue for a change, and what better way to shake things up than a continental shift...