The root of the conflicts in Middle east is not religion but rather its a class warfare

[Papay]

One thing that we do not understand in the west is how poor is the majority of the people in Middle east. When some years ago the price of food was raised in some of these countries, people took the streets and riots happened. In every western country that would sound as ridiculous. I mean bread its cheap. How much it costs?1 Euro? And they raised the price to 1,5? Big deal!But in these countries that means that thousands perhaps millions of families will have a problem to feed their children. So the majority of the people there are poor in a way that we cannot understand here in the west.
Lets compare a "westernized" woman and a poor Arab woman. The westernized woman will have many sets of clothes, cosmetics etc. We, in the west take these things as something that its obvious(a woman in the west, even if she is relatively poor, she can purchase these things). What about a poor Arab woman? Well she cannot purchase these things. This results to the poor woman accusing the "westernized" woman as corrupted, in a sense that she uses money to take things that, in the opinion of the poor woman are unnecessary. The poor woman trusts Islamic parties because Islam, just like Christianity, speaks about a simple way of life. This means that we have a situation that the poor people trust Islamic parties( in the same way in the west, in the past, poor people supported communists).

[Caligula's_Horse]

Things are actually a lot more complicated then that, with so-called class warfare being the least of it.

I'll start by saying that there's no one conflict in the middle east. You've got your Arab-Israeli conflict, the Shia-Sunni divide, colonial leftover minority dictators, plain old military dictators (some overlap with the last article), and Islamists clashing with secular authorities and other brands of Islamist groups wherever there's a vacuum.
These are all separate conflicts. They all have different causes and come into play in different ways. The Syrian civil war (minority dictator+power vacuum+Shia/Sunni) for example, has very little to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict (which is first and foremost nationalist and lately religious, not economic), which in turn has very little to do with "class warfare".

The old adage "its about the economy, stupid", gets less and less accurate the more war torn a region is. While economics are never entirely pushed aside, nationalism, religious zealotry, and plain old bad blood tend to take priority when dictating people's actions.
Its a real shame too, because economic problems are a lot easier to solve then decades and centuries long blood feuds on an international scale.

[sumskilz]

I think the root cause of the Druze-Muslim conflict is wearing kuffiyahs to school and insulting each other's women on Secret.

[cfmonkey45]

It's not classism or religion, per se, it's nationalism. People are organized into discrete units based on cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and familial ties, as well as a shared history and shared outlook on the world. When these discrete blocs are mixed together in a situation in which neither side has a majority, or one has a plurality, there will be ultimately a tendency towards either compromise--in a society where freedom of expression is tolerated--or violence, where it is not. The logical end result of violence towards one nation from another is expulsion or extermination.

This is the guiding nature of conflict.

[dogukan]

At this moment, we cannot talk of class-conciousness in majority of the middle east, except maybe the elites and some few revolutionary groups. While we can make stronger connections to class in roots of formation of nationalism and the way middle easterns relate to religion, saying its the only cause of the troubles is too far-fetched. One thing to keep in mind in the middle east is the fact that religion(s) are more politicized and ideologized. So thats something outside of the class framework EVEN if we can find the roots of religion in class formations.
This therefore needs to be understood in the post-modern context of an ex-colonial region torn between the old world, modern world AND post-modern world with all their negatives. Just class-based analysis won't give all that much insight.

The general discontent in the middle east CERTAINLY links to global capitalism and the way the region integrated into it as well besides the inner-class conflicts for instance. Class conflict too has a different face in the form of extreme elitism of modern elite divided into multiple ethnic division on religion, sect and nationalism. The Bashar's elite for instance are Alevite-Shia, closer to though of European enlightenment...so the opposition does not come only from a proleterian perspective, it meets with anti-imperialism, nationalism and religious impulses. Religion being ideologized way before proletariat identity in middle east gives the odds to the hands of religion.

[Treize]

It is caused by the disintegration of the Ottoman State (by a mix or internal and external factors). This allowed free reign to vile ideologies such as wahhabism, zionism and exclusivist nationalism.

[dogukan]

as well as a weak state-bureaucracy model to establish authority upon(due to the nature of Ottoman rule and then the nature of colonial rule in the area), and tribal groups from the previous era not being dissolved into new "nations" properly. Combined with modern institutions does pretty bad.

Colonial state institutions had been troubling to all areas that were subjugated during the age of imperialism such as Africa and Middle East.

[Roma_Victrix]

Colonial state institutions had been troubling to all areas that were subjugated during the age of imperialism such as Africa and Middle East.

Not to veer this off-topic, but even though I would argue this statement can also apply to Latin America, how much so does it apply to India, Pakistan, East Asia, and North America? Are Africa and the Middle East merely the strongest examples, or, in addition to Latin America, really the only examples?

Well, there is Vietnam, which used to be French Indo-China (alongside the Nguyễn dynasty).

[dogukan]

Not to veer this off-topic, but even though I would argue this statement can also apply to Latin America, how much so does it apply to India, Pakistan, East Asia, and North America? Are Africa and the Middle East merely the strongest examples, or, in addition to Latin America, really the only examples?

Well, there is Vietnam, which used to be French Indo-China (alongside the Nguyễn dynasty).

All the ex-colonial state have their connections to colonial institutions which create problem to this day. But the difference in Africa is that the context did not allow a situation for states to be established legitimately. Latin American institutional basis was similar to that of Spain early on so they kind of went their own way earlier in history. They still suffer from the economic structures and land inequality in those countries but they have more political history development that have put things on its way.

Africa really is the toughest place. It is worth keeping in mind though that French and British colonial models were different. I had a few articles about that which I partly forgot but Brits used the "indirect rule" which really made it difficult to post-colonial country to establish authority or at least made clientalism-corruption- tribal networking a normal thing there. French model was different and focused more on "citizen" concept and enlightenment I think.

[Sharukinu]

The class-struggle phenomenon is almost completely absent in the Middle East as far as I'm aware. Religion, racism, and political failure are the main reasons behind the turmoil in that region. Not counting Iran, Turkey, and Israel of course, since those three nations are kind of special and need their own respective serious observations. So basically I'm talking abot the Arab countries.

[DaVinci]

The root of the conflicts in Middle east is not religion but rather its a class warfare

This is somehow true, as in the relation, that one must understand, that all (political) conflicts derive from the access to resources (in the widest sense). The theme is much more complex, than it looks like on the first view - anyways, i agree, that the root of conflict(s) is not of religious character alone, but ie. religion is a (socio-)political tool.

[hellheaven1987]

Not to veer this off-topic, but even though I would argue this statement can also apply to Latin America, how much so does it apply to India, Pakistan, East Asia, and North America? Are Africa and the Middle East merely the strongest examples, or, in addition to Latin America, really the only examples?

Well, there is Vietnam, which used to be French Indo-China (alongside the Nguyễn dynasty).

Class warfare has been existing in East Asia for a long time; remember all those angry peasant rebellions in Chinese and Japanese history? We can probably even argue that some military organizations such as Ikkō-ikki were the champion of class warfare in East Asia.

[anant]

"Class warfare" as understood in the modern world (as opposed to "peasant" rebellions in the past) derives from conflict between modern ruling classes, bourgeoisie middle classes, and lower and working classes...even a cursory glance at the "middle-east" shows the near absence of middle and "working" classes in the near absence of wholesome industrialization...indeed the old middle east was little more than family-controlled armies and territories. The "arab spring" was not a revolt for vast social and structural changes like the Russian revolution or any other ultra-left rebellion, it was in fact the protest of the new emerging middle classes for a voice amongst their elitist national governments...more like the French revolution to get rid of the "first" estate...class warfare comes later with the clash between the bourgeoisie and the working/poorer classes. In these modest aims, it has not really been a success, so more advanced revolutionary policies seem very far away at the moment.
The main causes for the current conflict in the middle east are as follows 1) WW1 and the dissolution of the ottoman empire, followed by the arbitrary colonial divisions of the Europeans without regard to culture or ethnicity, and the establishment of Israel 2)The resource curse of being oil-rich, which keeps these countries tied to non-reformist societies kept afloat by the largesse of oil 3)Autocratic power structures based on familial or tribal networks, which work against the national identity in these "falsely" created nations 4)proxy-war by the rest of the world for geostrategic reasons.
So class warfare, I'm afraid, is hardly a problem in this region, and you should rethink your hypothesis.

[dogukan]

I would not really alienate the concept of "class warfare", rather the idea is conflicts can be based(somewhat psychoanalytically) to class "relations". I mean, we can, technically bring a class perspective to whats going on. But saying it is class conflict that is everything is a bit far-fetched.
Perhaps OP means it in the more structuralist sense.

[Copperknickers II]

It is caused by the disintegration of the Ottoman State (by a mix or internal and external factors). This allowed free reign to vile ideologies such as wahhabism, zionism and exclusivist nationalism.

Only indirectly. You can also say its due to the collapse of the British Empire, or the Roman Empire, or the Fatimid Caliphate, by that logic. Its not like there weren't extremist ideologies in the Ottoman empire.