SJS4- "The New Middle East Will Test Europe"

Source: Serfaty, Simon. "The New Middle East Will Test Europe." Current History 111.743 (2012): 118-19. Print.

Author Credentials: Simon Serfaty is a senior professor in U.S. foreign policy and a former research professor at Johns Hopkins Center of European Studies. In addition to this, Serfaty also has many of his written books in professional journals that have been published focusing on European articles.

Summary: This article talks about the Middle East improving itself and going hand and hand with that of Europe. It's been 800 years that the people in the Middle East have been abused by their rulers and the rulers by those who overpowered them and finally, the rule of the Islam is being replaced with a democracy. President Bush of Europe in 1989 said that there is a long road ahead of the Middle East before they become an entirely free democracy because many people were comparing the Arab uprising of the Middle East to the European revolutions when it is a far fetched idea. The main focus of this article is how the emergence of a new and better Middle East will push the Europeans and test them on their freedom and democracy and it will compare the two situations. The author argues that the European road to a stable democratic system was rough due to many limitations. These limitations included rehabilitation, reconstruction, reconciliation, and stabilization. The author also talks about how the European military is lacking in its capabilities to support and protect Europe. I can relate this to our class activities when we went over the summary notes in which we talked about how Europe had an advanced military in terms of weapons and highly trained soldiers.

Analysis: Based off of this article, I can tell that the author is more biased towards the Middle East side in terms of them becoming a new and free democracy. Serfaty goes on to describe and point out all of the Europeans negative aspects in their time of Revolution. This can be shown by how Serfaty was criticizing the Europeans for their poor stability skills and their weak army. Serfaty also goes to say how the Middle East had much ahead of them and it will take time for them to become entirely free and democratic but once they do, they will give the Europeans a run for their money.