The South Shore of the Mediterranean and the Religious Determinant

The southern shore of the Mediterranean is an area shared unequally by countries with different wealth, demographics, natural resources and cultures. These differences give rise to numerous conflicts for control of the land or the spirits. They are more or less regulated by a few masters of the game. The dynamism of this region is part of a Mediterranean pattern of differentiation and multiple cleavages. A zone of conflicts and threats par excellence, whose major characteristic is confessional, and where the principle of order and stability finds it difficult to impose itself. Most of the conflicts do not have a single cause, but a series of causal factors that make any attempt at classification and simplification futile, and can only be analyzed after taking stock of the issues that underlie and go beyond the simple economic and cultural divides, whose religious component is crucial. The region lies at the heart of the most complex issues in the contemporary political world, a crossroads of contrasts and fragmentation.