AL-ATAWI AHMED HEMPLER MORGAN 1 HEJAZ RAILWAY PROJECT 2 ABSTRACT As an example, we had the chance to be invited ABSTRACT to what they called a “modern marriage”. Without emitting any value judgment, we The theme of this thesis is the result of a must admit that what we saw there was not journey made in the summer of 2014 in Jordan at all natural. The staging seems taken from a and the UAE. During this tour, we were able 1980s soap opera where the whole ceremony to experience and feel a socially omnipresent was flmed and where actors were playing ancestral culture that fades gradually in favor their wedding ceremony. The wedding took of an international standardization that results place in a fve star hotel and all the guests of an oppressive globalization. This is palpable of the banquet were dressed in tuxedos and at several scales in this region which is shared evening dresses as if we were invited to a between morals inherited by a rich history typical high class western wedding. Without coming directly from the foundations of Islam questioning whether it was good or bad, we and a will of the upper classes to take as an can’t but agree on the fact that nothing in this example the world powers. ceremony seemed natural. What struck us during our trip, was the overall Besides that, we could have a glimse of what disunity of the diferent peoples that we could looked like a more traditional wedding. Made meet. Despite a common culture, there was with few resources, a tent in the garden and no solidarity between countries while at the some freworks, anyone was free to pass individual level, every person we had met and by and present the congratulations to the with whom we could discuss, cared much married couple. The ceremony was framed by about the miseries that afects the neighboring many traditional habits and the atmosphere and distant Muslim populations. Therfore, was more liberated and festive. there was some kind of a schizophrenia in What must be noticed from this small analysis those countries that was preventing them of the marriages, is the bipolar atmosphere from uniting. It was also interesting to notice in these countries. They often lose their rich that Arabs, somehow, lost faith in their tradition to make a fake copy of what is heritage. Indeed, being obsessed with the happening elsewhere. power coming from the west, they completely denied their local strength and interacted more With this observation came a frst desire to with the West than with their country. The fnd a project that federates through the Arab rich people send their childrens to the best world to restore the unity and confdence it reknowed Western universities and they copy, seems to have lost with time. often far too literally, European and American A project that would allow the Muslim peoples way of life. to converse with each other again and to 3 ABSTRACT realize that their common culture makes them stronger than they think. A project that eventually would let them create internationnal class schools that stand for their traditional values and rich heritage. All this in order to form the Arab brains of tomorrow according to their history and culture, rather than sending them to coutries with diferent principals. We are not afrming that it would be bad to do so but we are in the process of compagning for the afrmation and preservation of the diferences between the peoples of the world and the maintaining of the diversity of humanity. Alongside all this social analysis that concerned us on this trip, we were confronted with another problem. We have furrowed many roads in Jordan and the UAE, and we realized that the network was extremely defcient. In both countries, the national scale infrastructure was reduced to a single highway line with a North-South direction in Jordan and Est-West in UAE. The only way to get around was by car for those who own one or by bus for the low and middle class people. Arising out of this observation and of the social analysis mentioned previously, our souls of utopian architect raised with the high humanist, radical and dreamy, projects of Le Corbusier, led us to the idea of an international rail infrastructure project. A project that would place Damascus at 1h of all the inhabitants of Amman while connecting Mecca to Istanbul. 4 5 TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT 3 A | THE MIDDLE EAST : A FRAGMENTED REGION 9 INTRODUCTION 10 I | A UNIQUE CULTURE 10 1. THE RELIGION 10 2. THE LANGUAGE 12 3. PATTERNS OF LIVING 14 II | A TROUBLED HISTORY 15 1. THE OTTOMAN MIDDLE EAST 15 2. BRITISH AND FRENCH COLONIALISM 16 III | THE CURRENT SITUATION 19 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SITUATION 19 2. THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 20 CONCLUSION 23 B | THE HEJAZ RAILWAY 25 INTRODUCTION 26 I | HYSTORY OF THE PROJECT 26 1. THE PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT 26 2. THE DIFFICULT CONSTRUCTION 28 II | THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA AT THE TIME OF THE HEJAZ RAILWAY 31 1. A RELATIVE IMPROVEMENT OF THE PILGRIMS JOURNEY TO MECCA 31 2. THE SUCCES LIMITS OF THE HEJAZ LINE 32 3. LOCAL ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES FROM THE RAILWAY ARRIVAL 34 III | THE HEJAZ RAILWAY POLITICAL ISSUES 34 1. INTERNAL STAKES OF THE TRANSPORT OF THE PILGRIMS 35 2. THE RESISTANCE OF THE SHARIF OF MECCA 36 CONCLUSION 38 6 TABLE OF CONTENT C | THE TRAIN : STILL A PROMISING TRANPORT MODE 41 INTRODUCTION 42 I | PASSENGER TRANSPORT COMPARISON 42 1. CONVIENCES 42 2. ECONOMY 46 3. ECOLOGY 48 II | IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY 50 1. FREIGHT TRANSPORT 50 2. RAILWAY GAUGE SYSTEMS 50 3. RAILWAY GAUGE CONVERSION OR UPRGRADE 50 III | TRAIN JOURNEY : BETWEEN POETRY AND EFFICIENCY 51 1. THE ORIENT EXPRESS 51 2. THE BERING STRAIT TUNNEL 54 IV| CHINA : TODAY’S RAILWAY NETWORKS 56 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE CHINA’S RAILWAY NETWORK 57 2. CHINESE HIGH-SPEED LINES 60 CONCLUSION 63 D | THE POTENTIAL OF A NEW HEJAZ LINE 65 I | HEJAZ COUNTRIES 66 1. TURKEY 68 2. SYRIA 76 3. JORDAN 84 4. SAUDI ARABIA 92 II | NORTH AFRICA 100 1. MAGREB 100 2. EGYPT 106 III | SOCIAL LAYER 110 CONCLUSION 112 7 Mecca, Mosque, 2011 8 A | THE MIDDLE EAST : A FRAGMENTED REGION INTRODUCTION I | A UNIQUE CULTURE 1. THE RELIGION 2. THE LANGUAGE 3. PATTERNS OF LIVING II | A TROUBLED HISTORY 1. THE OTTOMAN MIDDLE EAST 2. BRITISH AND FRENCH COLONIALISM III | THE CURRENT SITUATION 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SITUATION 2. THE ECONOMIC SITUATION CONCLUSION 9 MIDDLE EAST | UNIQUE CULTURE A | THE MIDDLE EAST : Asia,” and “Southeast Asia” are used to A FRAGMENTED REGION broadly identify highly complex and culturally diversifed regions of the world. The term “Middle East” commonly refers to the region that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west, to Afghanistan in the east. This region is extended over a distance I | A UNIQUE CULTURE of approximately 5,600 kilometres and has a total population of 300 million people. It 1. THE RELIGION encompasses the countries of Marocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, The most important factor of communal Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, identity in the region is probably related to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, religion. The majority of the middle-eastern Yemen, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. There are also population is Muslim. Islam originated in some African countries such as Mauritania northern Arabia when Prophet Mohammed and Sudan that are considered to be within (A. D. 570-632) succeeded in converting the “Middle East” region. the animist and pagan tribes of the Arabian Peninsula to a new religion. Following the The use of the term “Middle East” had death of Prophet Mohammed, Arab-Muslim increasingly come to replace the more armies swept out of Arabia in a series of conventional use, which divided the area military expeditions that pitched the Muslims into two regions: the Middle East and North against the Christian Byzantines and the Africa. The term “North Africa” referred to the Sassanids (Persian empire). Defeated by Arab countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, the Muslims, the Byzantines were forced to and Libya; while, the Middle East referred withdraw their armies from Jerusalem and to Egypt (which is geographically located in Damascus into the heartland of Anatolia, North Africa) as well as, the rest of the Arab closer to Constantinople, their capital. The countries to the east including Israel, Turkey Sassanids were routed out of Iraq and Persia, and Iran. For the purpose of this study, we will which later became provinces of the newly use the conventional usage of this term. formed Arab-Muslim state, based frst in Damascus and later in Baghdad. Almost a Nevertheless today, the terms “Middle Eastern” hundred years after the Prophet’s death, the and “Middle East” have been adopted by the borders of the Muslim Empire had reached people of this entire region to either refer to the Pyrenees in the west and Afghanistan themselves or to that part of the world, in the in the east. The conquest of this vast and same way as the terms “Europe,” “Central heterogeneous territory was accompanied by 10 UNIQUE CULTURE | MIDDLE EAST TURKEY SYRIA 1 IRAK IRAN 2 3 6 EGYPT 5 SAUDI ARABIA 4 OMAN YEMEN Middle East Countries 1 - Lebannon 4 - Arab United Emirates 2 - Israël 5 - Qatar 3 - Jordan 6 - Kuwait 11 MIDDLE EAST | UNIQUE CULTURE mass conversions to Islam. 2. THE LANGUAGE During his lifetime, Prophet Mohammed had recognized the Jews and Christians as The four major language families in the region “People of the Book,” recipients of a valid but are Indo-European, Semitic, Altaic or Turkic, incomplete revelation.