What we’re seeing in the Middle East / North Africa today and of recent is likely a glimpse into the future of human history. Our fate: hegemony over survival?

The era [of civilization] opened almost 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, stretching from the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, through Phoenicia on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to the Nile Valley, and from there to Greece and beyond. What is happening in this region provides painful lessons on the depths to which the species can descend.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/09/noam-chomsky-are-we-approaching-the-end-of-human-history/