Afro-Arab Relations in Retrospect
How we got to today’s situation.
Extracted from ‘The Arabs and Africa’ edited by Khair El-Din Haseb; published in
1984 by Croom Helm, London, for the Centre for Arab Unity Studies, Beirut, Lebanon
Being the proceedings of a seminar co-sponsored by the ArabThought Forum, held in
Amman, Jordan 24-29 April 1983
Regional Interaction between the Arab and African
Systems with the International Framework
The concept of geographical linkage or one of the characteristics of interaction
Factors pertaining to geography, history and civilization have given Afro-Arab
interaction a special and unique character, whether in terms of interaction with that
between either of these regional systems and any others in the Third World, such as Latin
America or South East Asia. In such cases, interaction is generally confined to the
diplomatic and economic spheres, and it is limited. The geographical proximity of Africa
and the Arab world has been one of the most important factors in their historical
interaction. That proximity facilitated the spread of Islam to most parts of Africa, and as
such transferred one of the seeds of Euro-Arab confrontation to Africa. Christian
missionaries, who were often used as a façade for traditional European colonialism,
clashed with the Islamic expansion and one of the objectives of colonialism was to
contain Arab-Islamic influence, and uproot its foundations in Africa. Geographical
proximity also contributed to the Arabisation of North Africa and parts of East Africa at
an early stage of Islamic expansion. The interaction between the peoples of Africa’s
northern and northeastern coasts went on uninterrupted under European colonialism
despite its presence throughout the continent. The continuation of trade relations,
between the traditional centres north and south of the Sahara, also contributed to this
interaction. Ironically, by developing transportation routes in Africa, European
colonialism contributed to increasing Afro-Arab interaction by expanding communication
and trade. A great African writer refers to this historical phase by stating that the
penetration of Black Africa and the Middle East was unequal as Africa was experiencing
cultural and economic penetration while the Arab world was not.
Two basic factors govern regional interaction. The first, geographical, is represented by
the existence of an area of geographic linkage between the two systems, i.e., Afro-Arab
countries. The importance of this linkage is statistically demonstrated by the following:
60% of the Arabs live in Africa; two thirds of Arab lands are in Africa; one African out
of four is Arab; and Arabic is the main spoken language in Africa. I was in this context
that the phenomenon of the core state arose in the two systems. Such states contribute to
drawing the two systems closer together if they can play a role in their interaction – e.g.,
Egypt before Camp David. But if they leave the core sector of the two systems, in other
words their role as core states is ended, they affect regional interaction, if only indirectly
– e.g., the faltering of Afro-Arab cooperation after Camp David.
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The second factor is behavioural: i.e., the intensity and vigour of interaction, and the level
of the resources within the Arab system, compared with the African system, confirm that
there has been Arab penetration of various forms in Africa: cultural-civilisational,
commercial, revolutionary, oil-related and developmental. In this respect we must
understand the proposition that there are Arab parties in the African system, and not vice
versa, for the simple reason that the Arab system came into being before the African
system, and that Arab identity is more accurately and concretely definable in terms of
belonging and self-consciousness than is the African identity, for the countries which
belong to both. Furthermore, the ideology of the Arab parties in the African system was
formed in accordance with the prevailing ideology of the Arab system and not according
to an African ideology.
The Stages of Afro-Arab Interaction
Afro-Arab interaction has gone through three major stages:
The First Stage: Revolution
This started with the growth of independence and national liberation movements and
ended with the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Interaction within what is known as the
geographical linkage area, i.e., the Afro-Arab countries, was in practical terms limited
and it was in this context that the role of the core state – Egypt – emerged with respect to
the rest of Africa. The nationalist experiment in that core state offered incentives and
lessons for fighting colonialism. As Jomo Kenyatta put it in 1956, the Suez battle is one
which every African nationalist fights. Cairo was the centre of African liberation
movements, whether by providing a location for their political leaders and offering
military training, financial assistance, or political propaganda and diplomatic support.
After 1961, both Algeria and Morocco provided support and assistance to Africa but at a
lower level than Egypt, owing to the difference in their resources. Africa had a strategic
place in Egypt’s foreign policy perspective, known as the ‘second circle’. With Egypt’s
increasing weight in the Arab system, particularly, and the growth in resources of other
Arab African independent states, Afro-Arab interaction, especially with respect to
backing liberation movements, was enhanced. Thus Egypt, and then the independent
geographical linkage area, played a pioneering role in directing the Arab League’s
attention toward African issues and affairs. At the outset, the League supported national
liberation movements only in Arab African countries, but later on it went further and
backed non-Arab African movements. In 1957 the Arab League Council passed a
resolution calling for support for Afro-Arab relations. Several others condemned racial
discrimination and called for reinforcing cooperation with Asian and African countries.
At the 1964 Arab summit in Alexandra, the Arab heads of state issued a statement
affirming that Afro-Arab cooperation was one of the foundations of Arab policy, owing
to the facts of history, location and shared goals, and declared their support for the
struggle of African peoples. The same call was reiterated in a statement issued by the
1965 Arab summit in Casablanca on fighting colonialsm. The Arab League member
states’ delegates at the UN also backed liberation and anti-colonialist issues at the
General Assembly.
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But the Palestinian question – a cornerstone of legitimacy in the Arab system, whose
importance is equal to that of anti-colonialism in the African system – has not received
the concern it is due from the African countries, some of which even reached the point of
indifference. It was not on the agenda of the second African summit held in Cairo in
1964, nor on that of the third summit held in Accra in 1965. This was due to three
factors:
(a) the new-independent African countries were overwhelmed by their own domestic
and regional preoccupations, such as consolidating central authority, resisting
colonialsm, etc., and the Palestinian question did not seem to them to be an
African issue.
(b) Israeli penetration of Africa (economically and diplomatically). The role of
Israeli assistance to Africa, and Israel’s image as a small state without political or
imperialist ambitions, contributed to making the Africans adopt a somewhat
neutral position on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
(c) At that time, the Palestinian question was not as relevant as it came to be after the
creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the launching of
the Palestinian revolution, which became a polaristing and magnetic element in
terms of the interaction with the cause.
Thus, this stage was characterized by political and ideological interaction in the general
sense of the term which was vigorous owing to the core state, and the geographical
linkage area. It was also characterized by cooperation in some instances, and conflict in
others, with various forces in the international system which had begun to lose their
influence in the Arab and African systems, and to establish alternative spheres of
influence.
The Second Stage: Transformation
This started after the 1967 war and ended with the 1973 war, witnessing a remarkable
though limited transformation in Afro-Arab cooperation, from overall African
indifference to interest, for instance, in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ironically, enough, the
1967 war was important for the development of Afro-Arab cooperation even though this
was meant to cut the core state – Egypt – down to size and contain its role in both
regional system; there was qualitative transformation in the interaction between the two
systems, as African states started to sever their relations with Israel. Nevertheless it was
a slight and slow change. Thus, the Arab-Israeli conflict was not placed on the agenda of
the fifth African summit held in Kinshasa in September 1967, which only expressed
‘concern about the occupation of the lands of an African country(Egypt)’. Shortly after
the war 17 out of 32 Black African states voted in favour of a Latin American draft
resolution supporting Israel at the UN General Assembly. The Arab approach to Africa
started focusing on the similarities between Israel and South Africa, whether in terms of
their political location or their role and behaviour toward the Arab and African regions, in
addition to highlighting the shared interests and cooperation between Israel and South
Africa themselves.
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Due to these and other factors, including Israel’s support for the Biafran secessionist
movement in Nigeria and other attempts at secession in southern Sudan, as well as Israeli
intransigence over the Jarring initiative, Israel’s image in Africa began to change.
Certain events within the Arab system contributed to increasing interaction and bringing
about a rapprochement between the two systems, such as the big increase in the Arab
world’s resources as a result of oil, and the changing circumstances of the oil market in
favour of the exporters. This was particularly evident in the context of the geographical
linkage between Libya and Algeria, whose role was thus enhanced in Africa. The
African change of course started in 1971, with the major turning-point the African
summit held that year which witnessed two major events concerning relations with the
Arabs: firstly, the African call for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Arab land, an
unprecedented development; and secondly, the decision to assume a political role in the
diplomacy of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the formation of a committee of ten African
heads of state for this purpose, from which sprang a subcommittee, known as the
‘Committee of the Wise’, whose mission was to visit Egypt and Israel in an attempt to
uncover the prospects for a political solution to the conflict, in accordance with UN
Security Council Resolution 242.
Aside from the role of the African Arab states, non-African Arab states such as Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait became active in the interaction between the two systems, thanks to
the increase in their resources. This then extended to cooperation within the UN
following the increase in tension in Israeli-African relations so that on the day the 1973
war broke out, eight African states severed their relations with Israel.
Thus, this stage was characterized by the increasing vigour and intensity of interaction,
and a widening of the number of participants involved on both sides, especially after the
growth in the Arab system’s resources and the change in the African position toward
Israel. The states of the geographical linkage area played an essential role in this phase,
accompanied by the Arab Gulf states’ new and active role.
The Third Stage: Economics and Institutionalisation
This stage started after the 1973 war, and was later followed by the
institutionalisation of regional interaction between the two systems, and the
establishment of difference cooperation mechanisms. Several factors contributed to
defining the course of Afro-Arab interaction at this stage, notably:
(a) The huge increase in the Arab system’s resources, and hence its power. Both
during the war and directly after it, the Arab stand was cohesive, which provided
the system with considerable power vis-à-vis the outside world. Furthermore,
the tremendous rise in oil prices led to a considerable increase in the power of
Arab oil-producing countries.
(b) The decline in the resources, particularly economic, of the countries of the
African system as a result of the economic crisis in the West, and its impact on
African countries linked to the West. The economic crisis was aggravated by the
oil price rises which affected them both directly and indirectly, through the
increase in the price of their imported products from the West. This was clearly
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reflected in the OAU Ministerial Council’s resolution of November 1973, calling
for a study of the impact of the oil embargo on African countries, and for
negotiations with the Arab oil-producing countries on the best means to mitigate
its negative effects.
(c) The appearance of Israel as an unfriendly state, and an ally of two of the enemies
of the African system, South Africa and Portugal, each of which backed Israel.
(d) The prominence of the common enemies of the two systems: Israel, South
Africa, and Rhodesia. Hence the call by both regional organizations for a total
and complete boycott of these regimes.
After the 1973 war, the number of African countries to have severed their relations with
Israel reached 29. Nevertheless the early phase of institutional cooperation between the
two systems was characterized by a certain coolness in relations, which reached a critical
point due to the following reasons:
The great hopes the Africans had pinned on the volume of aid that would be forthcoming
from the Arabs, as well as their expectations of its rapid disbursement.
The worsening of the African economic situation owing to the causes mentioned above –
including the oil price rises which swelled the African countries’ oil bill and depleted
their monetary reserves, upsetting their balance of payments positions and their trading
balances, by indirectly raising the price of imports; thus, the African countries had to
devote an increasingly large portion of their export revenues to pay their imports
including their oil bills. This left the Africans feeling that the Arabs ought to do
something.
The slow pace of Arab aid disbursements which left some Africans suspicious that there
was some kind of selectivity involved in supplying aid.
This tension was reflected at the 1975 African summit, held in Kampala, where an Arab
proposal calling for the expulsion of Israel from the UN was rejected. We should note
here that the severing of diplomatic relations with Israel was not accompanied by an
African economic boycott. Indeed, this stage witnessed a flourishing of economic
relations, and the doubling and diversification of trade exchanges with the trade balance
in favour of Israel.
But despite the crisis, both the Arabs and the Africans went ahead and laid down the
foundations of institutional cooperation. In 1974, for instance, the Arab Loan Fund to
Africa was established, and was affiliated with the Arab Bank for Economic
Development in Africa (BADEA). The Arab Fund for Technical Assistance was also set
up at that time.
The first joint foreign ministers’ conference was held in Dakar in 1976 and institutional
cooperation was launched at the Afro-Arab summit held in Cairo on 7 March 1977, when
the goals and field of activity of this cooperation were defined. Institutional cooperation
was suspended in 1978 because of the Camp David accords, and when the Arab side tried
to exclude Egypt from the framework of cooperation, the African side objected and
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insisted on maintaining Egyptian delegations within the joint cooperation mechanisms.
Contacts between the General Secretariats of the OAU and the Arab League resumed in
June 1980, when it was decided that the Coordination Committee should be reactivated
and meet twice a year.
This third stage of interaction was characterized by the political expansion of cooperation
as many Arab states which had not previously participated in it, or whose participation
was very limited, joined in. Economic cooperation also grew, even if it took the form of
economic penetration by one party, namely the Arabs. The vigour and intensity of
cooperation also increased as did the levels and frameworks of institutional interaction.
Commenting on this interaction a specialist on African affairs said: ‘After the October
1973 war a rapprochement between Africa and the Middle East took place in the
direction of forming one international subsystem.’
The switch of the Arab side’s leadership in cooperation was from the geographical
linkage area to the Gulf area, where the new resources of the Arab system were
concentrated. This was reflected in an increasingly conservative political trend within the
interaction framework, in contrast with the radical trend that had characterized the initial
stage of interaction which was located in the geographical linkage area and was the Arab
system’s centre of gravity – while the second stage was characterized by the participation
of both the Gulf and geographical linkage areas in the interaction.
The emergence of the African system’s orientation toward the Arab Gulf states in the
context of cooperation, exemplified in the visits of several African delegations to the Gulf
area, while the rest of the Arab region, which carries the heaviest burden in the ArabIsraeli conflict (Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) was almost ignored. As for relations with
the geographical linkage area, these were characterized by both cooperation and conflict
owing to the dynamics and complexities of disputes in that area.
Interaction was also manifest in the increase in diplomatic power of both systems within
international forums. This was apparent in the UN and its specialized agencies with
respect to the resolutions concerning regional issues of import to both systems.
In its early stages particularly, interaction was characterized by a certain amount of
confrontation in relations with the Western pole in the international system. But by the
third stage, that same pole was benefiting both politically and economically from this
interaction: politically, because of the shared perceptions with the leading states on the
Arab side of many Africans issues – an example of this was their identical position on the
events in Zaire in 1978, and over the Ethiopian-Somali dispute; economically, the
Western pole benefited from that part of Arab aid to Africa which was spent on financing
imports from the industrial West, and by securing a minimum of the desired stability to
encourage investments in the region. The sources of Arab aid were diversified (country
funds, regional institutions, and international funds).
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Thus the West benefited in terms of its economic penetration of both the Arab and
African systems. What were called the ‘financial surpluses created by oil revenue’ were
deposited in Western banks where they were recycled either directly or through
miltinational corporations in Africa. On the other hand, while the interaction contributed
to weakening Israeli political penetration of Africa, it did not eliminate it. Thus, what
really happened was that Israeli diplomats left but were replaced by traders and
technicians serving the same goals in difference forms.
General African support to the Arabs is attributable to a number of factors: some of them
economic, and others political, such as standing up to imperialism, understanding the
nature and legitimacy of the Palestinian question, and Islamic solidarity, for example.
This is often due to the fear that some African states harbour of being isolated from the
African mainstream if they remain hesitant in taking pro-Arab positions (e.g., Kenya and
the Ivory Coast).
Two important remarks on Afro-Arab interaction must be made here. Firstly, interaction
has enhanced international penetration of Africa, whether in the economic field as
discussed above, or in the security-political field. This is because penetration often
occurred at points of tension or conflict in Africa: some of them were in the geographical
linkage area, while others had been internationalized partly owing to the Arab countries’
role. Secondly, from looking at the conflicts in the states of the geographical linkage
area, one can see that, to the extent that these are in conflict with each other, they have a
negative impact on Afro-Arab interaction and create tension in Afro-Arab relations (e.g.,
the Sudanese conflict in the past, Arab support for Somalia in its conflict with Ethiopia,
and the Somali-Kenyan conflict). The Arabs began to defy one of the fundamental laws
of the African regional system, namely the observance of state borders as drawn up in the
colonial era. In 1978, after the Ethiopian-Somali conflict, the OAU called on foreign
powers not to intervene in African affairs. Among those concerned by this call were the
Arab countries. The question of giving African liberation movements observer status at
Arab League meetings (similar to the PLO at OAU meetings) has been one of the issues
with a negative effect on interaction between the two systems. The Arab side would not
resolve this problem owing to differences of opinion over the matter between countries of
the geographical linkage area. It seems that the divergence and problems of this area
have so overwhelmed the OAU as to practically immobilize it. The African stance
becomes negative, as concerns its interaction with the Arab system, mostly when the
latter tries to exclude a core state which is common to them both and used to represent a
link between them in the interaction process. This was the case with Egypt, which the
Arabs sought to exclude after Camp David, leading to the suspension of Afro-Arab
cooperation. Contrariwise a cohesive Arab position, especially among the countries of
the geographical linkage area, facilitates and reinforces the dynamism of Afro-Arab
relations, as was the case during the 1973 war, and in the early stages of interaction.
International Penetration of the Two Regional
Systems in the Future
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A number of international, regional and local factors tend to heighten international
penetration of the Arab and African systems, with all that this implies in terms of threats
to the political independence and economic development of and within both systems, at
both the regional and international levels. These factors are the following:
The Strategic Conflict between the Two Superpowers
To illustrate the nature and acuity of the struggle between the two superpowers, it is
labeled in strategic studies as a ‘zero-sum game’. In other words, the influence and
position acquired by one party is considered a loss to the other. With the development of
the capacities and range of nuclear weapons, and the expanding scope of the superpower
struggle due to a number of international variables, and the diversity of the possible
scenarios of confrontation, the conflict is characterized by the increasing importance of
various theatres of war in the world, such as the Indian Ocean, the Arab Gulf, the South
Pacific and the South Atlantic. This leads to competition with each superpower striving
to gain influential positions in the countries surrounding these theatres. Besides their
geostrategic importance, the Arab and African systems have an economic-strategic
importance, because of the increasing competition for economic resources in the world,
and because they both possess a big variety and important quantities of natural resources,
such as oil and natural gas (the Arab region), platinum, uranium, gold, manganese,
chrome, asbestos, etc. (the African region). The two most important areas in the two
systems are South Africa and the Arab Gulf. Thus, the strategic importance of both
systems has increased commensurately with increasing Western reliance on the raw
materials they possess.
The strategy of the two superpowers is divided into two basic parts: one is defensive and
pre-emptive, i.e., defending certain strategic positions or areas or pre-empting a threat to
these; the other is offensive and deterrent, and it aims to impress upon the opposing party
one’s ability to threaten the strategic ‘hinges’ which are important to it. In this context,
and given the zero-sum game theory, strategic interaction between the two superpowers
is dialectical. The competition and race that ensue and the acuity of the struggle involved
all aim to maintain a certain position, or to attempt to control it, or to prevent the
opposing party from controlling it.
There are three major Arab and African strategic hinges in this struggle:
The Geostrategic Hinge
This includes the following areas:
The Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic. The importance of the Indian Ocean lies in its
inclusion in a confrontation scenario where the USA could threaten the Soviet Union
with an intercontinental ballistic missile attack by means of nuclear submarines. Hence
the importance of the Indian Ocean for the Soviet Union’s defence, which is further
enhanced by the fact that it is the entrance – through the Arabian Sea and the Straits of
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Hormuz – to the Gulf theatre which is particularly important for both superpowers’
strategies. The South Atlantic, as an extension of the North Atlantic, is of defensive
importance to NATO. Any Soviet presence in it could constitute a threat to Latin
America (the western shore of the Ocean) and to the USA. The South Atlantic also
connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Indian Ocean. Therefore, each superpower tries to
maintain military balance if not parity in this region and each monitors the other’s moves,
and tries to contain any attempt at expansion. All this requires both of them to maintain
special relations with the African and Arab countries overlooking the two oceans in order
to secure facilities and logistic support for their forces.
The Horn of Africa. This is of strategic importance because whoever controls Bab ElMandab, controls the waterway (the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal) between the Indian
Ocean and the Mediterranean. Thus, it is the shortest route between the Soviet Union and
the Indian Ocean, for instance. The same is true for the Western alliance, especially the
USA and France.
The Cape of Good Hope. The commercial importance of the waterways in this area was
accentuated by the closure of the Suez Canal and even after its reopening as big tankers
cannot use the canal and thus have to go around the Cape. This area is a major oil and
raw materials route between the West, the Gulf and a large part of Africa. At the same
time it is a route for the Soviet fishing fleet, which is presently the second-ranking one in
the world, finding 20% of its catch in the Indian Ocean, and roving the eastern and
western coasts of Africa.
The strategic importance of this area for the Allies appeared during World War II, when
Germany controlled the Mediterranean, which links the South Atlantic with the Indian
Ocean and the Gulf, as far as American strategy is concerned, and is the only sea-link
between the Asian and European parts of the Soviet Union, as far as the USSR is
concerned.
Underlining Africa’s strategic importance, a Western specialist in African affairs
maintains that even if the Western powers did not want to be involved in and disengaged
themselves from Africa, they could not do so from the perspective of their global interest,
so long as the Soviet Union did not also disengage from and stop intervening in the area.
The Economic Hinge
Among the characteristics of the international system is what is called the war for raw
materials between the big powers. The American strategy concerning the Arab and
African regions, which are both rich in such resources, is to secure a continuous flow of
such materials to the industrial West. Western Europe relies on them even more that the
USA. The 1973 crisis created by the oil embargo was a clear demonstration of the
potentially devastating impact of such crises on the relations of the members of the
Western alliance themselves. From a strategic standpoint, such a situation requires
preventing the Soviet Union or its allies from penetrating the areas or countries which are
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economically important to the West as well as scuttling any attempt to remove them from
their sphere of special relations.
One Western view is that the Soviet Union bases its strategy on attempting to deny the
West such materials, in reaction to its own failure to contain Western Europe. The value
of this scenario is enhanced in Western eyes by the fact that the Soviet Union always tries
to benefit from crises in economically vital areas, by supporting certain parties to the
conflict in order to reap political dividends for itself.
The Political Hinge
The Arab and African systems include a large number of countries that have a
preponderant weight in international forums such as the UN and its specialized agencies,
and the non-aligned movement. Naturally, each of the two superpowers tries to gain as
much diplomatic and political support as it can over issues that are of concern to it in
international relations. It was said that the 1950s witnessed US control of the UN
General Assembly, because of the predominance of the pro-American Third World
countries, a trend that was reversed in the 1960s and the 1970s in favour of the Soviet
Union. But actually it became clear that the voting behaviour of those countries was
influenced more by regional and local considerations, than by their relations with the two
superpowers on various international issues. Thus the USA lost its majority support not
simply because of those countries’ orientation toward the Soviet Union, but because of its
hostile position over many regional and international issues of legitimate concern to the
Third World, such as anti-imperialism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Law of the Sea, the
new international economic order (NIEO), and so forth. This interpretation can be
substantiated by the fact that the Soviet Union lost both of the political battles over
Afghanistan and Cambodia at the UN, and within the non-alignment movement. So the
flexibility of voting and positions of the countries whose support concerns the two
superpowers encourage the latter to step up their competition for the favour of these
countries, as well as their moves to influence their political behaviour.
The Pariah State
In an earlier section we saw how the pariah state contributed, directly or indirectly, to
enhancing the international penetration of the neighbouring regional system, and how
such penetration increased with the increase in the severity of the conflict, militarily or
politically, between the pariah state and neighbouring countries. All the indications are
that there will be an intensification of such conflicts in the future, given:
(a) The attempt by each pariah state to extend its domination to neighbouring states
under the guise of ensuring maximum security for itself.
(b) The increase in the imbalance of power between the pariah state and its
neighbours, due to the military-technological superiority of the former over the
latter, and the existence of a nuclear deterrent thanks to the two pariah states’
cooperation. Israel, for instance, receives continuous military assistance to
enable it to maintain its superiority over the Arab countries. In contrast, the
latter suffer from a weakness of capabilities and fragmentation of power, partly
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because of their internal conflicts, and partly because of the indifference toward
the Arab-Israeli conflict on the part of countries that do not have common
borders with the pariah state.
(c) The situation will be further complicated by the structural nature of the conflict,
in that each party departs from a perceived legitimate right from a historical,
nationalistic or religious viewpoint which pertains to the substance of the
particular conflict. This makes it difficult to reach the common ground
necessary for resolving a conflict, unless there is a drastic change in the
fundamental values that determine the position of each party to the conflict.
Thus what we have is a pariah state that refuses to make major concessions,
while at the same time it tries to impose the legitimacy of its existence by force;
this leads to a state of no-war-no-peace, which sometimes ends in conflagration
or induces the pariah state to foment trouble within the regional system
neighbouring it, thus creating the appropriate climate for an increase in the
international penetration of the front-line states.
(d) The mistake of wagering on the USA to obtain major concessions from either of
the pariah states, owing to the aforementioned reasons, and to the importance of
these states in American strategy, especially since that importance has been
enhanced by the escalation in the superpower struggle.
The Weak Role of the Two Regional Organisations
It is a commonplace that to the extent that regional organizations fail to manage local and
regional conflicts, and to absorb and resolve them within the regional framework,
attempts at internationalizing such conflicts succeed, as the potential for international
penetration of the conflict increases. This in turn reflects on the organization, paralyzing
it.
The weakness of the Arab League and the OAU, in this regards, is attributed to several
factors, all of which are inherent to the Arab and African systems themselves, namely:
(a) The weakening of the two systems’ ideologies: Arabism and Africanism.
Ideology gives the regional organization legitimacy, and provides constraints on
the behaviour of regional states and parties when they try to internationalise a
particular crisis or remove it from its legitimate regional framework, which is
happening now in both regions.
(b) The absence of a centre of gravity, on the level of the system as a whole, in both
systems, which would be in a position to tackle crises and conflicts within their
regional framework. In the Arab system, for instance, the removal of Egypt from
the framework of political interaction, and the fragmentation of forces, led to the
emergence of more that one centre of gravity and polarisation within the system,
which often neutralized one another. The weaker party within the regional
system may perceive it to be in its interest – in a particular case – to escalate the
crisis to the international level. Therefore, in order to keep a crisis within the
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regional framework, an actual agreement between the polar centers must be
reached. As far as the African system is concerned, there are regional powers,
but there is no one regional power at the level of the system as a whole. This
system never had a pyramidal form, and it is not apt for such a structure due to
the ‘requirements’ of the system which cannot be met by one power, given the
weakness of capacilitites.
(c) Past experience has shown that border disputes, or disputes between two
countries, are generally easier to resolve at the regional level than are domestic
disputes with regional dimensions. It also shows that there is a probability that
disputes will occur between countries within the system because of the very
intensity of interaction between them. Furthermore, there is always the
possibility that local conflicts will flare up inside the African system owing to
causes related to the societal structures of its countries.
(d) The inadequate institutional structures of the two regional organizations, the Arab
League and the OAU, which have weakened their ability to resolve conflicts and
to try to contain them. In this context I should point out the absence of the
principle of coercion in both organisations’ charters, which could have stipulated
that a priority should be given to regional solutions to conflicts over international
ones, as does the charter of the Organisation of American States (OAS).
(e) The existence of conflicts which the particular regional organization may be
unable to tackle within its jurisdiction, such as when one of the parties to the
conflict is not a member of the regional organization; e.g., the Arab-Israeli
conflict and the Iraq-Iran war for the Arab League and the conflict between South
Africa and the front-line states for the OAU. But this should not be an excuse,
and here I have in mind the Franco-African summit of 1981 which stole the show
from the OAU and succeeded in laying down the foundations for a solution to the
Chad problem, where the organization itself has failed.
Development issues: Increasing Dependence
The dependence of the Arab and African countries’ economics on the advanced
nations is increasing with unfavourable economic and political repercussions on the
former. Here are some indicators of this trend:
(a) Rapid population growth and migration from rural to urban areas have created
demographic problems requiring states to secure greater economic and social
resources which they cannot afford. This leads them to borrow and seek
technical assistance from foreign sources.
(b) Slow growth in the agricultural sector for a variety of reasons, some of which
have already been mentioned earlier and include the inability to modernize and
develop agriculture and increase productivity. Coupled with the population
explosion and consequently in the increase in food consumption, such poor
agricultural performance has widened the food gap and forced states to purchase
staple commodities (grain and others) abroad.
(c) The squandering of material and human potential in the military sector.
(d) The economics of these countries are based either on agriculture and thus exportoriented or on the production of a single commodity and therefore rely
12
intensively on imports rendering them acutely vulnerable to the negative effects
of economic crises in the West.
(e) Reliance on foreign know-how for the utilization of modern technological
methods in development programmes.
These factors combined contribute to increasing the indebtedness of these countries,
which in turn exposes them to economic and political penetration – through financial
and monetary institutions and multinational corporations – by the international system
and especially its Western pole.
Local and Regional Conflicts
In contrast with the Arab countries, there is a great likelihood that local conflicts in
Africa will turn into regional or international ones. However, some of the elements
which trigger such conflicts also exist in the Arab region.
Africa is characterized by what one might call geographical ‘Balkanisation’, which is
exemplified in the existence of very small states that provide opportunities for
regional and international forces to intervene. Moreover, sub-Saharan Africa is
characteristically devoid of any nationalist states, in that upon the foundation of these
states the distribution of social groups was not taken into account. The OAU charter
has tried to sanctify the legitimacy of state borders as drawn up during the colonial
era, in order to promote stability and the inviolability of these borders even when they
enclose multifarious and distinct loyalties be they security-related, linguistic,
communal or tribal. In other instances the boundaries drawn up fragmented existing
loyalties between more than one state. There are other factors, including the failure
of most state authorities to acquire institutional legitimacy, by moulding the old and
diverse loyalties into a new and unified one owing to their scarce resources or lack of
interest. Another factor has been the growth of political consciousness and demands
for political participation, which have not been responded to, leading ruling groups to
retrench themselves within the primary group. These factors combined have helped
unleash subnational loyalties in an attempt to realize a greater expression of their
identities, or power-sharing, or even secession. Hence the frequent tension in these
states.
The Arab region, on the other hand, witnessed the phenomenon of supranational
loyalty, in the form of the Islamic current coming from Iran. The exacerbated themes
and attitudes of that current combined with the absence of communal and, sometimes,
religious cohesion in Arab societies in general is creating tensions in several Arab
countries. Communal self-consciousness is developing and acquiring a political
dimension which could eventually affect political stability in a number of Arab
countries.
The risk of instability caused by internal factors in the Arab countries in contrast with
the African ones, is mitigated by the two following elements: firstly, the political
structure of the state, in the Arab region, which is generally speaking more able to
absorb shocks than its African counterpart, owing to its resources; secondly,
13
cleavages and lack of cohesiveness in Africa are more complex than in the Arab
region. Thus, it is much more likely that internal and border disputes in Africa will
turn into armed conflict in the 1980s.
Other causes of tension include increasing economic problems and the difficulties
arising there from which the countries of both regions, especially Africa, are
suffering. This is manifest in the large number of coups d’état in African countries,
which have been triggered by economic problems, and there have been severe
political shake-ups even without a change of regimes.
The Future of Afro-Arab Interaction
Confronting international penetration, attenuating its impact or preventing it requires
a drastic change of direction at the system level in both regional systems, toward
trying to strike at the root of conflicts – be they political, social, economic or securityrelated. National security in each system should be established. The foundations of
Afro-Arab interaction should be built upon solid ground as this, in turn, would help
reinforce the national and economic security of both systems. This is the more
important given that Afro-Arab interaction is supposed to be a model of South-South
interaction or cooperation, especially since economic conditions and relations within
the North, as well as its orientation have had a negative impact on North-South
cooperation for the following reasons:
(a) A general drop in the North’s growth rates and the deepening economic
recession which have had adverse effects on their imports from the South.
(b) Inflation, whose impact is greater on the South than it is on the North.
(c) The North’s protectionist policies regarding imported products and
commodities.
(d) Fluctuations in money markets which are harmful to the balance of payments of
the countries of the South.
(e) Reduction in the volume of development aid which the affluent North used to
provide to the developing South. Some observers maintain that the South will
face an increasingly inhospitable international environment in the 1980s.
Under such international conditions, it is to be expected that Afro-Arab interaction will
face two challenges, both of which it must confront. Firstly, a resurgence of Israel’s
political and security role in Africa, and its intensification as a result of these conditions.
Israel is now acting within the framework of American strategy in Africa, and moreover
Franco-Israeli relations have improved greatly compared with the 1970s. African
acceptance of Israel’s return, however limited, will definitely have negative effects on
Afro-Arab relations, occurring as it does at a time of complacency in the Arab world.
Secondly, the beginning of a regression in the Arab economic role in Africa, as a result of
dwindling Arab resources, particularly oil. This might weaken cooperation with Africa,
since the financial assistance – i.e., aid and investment – was the main aspect of
cooperation. It should be noted here that whatever is said about Arab aid policies, the aid
flow cannot be indefinitely maintained at the same rate, given that its sources are nonrenewable and are not based on huge productive capacities. Hence the special meaning
14
and importance of Arab aid. But Afro-Arab cooperation should be directed toward
diversification and interdependence. Both systems have immense human, mineral and
natural resources that are essential for building industries and extensive agricultural areas,
which if properly exploited could provide food self-sufficiency.
If coupled with the necessary political will on both sides, these factors combined could
very well contribute solid national and economic security for both systems. However,
this obviously depends on the political relations within the geographical linkage area and
between it and the two systems. For it is those countries that constitute the bridge linking
the two systems or the abyss that separates them.
Comments
Gamil Matar
This paper raises a number of theoretical issues pertaining to the development of AfroArab relations within the framework of a changing international order. Many aspects of
this subject are still unclear, and many details remain unknown for various reasons,
including the state of fluidity inter-Arab interaction has gone through; others have been
discussed in other papers presented at this seminar. However, the author tried to single
out a number of basic ‘hinges’ – as he called them – which the development of Afro-Arab
relations is based on; by so doing he was able to address the various aspects of the subject
and offer valuable additions to the body of theory on the interaction of regional
subsystems.
May the author allow me to select, in this brief comment, some of the major premises of
his study and interpret them in a way he may not have had in mind when outlining them;
my purpose is to highlight them for the sake of argument and analysis, and to add a few
other points which, I believe, deserve consideration and interest comparable to others
discussed at this seminar.
Firstly, it is now clear from the author’s discussion, and from other discussions at this
seminar, that ever since the early years of independence, Afro-Arab relations have been
closely related to wide and broader patters of interaction and to the changes in the
international order. But this was by no means a link of dependence in every case. In the
initial stage – during the process of independence and liberation struggle – the Afro-Arab
cooperation movement chose the option of rebellion against the international order; it was
a part of a broader movement which had arisen all over the Third World to strive toward
the realization of its members’ independent will. It also attempted to establish a network
of horizontal and vertical interaction that would guarantee the security and freedom of
these countries in choosing their own political systems and liberating their economies
from foreign domination. As such, that stage was diametrically opposed to the present
one, as the form of linkage opted for within the broader framework of international
interaction has been that of dependence. I say ‘opted’ because dependence has in many
cases been a demand rather than an obligation!
15
Secondly, throughout the course of Afro-Arab relations, i.e., from the early years of
independence until the present , Egypt has had a fundamental place in these relations
because it is a state with three simultaneous roles as the core state of the Arab system, as
the major state of the core area in the African system, and as the most important party in
the geographical linkage area of the two systems.
Given their interdependence, these three roles give rise to an important theoretical
proposition: it has been shown that the functions of the core party in the Arab system
cannot be changed without an equivalent change in the functions of the core area of the
African system, given the major role which this party plays in both systems. In more
concrete, terms, when this core party switched from the role of regulator of the pulse and
interaction of the Arab system, to that of mediator between foreign parties and the
system’s members, it had to operate the same change within the other system, the
African, in whose core area it also occupied a major place. So it was not possible for it to
abandon its role of regulator in the Arab system, while at the same time maintaining it in
the African one. But it is also noteworthy that when the position of the regulator is
vacated, due to the weakness or weakening of its political and ideological resources, an
immediate replacement should be made.
Thirdly, when the regulator’s role changed to that of a mediator, there was instantaneous
disturbance of the existing interaction between the system’s parties. Thus, inter-Arab
interaction and then Afro-Arab interaction, had to be reconstituted on the basis of a
functional core, replacing the political or natural core. We should remember that the
second stage in the development of Afro-Arab relations started following the emergence
of functional international entities, such as the oil entity, other raw materials entities, and
the financial surplus entities. A functional international system soon arose from these
entities, with its own rules and it is at this point that the oil entity started to play the role
of the regulator in the Arab system, substituting itself in Africa’s core area. It is through
and on the basis of this dual role that the institutional stage in Afro-Arab cooperation was
launched.
Therefore, the contention of some that Afro-Arab institutional cooperation has failed, or
at least was suspended, is justifiable. Institutional cooperation was not primarily based
on ideology or theories stemming from the philosophies of and aspirations to
independence in those two systems. Rather, it was based on behavioural rules imposed
by a functional international system which arose directly from, and was totally
subordinated to, the capitalist pole in the international order. Thus, a look at the future of
institutional cooperation should take into account the new variables in the international
oil and financial systems and the emerging outline of a new substitution process..
Fourthly, regarding Israel’s role in Africa, much has been said about substituting that role
by that of another. I think this issue should be very carefully examined. The Arabs have
not yet determined the nature of Israel’s relationship with the American pole: is Israel
simply an instrument of American policy? Or is it contrariwise controlling that policy?
The two issues are closely related. When we talk about replacing Israel, we are
16
presupposing that Israel is a satellite state, which an Arab political or functional party can
replace, to perform the same function as Israel’s in Africa, on behalf of the American
pole. I do no think that such a substitution is desirable and I believe it is harmful to Arab
and African national interest. I would even maintain that it has caused many of the crises
which Afro-Arab cooperation has suffered. Those who argue that Israel controls
American policy delude themselves when, under the guise of replacing Israel in Africa,
they pursue lending and financing policies based on their deposits in Merica or assist
regimes that are completely subordinated to the USA, while denying such assistance to
those that are not. Therefore, I believe that the substitution (or replacement) policy which
has been followed in Africa since the establishment of institutional cooperation has
neither been beneficial to the Arabs, nor harmful to Israel, and it was the USA which was
the real beneficiary. I believe that Israel’s return to the position it used to occupy in
Africa, in an even stronger manner, sufficiently demonstrates that the policy pursued
during the institutional cooperation era was inappropriate, because it was not based on a
decisive view of the US-Israeli relationship.
The fifth point is related to a remarkable phenomenon, which deserves explanation.
While the area of geographical linkage played a positive role in developing Afro-Arab
relations, in the first stage, it became a negative, if not destructive, factor during the
institutional stage. Until now this phenomenon has not been examined by any in-depth
research, nor has an attempt been made to reach some satisfactory explanation of it. I
would like to raise some questions for a future debate on this subject:
1. Is there a relationship between this negative change on the part of the
geographical linkage area, on the one hand, and the institutionalization of AfroArab cooperation, on the other? Could it be that the countries of this area – which
had great assets in Africa and participated in setting the scene for Afro-Arab
cooperation – felt that the institutionalization of cooperation deprived them of
their prestige in Africa, to the benefit of other Arab countries which had not
provided any inputs when this cooperation was being built and thus, did they lose
their sense of commitment toward Africa and start exploiting it, heedless of the
possible consequences of such a development on the unity of the OAU and on
Afro-Arab cooperation? Or is it that some of these countries took advantage of
the new power they acquired by virtue of their new membership in the Arab side
of cooperation, e.g., Somalia, to expand at the expense of the African system?
2. Is there a relationship between this negative development and the changes the
Arab regional system has been fraught with, especially after the role of the
regulator core was vacated and the system headed toward fragmentation? This is
probably the case, as the Arab system failed to establish rules of conduct for
conflict resolution and was unable to form political alliances which would have
checked the conflict escalation. Hence those countries’ inclination to exploit their
Africanism to establish alliances within the African system, which they could no
longer establish inside the Arab system.
3. Foreign interference cannot by any means be ruled out as a cause of, and
escalation in, Afro-Arab and inter-African differences, the purpose of which was
to prove the non-feasibility of cooperation and abort all aspects of cooperation
that are not conducive to even greater dependence.
17
Sixthly, there is no doubt that the stage of institutional cooperation relied basically on
a few Arab members of the Arab system, most of them outside the geographical
linkage area, linked to the American pole and endowed with huge financial and oil
resources. This should be linked to the changing course and endpoint of Afro-Arab
cooperation, simply because it led to certain rules of conduct that were strictly
derived from the nature of these Arab parties and their own patterns of behaviour.
One example of this is that Afro-Arab cooperation soon became mainly based on
bilateral relations. Thus, it neither served the Arab system as a whole nor the African
system as a whole, but rather the interests of some parties from both. In the preinstitutionalised stage, and although the nucleus of cooperation was between the
geographical linkage area and the African system, its return benefited the Arabs as a
whole, and the Africans as a whole. The July Revolution was an outstanding
illustration of this.
Another example is that most of the Arab countries on which institutional cooperation
relied did not have any significant experiences with Africa, owing to their
geographical and historical locations. Thus, their behaviour toward Africa was
governed by general considerations pertaining to interaction in the international
political system and the international functional system, rather than to the horizons of
cooperation.
A third example is that these countries have not developed a clear idea or concept of
the requirements and scope of Arab national security. They were preoccupied merely
by individual country considerations and at best by sectoral or regional security; thus,
national security was compartmentalized, and Africa had no place in Arab security
concerns. But the American pole could, nevertheless, persuade some of these Arab
parties to link the concepts of Arab security with the concepts of American security!
These parties expressed willingness to perform security roles in the US interest but
none of them had any clear and sound understanding of the importance of Africa to
Arab national security.
A fourth and final example was that the institutionalization of cooperation was
concomitant with an extremely confused understanding of the relationship between
Arabism and Islam, which resulted from a vicious campaign against Arab nationalism
and an intensification of religious consciousness, as well as from the confusion and
naivety in the methods used by Arab parties – on which institutional cooperation
relied – to spread Islam in Africa, backing its Muslim elements or creating problems
for Christian African leaders who rule states with Muslim majorities. Thus, wittingly
or unwittingly, the Arab side dragged the African side to divisiveness instead of unity
leaving the latter totally puzzled as to the Arab’s motives in institutional cooperation.
Saad Eddine Ibrahim
18
Dr Hitti’s paper covers a multi-dimensional subject, of far-reaching scope and depth.
It deals with three big international systems: the superpower system, Western Europe
and China, and the Arab and African regional systems. It also covers an extremely
lengthy period of time spanning three decades – from the early 1950s to the early
1980s – that were a decisive and complex era in the history of both the Arabs and the
Africans. It analyses interaction within each of these systems, as well as the
interaction between them. It studies three groups of variables: strategic, political and
economic. Thus, we have a study which is fairly rich in knowledge, information and
concepts, and is scientifically and systematically analysed. I don’t therefore think
there is much a commentator can add to this remarkable study, other than the
following few points:
Points which the Paper Missed
The first part of the paper focused on the similarities between the Arab and African
systems but hardly discussed the differences and contradictions between them. It is
true that most of the elements of difference can be attributed to the time gap between
the birth of the two systems, to varying degrees homogeneity – the Arab being more
homogeneous than the African system – and that the dissimilarities are secondary, but
there remains a need to address this question because it was thanks to such
differences that foreign penetration occurred.
Some of these contradictions are old, some are new; some are cultural, related to
civilization, language or religion, while others are politico-economic. Thus, there is
an area of cultural encounter, where Arab culture has come into contact with African
cultures, extending from southern Mauritania in the west to southern Sudan in the
east. It has a significant place in the context of Afro-Arab interaction because foreign
powers have exploited it in the past, dividing as they did, the continent into an Arab
North and a Black South, separated by that great ocean of sand, the Sahara. Before
the colonial era it was an area of creative coexistence and interaction, but was turned
by colonialism into one of cleavage and conflicts, under the call for pluralism to
counter efforts at consolidating cultural and linguistic unity. The end result was
cultural paralysis and dependence (e.g., Mauritania and southern Sudan). This was
further aggravated by ethnic, religious and tribal contradictions.
Among the more recent contradictions was the situation caused by the rise in oil
prices in the early 1970s. Although it affected poor Arab countries and other Third
World countries, the oil price hikes had a more severe effect on Afro-Arab relations.
Thus, after the African countries stood alongside the Arab countries during the 1973
war, and severed their diplomatic relations with Israel, they had expectations of Arab
aid that were higher than what they actually received.
Some of the contradictions are psycho-historical, such as the stereotypes which both
the Africans and the Arabs harbour concerning each other. The African image of the
Arab is often that of the standard-bearer of Islam or alternatively of the slave trader.
Sometimes it is that of the revolutionary comrade (Nasser, the Algerian and the
19
Palestinian Revolutions), and at others it is the conniver with the West (Egyptian and
Moroccan intervention in Zaire in support of Mobuto). These contradictory images
of the Arabs in African minds are widely used, to various different degrees and at
different times, by foreign forces that are antagonistic to Afro-Arab cooperation.
Nevertheless, the Arabs’ behaviour plays right into the hands of the propagators of
such stereotypes. In recent years the Arabs have taken their differences to the African
arena, which already has enough of its own divergences and contradictions, e.g., the
disputes over Camp David and the Western Sahara. I do not think that the Arabs
should expect African solidarity on such inter-Arab disputes, aside from the fact that
involving the Africans has had negative effects not least of which is the paralysis of
African institutions (like the OAU) and the suspension of Afro-Arab cooperation
programmes.
In the 1970s Africa moved several steps to the left, while the Arab world, as a whole,
moved several steps to the right. The African countries which attained independence
in the 1970s (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bisssau and Zimbabwe) did so through
prolonged peoples’ wars under the leadership of left-wing national liberation
movements (of varying degrees of leftism), hence their socialist political systems.
One example, among the most significant, was the Ethiopian Revolution which
brought down Emperor Haile Selassie and set up a Marxist socialist regime. With
five big African countries – in terms of area and population size – opting for
socialism in the 1970s the non-Arab African balance tipped several degrees toward
the left. In contrast, the Arab world saw no socialist revolutions in that decade; on
the contrary, major Arab countries, not least of which was Egypt, witnessed an antisocialist backlash that proceeded discreetly and gradually. Besides Egypt, Sudan and
Somalia (and to a lesser degree other countries) went through similar experiences.
The relevance of this point to the present discussion is that it provides an explanation
for foreign penetration of both the Arab and African systems, and for the lowering of
the threshold of Afro-Arab cooperation. In the 1950s and 1960s most of the major
countries in the two systems stood left of centre, ideologically speaking. This
ideological harmony between the two systems was reinforced and enhanced by their
foreign policies based on positive neutralism and non-alignment. It was equally well
guarded by charismatic and larger-than-life leaders: Nasser, Ben Bella, Boumédienne,
Mohamed the Fifth, Nkrumah, Sekou Touré, Modibukita, Nyerere, and others. In the
1970s the situation was completely reversed. Whichever Arab regime headed to the
right or African regime swerved to the left felt threatened by counter ideological
forces, both from within and from without. Thus, most of them opened their doors to
forces outside both the Arab and African systems, requesting protection and support.
In the 1960s the nationalist-leftist regimes sought support, if they needed it, from
friendly powers within the Arab or African system because all of them wanted to
preserve non-alignment. Egypt lent its support to Patrice Lumumba in the Congo,
and to Nigeria against Biafran secession. But in the 1970s, those who moved to the
left, in Africa for instance, sought military assistance from outside the Arab and
African systems, e.g., Cuba. Those who moved to the right did the same, e.g.,
requesting French paratroopers or the forces of the racist South African regime. This
20
phenomenon was also visible in the Arab world where there has been an increasing
number of military advisers from the Eastern bloc in Arab countries that are still
considered left of centre (the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, Libya and
Syria), or from the West in Arab countries which moved to the right. In one instance,
that of the Lebanese rightist forces, this went so far as to seek the help of the forces of
the racist Zionist regime, besides the American, French and Italian forces.
All in all, the Arab and African regional systems which used to be closer to each
other and more coherent – in terms of their ideological and foreign policy stances – in
the mid-1950’s and until the later 1960s, have grown estranged since the 1970s. This
has, in turn, considerably opened both systems to foreign penetration, not only by the
two superpowers but also by the two racist pariah regimes: Israel and South Africa.
Some Issues which Need Elaboration
The paper discussed faltering development efforts in the African system, which it
attributed to the population explosion, rural-urban migration, slow growth in the
agricultural sector, and the high cost of foreign know-how, and the consequent
widening of the food gap, high growth of imports and drop in exports along with
increasing indebtedness and reliance on foreign assistance – all of which have led to
the growth of dependence and foreign penetration.
But the paper should have mentioned that all these problems are also to be found in
most of the countries of the Arab system: e.g., Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Somalia,
Mauritania, Yemen and Tunisia. These countries account for 70% of the total
population in the Arab world, and the problems that heightened the African system’s
dependence were the same as those that heightened the Arab system’s. But relating
dependence only to these factors would be incomplete, in my view. How can we
explain the dependence of some Arab oil-producing countries, given their financial
surpluses and small populations? I think it is more correct to attribute dependence
and foreign penetration in both systems to the pattern of distorted development
current in the majority of their countries. Such distortion has as many domestic
causes as foreign ones. In analyzing the domestic causes, the paper should have dealt
with sociological factors, particularly the class structure of the ruling elites in both
systems. It is that factor which underlies distorted development and has plunged
these countries into dependence and it does not differ from poor to rich countries in
both systems; this leads us to another closely related point, namely Arab aid to Africa.
Most of this aid was provided by Arab countries that were financially wealthy,
structurally underdeveloped, and internationally dependent, to African countries that
were financially poor, structurally underdeveloped and internationally dependent.
Thus underdevelopment and dependence have been the two common denominators
between the donors and the recipients of aid, hence the extreme frailty of the final
result of this aid, despite its substantial size in monetary terms. None of the two sides
reaped the benefits expected. The beneficiary of the dependent rich and the
21
dependent poor was the foreign party which controls both as well as the international
economic order.
Egypt and the Future of the Arab and African Systems
Egypt’s central position in both the Arab and the African systems has been a major if not
decisive factor in the codification and development of Afro-Arab relations. Dr Hitti’s
paper, as well as others presented at this seminar, have presented considerable evidence
in support of this proposition.
However, we should distinguish between position and role. Position is not always
accompanied by a leading role. Position is a static location on the map or network of
relations. Role denotes the mobile or dynamic facet of this position. The position may
be a central one – which is still the case of Egypt – but the role, or mobile activity,
remains arrested or weakened, or even worse, divergent from and incompatible with the
system’s needs.
The past three decades have witnessed the diversity of Egypt’s role in the Arab and
African systems. When Egypt played an active and satisfying role with respect to the
needs and aspirations of the Arab and the Africans, it was one of the leadership in both
systems, and thus it could move the process of Afro-Arab interaction giant steps forward,
despite its limited material resources. Its central position in both systems enabled it to
carry out its role of active leadership in the 1950s and the 1960s, but in the 1970s we saw
just the opposite.
Therefore, in trying to trace the outer limits of Afro-Arab cooperation in the future, we
must consider how to restore Egypt’s role of active leadership in both systems. The
requirements of this role must conform to the needs of the majority of Arabs and
Africans, namely the need to achieve independent development, to reduce dependence, to
remain committed to non-alignment, to enhance integration and solidarity within each of
the Arab and African systems and to step up their cooperation and interdependence.
General Discussion
Ibrahim Sakr
At this stage, Afro-Arab cooperation should be conducted within the realities of the
international system, with the ultimate aim of realizing the utmost with respect to the
interests of the peoples of the Third World, including of course the Arabs and the
Africans.
The author talked about the importance of the ‘political will on both sides … to establish
national and economic security for both systems’. The point is well taken, but in
22
confronting the vicious, American-led, neo-imperialism, which is assisted by several
forces at various levels (international, regional and local), the peoples of the third World
should also seek the support of other forces and allies, besides their own, namely, from
the rest of the Third World and the Eastern bloc, especially the Soviet Union. The idea of
excluding the Soviet Union from the scene is precisely what the USA and its clients are
advocating for the obvious purpose of consolidating neo-imperialist forces in the two
regions, and to conceal these forces’ exploitation of the peoples of these regions. This
idea is as dangerous as it is untenable.
In conclusion, I think what the Arabs and Africans should do to face those challenges,
and considering that they are fighting the battle for their destiny, is the following:
1. A common line of action in both systems.
2. Act within the framework of the realities of superpower polarization.
3. Realise that the movement of history is in the direction of the people; as Toynbee
put it, ‘We are living in the age of the common man’.
4. Develop Afro-Arab cooperation by benefiting from the support of friends all over
the world.
Battles for survival, such as this one, are long and arduous, but the final victory is ours.
Magdi Hammad
In his excellent study, Dr Hitti provided us with a more complete picture of the AfroArab cooperation, outlining three of the major features: firstly, the intensification of
international penetration in both the Arab and African systems; secondly, the growing
role of Israel and South Africa in the African system as direct instruments of the West, in
addition to the danger of increasing cooperation between the two states; thirdly, the
deterioration of the situation inside the Arab and African countries, particularly the weak
role of the two regional organizations, increased dependence and regional conflicts.
Thus, any attempt to draw up a strategy for Afro-Arab cooperation should take into
account that there is no moving inside a vacuum. So far, the discussions at this seminar
have presupposed that Afro-Arab cooperation depends solely on the two sides’
determination. However, it is clear from Dr Hitti’s comprehensive outline that
cooperation is at this stage linked to the international system and the superpower conflict.
This was not the case in the 1950s and 1960s when national liberation movements were
struggling to achieve true independence, in the full sense of breaking the dependence
links, and Afro-Arab cooperation was really determined by the will of the parties
involved. The foreign powers’ action was basically a reaction. But after most Arab and
African regimes chose dependence as the means to defend national security, Afro-Arab
cooperation became, in turn, one of the variables of dependence.
Nonetheless, despite the thorough and exhaustive listing of the variables involved and the
provision of a model for studying Afro-Arab cooperation, I am afraid that some of the
study’s conclusions do not logically follow from the premise. For instance, the author
23
contends that to avert international penetration, a major transformation of both systems is
required whereby they would ‘strike at the root of conflicts – be they political, social,
economic and/or security related’, and then build-up Afro-Arab cooperation and national
security on solid grounds. In effect, this is a hopeless task, which leads me to a point that
was raised several times at this seminar, namely what is called the ‘domestic choices’ of
each Arab and African country. In most of these countries slogans are frequently heard
for the establishment of a new international economic order, a new international
information order and Afro-Arab cooperation. However, when it comes to domestic
choices, we find practically no commitment on the part of these countries’ rulers to any
such ideas. There is neither social justice nor freedom of information in any of these
countries. Do they really aspire to Afro-Arab cooperation which is so incompatible with
the vested interests of their leaders?
Finally, as much as the beginning of the deterioration in Afro-Arab cooperation was
initiated by Egypt so, I believe, its recovery must start from Egypt, too. In the 1950s and
1960s Egypt performed three major roles as (a) modernizer – Egypt presented a model
for independent development; (b) unifier, with unification an expression of national
character; and (c) promoter of national security through non-alignment. When the values
reflected by this experience were struck a blow, Afro-Arab cooperation began to
deteriorate. That is why I say that the reviving spark must also come from Egypt.
Abdul-Monem al-Mashat
I would like to contribute to the enrichment of the theoretical and methodological aspect
of this study with the following remarks:
Firstly, the term ‘pariah’ used by the author is a psychological term which applies to
persecuted groups and minorities, more than to states. I think a more accurate term
would be ‘intruder’ or ‘peripheral’ state, either of which applies to Israel and South
Africa.
Secondly, one of the components of a subsystem is what is called the ‘central regional
state’, whole major function is to enhance the elements of cohesion and reduce those of
divisiveness between the system’s members. What is important here is that we can
consider Egypt as that central regional state in both subsystems under study; this view is
especially significant in the definition of the strategies of the superpowers, the peripheral,
and intruder states toward both subsystems.
Thirdly, the strategy of the intruder state always relies on trying to polarise the central
regional states, as this enhances divisive factors and undermines those of cohesion within
the subsystems. It is in this light that we can outline what happened as a result of the
Egyptian-Israeli rapprochement as follows:
The concept of the Arab regional system was destroyed as a variety of subregional
systems emerged, e.g., the Egyptian-Israeli subregional system, based on the support of a
24
superpower, the USA; this new subregional system can best be described as an isolated,
alienated or ‘pariah’ one, to use the author’s own term. Another subregional system
which is characterized by weakness and vulnerability is the Arab Gulf system. There is
also the North African system. All these point to the implausibility of the institutional
analysis used by the author. To assume that the role of the structures and institutions
involved was a reflection of the existence of a regional system is an exaggeration.
Another result was the breakdown of the consensus on the identity of the Arab
subsystem. It is an Arab national system? A Pan-Islamic system which embraces all
Muslims? Or an Afro-Arab system? Or is it that we only have a collection countries,
each with its own ideological structure that distinguishes it from the others? Thus, the
outlines of the Arab system have now become blurred.
More importantly, the two system’s peripheral states – Israel and South Africa – are now
the determining element in the superpowers’ priorities in the two systems’ strategic areas.
The so-called ‘strategic consensus’ was merely a response to the Israeli initiative of
substituting anti-Israelism with anti-Sovietism, especially after the emergence of the
Egyptian-Israeli subregional system under US sponsorship.
Fourthly, I firmly believe that unless the central role of the main regional powers, like
Egypt and Nigeria, is restored, whatever potential is left for Afro-Arab security
coordination will be obliterated.
Mahgoub Omar
The following are some of the questions which this study raises:
Was the institutionalization of Afro-Arab relations necessary?
Can the Gulf Cooperation Council, as a subregional system within the general Arab
system, be considered a model to be followed by the Afro-Arab geographical linkage
areas?
Can we relate the institutionalization of Afro-Arab relations to its occurrence in time in
an analytical manner, taking into account the concomitant expansion of the two
superpowers’ role in Africa, and in the two regions in general? It should be noted here
that this institutionalisation was welcomed by both superpowers.
Concerning the impact of several variables on Egypt’s leadership position, can we say
that those which fit into the category of mechanisms cancelled Egypt’s role in both
systems? I think they merely undermined it.
With respect to national security, does the author think that it is not possible for the two
systems to build joint national security? It would appear that his premise is that there are
two distinguishable regional systems, the Arab and the African, each with its own
identity. This takes us back to my initial question: was the institutionalization of
Afro-Arab relations really necessary?
25
Yousef Al-Hassan
Institutional Afro-Arab cooperation was unfortunate in emerging at a point in Arab
history which was characterized by: (a) decline and fragmentation, on the one hand, and
Israeli rapaciousness and international polarization, on the other; (b) the fact that
‘whoever has the money, in the Arab world, does not have imagination and whoever has
the imagination does not have the money!’
The paper argues that Afro-Arab cooperation has benefited the West. But if the Arabs
and the Africans are seeking real development, are not the tools of this development to be
found in the West, generally speaking? Does not the Soviet Union import technology
from the USA, or the African states with socialist leanings, even though they badly need
Soviet weapons at the same time?
Arab support to Somalia, in its dispute with Ethiopia, which the paper referred to, was
lent in accordance with the Arab League’s charter; it always came in response to requests
from both sides for working out a peaceful settlement. The Arab position was generally
characterized by hesitation to be involved in a dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia, for
reasons pertaining to both the Arabs and the Africans.
Finally, why did cooperation become more bilateral than collective? Such cooperation
was mainly in the form of direct bilateral aid which was greater than collective aid that
was also provided by at least two Arab regional institutions as well as by individual
African countries, under extremely limited agreements especially in the cultural and
educational field. Collective cooperation was very short-lived and merely formal, e.g.,
joint meetings between the Arab Loan Fund – as the representative of the Arab side – and
the African countries delegated by the OAU. In other words, such meetings were held
only on the basis of circumstantial political decisions, which in no way guaranteed any
justice or economic feasibility. The African countries accepted this not just so much
because they preferred collective action but for other reasons – and, in the end, found
bilateralism more useful and easier.
Thus, I would tend to say that collective cooperation is just a dream which both sides
should strive to realize, while bilateral cooperation has been the predominant pattern of
recent decades, and I fear will remain so for some time to come.
Nassif Hitti, in Response
I appreciate the valuable comments made and would like to respond to them as follows:
Dr Ibrahim said that I did not discuss the phenomenon of increasing economic
dependence in the Arab countries, but my statements were directed at both Arab and
African countries (section III, 4, first paragraph).
26
Dr Hammad contended that I was pessimistic about the future of Afro-Arab interaction,
referring to what I saw as the only solution – a drastic transformation of the two systems
– as a hopeless task. In fact what I suggested was the optional objective, which does not
preclude the possibility of developing and reforming interaction, short of that goal.
However, I would like to emphasis that the nature of interaction reflects the degree of
dependence, in one way or another, of the various parties involved.
Dr Al-Mashat preferred the term ‘intruder’ or ‘peripheral’ state to ‘pariah’. I think the
use of one term rather than another is a matter of perspective. From the perspectiveof the
Arab system or the African system, we can use the term ‘intruder’ for both Israel and
South Africa. But from the perspective of the overall international system, I think the
concept of the pariah state is more accurate in characterizing the location of these states
in the network of diplomatic and international relations.
Dr Omar raised a number of valuable question, each of which deserves a session of its
own. But I would like to respond to his question about whether institutionalization was
needed, by saying that institutionalization was not and cannot be responsible for the
shortcomings and deficiencies that have characterized Afro-Arab interaction. These are
the result of the circumstances surrounding that institutionalization, and not of the
institutionalization itself.
Mr Al-Hassan’s comment on my suggestion that Afro-Arab interaction in the economic
sphere enhanced international penetration of Africa, was that the Arabs and the Africans
cannot do without Western technical assistance for development. I was not suggesting
that they break or suspend their economic relations with the West which would be
unrealistic. All I meant was that economic dealings with the West could proceed without
the intervention of middlemen such as the big banks, multinational corporations, and
Western consultancy houses, which could be replaced by Arab and African financial,
economic and technical institutions, insofar as possible.
THE FUTURE OF AFRO-ARAB RELATIONS:
OPEN DISCUSSION
Gamil Matar
Ali Abu Sinn
Helmi Sharawi
Ahmed Idha Salim
Abdul Hassan Zalzala
Yousef Al-Hassan
Mohamed Fayek
Mohamed El-Mili
27
Gamil Matar
Realistic speculation on the future of Afro-Arab relations should deal with two sets of
circumstances:
(a) International Circumstance of which there are two major probabilities: the first is
that struggle will escalate and that, as well as Central America and Southeast
Asia, other areas may also be flashpoints including the Afro-Arab region; the
second is the continuation of what is called the ‘American age’, for US
domination of the scene.
(b) Regional Circumstance. If the present variables and indicators persist for a
longer period of time, three parallel developments are most likely to occur (unless
a radical change takes place in one of them). The first is the Israel’s domination
over the different Arab interactions, as well as Arab interactions with other
regions, including Afro-Arab cooperation. The second is a further weakening of
belief in Arab nationalism and an increase in the strength of religious
fundamentalism, as well as sectarian and ethnic extremism. The third is a natural
and logical course for settling the scores of the problems which have led to
fragmentation over the years among which are consumerism; dependence on
foreign forces; the isolation of the core from the rest of the system which has
deprived both the core and the periphery of their former closeness and left them
deficient; the freezing of collective action and the weakening of its institutions;
the widening of the credibility gap between governments and peoples;
contributing to the international imbalance of powers (as opposed to positive
neutralism); misconception of this imbalance and thus negligence in establishing
an Arab national security plan.
However, whatever the outcome, Afro-Arab cooperation will still have an important
function to perform in the interest of the Arab system for the following reasons:
1. The African system is complementary to and supportive of the Arab
system and does not cause any serious problems for it, as other systems
like the Islamic or Asian systems do.
2. The past experience of the Arabs and the Africans is still the best, despite
several devastating negative effects. If well developed it can be a basis
and model for establishing a broader security base for the developing
world.
3. Arab interaction with Africa, as the statistics presented at this seminar
show, is not as costly as other interactions and despite its low cost its
returns exceed those of others.
4. Arab cooperation with Africa, especially if strengthened, can pave the way
for the Arabs to resume their positive effect on the international balance.
5. Arab human resources are better qualified for a more important role in this
cooperation than they are for cooperation with any other region, to the
extent that they can be considered compensation for the anticipated loss of
some material resources.
28
Abdul Hassan Zalzala
On the economic future:
(a) The economic fact of Afro-Arab cooperation should only be examined as a part
of overall comprehensive cooperation which encompasses all fields.
(b) Rectifying the course of Afro-Arab economic cooperation is the responsibility of
both the Arabs and the Africans. At this seminar most of the criticism has been
directed against the Arabs for their preference for humanitarian aid rather than
financial cooperation and this was, I believe, an unbalanced criticism . Most of
the flaws in Afro-Arab cooperation could have been averted if the African
contribution in developing cooperation had been more serious than it has been.
The Africans should have been more involved in studying projects, presenting
proposals and creating the appropriate climate for joint action.
(c) The future of Afro-Arab economic cooperation depends on a number of external
and internal circumstances. Externally, cooperation cannot proceed in isolation
from the international dynamics of struggle and détente which reflect on Arab
and African cooperation efforts for comprehensive development. Added to this
is Israel’s resumption of its destructive attitude towards this cooperation.
Internally on the regional level the future depends upon the ability of the
engaging forces within each group to resist penetration from outside. On the
local level, among the factors which impede cooperation are the forces which
follow the continuation of dependence, as opposed to those which work for
balanced cooperation and for development. A major variable, which is now
unfolding and should be seriously taken into account, is the potential depletion of
non-renewable Arab oil resources. Once this point has been reached, Afro-Arab
economic cooperation will lose its driving force. Hence the vital need for
comprehensive, interdependent developmental efforts whereby all the human and
material resources of both sides are mobilized. There must be: firstly, a lessening
of unilateral financial aid; and secondly, a switch toward more and more real and
appropriate investment. Feasibility studies on the economic profitability and
technical aspects of country and multilateral development projects should also be
emphasized.
(d) Although both the Amman and Lagos plans set the strategic outlines of economic
cooperation, this still has to be translated into more concrete terms and projects.
An order of priorities for development projects and the responsibility of each of
the parties concerned for implementing them – including timetables for
implementation and a follow-up system – have still to be worked out. The
fundamental goals of such projects should be: expanding productivity;
developing human resources; industrialization of primary materials; expanding
the common and local markets of both regions; meeting development and
security needs. Given the nature of available resources and their limits and the
29
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
(i)
(j)
(k)
time factor which requires a tight order of priorities, such an approach is highly
important. Furthermore, the less developed and needier countries of both regions
should get a larger share of the fruits of joint efforts than others.
Mechanisms of collective cooperation are, practically, more fruitful than others
in carrying out the programme outlined above. These mechanisms cut across and
avoid ideological, legal and procedural hurdles. The scope of joint ventures
should also not be confined only to finance and implementation but should aim at
realizing organic linkage between Arab and African economies e.g.,
transportation routes, and deal with projects of mutual benefit, e.g., food security
projects. This way Arab and African production factors can be invested for the
benefit of both sides while realizing their self-sufficiency.
Joint development projects would achieve another objective, namely taking
advantage of experts who have emigrated to other parts of the world, and making
use of their knowledge, encouraging them to return to their homelands and thus
reinforcing their national cultural identities. Any foreign companies working on
these projects should be required to employ Arab and African experts and
technicians, thereby excluding foreign control.
Commercial exchanges between the two regions should be enhanced by:
introducing and informing each other of products and services; turning indirect
trade relations into direct ones and changing the direction of some of the regions’
trade with the outside world in such a way as to make it flow into Arab and
African markets. Long-term contracts would also secure continuity and allow
enough time to expand the scope of production given the availability of markets
and preferential treatment to the products of the joint projects.
Arab aid should be linked to development and should be a decisive factor in
consolidating independence. There is no point in making this aid conditional and
it should be facilitated by providing it in the form of Arab commodities or
services on a competitive and, if need be, preferential basis. This way, exchange
between the two sides will be encouraged and its base developed. I also
recommend that part of this aid be supplied in the form of credit facilities to
enhance exchange of commodities and strategic materials which serve the
development of basic industries and the industrialization of primary materials.
Involving non-governmental institutions in this cooperation as well as
governmental ones. The resources of industrial and technical federations,
chambers of commerce and other commercial and industrial institutions,
universities and technical and research centers, should be encouraged to support
government efforts.
Technical cooperation has not received due attention, despite the fact that it is the
main means of Israeli influence in Africa. It is unfortunate that this is so while
the resources of the Arab Fund for Technical Assistance to Arab and African
Countries are trying out. An appropriate selection of experts can enhance
cooperation between the two regions and yield returns which would dispense
with much of the huge financial aid whose goal is not clear and results uncertain.
Both sides have to survey their resources, establish data centers and exchange
information about them so as to be in a better position to benefit from them.
30
Ali Abu Sinn
I would like to discuss four subjects:
Amending the Cairo Charter
The experience of the means of cooperation established in accordance with the first AfroArab summit points to the need for amending the Cairo charter issued by this summit.
The performance of these mechanisms should. I believe, be discussed at the forthcoming
second summit. The interaction and penetrations which have taken place since the first
summit should also be another issue for discussion. This requires adding a new
paragraph or section on the goals of Afro-Arab cooperation, to the Cairo Declaration.
There is a growing demand for expanding the Standing Committee to include the Finance
Ministers as well as the Foreign Ministers, and expanding the Coordination Committee’s
membership. The role of the Standing Committee should also be discussed as well as the
possibility of enhancing its effectiveness.
Excluding the Mechanisms of Cooperation from Conflicts within each Regional
Organisation
Afro-Arab cooperation, as the unfortunate experience of the last years proved, should be
excluded from conflicts within each regional organization. Only then can the means of
cooperation regain their driving force and resume their functions.
The Future of Financial Cooperation
Despite the state of panic caused by the drop in oil prices, the future of Arab investments
in Africa and the rest of the Third World is encouraging. Arab investors now realize that
investing in the West is a total loss while investing in the Third World has better
prospects, to say the least. All that should be recommended here is that the Arabs direct
their investments in Africa to strategic materials, thereby making Africa a giver, not only
a receiver.
Israel, the Arab and Africa
Instead of being a cause of grief or deep concern to the Arabs, Israel’s return to Africa
should be looked at as a challenge rather than as a battle. Resuming diplomatic relations
with Israel does not make much difference since cultural, economic and military relations
existed even when those relations were severed. Let me mention the example of Jordan.
Jordan, when faced with a more advanced Israel, developed a sense of self-restraint and
reacted rationally to the challenge by trying to live up to the level of competition. This
style of facing the challenge and competing with Israel in Africa is more effective than
the boycott – though the latter should not be excluded from the picture.
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Yousef Al-Hassan
A Look at the Future of Bilateral Cooperation
Despite sharp criticisms by some commentators and discussants of Arab bilateral aid to
Africa, the fact remains that it has been fairly effective. In the 1970s the amount of this
aid reached $7 billion, and was also provided with easy conditions and, sometimes, with
preferential treatment.
Coordination between the Arab country funds has made quite good progress. Aid
provided by them is now being directed toward infrastructural needs, having previously
been concentrated on subsidizing the balance of payments. The result has been clearly
felt in the economic improvement and development of the recipient countries.
Bilateral aid is presently being directed to joint ventures and diversified into different
fields such as technical and economic counseling, training, contributions to relatively
large projects, especially in conjunction with regional, international and Third World
financial institutions (e.g., the sugar factory project in Tanzania which was a joint venture
by India, the Arab Bank for Economic Development, the Abu Dhabi Fund and others).
The predominance of bilateral cooperation is attributed to the absence of a clear vision
and a joint strategy for economic action which in itself was counterproductive to
cooperation.
Recommendations
(a) Making bilateral cooperation a springboard for future joint ventures that would
consolidate Afro-Arab economic integration.
(b) Any cooperation, bilateral or multilateral, requires coordination between Arab
country funds and the Standing and Coordination Committees of Afro-Arab
Cooperation, so that bilateral cooperation is in harmony with the multilateral
type.
(c) Developing trade relations and according preferential treatment to the products
of joint projects. Trade agreements should also include boycotting Israel and
South Africa.
(d) Excluding the participation of any countries which have a colonialist history.
Experts should be either Arab, African or from the Third World.
(e) Securing guarantees and incentives for Arab capital. The African side should
invest Arab capital adequately and avoid repeating the problems that have beset
bilateral development projects in the past. The African side should also
encourage intellectuals and professionals to work toward the natural cultural
flow between the Arabs and the Africans.
32
A Future Look
A hard effort should be made to liberate Afro-Arab cooperation from dependence due to
the lack of technological expertise and investment. Arab and African technological selfsufficiency should be a major objective.
The anticipated future reduction of Arab aid, due to the drop in oil prices will affect only
future projects, not the current ones, and the impact on all developing countries will be a
bad one.
Due to this, the role of the geographical linkage area countries will increase. However,
this depends upon their ability to realize Arab solidarity, to resist attempts at international
penetration and to avoid regional clashes.
It would be quite wrong to encourage bilateral action at the expense of the collective. A
joint strategy and philosophy should be reached so as to build on that which bilateral
action has achieved and to convert it into collective action.
There are still many dangers facing Arab action in Africa some of which are instigated by
foreign forces, some are motivated by regional ambitions and others reflect the remnants
of loyalties to colonialism. The Arabs should also avoid their chauvinistic attitude
toward Africa.
Finally, it is hard to see how bilateral cooperation can continue if the African position
toward Israel changes in favour of the latter.
Helmy Sharawi
The study of Afro-Arab cultural cooperation in the past decade, and the discussions
which took place at this seminar, show that this side of cooperation has only recently
been included in the institutional framework of cooperation.
Some discussants expressed their skepticism about the future of cultural cooperation,
especially following the drop of oil prices and the consequent possibility that financial
aid will be cut. I do not agree with this for two reasons. Firstly, the cultural relations
between the Arabs and the Africans are as old as history and such circumstantial
difficulties would not drastically affect them. Besides, bilateral cooperation, in its
different forms and perspectives, will not be affected. Secondly, I anticipate that the
opposite will happen.
Retraction of the wave of economic cooperation might very well make room for and
encourage cultural cooperation in order to maintain cooperation with the least costs, and
this would be supported by the fact that cultural relations have historical origins. A
cultural cooperation strategy should eliminate the problems which experience has shown
and stand on the following suggested foundations:
(a) Setting aside what may be called the ‘yellow-book Arab culture’, the very
classical and conservative one, which hardly appeals to modern life and to the
33
Africans. Modern Arab culture has not yet had a chance to reach the Africans
and the result is that the latter are entrenched in their own self-centred culture,
rather than being open to Arab culture.
(b) The Arabs should give some emphasis to translation and publishing in order to
reach the African mind either through the Arabic language or any other language.
The intelligentsia in any Third World area can play a leadership role in this sort
of activity and cooperation.
(c) Encouraging the Africans to learn Arabic on a mass scale.
(d) Intensifying contacts and communication between universities and research
centers, facilitating the exchange of professors between the two sides and
encouraging Arab intellectuals to attend different Arab cultural gatherings.
There must be a solution to what may be called the problem of duality of culture and
information, namely, that Arab information efforts to Africa (cinema, TV, video, etc.),
should go hand in hand with the Arab cultural message (books, seminars, etc.). The
triviality of the contents of Arab information sometimes hardly matches the contents of
the cultural message. This discrepancy damages the Arab cultural message in African
eyes.
If financial difficulties prevent carrying out such recommendations, I believe a part of the
purely economic channel of cooperation should be diverted to the cultural sphere.
All in all, giving the cultural side the concern which it deserves will certainly yield
significant results for reinforcing Afro-Arab cooperation.
Mohamed Fayek
At the conclusion of this seminar I would like to recommend that the Arab League
officially recognizes two of the most prominent national liberation movements in
Southern Africa; SWAPO in Namibia and the ANC in South Africa. A few weeks ago I
had the opportunity to meet Sam Neoma, the leader of the former, and Oliver Tambo, the
President of the latter, and learnt from them that they are looking forward for this step to
be taken by the Arabs. The status of these two organizations all over Africa is very
similar to that of the PLO in the Arab homeland. Besides the very positive effect which
such a step will create among the Africans, the Arabs should not forget that their support
for African liberation movements is not simply a political manoeuver to win the Africans
over, rather South Africa and Israel are two sides of the same coin and resisting the
former will affect the latter and vice versa.
Ahmed Idha Salim
The Future of Arab Communities in Africa
From the discussion on this issue it is clear that there is no uniform status of the Arab
communities in the different parts of Africa. My analysis of the status of the Arab
communities in East and Central Africa can thus by no means be general. I would thus
34
like to present an overall picture of the status of the Arab communities in the following
African countries and speculate on their future:
Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi
There is no cause for concern in the foreseeable future about the Arab communities in
these countries. Some developments have affected their status: for example, some young
Arabs have migrated to the Arab Gulf countries where, they have pursued different
interest from their ancestors and chosen modern education and professions.
Uganda
The future of the Arab community in Uganda is obscured by the domestic troubles which
followed the fall of Idi Amin. The Arabs, like the Indians (though on a smaller scale), are
the backbone of trade in Uganda and the struggle between the present regime and its
opposing forces might catch them in the middle. Unless Obuti succeeds in restoring law
and order many Arabs might leave this country.
Kenya
The status of the Arabs in Kenya is much better than it is in its two neighbours –
Tanzania and Uganda. Arabs have large economic interests and many of them intend to
remain and participate fully in the system. However, the attempted coup of August 1982
triggered subversion, and looting of homes and shops occurred. This created some
scepticism among the Arabs about their future, especially after they saw what happened
to the Indians. The problem is aggravated by the population explosion and the increase in
unemployment.
Tanzania
Both the number of Arabs in this country and their economic interests are limited, partly
because of the socialist nature of the system. A recent campaign against economic
subversives involved both Indian and Arab traders. But this campaign has no racial
motives behind it and it is unlikely that it would affect the status of the Arabs.
Finally, it is the duty of Arab countries to monitor the conditions of the Arab
communities in Africa, encourage them to be integrated in their countries of residence,
and assist in their repatriation to their countries of origin whenever necessary.
Mohamed Al-Mili
In order for the Afro-Arab countries to perform a basic and effective role in linking the
Arab homeland with Africa, an analysis of three categories of facts should be the starting
point: geopolitics; political and cultural impact; economic, technical and human
35
resources. Once these are borne in mind, an effective division of labour among the AfroArab countries can be started. But it still cannot be achieved unless certain basic
principles are observed, such as:
a. Ending the complex of fatalism and submissiveness, whereby the superpowers are
perceived to enjoy unlimited control of the peoples and their fate. (A determined
political will with a popular base can surmount the mightiest material power.)
b. Ending the codification complex, so to speak, namely to do everything according
to inherited commitments. Innovation and creativity should be the means of
seeing and behaving and new patterns should be introduced. Economic and social
structures, as well as rigid thinking, should be drastically changed.
There is no need for us to be reminded of the important role which Algeria played, and is
still playing, in Africa, as an example of the division of labour I am talking about. An
array of relations between it and Mali, Niger, Madagascar, Guinea-Bessau, Cape Verde,
Sao Tomé and Principe, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and others, reminds
us of the impact of the Algerian Revolution in Africa and the ‘radiation’ which returned
to it from the continent. A variety of channels and frameworks encompassed this
interaction, not least of which has been the opening of Algerian universities to African
students.
The task of the geographical linkage countries in Afro-Arab cooperation should depart,
firstly, from a well-designed strategy based on a deep study of priorities, and secondly,
from the need of these countries to rid themselves of narcissism, and the claim that some
of them monopolise truth. Thirdly, a thorough study of the experience of bilateral
agreements should be undertaken to assess their positive and negative aspects and,
accordingly, set the stage for new ones. Fourthly, a reassessment should be carried out of
the work of the different funds and institutions which have participated in cooperation
and new guidelines devised for their activities. And fifthly, the African dimension should
be included as a substantial ingredient of each and every bilateral agreement between any
two Arab countries. Committees of Arab countries ought to take Africa into account
when they consider joint ventures. The positive results of bilateral cooperation should be
built on and the people should be involved in all channels of cooperation and a minimum
degree of free discussion should be secured. This way the ‘mental’ structures can be
changed, mass consciousness of the issues of Afro-Arab cooperation can be mobilized,
and interaction between peoples can be fulfilled. Last but no least, self-criticism and
censorship, should be guaranteed in order to remind us of, and check, the devil within us.
36