Disunity prevails in the Maghreb

The ideal of a "United Maghreb", so ardently sought by Maghrebis, has somewhat eluded the leaders and the peoples of the five North African states (Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) for decades despite repeated calls for its implementation.

The Tripoli programme elaborated in May-June 1962 even before Algeria’s independence was quite explicit on Maghrebi cooperation and recalled with enthusiasm that "aspiration to unity was a just historical perspective”. Indeed, at the wake of independence, the idea of Maghreb Unity appeared the national conclusion to years of struggle against colonial rule. However, it had little impact if any after independence when new governments found themselves divided over border disputes, mutually contradictory economic interests, divergent political systems and alliances as well as being victims of ideological differences. Since their respective independence, the five Maghrebi states have developed a wider sense of national vision based on political and economic self-interest. Each Maghrebi state has policies either rooted in the nation's history such as Morocco and Tunisia or acquired after independence, as with Algeria and Mauritania for instance, or have developed even more recently as in the case of Libya since Gaddafi toppled King Idriss on September 1, 1969 and ultimately proclaimed the state of the masses " Jamahiriya".

It could be argued that the shared Afro-Berber and Arab-Islamic heritage alone should have contributed significantly to the adoption of a constructive approach to unity irrelevant of political and ideological differences. Yet, these affinities are played upon only to repulse a shared outside threat and even the common French colonial experience, with the exception of Libya, proved rather insufficient to help cement a widely sought-after political unity. The existing multi-secular affinities among the peoples of the Maghreb and the similarity of their historical destiny would have led us believe that their efforts to be free from colonial rule would have resulted in a regional set up highlighted by multi-lateral cooperation and the will to unite against foreign interference or social economic difficulties. To the bitter disappointment of the overwhelming majority of Maghrebis nothing of the kind has ever materialised.

The stumbling block, however, was generated by border disputes, newly-adopted ideologies, regional conflicts (Chad and the Western Sahara) but most importantly by the decisions and policies adopted on the morrow of independence especially by Boumedienne of Algeria and Gaddafi of Libya.

The advent of Gaddafi to the Maghrebi scene brought no immediate change at first to the political configuration of the region partly because the Libyan leader was not attracted by the idea of Maghreb unity as he pointed out: "The Maghreb is an important part of the Arab world which wants to isolate itself". He turned to the Mashrik (East) instead in quest of uniting his country with any Arab state willing to oblige especially Egypt. His admiration for President Nasser of Egypt was evident and reflected in the way he went about preaching for Nasser's Pan-Arabism which was en vogue at the time.

Gaddafi was enthralled with the vision of Arab unity as an ideal that could be realised under his own brand of Pan-Arabism. Therefore, Maghreb unity was at this stage relegated to a less prominent position. Gaddafi's philosophy is called "the third universal theory" and is supposed to provide an alternative to communism which is Godless and the capitalist system which is exploitative. He introduced the "Jamahiriya" concept (the state of the masses) and urged other neighbouring states to embrace the same "innovation" pointing out in his three volume "Green book" modelled on Mao Tse-Tung's "Little Red Book" that: "The Jamahiriya will be established everywhere".

When Algeria became independent in July 1962 an intense power struggle emerged within the leadership and a civil war was justly averted when Houari Boumedienne backed Ahmed Ben Bella as President. In an attempt to deflect attention from the ongoing bitter struggle for power in Algiers, Ben Bella simply refused point-blank to enter into negotiations with Morocco over frontiers and territories encroached upon by French colonialism despite an accord concluded on July 6, 1961 between the Moroccan government and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) stipulating the settling of frontiers "in a spirit of Maghrebi fraternity". The October 1963 "war of sands" between Morocco and Algeria left a climate of mistrust that was exacerbated further by the political challenge for hegemony dictated mainly by ideological principles. The Algerian leadership's staunch support for the sanctity of frontiers inherited from the colonial era benefited no other country in North Africa but Algeria. Territorial disputes have been lingering on for years between Algeria and its neighbours and remain a prominent obstacle to better relations with Libya and Morocco. Furthermore, ideological principles were magnified on the morrow of Algeria's independence so much so that governmental policies were based largely on ideological rhetoric which became the order of the day. Indeed, the first president of independent Algeria Ahmed Ben Bella, said once that "le socialisme est un large eventail qui va de celui de Fulbert Youlou a celui de Fidel Castro. Nous avons choisi Fidel !". This was emphasised further by the Algerian President Boumedienne (1965-1978) who declared that "the Algerian revolution cannot be contained within our frontiers. It will only be successful if it encompasses Morocco and Tunisia". Such statements illustrate to a large extent the political approaches adopted in the post colonial era and magnify further the deviation from the policies and aspirations instilled throughout the period of struggle for independence. Boumedienne envisaged a United Maghreb only along Algerian ideological line which, in June 1975, he called "a people's Maghreb ".This concept was based on demarcated frontiers drawn by the colonial power and amenable to Algerian influence and the Western Saharan issue is a case in point. Boumedienne's call for a "United People's Maghreb" meant unity must be achieved through the alignment of the Moroccan and Tunisian regimes with Algeria's own radical socialist doctrine and nothing else would be acceptable.