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North Africa's Newest Bloc
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15990 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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7 / 1989 |
2,581 Words |
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Mary-Jane Deeb
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The Bloc Age is back. In February 1989, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania announced the creation of their Arab Maghreb Union. They are not alone. The Arab world today is divided into three economic and political blocs, with almost every state a member. On the eve of the formation of the Arab Maghreb Union another alliance was declared in Baghdad between Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and the Yemen Arab Republic: the Arab Cooperation Council. Although ostensibly an economic union, it is also a political one. The third bloc is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); created in 1981, it includes most of the states of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus today only the Sudan, Syria, and South Yemen remain uncommitted to any regional bloc.
The implications of those new alignments in the Arab world may be far-reaching. There is no doubt that the whole region is experiencing changes that may be longer lasting than those of the past two decades. What we are witnessing today is the positioning of major regional powers outlining their sphere of influence and bringing it under their control. Demographically and militarily, the Egyptian/Iraqi--dominated bloc is the Saudi-controlled GCC is the most advantageous strategic location, controlling the better part of the Mediterranean shore on the southern flank of the NATO. It also represents one-third of the population of the Arab world, and its combined military forces are almost as large as those of Egypt. Finally, it has important natural resources, not the least of which are its oil and natural gas reserves, located close to the West.
Thus Arab politics is assuming new dimensions as the three blocs vie with each other for power. A new balance of power will emerge as the two weaker blocs, the Maghrebi Union and the GCC, pool their resources (economic and political) to protect their spheres of influence from encroaching Egyptian and Iraqi influence. The game of Arab politics may develop new rules and new strategies; and the Maghreb is ready to deal.
Within North Africa the union is already changing the political environment. Many border restrictions between the five states have been lifted, and people can move freely from one country to another with their passports or identity cards. The exchange of goods has also become freer, and citizens of states like Libya that lack many basic consumer goods are allowed to go "shopping" in neighboring Tunisia. Those new freedoms reduce the level of tension between states and lower the level of domestic resentment against unpopular government policies. They act as safety valves in a region that has witnessed a number of violent riots and intrastate conflicts in the past decade. The union therefore has an overall stabilizing effect on the Maghreb.
The economic integration of North Africa has other political ramifications. It is conducive to the liberalization of state-controlled economies such as Libya's and Algeria's, which may lead eventually to political liberalization. It is not accidental that when Algeria began encouraging private enterprise as a means of restoring confidence in its failing economy, it had to open up the political process as well and permit the creation of a multiparty system.
North African Common Market
In February 1989, the power positioning of the states of the Maghreb appeared to have finally ended. The three documents signed
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