Former Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy writes: Serious cooperation from the Arab world is better than unrealistic conformity of its positions

After the establishment of the Arab League in the first half of the last century, the Arab world acted at a rapid pace to circumvent a unique collective concept of Arab interests and positions and overused phrases such as “congruence of positions” and “consensus. Arabic ”, and even in the absence of this, expressions and trends that have collided In another fact, that is to say with the availability of several elements that unite us historically and culturally, but also politically when the threat is not Arab, such as those related to the rights of Arabs against the foreign occupier, and that there was no real and stable consensus on many other issues and details, especially in what is related national interests or priorities, and this appears sometimes between conservative monarchies and progressive republics, and at other times between republics and monarchies themselves.
Despite this natural difference, we have exaggerated the use of expressions that give a false and illogical impression that Arabs still have identical positions in everything, until we have emptied these expressions of their meaning in the Arab arena. , and we have lost with time and repetition to describe the truth, much of our political credibility with our peoples. Among the repercussions of these exaggerations is the fact that a number of foreign countries have started to wait and wait to enter into strategic relations with Arab countries or defend their positions, unless there is an urgent and direct need that imposes on them, such as the need for Arab support in the international competition between the old eastern and western grouping, or requirements linked to energy sources or the search for Arab markets and resources.
It is no exaggeration to say that these exaggerations were serious mistakes of our Arab world which caused us to lose a lot of credibility, and as a result we paid a high price with our peoples and friends to meet the aspirations and management. rational expectations. , and a heavy price to curb our enemies and the illegitimate aspirations of Middle Eastern countries for Arab rights and interests.
Recently, questions have multiplied and repeated reflecting the concern about the general Arab situation, some in public, with more or less frankness, including the statement of our dear colleague, His Excellency Sabri Bou Kadoum, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria, when he spoke of “the lack of intention and political will to reform the Arab League”. This is a shocking statement, even if it can be sincere, knowing that I am sure that if the Algerian minister had been drawn up, he would have presented more and would approach several cases with great sorrow on the Arab situation from a different angle, all of them linked to the absence of “congruence or even consensus” in the positions. In many cases, even to Arab cooperation on a large number of important issues despite the enormous challenges we face.
For several considerations, Arab intellectual leadership over the last century was for the countries of the Arab North in North Africa and the North Levant, and most of the political currents and social trends emerged from their territories, and the countries The North had the center of Arab leadership, and its various connotations, including the choice of Cairo as the seat of the Arab League when it was established and was the first regional organization in 1945, as well as the main weight of the message of Arab nationalism. and the unity of the Arab world, also from the northern Arab world, but with the positive aspects of the message of Arab nationalism, it has lost much of its credibility to impose a total consensus or a clash between the Arab countries themselves- themselves and their focus on facing real dangers. And the delusional, instead of working in parallel on confrontation, development and true harmony instead of imaginary consensus and congruence, which are ideas that gradually lose their elegance and attractiveness, with the difference and diversity of problems and priorities between them region and another, and between the oldest and most modern Arab countries after their independence, as well as the divergence of priorities within the same state between the generations, with an increasing percentage of young people and their aspiration for the future.
With the diversity and multiplicity of challenges of the last century and the presence of Arab differences in the past, some Arab countries have rushed to form regional groups and national institutions, an evolution which is not necessarily harmful, as its goal is to activate cooperation between countries with similar characteristics and priorities. This also makes sense given the lack of development of the Arab concept and the ineffectiveness of joint action to deal with urgent issues. Among these institutions, the Gulf Cooperation Council, which developed a lot before the recent deadlock, and at lower levels were the Arab Cooperation Council and the Maghreb Union.
With the start of the Arab-Israeli peace process, especially after the Madrid Peace Conference in the early 1990s, we have seen a growing trend calling for the conversion of discourse on the Arab world and others into a conversation about the Middle East and the North. Africa, a name used to describe the efforts relating to future economic development efforts resulting from the Arab-Israeli peace, in accordance with the Tel Aviv approach, and also in harmony with the Iranian orientations, which were not part of the process of peace, but rather were opposed to it.
In this we have found an involuntary contact between the Arab self-fragmentation as a result of political and intellectual stagnation, for which we are primarily responsible, and the appeals and attempts of non-Arab parties in the Middle East and others. to limit the Arab consensus, because it is easier to deal with Arab countries individually than to deal with them, entirely as a political group.
With the growing gap between Arab discourse and reality and the decline in Arab credibility, since the last century, calls have been made for Arab isolationism and a focus on national or sub-regional priorities. It is a current which started openly in the north of the Arab world before moving to Morocco and the Gulf, and which is now developing more and more in many Arab countries, some with measures and public declarations, and in others by simply repeating fixed traditional positions without really working or trying to achieve them, which are superficial tendencies I do not agree with this, because the priority is always direct national interests and it will remain so, but it is in the interest of all the Arab countries to preserve the Arab political entity, while developing and evaluating the Arab discourse and our policy, so that it is more realistic and responsive to the aspirations of the peoples, without usurping the rights of others in our Arab world, or We carry to future generations the errors of the past and contemporary alignments. In my opinion, one of the most important ways to achieve this is to preserve the Arab identity and the points of convergence available between us, of which there are many, through more Arab cooperation and avoiding the semblance of perfection and compliance which is not available in all Arab countries. situations.