Common Arab action perspectives? A vision between reality and fiction – Mohammed Abdul – Shafi & # 39; Issa

The Algerian sister has almost returned to Cairo (as stated in our previous article on the pages of "Sunrise") until I receive a generous invitation from Green Tunisia. It was a joint call from the "Center of the Arab League in Tunis" (signed by the President of the Center, our friend Hamam Abdel Latif Obaid) and "the Tunisian Institute of Science and Technology". strategic studies "and its director, Dr. Naji Jaloul. The purpose of the invitation was to participate in a one-day seminar (Wednesday, March 13) at the Presidential House in Carthage on the theme "The bets of a common Arab action in the light of the regional and international changes ". I proposed to the organizers to discuss the question: (What prospects for Arab economic integration?). But Dr. Abdul-Latif Obaid, relieved of the confusion, suggested that I review several future scenarios on the subject. And it was so. I do not need to talk about the experience of Arab work, which is infamous for its past and lessons, to which our friend Dr. Hakim Ben Hamouda (former Tunisian Finance Minister) attended. What was difficult to say in the time available (twenty or thirty minutes), and participants were an elite group of Tunisian elite, intellectuals and diplomatic profession …?
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The first is the continuation of the present situation in the future, the second represents a moderate adjustment of this situation and the third represents a radical change in the direction of building a vision for the future. Totally new. The scenario of maintaining the status quo is a truly catastrophic alternative. The experience of Arab economic cooperation and integration – at the official level – since the creation of the League of Arab States in 1945 to the present, in seventy years, nearly three quarters of a century, In the context of a particular entrance to the integration is the so-called commercial entrance. In the case of the Arab countries, this approach involved promoting trade, but without any serious attempt to move from trade to the wider economy, particularly in terms of the recreation of productive productive policies.
The proof is that intra-Arab trade has not increased by more than 10% of the total foreign trade of Arab countries, and has increased or decreased from time to time.
Despite the positive work of establishing the Great Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) and its full entry into force since 2005, with the total elimination of customs duties and (royalties of similar effect) on traded goods, she suffers from many problems well known to specialists. Thus, the first scenario, which concerns the extension of the status quo in the future, represents the failure of the purely commercial approach of Arab economic integration.
An attempt has been made to circumvent the failure of the commercial approach to Arab integration by establishing sub-formulas, represented by several experiments, some of which still exist, although only one foot has occurred in the recent period (the Gulf Cooperation Council), "on paper". (Arab Maghreb Union) and part of the Arab Cooperation Council of the late 1980s, which included Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Iraq.
The second scenario, which I have seen possible, assuming that there is an effective pressure force from Arab social roots, can solve the problems that lead to the failure of commercial entry, particularly with respect to conclusion of an agreement on "rules of origin" and "non-tariff barriers". Organization of commercial services … etc. In addition, it is possible to access the commercial entry of the "development gateway", particularly with regard to the coordination of economic policies to cope with the expected development of intra-regional trade. Thirdly, the GCC and the Arab Maghreb Union can be reactivated by establishing bridges between each of them as a subgroup and between the large Arab group represented by the joint Arab labor institutions sponsored by the League. Arab States. When we talk about such bridges between Arab countries, brilliant and Maghreb, we exclude examples of new formulations associated with certain regional blocks, such as the Agadir Agreement between Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan . The latter agreement aims to encourage (partnership) between the Arab countries concerned and the European Union on the basis of the application of the rule of "Turkmen origin". This means that goods produced in the four Arab countries together, from components imported from EU Member States, can benefit from preferential tariff treatment in the latter countries if the common Arab component reaches 40%.
He found that even if the second scenario was realized, it did not meet Arab aspirations to build an Arab economic community, which is an active force in international relations in general and in the structure of the regional system in particular. In the light of the current stalemate in what could be called the historical and civilizational perspective (the Arab-Islamic central region), the need arises in the light of the conflict between Arab countries, a part, or between them, and between the two Iranian and Turkish nations, other. Foreign penetration and various internal factors.
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I have therefore tried to present a futuristic vision of Arab economic integration as "optimal scenario" or "third radical scenario". The attempt to imagine this scenario aroused the interest of symposium participants, ranging from disapproval to laudable attempt in principle, and the language of a few others was: (It is OK to try to anyway), and echoed one of the friends, this language, the words of the old poet:
Muna if you are really the best Muna … Otherwise we live for a long time Raghda
But my basic hypothesis or argument was based on the following facts:
1. The successful experiences of unification and integration in the history of the modern and contemporary world relied on the active role of one of the forces capable of directing the unification process. and integration, both at the level of social elites and elites of power. From the nineteenth century, the experience of the European Union after the Second World War, etc.).

Relative success, then failure and failure in the Arab integration process is linked to relative success, or failure and failure, in the role of the main axis represented by the Egyptian state in particular . When Egypt's role was active, unifying and integrative, relatively successful experiences of Arab unity and integration processes were achieved in the 1950s and 1960s in particular.
This was due to the relatively high economic and cultural capacity of Egypt in its Arab environment and to the monotheistic political will of the Nasserist leaders. However, when Egypt withdrew after the October 1973 war, and particularly because of the repercussions of the unilateral settlement of the Arab-Zionist conflict since Camp David in 1977, the "unity projects" ceased and the experiments integration have failed.
(3) Egypt, in its current situation and only a few decades ago, no longer has the comparative advantage in the Arab region, both economically and culturally; it has therefore lacked the "power factor" and now lacks the desire factor "to conduct a common Arab action because of the emergence of fractional tendencies." (Qatar) in Arab countries without exception (including Egypt). This has been aggravated by the tendency of segments of the cultural elite of Arab countries to adopt an unreliable "Islamic" perspective, in addition to the "dramatic" errors of some Arab regimes in the absence of the prime role. In the case of the sequence of foreign infiltration (Western and American) in the Arab case, nothing is false.

4. Achieving the desired hope of an effective Arab economic community within the regional and international systems can no longer be suspended from the role of a single Egyptian ruler, a role that is not more appreciated or desired. At the fundamental level and at the heart of the cultural elite, it is necessary to build a new leadership axis, not as unique as in the 1950s and 1960s, but rather a collective axis bringing together a number of Arab forces with capacity and desire. In this context, I have provided some specialized details on what the hoped-for Arab Economic Community is and how to achieve it.

In the third scenario, we can imagine the "idealistic" scenario to see that the mobilization of Arab integration depends on two things: first, to build an independent position and a policy of independence vis-à-vis large international blocs, especially the Western bloc under US leadership. Secondly, the historical and cultural links with the desired future dimension between the Arab nation and the Iranian and Turkish nations should be above the factors of the present conflict on the basis of destructive divisions (such as Sunni, Shiite, etc.). This in turn guarantees the construction of a joint Iran-Iranian force capable of confronting, by various means, the historical enemies of the three nations, the first of which is an enemy known and recognized in the framework of the United States. a purely racist state project, United Nations in 1974 that (Zionism is a picture of racism), which was made after the known pressure.
… At the end of my intervention in the seminar held in Tunisia, Tunisia, I said that what you mentioned could enter the section "Imagination", then I said: (Have We surpassed the imagination, why not ..? We realized cultural receivers without hope projects on paper On the pages of the ether, that our imagination is a prelude to our work and a bright future , from this fertile imagination.