The Arab-african Connection

Political And Economic Realities

Victor T Le Vine, Timothy W Luke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367290160
• eBook ISBN: 9781000314670
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Between June 1967 and the end of 1973, most independent Black African states abandoned their neutral position in the Middle East conflict, cut their ties with Israel, and gave full support to the political aims of the Arab states. Since the beginning of 1974, however, and despite attempts by the Arabs to shield their new allies from the adverse effects of the 1973-74 world oil and economic crises, the alliance has begun to fragment as the African states become transformed from partners to clients and dependents of the Arabs. This study examines the roots of the African conversion, the nature of the evolving relationship between the African and Arab states, and the reasons—economic and political—for the transformation of the alliance. Basic to that transformation, the authors argue, is a fundamental change in the international status and power of the Arab states, a change that has led them to cast their lot with the industrialized "First World" rather than with the poorer, less developed countries.

1
The Search for Arab-African Commonalities, 1945-73

Until well into the middle of the nineteenth century, Black Africa's relations with the Arab north African littoral and Middle East hinged on the slow spread of Islam and Arab culture into the sub-Saharan fringe and coastal East Africa, as well as on the ebb and flow of trade between the Arab world and West and East Africa. The religious and cultural mission of the Arabs tended, however, to be clouded by the Arab role in the slave trade, a role that predated European colonialism and expanded as Arab slavers became willing accomplices in the growing European share of that market. It is hardly surprising that the experience left a residue of African suspicions of Arab intentions, and, as Arye Oded (1974:34-47) and various African sources have demonstrated, that memory remains alive today in many African minds.¹ By the last third of the nineteenth century, the European colonial powers had, by and large, brought slavery to an end, and their rule had stabilized both the Islamic presence and the indigenous expressions of Arab culture. European colonialism, both in Africa and the Middle East, also placed existing Arab-African contacts on an institutionalized basis, be it within the framework of a French African empire that included the Maghreb and much of West Africa or within the larger structures of imperial European trade and political relations.

The net effect of the European presence was, on the one hand, to freeze Arab-African contacts at the official level, but, on the other, to contribute to an expansion of Islam on the continent. Pierre Rondot makes the point: "The development of means of communication, which multiplied the occasions for contact, and the expansion of trade, for which Muslims have always been particularly gifted, created conditions propitious for the spread of Islam" (1977:10). Add to this the steady growth of the numbers of African Muslims going on the haji ^to Mecca and the extraordinary role of Al-Azhar University in training literally thousands of Black African Muslims (Cuoq, 1977:6, 7; see also Cuoq, 1975; Vermont, 1972; Ismael, 1968, 1971; Baulin, 1962; Froelich, 1965a, 1965b, 1968), and it becomes clear that by the advent of the Second World War an important Arab socioreligious presence had become commonplace in much of Black Africa.² That presence, of course, was not universally welcome, and in any case tended to be subject to the restraints and controls exercised by the colonial administrations.

The fifteen-year period after the end of World War II saw the emergence of nationalist movements on both sides of the Sahara and growing contact between the respective leaderships of Black African and north African groups. Initially Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian nationalists sought and found most of their international support among (mostly) anticolonial left French circles, as well as among the core of anticolonial sentiment organized within the United Nations. That orientation began to change as the Israelis consciously sought to leapfrog the circle of their Arab enemies by seeking friends and allies in Black Africa and, even more decisively, when Colonel Nasser, in his Philosophy of the Revolution (1954:69), reminded the Arab world of its obligations to and opportunities in what he called "the Second Circle—the African Continent Circle" of Arab involvement.

There is little evidence that Nasser's initial concern about Africa went beyond an interest in stimulating regional political-economic cooperation, but there is no question that he soon began to see Afro-Israeli contacts as part of a wider plan by Israel and its Western backers to stage a counterencirclement of the Arab states, something which all Arabs were duty-bound to combat (see also Cremeans, 1973:271-72; Thompson, 1969:49). Hence his continuing campaign—increasingly successful over time—to have every meeting with Africans vote resolutions on Palestine and Israel's role as a tool of Western imperialism.

It is also fair at this point to note that Nasser's reference to the African "Second Circle" was followed by an admonition that "We certainly cannot. . . relinquish our responsibility to help spread the light of knowledge and civilization to the very depth of the virgin jungles of the Continent" (Nasser, 1954:69). The sentence, which seemed to some Africans to contain unfortunate echoes of an Arab version of the European mission civilisatrice, served to increase rather than mitigate African suspicions. Akinsanya (1976:512-13) puts it succinctly: "The role that Nasser envisaged for Egypt in Africa smacks of a latterday version of the 'White man's burden', complete with references to Egypt's 'manifest destiny' and 'civilizing mission' in the 'interior of the Dark Continent.' "In the event, as the other north African states gained their independence one by one, contacts with African nationalists increased in number and importance.

From the African perspective, the experience of the north African nationalists provided valuable lessons in the decolonization process, and insofar as the new north African regimes projected both "radical" and anticolonial stances, a commonality of political interests could gradually emerge. That commonality, to be sure, was initially quite circumscribed; it consisted, on the one hand, of a qualified African willingness to support Arab resolutions on the Middle East conflict offered at Bandung and various subsequent African, Afro-Asian, and "nonaligned" conferences, and, on the other, of Arab support of UN and other international organizations' resolutions and decisions favoring African interests plus (after 1957) the grant of sanctuary and other assistance to a mixed lot of African "liberation" groups. This general statement does not include the more formal Arab contacts with Africa: the establishment of diplomatic relations with newly independent African states, the inclusion of Arab units within the UN force in the Congo during 1960-64 (Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco sent troops), some trade linkages, cultural emissaries and exchanges, etc. Again, as there is already a relatively extensive literature on the character of these contacts, there is no need to detail them here (Cremeans, 1973; Ismael, 1971; Kerekes, 1961; Mwamba, 1975); it is sufficient for our purposes to note several divergent patterns in those relations, up to 1963.

It was noted that the initial, post-1945 African-Arab contacts tended to be both circumscribed and qualified. The reasons for this lay in a combination of Arab arrogance and African suspicion, the one fostered by the unique political-cultural thrust of Arab nationalism, the other fed by old stereotypes and by what appeared to be ambiguities or contradictions in the African policies pursued by various Arab states. And throughout this period, excellent African-Israeli relations, as well as an African reluctance to become embroiled in the Middle East conflict, tended to keep African and Arab states at arm's length.

On the Arab side, Lorna Hahn (1975:4) suggests that "in some instances, the anti-colonial struggle led Arabs (particularly in North Africa) to emphasize Arab contributions to world civilization—in contrast to the apparent lack of such contributions by Black Africans—as an indication of their own fitness for independence." French use of Black African troops to control Syrian and Lebanese uprisings in 1945 and to combat Algerian revolutionaries between 1954 and 1962 helped to create some anti-African feeling, as did the visible reluctance of African nationalists to join the anti-Israeli camp in exchange for Arab support of their causes. Nasser best expressed the underlying Arab view: the Arabs (in particular, the Egyptians) were Africa's natural leaders, a point suggesting no small measure of cultural and political chauvinism. "The U.A.R.," said Nasser, "has the responsibility of leading the fight for liberty and economic progress in Africa" (quoted in Baulin, 1962:44). African leaders, for their part, often found it difficult to overlook what seemed to be Arab airs of superiority, and in any case disputed Arab claims to leadership in the African nationalist struggle. That claim was finally laid to rest at the First African Summit Conference in Addis Ababa in 1963 (at which the Organization of African Unity was founded), but not before the epitome of the dispute—the rivalry between Nasser and Nkrumah—had helped to foster important divisions within the African camp (Thompson, 1969; Legum 1965). Again, the details need not detain us here; what is important to note is that the most significant of these divisions, that between the so-called moderate (the Monrovia bloc) and radical African states (the Casablanca bloc) contained an Arab dimension that served to exacerbate rather than mitigate the split. Briefly recalled, the latter bloc was the outcome of a conference in Casablanca at the beginning of 1961 of the heads of state of Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, the provisional government of Algeria, and the representatives of Libya and Ceylon. Libya seems to have attended by mistake, and Ceylon was clearly odd man out, but the group drew up a charter characterized by a series of aggressively political—even "radical"—postures on such questions as the UN's involvement in the Congo, the liquidation of imperialism and neocolonialism, and nonalignment. The conference also favored intensified efforts to create a joint African High Command of Chiefs of Staff, an idea which made the Egyptians unhappy "because Ghana's armed forces were still officered by Britons and trained by Israelis, with whom Egypt could hardly be expected to cooperate and share military information" (Jansen, 1966:275). It was one of the few discordant notes struck at the conference. Apart from statements of common purpose, to please Morocco, the group denounced Mauritania, a member of the Monrovia group and against which Morocco then had territorial claims; "and to please the three Arab states, the group denounced Israel, with whom many of the Monrovia states (and Ghana)" had "good relations" (Jansen, 1966:275).

Perhaps most significant for the "moderate" African states, the Casablanca alliance not only crystallized a much more radical view of pan-Africanism than the one they shared, but also provided legitimacy for a campaign of violent political subversion against them espoused by Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, and now joined by three north African Arab states. By 1957, Egypt had already become a major center for African political exiles—providing them with quarters, logistical and financial help, military training, and access to Radio Free Africa, which beamed their messages to all parts of the continent (Ismael, 1971; Tibi, 1971). It can hardly have been reassuring to the "moderates" that among the groups receiving aid from Nasser were exiles from such Monrovia states as Cameroon, Gabon, Congo/Brazzaville, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Niger, Nigeria, and Mauritania. After 1961, Algeria and Morocco also offered both haven and assistance to many of these same exiles.

Thus, it was not surprising that when, in 1963, President Nkrumah—with quiet Arab help—sought to push his views on continental political unity at Addis Ababa, he was rebuffed by the majority of African states. The Arabs were barely able to mention their favorite topic (Egyptian Foreign Minister Fawzy declared that he had not raised, nor would he raise, the issue of Israel), and even Nasser now took the opportunity to reverse course, asserting that economic integration must come before political unity and offering himself as a disinterested mediator in African disputes (Woronoff, 1970:125-54; Jansen, 1966:351 -66).

It is fair to say that Addis probably represented the nadir of postwar African-Arab relations. Even Nkrumah, who had broken with Nasser soon after Casablanca (without also offering reconciliation to his neighbors), now declared the end of the Casablanca bloc and joined his Guineán and Malien colleagues in the new Organization of African Unity. The Moroccans and Algerians offered similar olive branches. The net effect of all these moves, and of the patent victory of the Monrovia bloc, was to isolate Egypt, increase African suspicions of Arab intentions, and, to visible Arab dismay, vindicate African-Israeli ties. Yet, in four years the situation was to change drastically again, resulting in the inauguration of a new period of close Arab-African relations. We turn briefly to the dynamics of that change.

Patently, the new era began in 1967, with the June Arab-Israeli war marking the turning point. To be sure, just before, during, and immediately after the June war, most African states remained openly sympathetic to Israel, even rejecting initiatives for a special meeting of the OAU on the Middle Eastern situation. By the time the special UN session met in mid-June at the request of the Soviet Union, the African positions had begun to shift as new cross-pressures were brought to bear, but not sufficiently to prevent some seventeen of the thirty-two subSaharan states from voting for a nominally "pro-Israeli" Latin American resolution. The defections, however, were notable: Zambia, Congo/Kinshasa, and Tanzania, hitherto considered securely pro-Israeli and grateful recipients of Israeli aid, all voted "No" on the Latin American resolution. Tanzania's Nyerere, long a friend of Israel, not only offered aid to Nasser "in defense of your rights against imperialism," but in the UN thereafter followed a consistently pro-Arab line. (Tanzania did not, however, break diplomatic relations or expel Israeli technicians until later.) Guinea did break relations with Israel in 1967, and the governments of Mali, Mauritania, and Somalia issued strongly pro-Arab statements before and after the war. Also at the June UN meetings, Burundi, Congo/Brazzaville, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia (as well as Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, and Tanzania) voted in favor of a "nonaligned" Yugoslav (read Russian) resolution generally considered pro-Arab; Nigeria and Gabon also supported the resolution, but equivocally (Decalo, 1967:57-61). (A virulently anti-Israel resolution introduced by Albania, which, among other things, implicated the U.S. and Britain in "premeditated armed aggression," received only one African vote—that of Mauritania.)

As time passed, direct and indirect African support for Israel in the UN, the OAU, and at various international conferences began to wane. By September 1973, when the Fourth Non-Aligned Summit Conference met in Algiers, representatives from thirty-four African and eighteen Arab states agreed on a strong resolution condemning both Zionism and Israel. From Algiers, many heads of state proceeded to New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly, where attacks on Zionism and Israel increased, and more African states began to announce breaks with Israel.³ On October 6, the "Yom Kippur-10 Ramadan" War was started, and the list of African states breaking relations with Israel grew even longer. By mid-November 1973, all African states with the exceptions of Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Mauritius had severed their ties with Israel. To the partisans of these developments, the marriage between Africans and Arabs had finally been consummated, and the future could only bring blessings for all concerned. Even Ali Mazrui, who from time to time felt the need to remind the Arabs that their best friends are Africans, saw in these (and later) events a process whereby the Middle East and Africa had begun to merge "into a single international subsystem" (1975b:30).

2
1973-78: The Honeymoon and Its Unhappy Aftermath

Clearly, by the end of 1973 Arabs and Africans appeared to have found the commonality that had so long eluded them. Arab and—at least initially—African analysts of the Afro-Arab rapprochement have tended to see it as the result of a combination of factors, all of which point to what amounted to successful conversion of each side to the other's most urgent causes and preoccupations. The Africans, it has been argued, had now come to appreciate the Arab position in the conflict with Israel, to understand the true nature of Israel as an agent of imperialism, and to see the justice of the Palestinian cause. The Arabs, for their part, now saw the significance of the struggle in southern Africa, the need for African unity and solidarity, and the real dimensions of the Western neocolonialist threat to the continent. Both sides could now share in the benefits conferred by unity in a common struggle against common enemies.⁴

We maintain that these explanations contain some small reflections of reality—but not much more. By and large, they appear to be post hoc rationalizations, concealing a much more complex interplay of self-interested policies and behaviors. We argue that though the catalyst for the change was a dramatic, qualitative change in the Arab-Israeli conflict, it was the extraordinary success of Arab diplomacy in Africa, coupled with Israeli difficulties and the Arabs' shrewd use of money and oil as weapons of political and economic persuasion, that ultimately led to the new alliance.

The Israelis undoubtedly contributed, albeit unwillingly, to the Arab-African rapprochement. The Israeli presence in Africa, motivated in part by an effort to seek allies in its quest for a negotiated settlement of its dispute with the Arabs, eventually became counterproductive. For one thing, as Israeli officials involved in the effort now admit, Israel undoubtedly overextended itself by attempting too many projects in too many places, was unable to provide complementary capital backing for some projects it helped plan and actually initiated, and, in general, found it difficult to say no when asked to join in projects of doubtful merit or with political overtones. Thus, Israel probably helped raise expectations about its assistance that it could only partially, or not at all, fulfill. Also, as Richard Bissell observes, however useful the Israelis made themselves in Africa, their extended presence made them available as scapegoats for developmental failures, the multiplication of military coups d'etat, and increasingly unfavorable balances of trade. "To some degree, Israel suffered simply because her diplomats had been in Africa long enough to make enemies" (1976:159; see also Kreinin, 1964; Amir, 1974; Gitelson, 1976). Bissell's argument may seem somewhat simplistic, but it still makes considerable sense. Where, for example, Israel had helped train paramilitary or military elements in various African countries and these were involved in coups, Israel could be blamed. Where Israeli advisers had helped set up cooperatives and these failed, Israel could be blamed. Where Israeli advisers had helped build and run tourist hotels and not enough tourists showed up to make them economically viable, Israel could be blamed. The reason is simple: the Israeli connection was always inherently vulnerable because it was always politically marginal at best. It could, and did, become a liability when more serious interests were engaged. Israeli political miscues also helped. Certainly, the fact of close cooperation between Israel and South Africa, where a sizable Jewish minority had even provided Israel with support in its military struggles, could easily be exploited to demonstrate putative similarities and links between apartheid and Zionism. Israel also made the mistake of backing unpopular losers: for example, it provided aid to Biafra, and it maintained good relations with prerevolutionary Portugal, because of the usefulness of the Azores as a supply base (see in particular Mazrui, 1975b). To be sure, all of these connections might have appeared justified to the Israelis, but they could hardly have been expected to please their African friends, and once seized upon and magnified by Arab propagandists, what once could have been considered forgivable errors of policy began to register as part of a pattern of outrageous and gross anti-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. The Search for Arab-African Commonalities, 1945-73
• 2. 1973-78: The Honeymoon and Its Unhappy Aftermath
• 3. The Economic Consequences of the 1973-74 Oil Crisis on African Countries
• 4. The Response of International Aid Institutions
• 5. Arab-African Relations and International Summitry
• 6. The Arab Developmental World
• 7. The Arabs and Africa: A Changing Relationship
• Appendixes
• Notes
• References
• Index