Things You Should Know About the Maghreb

Part I:

Definition

The use of regional or sub-regional terminology such as North Africa or al—Maghreb is only essentially pragmatic. The concept of North Africa was first used during the Second World War to designate the Sub-region of the Middle East, including the Western Desert of Egypt and Libya. European researchers later extended the region to include the whole of the Mediterranean Sea and the steeple lands of the continent which the Arab geographers called Jazeera Al—Maghreb (Island of the West) and European had known as Barbary. Today North Africa defined within the framework of the Arab Maghreb Union comprises Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania excluding Egypt and Sudan. Moreover, Libya was known as the United Kingdom of Libya and a federation of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan. Before the Germans and Italians occupation of Libya, the country had been under British and French military administrations.

Geographic Location

The present-day Maghreb has had an extended but complicated history. Situated at the crossroads of 3 great civilizations to wit Islamic, African, and European, the Maghreb has been challenging to define. Researchers often call it African, Arab and European and the mixture of all. Like Australia in Asia (not merely naming it for the position it occupies on the map), the Maghrebian nations are unique into themselves; they are an exciting amalgamation of peoples and civilizations. With a long history of political and social relations with the Mediterranean, a link between Southern Europe and North Africa, the Maghreb plied ships along with the Mediterranean Sea trading in goods and carrying ideas from one side to the other. Through commerce, the region’s links further go far to the Sahara Desert and beyond to the strata of the rest of Africa.

Culture

The culture of North Africans is a culmination of so-called dark-colored peoples of Central Africa who encountered the native Berbers of North Africa and the Arabs of the Middle East who had swept across the rim of the continent in search of a new empire. Even though the Arab had absorbed the effects of these cultural strands, the Maghreb nations have not lost their way of life (at least generally).

United in Diversity

The five Arab states viz Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania of present-day North Africa referred to herein as member countries of the Arab Maghreb Union or simply the Maghreb have a great deal in common and virtually belong to a single civilization; yet, heterogeneities run deep in them. In time, scads of people have inhabited the Maghreb. First the Phoenicians followed by Carthaginians, Romans, Latinas, Jews, Indo—Germanic groups (the Vandals), the Berbers, Turks, Arabs, and the Europeans. The Arabs arrived in two waves in the first millennium before Christ viz the seventh and eighth and the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The influence of the Arab was the greatest and remained so. That is why more than two—thirds of the population speak the Arabic language as their mother tongue and one-quarter Berber. French is widely spoken particularly among the intelligentsia, the upper and middle classes in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Mauritania. Inhabitants of Northern Morocco speak the Spanish language; Italian and English in Libya and to a limited number in Tunisia. This linguistic mosaic is the aftermath of European colonization in the region.  

The Establishment of the Arab Maghreb Union

The need to establish Maghreb Union (AMU) which opts for increasing regional cooperation and creation of a common market like the EU stemmed from several reasons many of which differed from individual member—states. Some Maghrebian States are rich in capital and relatively weak in human resources. The situation is a direct contrast with others. Even when two or more states possessed similar agricultural resource, there is diversity in the method and type of farming. The urge to uniting these different institutions has been resounded throughout generations yet; only little effort has been made to achieve the ultimate objective.

Maghrebian nations thought and ardently hoped that the Treaty of Marrakech signed on the 17 February 1989 by the Heads of State of the 5 Maghrebian States namely King Hassan II of the Kingdom of Morocco, the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Algeria, the Republic of Tunisia and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania culminating in the birth of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) would bring home the long-awaited Maghreb Unity. AMU’s Treaty particularly banded member countries to the pursuit of joint preservation of lasting peace and security in the region. Despite the geographical proximity, historical and cultural, and socio-economic similarities the Maghrebian States share, they also have distinct dissimilar natural resources.

References

The Middle East & North African 1990. Europa Publications Limited, 1989

Steel, R. (1967). North Africa. New York: H.W. Wilson Company

Peter Beaumont et al. The Huddle East (New York: Halsted Press, 198B) p.3

 Douglas Eliot-Ashford, Morocco — Tunisia. Politics and Planning (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press. 1965

Romdhani, Oussama. “The Arab Maghreb Union: Toward North African Integration.” American-Arab Affairs, spring 1989