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NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 19 APRIL 2010
Arab Africa: Leadership and Succession
North Africa’s Arab states are the half-billion population Europe’s near neighbours, and with distances shrinking all the time, are destined to more and more become trading partners with special EU deals.
Newnations has long reported Libya and because of its absolute and eccentric ruler Colonel Ghadaffi, its large deposits of high grade oil and gas so close to the European markets, it remains an important country to follow. Tunisia has long had a reputation as a good place to do business in
The influence of France in particular that brought westernisation, now brings Tunisia, as with some neighbours, a large influx of tourism. This influence is now regularly recharged as many of France’s Maghrebi immigrant population since WWII, that have successfully assimilated, are from Tunisia as well as Algeria and the kingdom of Morocco.
Egypt was at one time - being partly europeanised before other Arab countries, the doyen of the Arab world. Apart from its amazing early history, which towards its end had a co-destiny with the last centuries of the Roman Empire, it became significant once more with the advent of Islam. Indeed competing with Baghdad and Cordoba, a line of Caliphs flourished in Cairo, making it for a while secular capital of the faith. Another revival came with the uprising of the slave-soldiers, the Mamelukes, who created a military government that threw out the European crusaders from the middle-east and lasted for centuries, until the time of their conqueror, Napoleon. Egypt until relatively recent times was the only significant Arab player in world politics, but then along came the new wealth in the form of oil, changing the world, as well as the seating order at the Arab top table. Under the Ottomans these North African nations were a conglomeration of tribes resident in provinces of their empire, until following WWI when matters changed for ever. Only then did several now familiar Arab states move up from being tribal federations to become nation states.
We review here the question of leadership and succession to the established states in the main Arab-African countries.
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Also published on our blog: GEOPOLEMICS where readers comments are invited
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