New Local Initiatives, Neo colonialism, Islam and the Post colonial State

North Africans gaining independence constitutes one of the grand episodes of human success in the history of modern world. But the present remains the child of past. Direct forms of foreign or colonialist rule were removed but indirect forms still remained. These indirect forms of foreign control now proved hard to deal with. They drew their strength from outside interests and pressures, coming from the so called developed world of industrialism, as well as from shortages of North African experience and of course, from the frailties and failings of human nature. North Africans since independence have won victories for progress. They have also suffered defeats.

The costs of three quarter of century of colonialist possession proved much more difficult to meet than the liberators had foreseen, as the outside world, beset with the troubles of its own, proved far less helpful than had been expected. In these ‘young’ countries, the ardent hopes and plans of youth have had to wrestle even harder with problems left over from the past. Since the ending of empires in North Africa, the record in this region shows repeated efforts by its denizens, in spite of their failures and crimes, to use and enlarge their new freedoms whenever possible.

Local Initiatives and Neocolonialism in North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania)

Since North Africa form an integral part of Africa and the world, whatever happens here affects whole of Africa and the rest of the world, and the vice versa. The mistakes and confusions and miseries of post independence North Africa have to be seen as part of the world’s wider problem, how to build communities of people who work together with each other for the common good? The present unit primarily focuses on the conditions of North Africa in the immediate aftermath of its independence.

Gains of Independence

North Africa’s struggles for anti colonial liberation produced great and irreversible changes. They signaled the region’s entry into the modern world. They could now build national political systems, for present and future; and the power to reduce, or remove, foreign political controls. They gained power to experiment with different policies, solutions, constitutions and new ideas across the whole range of self government, to work towards new forms of unity within, and with other African nations. They got back the power to make government policy and learn from their mistakes in it. They brought memorable victories. They got keys to their own future and freedom to use those keys. They came to study and understand their own country, region and the continent. They took stock of their own capabilities and potentials, searched their own solutions to stand free. They began to develop their talents and energies, and gained a new self respect. They could now take their place in the councils of the world such as the United Nations, non aligned movement, etc.

They also reinforced the right of Africans in general and that of North Africa in particular. The greatest cultural gain of independence was the destruction of colonial weapon of racism. Free from the fetters of racism of the colonial powers, they became free to travel out of their home, came to know about the region, continent of Africa and became citizen of the world and equal with all mankind, and came to pursue the profession of their own. Social gains included the opportunity to build modern services in public health as well as public education, to bring benefits of modern science to the work of improving everyday conditions of life, to train qualified men and women for all services and to overcome ignorance or superstition about the causes of bad health and social conflict. Economic gains included the power to build national plans for national development, to command national resources, and to own and manage all kinds of business enterprise.

They also included the power to work with new kinds of economic policy, organization, and control; the opportunity to join, wherever possible, with other African (North African) countries in joint plans or enterprises. Above all, these economic gains gave independent countries the power to cut down, at least to some extent, the transfer of their wealth to countries overseas; and to use their wealth, more and more, for their own benefit. This was greatly different from the colonial days when they knew little about countries outside their colony.

Independence also brought setbacks and defeats, which were caused for the most part by inherited and unavoidable recurrent problems towards the final decades of 20th century. They were partly the legacy of the 80 years of colonial systems, and partly the legacy of their own history. Important in this context were the incompetence, corruption and misdirection of the leadership, factional or ethnical feuds, intra and inter state wars, and the ecological disasters that contributed to its continuing underdevelopment. They were partly the problems of great world factors: for example, the nature of the international economic system and its inequalities between rich and poor countries; the development of multi-national

Challenges of Independence

Corporations and their huge economic power to extract wealth; and the growing conflict between ‘West’ and ‘East’ (that is between the capitalist and the communist world blocs during the heydays of the cold war era. Each new nation, after independence, found itself tied to a whole system or network of economic controls and conditions, which were partly but inexorably exercised and imposed by the world economic system, and partly a carry over or continuation of the erstwhile system of colonial control and conditions. In the field of culture and education there was a big carry over from the colonial ideas and schools. Politically, the former colonial powers put limit on the powers of independence of the newly established countries through ‘convenient partners,’ through whom they sought to undermine any radical independence of thought and action. Such continued many sided indirect control by the erstwhile colonial powers and their partners over the African countries after the formal lowering of colonial flags is called ‘neo colonialism.’ Through this the new nations were closely tied with interests and needs of such outside powers. Sometimes such neo-colonial attempts were easy to see.

At other times, when economic pressures were used, the attempts were difficult to see, as in the treatment of interest-payment on national debts to foreign leaders or in refusal of the ‘developed’ countries to agree to pay better prices for the exports of former colonies. Some leaders of modern North Africa (in Africa as well) were unable or unwilling to oppose this neo colonialism; others set themselves to defeat it, Gaddafi in Libya for example. This struggle continues. All these factors affected the amount of independence and development that could be won and maintained during the post colonial era, and constitutes the central part of the history of the years since independence.

In addition to those mentioned above, all the new states, in these early years after independence, had to face the same real challenges. They were how to strengthen their internal political stability, their drive for economic development, and their unity of action both within and beyond national frontiers. Yet the new states were not all in the same situation. Some of them suffered from much bigger problems than others. Some were much poorer than others. So the story of what happened to them, after independence, has greatly differed. Some have succeeded very well, others very little. The differing conditions of decolonization greatly affected the individual countries after independence was finally won. In a number of colonies it proved possible, and sometimes easy, for the former colonial power to impose neo colonial limits on independence, and at least in the early years, to decide or direct the policies of the newly independent governments. But wherever colonized people were obliged to use their own counter violence of the colonial systems, the later imposition of neo colonial limits became more difficult to achieve, in Maghreb for example. These peoples could win their wars on independence only by destroying the colonial systems within their countries. In doing so, they greatly weakened the neocolonial threat. That was the compensation they could get against the sufferings of colonial warfare.

Political Legacy of Colonialism

Traditionally, North Africans had developed their own political systems. Often, they had built wide networks of regional zones of economic co-operation to their general advantage, such as the regional system of trade over vast regions northern Africa was the Fatimid or Almoravid gold dinar. Colonial rule forcefully destroyed these old and often prosperous regional networks of trade and agreements, instead imposed quite different colonial networks designed primarily to make North African labour and land serve the interests and profits of the colony owned powers. Afterwards they used policies of division that led to creation of ‘colonial tribalism’ between Berbers and Arabs.

Before independence, the struggle of the nationalists was to overcome it and unite peoples into nations. It was successful for the time being to bring political unity required to end colonial rule as a liberating force. But like elsewhere, the nationalism in North Africa, soon showed itself to be a contradictory force by becoming a source conflict. When colonial governments departed, they left the European means and methods of governance for new North African nations. They were constitutions and parliamentary systems on the British, French or some other European models based on Europe’s history and conditions but quite inappropriate to African conditions. They did not work and more often broke down, because they could not resolve the colonial legacy of tribalism or other divisions of the past. Another reason for their failure was a sharp contradiction between the acquisition of laws and habits of colonial dictatorship, and democratic laws or habits by the new states.

Colonialists while introducing such parliamentary system on the eve of their departure had overlooked the point that the colonial rule had been established and sustained in North Africa by brutal military conquest. The real legacy of colonial government in North Africa was that of an alien dictatorship, benevolent at times, but always crushed opposition. Many of the North Africa’s independence leaders had suffered periods of detention without trial for daring to speak out against the unjust and arbitrary nature of colonial authority. Thus, the colonial rule left a legacy of arbitrary and dictatorial rule in North Africa, which much of its leadership, the military in particular, tended to follow during the post-colonial period. With the breakdown of means and methods of government by the colonial rule, the resulting power vacuum came to be filled by military government of one or another type (in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, etc.).

Military Dictatorship

Politicization of military and militarization of government haunted most of the post colonial states in Africa in general and that of North Africa in particular. By 1970 military rule had become a serious African political option, as about half of Africa’s then independent states were being governed by one or other kind of military government. It remained the most frequent means for change of government through the 1970s and 1980s. As a serious political option, a number of interesting features can be observed about Africa’s military regimes, in North Africa in particular. Military often played a powerful role in the politics of the major pre colonial states. Armies inherited at independence had originally being founded as instruments of colonial conquest. Barring two world wars, North Africa’s armies during the colonial period had generally been kept in reserve for internal use against potential rebellious subjects rather than for defense of the country against potential hostile neighbors.

At independence they had little initial role to play beyond being part of the trappings of an independent nation state. But the special circumstances that characterized the North African states in the aftermath of their independence created ideal conditions for the military takeover in a number of them. The parliamentary and institutions, especially the multi-party systems, which were established in many newly independent North African states failed to overcome a destructive regionalism, fell victim to power intrigues and corruption. There was explosion of popular discontents owing to worsening economic conditions in many North African countries that undermined the law and order. Foreign interests in many weak countries sought to bring about a change of government in their favor. There were many ambitious persons who craved for power and privilege with the support of ‘elitist,’ clan or ‘tribalist’ groupings or the military. Such conditions had been observed in all over Africa that led to military dictatorships in many states.

In Africa in general many of the military coups d’état during 1960s were in reaction against inefficient and corrupt civilian regimes. Many patriotic military leaders stepped into a power vacuum caused by the failures of civilian rule and strove to establish stronger unity in their countries. They launched new experiments in national government, and were ready to hand back power to civilian rulers. Their aim was to ‘fill the gap’ until new and better forms of civilian rule could be devised. As such most coups against civilian regimes were initially welcomed. At least until they got into power, the military was known to be well disciplined and usually free of corruption.

The return of the military was welcomed as restoration of probity and discipline in public life. Specific grievances of military and conflict over policy issues also led to military takeover. The vulnerability of the African governments to military coups was starkly revealed in several cases. Gamal Abd al-Nasser, who overthrew the corrupt and oppressive regime of King Farouk and the old Ottoman landed aristocracy, and seized the control over Egypt by becoming its president in 1954. After his death Hosni Mubarak became Egypt’s dictator until he was ousted in 2010 by Arab Spring. Conflicts over policy issues, as expressed in the code word ‘Palestine is ours,’ was responsible for coup by Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 1969. Algeria was governed by military regime from 1965 that hardly tolerated any public dissent.

Gaddafi ruled Libya for 42 yeas until he became another victim of Arab Spring in 2012. Algeria was dominated by the one party presidency of FNL till 1990. Tunisia remained under the strict control of its pro Western president, Bourguiba, till 1987. Morocco was dominated by the ʿAlawite monarchy since independence. In due course the dictators became militarist bullies, brutal, tyrannical and as corrupt as their civilian counterparts, and acted as agents of foreign interests. Instead of solving people’s problems multiplied them. They had neither personal wisdom nor experience to bring peace to their countries. The brutal dictatorial regimes that had emerged from colonialism rejected multi party system as unworkable and at times promoted single party system. when faced with electoral defeat, they had simply suspended the constitution, secure in the knowledge that they would receive external recognition and support from one side or other during the cold war conflict. But with the end of cold war there has been a political transformation in North Africa, as military dictatorships and the moribund single-party states have almost universally given way to multi-party systems of democracy, especially in the context of Arab Spring.

Regionalism, Separatism, Elitism and Tribalism

As in other regions of Africa, in the post colonial era North Africa there were continuous political conflicts, both within individual countries and between neighbouring countries. Because national borders and movements of people were fluid before colonialism, the arbitrary borders, drawn by colonialists, have been in dispute in many areas throughout post colonial Africa. North Africa is no exception.

Since the boundaries of countries themselves were mostly totally artificial, as they were created at the whims of European politicians with little or no regard for North Africa’s multitude of pre colonial nation states and ‘stateless’ village communities, they have been contested. Peoples of widely different languages and political and cultural traditions had been cobbled together for European convenience. The widespread colonial use of ‘indirect rule’ further served to emphasize the differences. These people were now suddenly expected to feel at ease with systems of multiparty parliamentary democracy that had only evolved in the nation-states of Europe after centuries of conflict.

The artificiality of Africa’s national boundaries caused serious problems of ‘national’ unity after independence. The dual legacy of authoritarian rule and artificial nation states was to bedevil the political stability on the continent in the early years of North African independence. In this context the countries with a single dominant party headed by an inspiring national leader were not so much plagued by problems of national unity. But in countries with multi-party system at independence, political parties were based more upon the personal ethnic or regional origins of particular politicians than upon differing economic ideologies to guide the country’s future development. North African politicians may have been united in their anti colonial sentiments, but they were yet to think of themselves as part of a single nation.

Another problem of regionalism and separatism, once again arising from past history and the colonial legacy, was in Sudan. The cultural differences along with a legacy of acute colonial division have created one of the most intractable problems of regionalism and separatism in the African continent. About 4/5th of the country constitutes Muslims, speak Arabic and live in the north, west and centre of the Sudan. The remaining 1 or 5th live in the distant south, many of whom are Christians and a few Muslims. They speak Berber, Arabic Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk and other languages. Cultural differences in Sudan are centuries old dating back to penetration of Islam into the country.

They were sharpened during the Egyptian control during 19th century and the British control of the country afterwards. The British-built colonial system completely divided the Arabic-speaking Sudanese from the peoples in the far south. Instead of being able to know and trust each other, these two populations were kept severely apart. With the coming of independence in 1956, the majority Muslim Sudanese took control over the country and its governance structure, and did little to allow the peoples in far south to have a share power on a federal basis. They simply send their official to take the place of British there. Little room was left for overcoming the old distrusts and differences between north and south. The southerners had good reasons to fear northern domination. They formed an army of liberation, called Anyanya, which took the field against the central government’s police and army. There was a chance for peace in 1972, when the Sudanese government granted southerners their own parliament and government, with Anyanya withdrawing its demand for a separate state. Once again the means and methods left by the colonial government broke down. A time of experiment and withdrawal proved necessary. Unhappily, this produced no success. Repeated northern failure to meet the demands for federal self government by southern peoples has brought new warfare and huge disaster.

Another excellent example of regionalism and separatism in postcolonial North Africa is the disputed territory of the Western Sahara. This area, between southern Morocco and Mauritania, was colonized by the Spanish rather than the French who colonized Morocco (with the exception of two Spanish cities on the Mediterranean coast), Algeria, and Tunisia. As the people of the region (called Saharawis) became sedentary, they began to reject colonial leaders and demand their independence. In 1973, the Polisario was formed to wage guerrilla warfare against the Spanish colonists. The Spanish gave up rights to the territory in 1976, granting the northern two thirds to Morocco and the southern third to Mauritania. However, the Polisario demanded independence completely for the territory and Mauritania gave up her portion in a treaty signed with the group in 1979. Morocco, however maintains her sovereignty over the entire territory, including the portion first ceded to Mauritania.

Before signing the treaty with Spain, 300,000 soldiers and citizens of Morocco participated in the “the Green March” and walked south across the border, claiming Western Sahara as a Moroccan province (the anniversary of the Green March remains a celebrated national holiday in Morocco). Morocco and the Polisario waged war until a UN-brokered peace agreement in 1991. Because of Algeria’s support for the Polisario, relations between Algeria and Morocco were cut off at times and remain very tense. A referendum on the future of the territory, overseen by the UN, has been repeatedly postponed. There are both economic and social causes of this conflict. Western Sahara is a sparsely populated, very hostile desert, with virtually no arable land. However, it is rich in phosphate and in iron ore and supports rich fishing waters along its coast. Phosphate is a valuable mineral and is a main export of Morocco. Both sides consider the wealth of that resource worth the fight. In addition to economic concerns, the identity of the Saharawi people is also contested. Saharawi groups have, at various historical times, been within the cultural and governance sphere of the Islamic states which ruled the region since the eighth century CE and from which the Moroccan dynasty traces its origin. In effect, Moroccans see Saharawis as another of the diverse peoples that make up the Moroccan Nation, like other Berber and Arab ethnic groups.

Polisario argues that Saharawis are a separate nation from the Moroccans and that the Saharawi people should be independent of Moroccan rule. The situation remains complicated: a popular referendum to determine the future of the territory is constantly postponed as government and Polisario (along with United Nations negotiators) disagree on who should be allowed to vote (pre Green March residents, current residents, Saharawis in Algerian refugee camps, etc.), how the elections should take place, and what the referendum should say. The African Union (formally known as the Organization of African Unity or OAU) and the United Nations have been engaged in the crisis in the Western Sahara since it began. Both organizations have unsuccessfully attempted to mediate between the Polisario and Morocco since the beginning of the dispute in 1976.

Other colonial legacies at work in the post colonial North Africa were ‘elitism’ and the ‘tribalism.’ The colonial rulers had always behaved as an ‘elite,’ as a ‘chosen few,’ who had no wish or need to keep in touch with the lives and interests of ordinary people. Taking power by means and methods left to them by colonial rulers, new national leaders found it easy to behave as an ‘elite.’ They clung to power and privilege, and lost touch with the lives and interests of their peoples. This opened a big gap between the leaders, who enjoyed power and privilege, and the mass voters who were living in the same way as before. Many troubles followed from that poverty gap. Such problem of ‘elitist’ government was not, however, confined to North Africa. But in North Africa it was linked with another colonial legacy, ‘tribalism,’ which made the problem worse. ‘Elitism’ when linked with ‘tribalism’ made the combination very destructive.

Foreign Intervention

Many of the African countries suffered from various forms of foreign intervention from the day of their independence, called neocolonialism. The great power rivalry aggravated such interventions. Some of them were economic, and others political-military. Political and military intervention was mostly in the weakest of the new countries, or else in larger states such as Americans and British in Libya, French in Maghreb states, British in Egypt, etc. The general result of all such interventions was mostly to inflame existing conflicts, and make stability still more difficult to reach. Sometimes, as in case of Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia foreign intervention helped the dictators into power, and then gave them enough support to stay in power. In exchange, such dictators served the interests of the intervening power and its foreign partners. Strong countries with their patriotic leaders could and did reduce foreign intervention, as in case Mummar Colonel Gaddafi in Libya for a considerable length of time.

Multi-party System

Some of North African countries (Egypt and Sudan for example) had multiparty system at the time of their independence. The problem of evolving multiparty systems in newly independent North Africa was that class differences were much less deep and sharp than in Europe. The political parties seldom represented different class interests and different policies. They were based more upon the personal, ethnic or regional origins of particular politicians than upon differing economic ideologies to guide country’s future development. Most of the leaders and organizers of the parties and mass parties during freedom struggle were by persons of educational or other privilege. Such articulated minority came to dominate the politics in postcolonial states of Africa. As it turned out, the struggle between political parties was not so much a struggle between alternative policies as a struggle between alternative persons, and elections were less about what to do with political power than about who should have the benefits of possessing that power..

Single party System

African countries found the colonial legacies of dictatorship and poverty too much to sustain their fragile multiparty parliamentary systems. Many of North Africa’s post independent leadership rejected the multiparty parliamentary system as unworkable. They pleaded the particular circumstances of their country’s crying need for national unity in order to achieve rapid social and economic development. They frequently supported the advantages of a single party system by arguing that multi-party system could degenerate into corruption and abuse. Within a few years of independence most of African states had established some form of ‘one party state,’ FLN in Algeria.

The argument in favor of one party system was that parliamentary opposition based upon regional or ethnic interests was destructive rather than constructive opposition. Democratic choice, it was argued, could just as easily be exercised within a single party system. If the multiparty systems worked badly in the circumstances of newly independent Africa, single party systems were clearly worse. The big problem, once again, was in finding ‘checks and balances’ whereby the abuse of power and wealth could be stopped, or at any rate reduced. Since this mechanism could not be evolved in Africa by the rule of law resting on the force of organized public opinion, it was rapidly seen that many of its one-party systems degenerated into no party systems. More commonly the one-party system led to an abuse of state power: into militarist or personal dictatorships that ruled by fear and persecution. Censorship of the press, arrest of critics, falsifying of elections became common in the absence of legal and elected opposition. In most of the former French colonies, the one party system was used to give the ruling party dictatorial powers in suppressing any criticism of the government, FLN in Algeria. Many worthy critics of one-party governments found themselves imprisoned without trial or forced into exile in fear of their lives. Regional rebellion or military coup was often seen as the only means of overthrowing an incompetent or unpopular government.

Economic Development and Socio cultural Transformation

The new nations of North Africa were in the midst of socio economic crisis, caused by the colonialism. Their governments had to find a way to stability against new problems of rural poverty and of the rapid growth of urban concentrations of ex rural peoples, as well as against other legacies of internal division. In the economic field of working, earning, spending, managing their nation’s wealth; they had to throw off the colonial legacy, which was heavier than the political and social legacy, and harder to shift. Against this they had to wage long struggle. Some new nations were weak in unity and badly led; they made little progress. A few were strong in unity and well led; they were able to strengthen and enlarge their political independence. Winning more freedom of action, they could search for their own solutions to national problems and forge economic development. But the economic legacy received by the new states was not helpful to them.

Economic Legacy of Underdevelopment and Dependency

Economic Legacy of Underdevelopment and Dependency of the new nations of North Africa was the end product of eighty years of misrule of colonialism. It had two sides. On the one side was that the colonial system had continually drained North Africa of its wealth produced by its labour, land and natural resources. The African economies were directed towards exporting cheap agricultural raw materials and unprocessed minerals to Europe to feed its industries and in return importing relatively expensive manufactured goods. Thus, the British pushed the growing of cotton and mining in Egypt & Sudan, while French pushed for tobacco and grapes, and mining in Maghreb.

There had been little or no attempt to develop North African economic self sufficiency, as that would have defeated the purpose of Europe’s possessing colonies. As more efforts were put into cash crop production and laboring in mines, subsistence cultivation for North Africa’s food was neglected. The surge in cash crops production was inversely correlated with decline in food crops production. Wherever cash crop production became important, food shortages began to be felt. Local food shortages began to be acute. Even local famines broke out in the worst of cases. By 1950s, North Africa had become a net importer of food, it was producing less than of its food needs.

By 1960, large rural populations were earning their living by growing cash crops like coffee, cotton, grapes and so on, which were being exported to Europe and America at a very low cost. In contrast, most of North African governments were importing foreign food, often at high prices. This crisis was heightened by the growing level of urban employment following the Great Depression and the Second World War, which reduced large areas of rural North Africa into deepening poverty. From the late 1940s and early 1950s more and more people migrated to the towns in a desperate attempt to escape rural poverty or forced cropping and forced labour schemes. There developed two of the rural areas and of the towns and cities; and the interests of these two were by no means always the same. On the contrary, they have come into increasing conflict with each other. After independence, the political power tended to be concentrated on the urban areas. The cities or towns wanted cheap food from the rural areas; the latter intended higher prices for their produce. The two demands clashed. But the cities usually won. The rural parts not receiving higher prices responded by producing less. The surging demands for food in the urban areas had to be met by imports from outside, thus there was less money spent on basic economic needs of economic development. Caught in this scissors between the competing interests of these two areas, governments tried to spend in many ways to reduce rural urban conflicts of interest. But satisfactory solutions proved hard to find.

Not only the nature of products, but also the ‘terms of trade’ were determined by Europe at the expense of African interests. Prices for North Africa’s export commodities were controlled in the so-called ‘developed economies’ of Europe and north America. Thus, in times of European depression North Africa was paid less for her exports, and in times of European inflation North Africans had to pay more for their imports. Each year more and more North African effort had to be turned to producing cash crops for the European market in order to import the same amount of manufactured goods. Low cost North African agricultural goods and raw materials were exchanged for high cost manufactured goods from the industrialized world. The prices of both North African and European products were fixed by foreign companies backed by foreign governments. As a result of these ‘adverse terms of trade’, North Africa was a net exporter of wealth to Europe and north America.

North Africans only now and then revolted against such prices, beyond that they could do little. As a result of this the colony owners became richer and colonies became poorer. This transfer of wealth did not stop with independence. It continued by a variety of means. The one obvious means was the continuing adverse terms of trade for the North African countries. On the other side of the economic legacy, all the newly independent countries had to join a world, of trade and exchange, which was organized by much richer countries. In this world, formed by previous centuries, the advanced countries possessed the control of the markets in which world trade was carried on. Besides, through various forms of debt-interest paid on loans advanced by the industrialized countries to the countries of North Africa, they could compel the latter to toe their line. Through these tools of economic control, they could ensure that the wealth transfer from poor (North African) to rich countries did not stop on the day of independence.

Another poor legacy from the colonial period was North Africa’s transport systems which were totally inadequate for the continent’s development. Most of the railways had been built around the turn of century to ease the export of the continent’s wealth to Europe. By independence they were badly in need of repair and simply linked a country’s mines or main source of cash crops to sea. Roads were poorly developed and most of North Africa’s road and rail networks showed no concern for a country’s internal development. Furthermore, there were virtually no regional road or rail links to help promote trade between one African country and another, unless as a route from a land locked country to the sea. Tele-communications were the same.

Internal rural networks were almost non existent, and it was easier to telephone from North Africa to Europe than it was to telephone one North African capital to another. North African governments inherited two particularly repressive economic policies from their colonial predecessors, poll tax and agricultural marketing-boards. The former was charged on all adults regardless of income. The latter paid fixed low prices to farmers, while selling their produces for higher prices abroad and keeping the difference as government revenue. Both repressive policies provided such important sources of government income that they were initially retained in many countries after independence. The lack education was a further debilitating legacy of the colonial period. Across most Africa barely 10% of the population was literate at independence.

All these formed an essential part of the background to post-independence failure and economic progress of the North African countries. This colonial legacy was especially difficult to throw off, as it was built in many ways in which newly independent countries had to work and earn their living. The power to make this discovery was the main gain of their independence. North African leaders could now open the account books of the colonial legacy of the wealth-transfer and tried to counter that.

Population Growth and Movement

Owing to growth spread of preventive medicine and decline in death rates, the African populations began to grow after 1940s. Around 1950 its population growth accelerated swiftly. By 1960s, most of African populations were growing at an average of about 2.5% a year. This meant that most of the African new nation states would double their populations in 20 or 30 years. One reason for lower death rate after 1950 was that crisis mortality, already much reduced between the wars, declined further still further. Even the famines beginning in 1968 apparently had little lasting impact on population totals, while vaccination reduced several epidemic diseases and eradicated smallpox in 1977. More important was the discovery of cheap synthetic drugs and their widespread use after Second World War. The most spectacular successes were against high mortality diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis and leprosy, for which cure was at last found during the 1980s.

But their chief demographic impact was on the endemic childhood complaints like pneumonia and malaria, which could at least be attacked--along with measles, polio, diarrhea and malnutrition through the extension of health services to children and mothers. In contrast to the interwar period, however, Africa’s population growth after 1950 was also generally fuelled by rising birth rates, hitherto confined to the north. The most rapid growth in fertility seems to have occurred during the 1950s. One reason for rising birth rates was that antibiotic drugs reduced the proportion of infertile woman, giving an upward demographic trajectory to the entire Africa continent for possibly first time in its history. Modern family planning was little used before 1980s. Until then, the inherited attitudes of an under-populated continent joined with modern medicine to produce the most sudden and rapid population growth in the world is ever likely

For a number of North African countries, the surge in population presented great advantages. But the growth in populations needed commensurate growth in national productive or consumable wealth, whether in food or other necessities. It needed a better and bigger system of production and distribution of food and other goods. If that did not happen, then population would get poorer and average standard of living would fail, as actually happened in most of Africa during early 20 years of their independence. The shortages of local food, caused by growing cash crops, were worsened by shortages of rural labour. Starting from the 1940s there was a flight of people from villages to the towns, where they had to suffer from forced labour and hunger. But once this flight began, it continued for other reasons as well.

The towns grew even larger in size, as rural people flocked them for a less hungry life. The flight to towns created there severe problems in housing, employment, education, food availability, sanitation, etc. The new governments were hard-pressed to provide such services. In the rural areas, especially in the food-growing areas, it led to severe shortage of local labour, which greatly affected the food production. Thus, the major economic challenges that confronted the newly independent nations of North Africa were to give their town populations a decent living and work in ways that would increase the national wealth by putting in place a better system of production.

The Early Drive for Economic Development

All the new countries recognized their central economic tasks were how to overcome their backwardness, end or at least reduce the transfer of wealth, develop their productive system based on proper assessment of their national natural resources both peoples and the things. To build new national infrastructure that provided basic equipment for producing and exchanging more goods, better transport and communications, and much more electric power. This required more than development of skills, methods and organization of work. It called as well for a big cultural change: from habits and attitudes of work that produced goods by hand, or by simple hand-worked tools, to habits and attitudes that produced goods by machines in factories. The development had to be a complex process in people’s minds as well by improving the system of education and public health left behind by the colonial governments.

All these were stupendous tasks that required strong governments in full charge of national affairs and resources free of foreign control. They had to decide on a plan or strategy by which they were going to help their people to move ahead. Should this be by capitalist or socialist methods? Should the priority be on urban or rural areas; on farming or industry? Having settled such basic issues, the new governments had then to promote new methods of production, banking, trade, and other aspects of economic life. Finally, each new government had to decide how best to gather the national savings needed for infrastructure, industry, and public services; and how far it might have to rely on raising foreign loans for these purposes?

In regard to alternative strategies for economic development, all the newly independent countries, in practice, had to rely on a combination of different strategies. Even countries most attached to the strategy of private enterprise, kept some national ownership of production and trade. Even those most pledged to strategy of a collective or socialist type, left farmers in private ownership of their farms. Some of these efforts worked; others failed. But much, in any case, was learned and understood. Above all, it was increasingly seen that North Africans must solve their own problems of development; nobody else was going to do it for them. They must find a way out of their inheritance of poverty and injustice.

Around the time of independence (1960s) there was a temporary boom in world prices paid for North Africa’s principal mineral and agricultural exports. This factor initially disguised the full extent of the colonially-created economic crisis. The region’s newly independent peoples and inexperienced leadership had high expectations of what could be achieved with political independence. To make the matters worse, the new rulers of most of the African countries made the mistake of modeling their development programs upon the industrialized economies of Western Europe and North America. Some among them also emulated the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, the erstwhile USSR in particular. In both the cases the North African leadership was strongly guided by European economic experts, who suggested either European capitalist or socialist models as panacea for North African underdevelopment.

North African leaders copied the European model of urban centered industrialization and capitalist farming in their countries as means to achieve economic self sufficiency. Once it was achieved, the importation of various goods would stop from Europe, which would shift the adverse terms of trade in Africa’s favor and halt the drain of wealth to the developed world. But it did not work like that. The early schemes for industrialization and agricultural development were far too ambitious and often inappropriate for the needs and resources of the country. Libya and Algeria promoted industrialization (oil industry in particular) but neglected agriculture. Tunisia developed tourism industry as substitute for agricultural exports. Only Morocco had a prosperous agriculture and mining industry in phosphates.

North Africans had to import all expertise, technology, machinery, building materials, seeds, etc., from Europe and North America. This was most glaring in the agricultural sector, which degenerated owing to reliance on foreign experts who little understood the local conditions and ignored the local North African farmers who knew the best of the local conditions. Great numbers of highly-paid foreign experts had come to North Africa to tell peasant farmers how to farm in Africa’s difficulty ecology, with its irregular or tumultuous rainfall, with its often thin soils, with its varieties of climate, and so on. North African farmers had faced these difficulties for long before any Europeans or Americans first appeared in Africa. But the possibility that Africa’s farmers might therefore know the right answers a lot better than foreign experts seem seldom to have crossed the minds of those experts, and of the governments that employed them. Severe draught and famine leading to food and fodder shortage and the death of people and cattle became common in dry land zones. The similar inappropriateness characterized the schemes for the improved wealth, education and transport facilities that the African leaders were determined to provide for their people.

Capitalist Path of Development

The countries following the private enterprise can be divided into two kinds: weak and strong. The weak countries were fully under strong foreign control or influence and had little choice but to do whatever they were told, and were in no position to resist the foreign interests. Included among them were the former colonies of France Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia , which remained part of financial French Franc Zone. Over them, France kept financial and military control.

While this made easier for such countries to attract outside investment by ensuring a degree of economic stability, it tied them financially and economically to France. In their trading priorities to the former mother country, it is the French interests that have dominated. This was particularly important to France, to whom such countries were a major source of vital raw materials and agricultural products like coffee, cotton, grapes, etc., and phosphate from Mauritania. The shortage of labor in such operations was made good by the continual influx of migrant workers. France, as a major aid donor and source of loan for these countries, exercised considerable control over development projects, which were geared towards the continued raw materials support to France. Such countries received considerable French investments, but they were exclusively into those primary industries. France was often interfering directly where it regarded French interests in were at stake. It was neocolonialism par excellence, which became a serious barrier to greater economic integration across the North African region. By the mid-1960s it was becoming clear that independent North Africa had made a false start.

The governments of those countries that had achieved independence around 1960 had spent heavily on expensive industrial and prestige projects with insufficient concern for their appropriateness such as Aswan dam in Egypt, built with crippling international debt but provided little advantage for majority of local people.

At independence most of the Africans lived in rural areas, dependent partially or wholly upon subsistence farming. But governments, dominated by educated elite, often scorned the rural peasant as backward and unproductive. And yet they themselves failed to invest surplus government funds or expensive foreign loans in that vital sector of population that had ensured some level of economic self-sufficiency. On the contrary, they maintained the restrictive agricultural marketing boards which they had inherited from colonial regimes. They continued to ensure that small-scale peasant farmers who produced a food surplus received little reward for their product.

The civil service boomed and the rapid expansion of non technical education drained people away from life in the rural areas.

While the majority of rural population remained relatively poor and urban population continued to rise, government ministers, civil servants and other branches of the educated minority elite were becoming increasingly wealthy. Indeed, it has been argued that within some North African countries the educated elite of post independent replaced white colonial rulers with black colonial rulers. Many such leaders could do little beyond enriching themselves, as the mid 1960s was characterized by a dramatic fall in prices of North Africa’s agricultural commodities in the world market. But the manufactured imports, upon which North Africa had become so dependent, became relatively more expensive. Many countries were then forced to cut back their imports, no matter how much they needed them. Inflation rose sharply, as there were shortages of goods in the shops. Everybody but the politicians seemed to be getting worse and worse off. With the much promised prosperity vanishing into thin air and the parliamentary opposition largely suppressed, the stage was ready for military takeover in several countries of the Dark Continent, creating, thereby, the crises of governance.

Socialist Path of Development

Disillusioned with many post-independent African states struggling with problems of uneven development and export-oriented economies that they inherited from colonial regimes, many Africans felt that the European model of free-enterprise solution to their problems went against their very expectations of anti-colonial freedom. This kind of solution tended to increase African indebtedness, in effect continuing to drain African wealth in the direction of developed economies of Western Europe and North America. It helped the lucky few at the cost of the hungry many. It worked to continue and even enlarge the social inequalities of the colonial period. Unchecked, it was seen promote private greed and social immorality, precisely those human evils against which Africa’s traditions of community life had stood firm. With all this, the free enterprise solution seemed to lead to strife and still grater poverty. The African answer to this crisis went in the direction socialist thought based on the analysis of 19th Karl Marx.

In North Africa, the government of those countries that had achieved independence through guerrilla struggle Algeria, for example during 1962-1991 under both civilian and military regimes, based their subsequent development on various local adaptations of basically socialist principles. But the policy failed owing to its inappropriateness in African context, particularly its proposition of giant leap into industrialism in countries with little industry and to enlarge power of state bureaucracies at the cost of peasant farmer. Unfortunately, many of the economic policies put in place during this time did not result in steady economic growth, leading to increasing dissatisfaction with the government. Algeria was fortunate in having great oil reserves which could be used for diversifying its economy. The building of a giant Algerian steel mill during 1970s was an important step in Africa’s industrialization. So also equally oil rich Libya.

Deepening of Crisis

By 1990, Africa, including North Africa, came to face huge new difficulties. The years of upheaval there, eruptions of bad government, failed experiments, were combining with world recession to deepen a profound crisis of poverty and hunger, the signs of which were clearly visible during 1970s. In strong contrast with the hopes of the earlier independence years, the crisis now was seen to threaten every chance of improvement. Commenting on the African situation in 1981, the Nigerian economist Adebayo Adedeji, warned that with deteriorating economic prospects and a generally bleak outlook for growth, no continent has been worse hit than Africa. Faced with escalating drought situations, many countries faced imminent economic collapse. Thus, the struggles against poverty, it was then clear, was going to prove more difficult than the struggle against colonial oppression. Two principal factors stifling African development during 1980s and 1990s were international debt and drought.

Africa’s indebtedness could be traced back to the adverse terms of trade and the foreign aids given to colonies to facilitate trade and transfer of wealth overseas during colonial period. Since 1960 Africa’s raw material exports had dropped in price 10 to 20 times in relation to manufactured imports. Running out of foreign exchange, nearly all new governments were in desperate need of foreign aids. Very few had any reserves of capital to spend on development. They resorted to foreign loans at high rate of interests from the lenders like USA, USSR, etc. The situation was not helped by the lavish and inappropriate spending of the independent governments. A good many number of African governments had reached a point where they could no longer pay interest on their foreign debts.

In 1985, Africa’s total foreign debt exceeded three times the value of its export earnings. This meant that Africa’s export earnings were going increasingly and overwhelmingly into paying interests on foreign debt, continued the transfer of wealth overseas in the form of high interest payment and deepening the Africa’s road to underdevelopment. The economies of African countries were plunging into catastrophe. In this situation, the countries had to turn to IMF for emergency foreign exchange and for further loans to help pay interest on huge loans.

In this situation there was a major need for change in international economic order, particularly the nature of relationship between industrialized countries and Africa, with the need for agreeing to raise the prices that it paid to African exporters and lower the prices that it demanded from Africa’s importers. In other words, this meant a big improvement in Africa’s terms of trade. This did not happen, as the industrialized countries of the West regarded Africa primarily as a source of raw material for its own developed industries. The worldwide negotiations since 1970 at the behest of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) have achieved nothing in terms of giving better terms of trade to Africa. Instead, there has been a steady fall in the effective purchasing power of African export commodities since 1970s.

With partial exceptions, African commodity prices were on a downward spiral after 1980. During 1986 alone, it has been estimated that the fall in African export prices cost the black continent no less than 19,000 million dollars, at a time of deepening poverty and famine. Meanwhile the cost of Africa’s imports had risen by 14% in 1986 over the level of 1985. The black continent was getting poorer year by year. But the developed world has refused to address the underlying injustice embodied in the world economic order. The declining world prices for African commodities during the 1980s and the consequent drastic shortage of foreign exchange had pushed most African countries into Structural Adjustment Program by early 1990s.

The big institutions of the industrialized world, such as West-controlled and Washington based IMF and World Bank, put strict preconditions for giving aid, known as the SAPs (Structural Adjustment Programs), which were modeled on the practices of the capitalist system rather than on the specific needs and best interests of the individual African countries concerned. What were presented as solutions to underlying problems carried with them even greater problems of their own? The SAPs insisted on the African countries tighten their belts, devalue their currencies, spend less on social welfare, abandon many development projects. These demands were usually met. Under the belt-tightening, the African governments were to balance their budgets by cutting annual growth of government debt. This meant in practice a growth in unemployment and poverty, as thousands of public employees were laid off and drastic cuts were made in provision of health and education and public housing programs. As a result of devaluation of African currencies their export crops and minerals got better prices in the world market. But the imported goods became costlier such as consumer goods, fuel oil and even food that they required to feed rising urban populations, thereby, fueling the rising inflation in many African countries.

As a part of the liberalization program of 1980s and 1990s the restrictions on trade, investment and capital movement were removed in order to mitigate Africa’s capital inadequacy by attracting the foreign capital investments and promote the productive activities.

The potential investors were invited to invest and were allowed freedom to remove their capital and profits as and when they wanted. Consequently, Africans lost a large measure of control over their own economies, and liberalization of capital controls did little to solve the real structural problem shortage of indigenous capital. Predictably, the foreign capital mostly tended to be invested in primary, extractive industries; instead being invested into new infrastructure and social improvement, which would have given a genuine push to the African economies.

In fact, the actual amount of foreign aid had began to shrunk, especially after the industrialized countries moved into economic troubles of their own during late 1970s. International financiers were more concerned that SAPs should increase exports to pay off foreign debts rather than help the continent as a whole to become regionally self sufficient. This meant a continuation of the old colonial pattern: concentration on cash crops for export at the expense of food crops for local consumption. The best agricultural land and expensive irrigation schemes were set aside for export crops. SAPs did not led to any general improvement in Africa. Only a small minority gained prosperity, interests was paid to foreign banks and bulk of African population got poorer and faced starvation. Most of the nominally independent countries found such policies too difficult. They slipped into a more or less helpless dependence upon the industrialized countries. Through international debt system, Africa in the 1990s was still a net exporter of her wealth to Europe and North America.

Adding to their economic woes was the continuing draught condition in most parts of Africa. Recent research shows that since 1950s there has been noticeable fall in rainfall in many parts of the continent owing to world climate change. The net result for Africa has been an increasing incidence of draught. Added to the disruptive effects of draught in the 1970s, 1980s and the early 1990s have been the civil wars in several worst affected parts of North Africa like Sudan, Morocco, Algeria, etc.

Benefits of Adversity

Despite continuing underdevelopment and adverse conditions, there is silver lining visible in the Dark Continent. Colonial North Africa had only primitive infrastructure of modern equipment. There were a few major sea ports along the continent’s northern coast like Alexandria, Tripoli etc. But the situation improved during postcolonial period with new ports being built along coast of North Africa. Existing railways were improved, and some new ones built. Great efforts were successful in producing electric power from major dam such as the third at Aswan in Egypt. Electric light for towns and even villages, as well as power for industry began to be available as never before. Motorized road transport services in the intra and inter city sectors, modern vessels in ferry services on rivers and along the coasts, etc., began to link the outlying areas into the modern world for the first time in North African history. These improvements in infrastructure opened the way for the beginnings of industrialization. North

Africa has begun to be less dependent on the outside world for everyday things that people need. North African factories have begun to make shirts, shoes and other things, which formerly had to be imported from overseas. In the agricultural and rural development sector, the North African governments have been turning away from the policies and experiments that had failed. International development aid is being directed much away from huge prestige projects and expansive dams and irrigation schemes, devised by foreign money-lenders to increase African productivity of cash crop for export, are concentrating more on small-scale labor intensive projects like hand-built dams intended to help the growing of food crops for the local people who built them. Local cooperative grain banks are being set up to provide local credit and to store grain for consumption during times of need. Generally, it was seen that much more attention was being paid to the skills and knowledge of the African farming.

The large scale use of tractors was seriously questioned. Governments and their agencies paid better prices for peasant produce and the results were sensational. An intelligent use of science was made in close cooperation with famer that led to more food production. There is growing awareness amongst the North African governments to devise their own locally evolved solutions to their countries’ problems. With the aid of new technology and a burning desire to succeed, there is no reason to suppose that North Africans of tomorrow will not devise their own ways of overcoming the development problems of the future.

Islam and Post colonial State in North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania)

When the North African countries were granted independence they tried a variety of governance systems, and these have adapted over time to their diverse populations and situations. As with the rest of Africa, there are different types of governance and political practice in North Africa.

Republican Democracy

Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia are all secular republican democracies, meaning they are governed by elected legislative bodies. Though these countries are democracies, in structure and substance they are not necessarily like in the West. In structure, these governments modelled themselves after European parliamentary systems in which heads of state (head of the executive branch the president) and heads of government (head of the legislative branch the prime minister) are different. They all support many political parties and representation is proportional (seats in the legislature are awarded not to which party wins a certain region of the country, but by percentages to each party based on what percentage of the vote they received). Both Algeria and Egypt have bicameral legislatures while Tunisia is unicameral. There is a variety of individual freedoms in each country. All three allow all citizens above the age of 18 (20 in Tunisia) to vote, and Egypt requires all citizens 18 and above to vote. However, each country has illegalized certain forms of political participation. In Algeria and Egypt, political parties based on religion have been outlawed. In Tunisia, one fundamentalist Islamic party is outlawed as well. Legislators and executive officers (presidents) serve terms of 5 to 6 years. Freedom of the press is restricted to different degrees within each country.

The governments of these countries defend the restrictions on political rights arguing that political rights without restrictions would result in political chaos and violence. They point out that social and political instability caused by poverty, the lack of economic opportunity, and social displacement (urbanization and modernization) have created conditions that foster Islamic fundamentalism which is completely opposed to democratic principles of governance. Consequently, these governments argue, it is necessary to restrict some political and democratic rights in order to protect their countries from becoming much more un-democratic.

Constitutional Monarchy

Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, though it differs from Great Britain and other constitutional monarchies you may know. In Morocco, King Mohammed VI, who took the throne when his father, Hassan II died in 1999, runs the executive branch and appoints the prime minister and his cabinet. The legislative branch is a bicameral Parliament, the upper house is elected indirectly by local councils, professional organizations, and labour syndicates for nine-year terms, while the lower house is elected by popular vote for five-year term.

Alternative Government

Libya until recently was a unique government in the region for two reasons. First, in theory, it was a socialist democracy in which people govern themselves through local political councils. Second, though these councils do exist and function, in reality the nation was governed until recently by a military dictatorship that changed little since it took over in 1969 when Colonel Muammar Gaddafi took power in a military coup.

Islamic Laws

Later in the 20th century, colonized Muslim societies of North Africa gradually achieved political independence and built new states. In some of these states adopted a “Muslim” identity that they interpreted in various ways and implemented within such domains as law, education, and moral conduct. In others relation between State and Islam was ambiguous. In Egypt, the question of the relation between state and Islam generated fierce political controversies between secularists and those who interpreted Islam as a system of government. Among the latter, the Muslim Brotherhood grew from a grassroots organization into a mass movement that provided key popular support for the 1952 Revolution of the Free Officers, a military coup led by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser that ousted the monarchy. Muslim brother was also instrumental in removing Hosni Mubarak in 2012 in Arab Spring.

Similar movements also emerged in other countries of North Africa as the politicized heirs of earlier reformist intellectual trends. They later became significant actors in their respective political scenes. It was not until the end of the 1960s, however, that they became strong enough to pose a serious political challenge to their countries’ authoritarian regimes.

The one factor all these countries have in common is the attempt to integrate some aspects of Islamic law into the judicial system of each country. Islamic law, Sharia law is included to varying extent in the national laws of the country. Indeed, only in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban regime was Sharia law, as extracted directly from the Quran, the complete law of the state. Interestingly, a completely different adoption of Islamic rule and application of the Sharia is found in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi, the erstwhile military dictator, based laws on the codes of behaviour outlined in the Quran, yet and considered Libya to be a Socialist Islamic State! He launched a cultural and social revolution that blended religious fundamentalism with Arab nationalism and aspects of the welfare state.

Islam, unlike Christianity, was developed as a state religion even at the time of its birth. The Quran (Koran) includes instructions on running governments, on the rights of people, and on the relations of Muslim citizens with each other (especially in civil laws).

Political Conflicts and Religious Fundamentalism

There was political crisis in Algeria. By the late 1980s many Algerians, unhappy with continuing economic decline and their inability to express their political displeasure, responded positively to new Islamic movements which claimed that a return to strict Islamic observance was the solution to Algeria’s economic, social, and political problems. At the same time, the military regime responding to domestic and international pressure, agreed to return Algeria to civilian rule and in December, 1991 held the first elections in nearly 30 years. The elections were clearly and overwhelmingly won by the Islamic Salvation Front which advocated the establishment of an Islamic government in Algeria. The Algerian army, with the tacit support of Western governments, decided to ignore the results of the elections and installed a civilian government which excluded the Islamists.

This clearly thwarted the will of the majority of the people who rallied around the Islamic Salvation Front (FSI) to resist continued rule by a military controlled regime. The struggle for power between these two groups led to a civil conflict which resulted in the death of around 100,000 Algerians (almost all civilians) from 1992- 2000 CE when the FSI agreed to disband. Political violence did not disappear in Algeria, continuing at a much reduced level. In April 2004, Abdelaziz Boutefilka (who was first elected in 1999) won a hotly contested presidential election with 85% of the vote. However, Islamic parties continue to be banned from participating in Algerian elections.

Terrorism has been another issue plaguing the region. The people of North Africa have been familiar with terrorist acts perpetrated against their own governments (and against the people themselves) by a variety of terrorist groups. Many of these attacks have been by Islamic fundamentalists hoping to “purify” their society and the political system of secular influences and to create state systems based exclusively or primarily on the Quran. The People of North Africa are familiar with fundamentalist revolutions ever since the Arab invasion of the late 600s. Some of these movements have been nationalist movements against governments or ruling political parties (like the Polisario in Western Sahara) and still others have been in response to former colonial regimes (terrorist bombings in France in the mid-1990s). Libya under Muammar Gaddafi supported some of these groups. Indeed, the UN imposed sanctions against Libya for this reason from 1992-2002. However, in 2004 Qaddafi publicly renounced the use of terrorism, took responsibility for the bombing of the Pan American flight over Lockerbie, Scotland (paying millions of dollars of compensation to families of each of the victims of this tragedy), and dramatically ended Libya’s nuclear weapons development program. The other nations of North Africa long ago outlawed extremist and violent activities and have taken leading roles internationally in supporting peace initiatives throughout the region, the Middle East, and the world.