Former Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy writes: The serious cooperation of the Arab world is better than an unrealistic congruence of its positions

After the Arab League was established in the first half of the last century, the Arab world moved swiftly to circumvent a single collective concept of Arab interests and positions, and abused expressions such as “congruence of positions” and “Arab consensus” and, even in the absence of this, expressions and tendencies that have collided in a different truth, that is, with the availability of different elements that unite us historically and culturally, but also politically when the threat is non-Arab, such as those linked to Arab rights against the foreign occupier, and that there was no real and stable consensus on many other issues and details, especially in what is related to national interests or priorities, and this has appeared at times between conservative monarchies and progressive republics, and others times between republics and monarchies themselves.
Despite this natural difference, we have exaggerated the use of expressions which give the false and illogical impression that Arabs always have identical positions in everything, until we have emptied these expressions of their meaning in the Arab arena, and we have lost with the time and repetition to describe the truth, much of our political credibility in front of our peoples. After their expectations increased unrealistic. Among the repercussions of these exaggerations is that a number of foreign countries have begun to wait and wait to enter into strategic relations with Arab countries or to defend their positions, unless there is an urgent and direct need for them to impose them, such as the need for Arab support in the international competition between the former Eastern and Western grouping, or Requirements relating to energy sources or looking at Arab markets and resources.
It is not an exaggeration to say that these exaggerations were serious mistakes of our Arab world that made us lose a lot of credibility, and as a result we paid a high price with our peoples and friends to accommodate the aspirations and the rational management of expectations, and a heavy price to curb our enemies and the illegitimate aspirations of Middle Eastern countries in matters of Arab rights and interests.
Questions have recently been raised and repeated that reflect concern for the general Arab situation, some of them in public, with varying degrees of openness, including the statement by our dear colleague, His Excellency Sabri Bou Kadoum, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the ‘Algeria, when he spoke of the “absence of the intention and political will to reform the Arab League. “. It is a shocking statement, although it can be sincere, knowing that I am sure that if the Algerian minister had been elaborated, he would have presented more and would have dealt with great pain several cases on the Arab situation from a different angle, all related to absence. of “congruence or even consensus” in positions. In many cases, including to Arab cooperation in a large number of important issues despite the serious challenges we face.
For various considerations, Arab intellectual leadership during the last century has been for the countries of the Arab North in North Africa and the North East, and most of the political currents and social trends emerged from their territories, and the countries of the North they had the center of Arab leadership and its various implications, including the choice of Cairo as the seat of the Arab League when it was established. The first regional organization in 1945, and also that the main weight of the message of Arab nationalism and the unity of the Arab world, also emitted from the north of the Arab world, but with the positive aspects of the message of Arab nationalism, has lost much of the its credibility for having imposed a full consensus or confrontation between the Arab countries themselves and their focus on facing real dangers. And the delusional, instead of working in parallel on comparison, development and true harmony instead of imaginary compatibility and congruence, which are ideas that gradually lose their charm and attractiveness, with the difference and diversity of issues and priorities between a region and the other, and between older and newer Arab countries after their independence, as well as the divergence of priorities Within a single state between generations, with a growing percentage of young people and their aspiration to the future.
With the diversity and multiplicity of challenges of the last century and the presence of Arab differences in the past, some Arab countries have rushed to form regional groups and national institutions, a development that is not necessarily harmful, because its purpose is to activate cooperation. between countries with similar characteristics and priorities. It is also logical in light of the lack of development of the Arab concept and the ineffectiveness of joint action in addressing pressing issues. Among these institutions, the Gulf Cooperation Council, which developed long before the recent falter, and at weaker levels, were the Arab Cooperation Council and the Maghreb Union.
With the start of the Arab-Israeli peace process, especially after the Madrid Peace Conference in the early 1990s, we have seen a growth in the trend that required the conversion of speeches about the Arab world and others into a conversation about the Middle East and North Africa, the name used to describe the efforts related to future economic development efforts resulting from Arab-Israeli Peace, in line with the Tel Aviv approach, and also in harmony with Iranian tendencies, which did not part of the peace process, but indeed they were against it.
In this, we found unintended contacts between Arab self-fragmentation due to political and intellectual stagnation, for which we are primarily responsible, and the appeals and attempts of non-Arab parties in the Middle East and others to limit Arab consensus, because it is easier to deal with Arab countries individually than to deal with them. Totally as a political group.
With the widening gap between Arab discourse and reality and the decline of Arab credibility, there have been calls for Arab isolationism and a focus on national or subregional priorities since the last century. It is a current that began openly in the north of the Arab world before moving to Morocco and the Gulf, and is now growing more and more in many Arab countries, some with public measures and declarations, and in some others simply by repeating traditional fixed positions without really work or try to reach them, which are superficial tendencies I disagree with it, because the priority is always the direct national interests and will remain so, but it is in the interest of all Arab countries to preserve the Arab political entity, developing and evaluating Arab discourse and our politics so that it is more realistic and responsive to the aspirations of peoples, without usurping the rights of others in our Arab world, or We bring past errors and pressing contemporary alignments to future generations. In my opinion, one of the most important ways to achieve this is to preserve the Arab identity and the points of convergence available between us, which are many, through greater Arab cooperation and avoiding the pretense of perfection and conformity that is not available in all Arab situations.