Reviving Afro-Arab cooperation

Four developments have characterized the latest African Union (AU) summit held in Addis Ababa that may have future implications.
These include: The attendance of Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi at the summit, electing a new AU chief, the presence of the emir of Kuwait as the guest of honor and the first meeting between the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan after their countries went on the brink of war.
Mursi's attendance is not only significant because he is the first civilian, elected president of Egypt, but more because he is the first Egyptian president to attend an AU summit since 1995, when an attempt on the life of former President Hosni Mubarak was made in Addis Ababa. And that is why Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr described the new development as Egypt restoring its role in Africa.
The election of the strong South African Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the new AU chief after rounds of race with incumbent Jean Ping, brings to the regional organization's top leadership the first woman ever to add and contribute to an expanded women's role in various societies around the world, including those in Africa.
On the other hand the presence of the Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and his declaration that Kuwait will foot the bill of building a new AU headquarters and his reference to the aid Kuwait has been extending to African countries, bring to the fore the long dormant issue of Arab-African cooperation. His presence also worked, on the other hand, as a preparatory effort for the forthcoming Afro-Arab summit planned for next year.
Along these lines came the surprise meeting between Sudan's Omar Bashir and his counterpart Salva Kiir. The meeting was the first of its kind following the state of war between the two countries that characterized the relationship between the two over the past few months.
Aside from the election of Dlamini-Zuma, the other three developments have something in common that has to do with the Afro-Arab cooperation. For one, Egypt, which hosted the first Afro-Arab summit back in the 1970s saw its ties with African issues deteriorate to the extent that attending the continent's AU summit was left only to the foreign minister to handle. But Africa is no longer a marginalized region and the issue of the Nile Basin initiative, where Ethiopia is taking a relatively successful lead in forcing new arrangements at the expense of both Egypt and Sudan forces Cairo to reconsider its position toward the Nile water issues and for that matter its African policy. That should be the main factor underlying Mursi's trip to Addis Ababa to attend his first summit as a president.
The presence of the Kuwaiti emir exceeded the ceremonial dimension and pointed to a new era of renewed interest in the continent.The emir appreciated in his speech the position taken by AU members in supporting Kuwait when it was invaded by Iraq more than quarter of a century ago and was about to be scrapped from the world map. With the growing food crisis and the tendency of many Gulf and Arab countries to strike deals with their African counterparts to have access to arable lands, relations between the two is poised for a new dimension that needs a visionary political will. Next year's planned Afro-Arab summit may just provide the much needed platform.
And that is what gives Bashir-Kiir meeting an added weight and significance. Aside from the bilateral problems between the two countries and the implications for Africa and the region in general, the two Sudans' relations carry with them additional implication for the wider Afro-Arab relations.
Rightly or wrongly the civil strife in Sudan was seen as part of an encroachment against Arab and Islamic identity and that the separation of South could be the first case and a test for separations to come to other parts of the Arab world. Such perception confuses legitimate domestic reasons of the strife with other foreign agendas. The best approach to face up to these foreign agendas is to isolate and contain local grievances from escalating, and more importantly, to build on foundations of mutual interest.
Bashir-Kiir meeting points to a new approach and an understanding that is yet to materialize. After inflicting too much damage on each other over the past few months, both Khartoum and Juba may be in the mood to work out that mutual interest for the sake of their people and if that is to happen it will augur well for the Afro-Arab cooperation.

- This article is exclusive to Arab News.
Email: asidahmed@hotmail.com