The Ideal of Maghreb

From the time of Mohammed the Prophet, Arabs have had a single, possessive name for the littoral lands that stretch along the African shore of the Mediterranean from Tripoli to Casablanca --"Djezira-el-Maghreb," or "Island of the West." In Cairo last week, where Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser keeps a small shoal of exiles from French North Africa (some fleeing trouble, some fomenting it), Egypt's ambitious Arab nationalists were worried by reports of a plan designed to take Maghreb out from under their noses.

Chief proponent of the plan is Tunisia's Premier Habib Bourguiba. On his recent visit to Washington Bourguiba reportedly urged President Eisenhower to persuade France to give Algeria complete independence. In return, Arab leaders in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco would form a Maghreb federation with some kind of link with France. Spain, because of its residual interest in Spanish Morocco, would also be invited to join the grouping, and so would Libya.

Natural Nations. French-educated Bourguiba makes no secret of his distaste for Nasser's setting himself up as leader of the Algerians' fight for freedom. Despite public avowals of Arab solidarity, Arab leaders in French North Africa privately look down on the Arabs of the Middle East, consider themselves far more advanced both culturally and economically.

France is still almost obsessively committed to the proposition that possession of Algeria is essential if France is to maintain its status as a world power. At the moment, the U.S. is unwilling to press the French too hard or too fast. Both Tunisia and Morocco, though nominally independent, are economically dependent on French subsidies to keep their governments operating, need time to develop their own resources and tax systems. Bourguiba says that he is unwilling to make any formal commitment to the West until his country is fully independent in fact.

But, if not in the cards immediately, Maghreb is more than a distant dream. One of the wisest of Arab leaders recently remarked that if Arab borders had been drawn sensibly and in the Arab interest rather than where Europeans had drawn them, rewarding this prince and that sheik, there would be four natural Arab nations: 1) Maghreb in North Africa, 2) the land of the Nile Valley, 3) Arabia Deserta, including not only Saudi Arabia but Yemen and all the little trucial sheikdoms, 4) the Fertile Crescent, stretching from the Mediterranean at Lebanon to the Persian Gulf, and including Syria and Iraq in a unity of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.

Crowning Edifice. Last week Libya's Premier Mustafa Ben Halim, visiting Tunis, signed an agreement with Bourguiba that looked to a day when their mutual borders would disappear. "An audacious step has been taken toward the building of a great, unified Maghreb," cried Bourguiba. "When Algeria has overcome her tribulations, the edifice will be crowned." He added a warning: "France is today faced with an alternative. On one hand, an endless war . . . on the other, the constitution of a North African community deeply unified and ready to cooperate."

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