Summit
conference means that opponents of the highest level representing the
participating countries are meeting, regardless of the population, wealth or
income of such countries. We witnessed before Arab summits for the Arab
countries, African summits for the African nations and Islamic summits for the
Islamic countries. Now, and for the first time, we have an Arab-European summit
on the land of Egypt. Such thing has cultural and historical significances, not
to mention the political, economic and strategic ones.
It
is already known that we cannot perceive the big events in the human course
unless we go through interpreting the maps. In this context, I do not mean the
intersection of latitude and longitude lines, nor the distribution of land and
water or even the rest of geography branches. Rather, I mean the key maps to understand
the international relations throughout history and anthropology. Through such
kind of maps, we can realize that the region of civilizations which witnessed
the very beginnings of the civilization cycles since ancient times is mostly a
Mediterranean region if we broadened the Mediterranean circle containing
countries looking over the Mediterranean sea to go deeper to the south to
include Sudan and African Horn, and towards the east to include Iraq and the
Arabian peninsula. If we did this, we will find significant representation for
ancient civilizations; those of Ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylon, Assyria,
Nabat, Sheba and Africa along with the Hellenic, Hellenistic, Roman and
Christian civilizations.
Through
such summit, it became clear for the first time –and on a collective level-
what was before fragmented when we had two-country summit; one of them is Arab
and the other is European, discussing political, economic, military and strategic
issues or interests. Now, we can have coordination between the comprehensive
European security and the Arab one on a broad level exceeding the military,
intelligence and police side to the rest of life perspectives including culture
and religious beliefs.
History
witnessed times when the European side was the one dominating, as a conqueror
and occupier, since the time of Crusades in the middle ages. After this came the
beginning of the modern colonization movement starting with the Portuguese and
Spanish colonization in the sixteen century. Afterwards, the British and French
role increased in the nineteenth century and what followed after this regarding
conquering and occupying most of the Arab Countries. This thing led to deep
gaps between the two parties until the American role came to exist as a new
colonization. The world went into two world wars followed by cold war. In
parallel to this western course, there was another course adopted by the Arab
side; that was the resistance to get independence and liberation.
No
sooner had the Second World War come to an end, than the Arab national
liberation movement became stronger, and Egypt was the leading nation in that. Also,
the Palestinian cause was in the centre of that conflict as Britain, and later
followed by the United States, was the biggest supporter for the Zionist
immigration to Palestine, later came the establishment of and support for the
Zionist state, and so the conflict between the Arab side and western side
escalated, and the region witnessed three wars; 1956, 1967 and 1973.
A
lot of water flew under the bridge which we cannot detail right now, including
that western Euro-American approach to depend on creating and enflaming
conflicts among the region countries themselves with the aim of dismantling
them more and more. Also, the religious side was the weapon used most
extensively to achieve such thing. Such thing goes back to the British approach
called “Divide and Rule” that aimed at enflaming the sectarian strives, and not
to our present time. The Egyptian state went through such thing under the
British occupation since the 1910 conference supported by Lord Cromer. Also,
establishing Israel as a state for a Torah-based religious minority was not
away from such context we are talking about.
Later
came the approach to establish pacts on a religious basis like the Islamic Pact
and Baghdad Pact, then the approach was to enflame the Sunni-Shiaa and
Islamic-Christian conflicts. Throughout all this, the European-American-Israeli
interferences were apparent until it happened that Europe and the United States
caught the same fire themselves. At that time, everyone came to realize that
there is no other way but to change the whole approach, and that there is no
other alternative to setting the base for a different new era.
As
Europe was attacked by two threatening problems; terrorism and immigration, it
discovered –before anyone else- that its societies are not safe away from the
actual threats and real dangers which the Arab countries have been through. And
so the new way of thinking was to adopt an approach aiming at working on localizing
the religious fundamentalist ideologies in the Arab region, the place where
they first came to exist, so that if it happened that there were countries in
this region ruled by those groups of fundamentalist ideologies, they; the
fundamentalist groups, would have been satisfied with that, meaning that they
will consume their hostility in their internal conflicts, either within these
groups or between them and the rest of the society powers. In doing so, the
region can fall in the religious swamp and will not come out of it for the
coming centuries. And so, we had what was called “The Arab Spring” and all that
we have witnessed and still are witnessing. The big surprise was that Egypt
escaped that destiny. Not only escaped and survived, but also proved its
ability to overcome its hardship and set on its course for comprehensive renaissance.
It
is certain that history will record in proud recognition the role the Egyptian
leadership played and is still playing represented in President Sisi on two levels;
the first is ensuring stability, security and accelerated progress in Egypt
including its balanced creative foreign policy. And the second is the political
discourse adopted by the president addressing the whole world, especially
Europe, regarding the unity of the common destiny between us and them. The
thing which necessitates full cooperation in achieving comprehensive security
which, as I said before, exceeds the military, police and intelligence side to
the economic, social, cultural and political side. Europe became sure they will
not be able to fight waves of fundamentalist terrorism unless they support the
balanced Da’waa discourse which Egypt called for and works on through
its Da’waa institutions.
Therefore,
this Arab-European summit on the land of Egypt comes as a result for the
approach proven to be right and is still proving its viability day after day;
that is the approach of cooperation and working on the comprehensive political,
economic, cultural and social aspects. Such approach will come to full success
with more hard working and achievements in the region countries to put an end
this vicious triangle of “poverty-ignorance-terrorism”.
This
article was translated by Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in Al-Ahram Al-Arabi
magazine on February 21, 2019.
To see the original article, go to:
#ahmed_ahmad_elgammal #terrorism #Egypt #Sisi
#Arab_European_summit_in_Sharm_Elsheikh
