tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/north-africa-7424/articlesNorth Africa – The Conversation2023-12-15T09:07:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2165552023-12-15T09:07:27Z2023-12-15T09:07:27ZThe Sahara Desert used to be a green savannah – new research explains why<p>Algeria’s <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/179/">Tassili N’Ajjer plateau</a> is Africa’s largest national park. Among its vast sandstone formations is perhaps the world’s largest art museum. Over 15,000 etchings and paintings are exhibited there, some as much as 11,000 years old according to scientific dating techniques, representing a unique ethnological and climatological record of the region. </p>
<p>Curiously, however, these images do not depict the arid, barren landscape that is present in the Tassili N'Ajjer today. Instead, they portray a vibrant savannah inhabited by elephants, giraffes, rhinos and hippos. This rock art is an important record of the past environmental conditions that prevailed in the Sahara, the world’s largest <a href="https://www.livescience.com/23140-sahara-desert.html">hot desert</a>. </p>
<p>These images depict a period approximately 6,000-11,000 years ago called the <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/green-sahara-african-humid-periods-paced-by-82884405/">Green Sahara or North African Humid Period</a>. There is widespread climatological <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220301007#bib31">evidence</a> that during this period the Sahara supported wooded savannah ecosystems and numerous rivers and lakes in what are now Libya, Niger, Chad and Mali. </p>
<p>This greening of the Sahara didn’t happen once. Using marine and lake sediments, scientists have <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0076514">identified</a> over 230 of these greenings occurring about every 21,000 years over the past eight million years. These greening events provided vegetated corridors which influenced species’ distribution and evolution, including the out-of-Africa migrations of ancient humans.</p>
<p>These dramatic greenings would have required a large-scale reorganisation of the atmospheric system to bring rains to this hyper arid region. But most climate models haven’t been able to simulate how dramatic these events were. </p>
<p>As a team of climate modellers and anthropologists, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41219-4">we have overcome this obstacle</a>. We developed a climate model that more accurately simulates atmospheric circulation over the Sahara and the impacts of vegetation on rainfall. </p>
<p>We identified why north Africa greened approximately every 21,000 years over the past eight million years. It was caused by changes in the Earth’s orbital <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/precession-of-the-equinoxes">precession</a> - the slight wobbling of the planet while rotating. This moves the Northern Hemisphere closer to the sun during the summer months. </p>
<p>This caused warmer summers in the Northern Hemisphere, and warmer air is able to hold more moisture. This intensified the strength of the West African Monsoon system and shifted the African rainbelt northwards. This increased Saharan rainfall, resulting in the spread of savannah and wooded grassland across the desert from the tropics to the Mediterranean, providing a vast habitat for plants and animals. </p>
<p>Our results demonstrate the sensitivity of the Sahara Desert to changes in past climate. They explain how this sensitivity affects rainfall across north Africa. This is important for understanding the implications of present-day climate change (driven by human activities). Warmer temperatures in the future may also enhance monsoon strength, with both local and global impacts. </p>
<h2>Earth’s changing orbit</h2>
<p>The fact that the wetter periods in north Africa have recurred every 21,000 years or so is a big clue about what causes them: variations in Earth’s orbit. Due to gravitational influences from the moon and other planets in our solar system, the orbit of the Earth around the sun is not constant. It has cyclic variations on multi-thousand year timescales. These orbital cycles are termed <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/211/orbital-cycles/">Milankovitch cycles</a>; they influence the amount of energy the Earth receives from the sun. </p>
<p>On 100,000-year cycles, the shape of Earth’s orbit (or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/eccentricity-astronomy">eccentricity</a>) shifts between circular and oval, and on 41,000 year cycles the tilt of Earth’s axis varies (termed <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/obliquity">obliquity</a>). Eccentricity and obliquity cycles are responsible for driving the ice ages of the past 2.4 million years. </p>
<p>The third Milankovitch cycle is <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/251/axial-precession-wobble/">precession</a>. This concerns Earth’s wobble on its axis, which varies on a 21,000 year timescale. The similarity between the precession cycle and the timing of the humid periods indicates that precession is their dominant driver. Precession influences seasonal contrasts, increasing them in one hemisphere and reducing them in another. During warmer Northern Hemisphere summers, a consequent increase in north African summer rainfall would have initiated a humid phase, resulting in the spread of vegetation across the region.</p>
<h2>Eccentricity and the ice sheets</h2>
<p>In our study we also identified that the humid periods did not occur during the ice ages, when large glacial ice sheets covered much of the polar regions. This is because these vast ice sheets cooled the atmosphere. The cooling countered the influence of precession and suppressed the expansion of the African monsoon system. </p>
<p>The ice ages are driven by the eccentricity cycle, which determines how circular Earth’s orbit is around the sun. So our findings show that eccentricity indirectly influences the magnitude of the humid periods via its influence on the ice sheets. This highlights, for the first time, a major connection between these distant high latitude and tropical regions.</p>
<p>The Sahara acts as a gate. It controls the dispersal of species between north and sub-Saharan Africa, and in and out of the continent. The gate was open when the Sahara was green and closed when deserts prevailed. Our results reveal the sensitivity of this gate to Earth’s orbit around the sun. They also show that high latitude ice sheets may have restricted the dispersal of species during the glacial periods of the last 800,000 years. </p>
<p>Our ability to model the African humid periods helps us understand the alternation of humid and arid phases. This had major consequences for the dispersal and evolution of species, including humans, within and out of Africa. Furthermore, it provides a tool for understanding future greening in response to climate change and its environmental impact. </p>
<p>Refined models may, in the future, be able to identify how climate warming will influence rainfall and vegetation in the Sahara region, and the wider implications for society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Sahara Desert is green and vegetated every 21,000 years. A climate model shows why.Edward Armstrong, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of HelsinkiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169362023-11-09T10:59:38Z2023-11-09T10:59:38ZMorocco’s earthquake aftermath: artisans in Marrakech’s old medina face uncertain future – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558412/original/file-20231108-27-azdsuw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C194%2C4917%2C3128&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Damage from September's earthquake in Marrakech's medina still visible in late October 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/marrakesh-marocco-10202023-still-possible-see-2380562647">Marcos Campos/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Morocco’s Atlas mountains on September 8 killed more than 2,000 people and left thousands more homeless. Parts of the old medina in the nearby city of Marrakech, a Unesco world heritage site, were left badly damaged. </p>
<p>In this episode of <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a></em> podcast, two months after the earthquake, we hear why Marrakech and its medina are so important to Islamic heritage – and why some researchers are worried that the expertise of the city’s traditional artisans could be overlooked in the reconstruction. </p>
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<p>Nour Eddine Nachaoune was on his moped when the earthquake struck. He didn’t feel anything unusual, but began to see passersby acting strangely. “People were running, then stopping – they seemed disorientated,” he remembers. Nachaoune is an expert in Moroccan heritage at Mohammed V University in Rabat, and lives in Marrakech. </p>
<p>After going to his home in the new part of the city to check his family were alright, he went into Marrakech’s old medina where his office is based, inside his father’s old weaving workshop. Like many of the buildings in the medina, it was badly damaged, with cracks on the walls and the facade. Nachaoune recalls:</p>
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<p>The medina which I knew had completely changed. This medina, with its colours and smells, I didn’t recognise it. It was devastated. It had become deadly and threatening. It was a terrible shock which traumatised me for many weeks.</p>
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<p>Marrakech’s medina holds major architectural importance for Islamic heritage. It was founded in the 11th century by a dynasty known as the Almoravids and then developed further by their successors, the Almohads. Today, quite a bit of this medieval infrastructure remains in Marrakech’s medina. </p>
<p>“This is because when Morocco was a French protectorate, the French administration who was ruling over Marrakech wanted to preserve that medieval part of the city for their own academic study,” explains Abbey Stockstill, a professor of art history and expert in medieval Islamic art at Southern Methodist University in Texas in the US. She’s spent time living and working in Marrakech as part of her research into the development of the city into a medieval metropolis. </p>
<p>Today, the medina is home to numerous artisan workshops that make the ceramic tiles, carved plaster and intricate woodwork that decorate the city. “Visiting these workshops is incredible, primarily because they’re almost all family run,” Stockstill explains. “Rarely do they have storefronts so advertising is primarily done by word of mouth.” </p>
<p>Like much of the medina, many of these artisan workshops were damaged in the earthquake. The artisans are now waiting impatiently for help from state aid programmes aimed at restoring the daily lives of those affected. But Nachaoune warns that Morocco’s artisans were already in the grip of a structural crisis well before the earthquake hit, because of how heavily they rely on the tourist industry. And now he says they’re not being called upon to help with the reconstruction after the earthquake.</p>
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<p>The rarity of artisans specialising in traditional construction techniques has become a major problem in recent years. This specific knowledge is starting to disappear, principally because of the modernisation of the construction process and the lack of training programmes to preserve these essential skills.</p>
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<p>Listen to <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast for the full interview with Abbey Stockstill and Nour Eddine Nachaoune. A full transcript <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2944/Marrakech_Transcript.docx.pdf?1700825454">is now available</a>. </p>
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<p><em>This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany, who also recorded the English voiceover in this episode. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer of the show.</em></p>
<p><em>Newsclips in this episode from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2pO9X0qySE">CNN</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qss6ZtI8tHA">BBC News</a>.</em> </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abbey Stockstill received funding from American Institute of Maghrib Studies. Nour Eddine Nachaoune does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this episode of The Conversation Weekly, we hear about the importance of Marrakech’s old medina to Islamic heritage and what’s happening to its network of traditional artisans.Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136802023-09-21T13:44:56Z2023-09-21T13:44:56ZWas the freak ‘medicane’ storm that devastated Libya a glimpse of North Africa’s future?<p>Storm Daniel landed on the Libyan coastal town of Toukrah in the early hours of September 10 and started moving east. Soon the wind was rising and heavy rain falling, forcing people to stay indoors. By afternoon the rain was clearly out of the ordinary. </p>
<p>Albaydah city on the coast would receive 80% of its annual rain before midnight, according to records from a local weather station that we have accessed. In less than 24 hours, thousands of people were dead, hundreds of thousands were missing, and towns and villages across Jebel Akhdar (the Green Mountain) in north-eastern Libya resembled a Hollywood disaster movie.</p>
<p>Storm Daniel was a Mediterranean cyclone or hurricane (a so-called medicane) which struck Greece, Bulgaria, Libya, Egypt and Turkey over the course of a week. Medicanes are not rare. Such large storms happen in this part of the world every few years. But Daniel has proved to be the deadliest. </p>
<p>At the time of writing, the World Health Organization <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/17/africa/un-revises-libya-death-toll/index.html">estimates</a> that at least 3,958 people have died across Libya as a result of the floods, with more than 9,000 people still missing.</p>
<p>Daniel was not an exceptionally big storm though. The medicane with the highest wind speeds was medicane Ianos in September 2020, which killed around four people and caused more than €224 million (£193 million) of <a href="https://www.aon.com/getmedia/53674ecf-5d58-46d4-9e0c-5aa8e0d6f9cf/20210125-if-annual-cat-report.pdf">damage</a>. So what made Storm Daniel different?</p>
<h2>Less frequent, but stronger</h2>
<p>Like tropical cyclones, medicanes form in hot conditions at the end of summer. Most medicanes form to the west of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. As they tend to strike the same regions each time, the people living in the western Mediterranean, southern Italy and western Greece, have built structures to deal with these storms and the occasional downpours they bring. </p>
<p>Daniel formed relatively far to the east and struck north-eastern Libya, which is rare. Dozens of people were killed in communities across Cyrenaica, the eastern portion of the country. </p>
<p>In the mountain gorge above the city of Derna, <a href="https://theconversation.com/libya-floods-the-drowning-of-derna-was-a-man-made-disaster-decades-in-the-making-213797">two dams failed</a> in the middle of the night. Thousands of people, most of whom were asleep, are thought to have perished when the wave of water and debris swept down to the coast, destroying a quarter of the city.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A composite image of two aerial photographs of a city taken by satellite." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549091/original/file-20230919-29-ifhwp6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Derna, a city in eastern Libya, before and after Storm Daniel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Earth/Holly Squire</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Since medicanes are formed in part by excess heat, events like this are highly sensitive to climate change. A rapid attribution study suggested greenhouse gas emissions made Daniel <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66854670">50 times more likely</a>.</p>
<p>Despite this, the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/">sixth assessment report</a> from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that medicanes are becoming less frequent but larger. Storm Daniel suggests where medicanes form and make landfall might be more important than their frequency and size. </p>
<p>So does Libya need to brace itself for more of these events in the future than it has in the past, even if they affect the western Mediterranean less often?</p>
<h2>Clues from the past</h2>
<p>An important clue might lie deep underground, inside caves within north-eastern Libya. Although the caves are often dry today, they contain stalagmites which formed when rain passed through the soil, into the rock and dripped into the cave below thousands of years ago.</p>
<p>These rock formations attest to times in the past when this region was considerably wetter. The caves in Libya – and in Tunisia and Egypt too – form these stalagmites when the global climate is warm. </p>
<p>These bygone warm periods are not quite the same as the warm periods IPCC forecasts suggest modern climate change will usher in. But the way a hot world, a relatively ice-free Europe and North America and a wet northern Africa have regularly coincided in the past is striking. Striking and difficult to understand.</p>
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<img alt="Pointed rocks hanging from a cave ceiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549081/original/file-20230919-23-c9s6mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Stalagmites formed in the distant past contain clues about the ancient climate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stalactites-stalagmites-large-underground-cave-beredine-1993995323">InFocus.ee/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>That’s because the experiments that suggest medicanes will become less frequent as the climate warms belong to a pattern described by IPCC climate assessments, in which wet parts of the world are expected to get wetter and dry parts drier. So it is hard to understand why stalagmites tell us warmer periods in the past involved wetter conditions across the northern margin of the Sahara – one of the driest regions on Earth. </p>
<p>Fortunately, scientists can learn more from the way stalagmites sometimes grow imperfectly, leaving tiny blobs of water trapped between the crystals.</p>
<p>The stalagmite we recovered from <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-showing-the-locations-of-1-2-Susah-Cave-in-northern-Libya-and-nearby-site-Haua_fig1_309689349">Susah Cave</a> on the outskirts of Libya’s Susah city, which was severely damaged in the storm, had quite a lot of water in it from wet periods dating to 70,000 to 30,000 years ago. The oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in this water are suggestive of rain drawn from the Mediterranean. This could indicate more medicanes were hitting the Libyan coast then. </p>
<p>Our finding that more rain was falling above Susah Cave during warm periods suggests we should get more storms hitting eastern Libya as the climate warms. This is not quite what the IPCC forecasts, with their prediction of fewer but larger storms, show. </p>
<p>But storm strength is measured in wind speed, not rainfall. The caves could well be recording an important detail of past storminess which we’re not yet able to forecast. </p>
<p>Are stalagmites warning us that North Africa must prepare for future medicanes shifting further east? <a href="https://hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/greensahara/">Our ongoing research</a> aims to answer that question. </p>
<p>The pattern of ancient desert margins receiving more rain during warm periods despite the “dry gets drier” pattern of global climate models is not unique to northern Africa but found around the world. Over millions of years, globally warm periods almost always correspond with smaller deserts in Africa, Arabia, Asia and Australia. </p>
<p>This “dryland climate paradox” is important to unravel. Understanding the differences between climate models and studies of ancient rain will be key to navigating the future as safely as possible.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Rogerson receives funding from the UKRI Natural Environmental Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Belkasem Alkaryani and Mahjoor Lone do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Climate models suggest North Africa will get drier in future. But its caves tell a different story.Mike Rogerson, Senior Lecturer in Earth System Science, Northumbria University, NewcastleBelkasem Alkaryani, Lecturer in Geology, University of TobrukMahjoor Lone, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Palaeoclimatology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136912023-09-20T12:24:48Z2023-09-20T12:24:48ZMorocco’s earthquake and Libya’s floods highlight obstacles to relief efforts, from botched disaster diplomacy to destroyed infrastructure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548583/original/file-20230915-27-itydvd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=205%2C99%2C4874%2C2955&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Moroccan women cook at a camp for earthquake victims in Amizmiz on Sept. 15, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-prepare-couscous-at-a-camp-for-earthquake-victims-in-news-photo/1668185986?adppopup=true">Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>A 6.8 magnitude <a href="https://apnews.com/article/morocco-photos-earthquake-920c39947f895cdfc3448e5431df7562">earthquake struck southern Morocco</a> on Sept. 8, 2023, causing widespread damage in mountain villages. Three days later, an<a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/storm-daniel-leads-extreme-rain-and-floods-mediterranean-heavy-loss-of-life-libya"> unusually severe Mediterranean storm</a> caused <a href="https://apnews.com/article/libya-derna-dams-collapse-floods-corruption-neglect-chaos-45f76d2ac76be634865539a27b518ada">two poorly maintained Libyan dams to collapse</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/libya-dam-collapse-happened-because-of-bad-management-not-bad-weather-213546">resulting in massive floods</a> in and around the port city of Derna.</em></p>
<p><em>By Sept. 19, <a href="https://www.ifrc.org/article/morocco-earthquake-ifrc-and-moroccan-red-crescent-response-date">more than 3,000 people had died in Morocco</a>, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. And the World Health Organization was saying that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/17/africa/un-revises-libya-death-toll/index.html">nearly 4,000 people had died in Libya</a>, with another 10,000 missing – casualties that are unprecedented for a flood in Africa. More than <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/18/libya-floods-conflicting-death-tolls-greek-aid-workers-die-in-crash">46,000 Libyans have become displaced</a>, according to the International Organization for Migration.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://www.american.edu/sis/faculty/lawrencewa.cfm">William Lawrence</a>, a professor of political science and international affairs who has served as a senior diplomat at the U.S. embassies in Morocco and Libya, to explain why responding to these disasters has been especially hard.</em></p>
<h2>Is enough aid reaching communities harmed by these disasters?</h2>
<p>No. With Morocco, there’s strong government bureaucracy, and in Libya, the authorities are weak. But the results are the same: Not enough aid has gotten where it needs to go. </p>
<p><a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/yMjAYPRuCScowDY9A?g_st=im">Thousands of Moroccan villages</a> have been damaged and hundreds destroyed, according to sophisticated mapping and eyewitnesses. The government is responding, but this is beyond its capacity. Even if the country’s entire army and everyone providing social services in Morocco were deployed, it wouldn’t be enough.</p>
<p>Morocco <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/13/africa/morocco-earthquake-aid-intl/index.html">has so far declined aid offers</a> <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/north-africa/2023/09/15/UN-says-quake-hit-Morocco-could-demand-aid-today-or-tomorrow-">from the United Nations</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/13/morocco-earthquake-macron-tries-to-soothe-tensions-after-frosty-response-to-offer-of-aid">France</a> and dozens of other countries. From the U.S., Morocco had only accepted, as of Sept. 19, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/09/18/readout-of-president-bidens-call-with-king-mohammed-vi-of-morocco/">President Joe Biden’s condolences</a>. It had accepted aid from only Spain, the U.K., Qatar and the United Arab Emirates within a week of the earthquake.</p>
<p>Usually, with huge disasters like these, problems arise over the coordination of aid, rather than its acceptance.</p>
<p>Libya is contending with another unimaginable disaster. One quarter of the city of Derna, which previously had a population of 100,000, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/14/20000-people-feared-dead-in-libyan-city-destroyed-by-floods.html">was completely flattened</a>. In the first week, very little of the aid that arrived was getting where it needed to go because the access <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/15/africa/libya-derna-ghost-town-intl-cmd/index.html">roads and bridges to Derna were wiped out</a>.</p>
<p>It’s macabre and devastating, but what Libya most desperately needs right now is specialized equipment to extract bodies from the flood plain and rubble – and body bags. Islam, Libya’s dominant religion, normally requires a speedy burial, but local people can’t do that and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/aid-agencies-call-end-mass-graves-after-libya-floods-2023-09-15/">dispose of corpses properly</a>.</p>
<p>And Libya has little ability to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/second-humanitarian-crisis-feared-in-wake-of-libya-floods-as-hopes-of-finding-survivors-fade">coordinate the aid</a> that’s getting there. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rescue workers in bright-colored clothing walk amidst rubble in North Africa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548824/original/file-20230918-23-2vpep8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rescue teams assist in relief work in Libya’s eastern city of Derna on Sept. 18, 2023, following deadly flash floods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rescue-teams-assist-in-relief-work-in-libyas-eastern-city-news-photo/1674248137?adppopup=true">Karim Sahib/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Do these countries need assistance?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/world/middleeast/morocco-earthquake-king-mohammed-vi.html">King Mohammed VI, Morocco’s monarch</a>, is <a href="https://billionaires.africa/2023/03/18/top-5-richest-people-in-morocco-in-2023/">reportedly</a> a <a href="https://ceoworld.biz/2019/09/18/these-are-the-worlds-richest-royals-2019/">billionaire</a>. But he can’t pay for everything the country needs to recover – and shouldn’t. </p>
<p>Moroccans aren’t necessarily angry that he’s rejecting some of the aid the international community is offering, due to a history and psychology around the monarchy that I’ve studied extensively. They refer to the monarchy in ways that go beyond what the monarch can accomplish. They want their king to do everything even when he can’t. </p>
<p>With Libya, there’s a different constellation of problems. Although it’s an oil-rich country that <a href="https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/libya/crude-oil-exports">exports about 1 million barrels of petroleum</a> on a good day, there’s poor governance. There are two governments fighting for power. Both sides are <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66805254">asking for foreign aid</a>, while blaming each other for not doing anything to protect people from danger before, during and after the disaster.</p>
<h2>How will initial aid restrictions affect later recovery efforts?</h2>
<p>There are long-term benefits from good disaster diplomacy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.madridmetropolitan.com/spanish-rescue-team-find-mother-newborn-alive-in-ruins-after-almost-200-hours/">Spanish rescue teams saved a few lives in Turkey</a> following its devastating February 2023 earthquake. Given that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-earthquake-anniversary-hatay-kahramanmaras-erdogan-8e2b4fbb87817fca018cb401ccde9b5a'">more than 50,000 people died</a> in that disaster, it might not sound like much. But in addition to their contributions and provision of expertise, foreign rescuers’ success can inspire organizations and communities at home to get invested in longer-term recovery and reconstruction.</p>
<p>Because of Morocco’s <a href="https://www.worlddata.info/africa/morocco/tourism.php">wonderful tourism</a>, there’s a lot of goodwill toward the nation and a lot of people who want to invest in the rescue – and a feeling now that they are being shut out. I believe that rejecting assistance may create the impression the government didn’t do everything it could in the earthquake’s immediate aftermath. </p>
<p>To be sure, something like this happened in the United States <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18341744">following Hurricane Katrina</a> in 2004. I served on the State Department’s Katrina Task Force. Countries around the world were offering us aid that was very hard for us to accept psychologically and bureaucratically. The U.S. gives assistance better than it receives it. That assistance was hugely impactful – front page news in the donor countries that had previously only received U.S. aid and were now able to give back.</p>
<h2>What are the Red Crescent and the Red Cross doing?</h2>
<p>The Red Crescent, as the Red Cross is known in Muslim-majority countries, is <a href="https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/2023/teams-responding-after-earthquake-in-morocco.html">assisting disaster survivors in Morocco</a>. Its volunteers are providing first aid and counseling, helping move injured survivors to hospitals and evacuating others.</p>
<p>The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the <a href="https://aidboard.com/magazine/largest-humanitarian-organizations/">world’s largest humanitarian organization</a>. It’s also making a difference in <a href="https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/2023/red-crescent-teams-respond-to-catastrophic-flooding-in-libya.html">Libya</a>, where three Red Crescent volunteers have died in rescue efforts. </p>
<p>The problem in both cases is that there still aren’t enough staff and volunteers who are trained in large-scale disaster operations to meet the demand.</p>
<p>The IFRC has <a href="https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/2023/teams-responding-after-earthquake-in-morocco.html">issued an appeal for 100 million Swiss francs</a> (US$111.5 million) to assist Morocco. There is also a <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/libya/libya-flood-response-flash-appeal-sept-2023-dec-2023-issued-september-2023">U.N. appeal for $71.4 million</a> to help Libya deal with this disaster and its aftermath.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Lawrence is affiliated with and a founding member of Friends of Morocco, the primary Returned Morocco Peace Corps Volunteer Group, for which is also has volunteered as its earthquake relief coordinator.</span></em></p>With Morocco, there’s stronger bureaucracy, and in Libya, authorities are weaker. But, as a scholar who has worked in both countries explains, the results are the same: not enough aid getting through.William Lawrence, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096092023-09-03T07:45:37Z2023-09-03T07:45:37ZAfrica’s vast underground water resources are under pressure from climate change - how to manage them<p>All countries have a variety of water resources – some are on the surface, like rivers, and some are beneath the ground. This groundwater provides <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2023/06/13/groundwater-the-hidden-wealth-of-nations">almost 50%</a> of all global domestic use and <a href="https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099145503202323072/p178601171e7ffac1ea0714b5e187c0122449517b07d">43%</a> of all the water used for agriculture.</p>
<p>Groundwater is stored in aquifers, which come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They can be accessed in several ways, but mostly by drilling wells. Not all groundwater is useful to us – it depends on whether it’s fresh or mixed with salt and on how deep it is, as this will affect how easy it is to tap into. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-aquifers-hold-more-than-20-times-the-water-stored-in-the-continents-lakes-but-they-arent-the-answer-to-water-scarcity-201704">Africa’s aquifers hold more than 20 times the water stored in the continent's lakes, but they aren’t the answer to water scarcity</a>
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<p>In Africa, groundwater is very important. It supports <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2023/06/13/groundwater-the-hidden-wealth-of-nations">almost 100%</a> of household and agricultural activities in rural areas. And, because it’s underground it’s protected from evaporation, a crucial resource in a warming climate.</p>
<p>These facts and figures are in a recent World Bank <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/publication/the-hidden-wealth-of-nations-groundwater-in-times-of-climate-change">report</a> which unpacks issues facing groundwater in times of climate change. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m6uqRGMAAAAJ&hl=th">groundwater scientist</a> focusing on its sustainable use, I’ve picked out some of the key issues when it comes to managing groundwater from the report. It’s vital that African countries address these as pressure <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/state-of-climate-africa-highlights-water-stress-and-hazards">increases</a> on the continent’s water resources, through growing populations, development and changing weather patterns. </p>
<h2>Key issues</h2>
<p><strong>Ownership of groundwater</strong></p>
<p>Figuring out ownership of groundwater is important for the management of this finite resource. Without a clear understanding of ownership, conflict can happen.</p>
<p>In some countries groundwater is owned by the landowner, in others by the government. Generally, it’s being poorly managed <a href="https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H048386.pdf">across the continent</a>. In many cases, boreholes used to extract groundwater <a href="https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1094769/Perceptions_of_trends_in_the_development_of_private_boreholes_for_household_water_consumption.pdf">aren’t</a> even being registered. </p>
<p>South Africa has used laws and policies to <a href="http://ward2forum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/NWAguide.pdf">transfer</a> the ownership of resources to the government. But this has led to issues around red tape and licensing permits, which determine how water is allocated.</p>
<p>The success of permit systems depends on a thorough understanding of the resources, property owners’ compliance with granted user rights, and the enforcement of this regulation. This is particularly problematic in the developing world, according to the World Bank report. </p>
<p>A possible solution is decentralised management, as seen by the <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/harvesting-water-and-harnessing-cooperation-qanat-systems-middle-east-and-asia">Qanat system</a> in the Middle East. The system consists of a network of underground canals that transport water from aquifers in highlands to the surface at lower levels using gravity. It is normally managed by the community and financed collectively. These historical pieces of infrastructure have been abandoned in recent times, but could solve many of the water shortage issues in the semi-arid to arid areas of Africa.</p>
<p><strong>Recharging aquifers</strong></p>
<p>Groundwater in aquifers is finite, but it <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/7/1846">can be recharged</a> with surface water or treated wastewater. The process also sometimes helps in the removal of harmful chemicals because the aquifer’s material can act like a very large filter. </p>
<p>The World Bank report highlights <a href="https://www.americangeosciences.org/geoscience-currents/managed-aquifer-recharge#:%7E:text=Managed%20aquifer%20recharge%20(MAR)%2C,water%20supplies%20may%20be%20low.">managed aquifer recharge</a> as a technique which can be used to recharge aquifers. Water is either injected through a well or seeps into the ground through infiltration ponds, man-made or natural depressions in the ground which allows water to soak into the earth.</p>
<p>Countries in <a href="https://gw-project.org/books/managed-aquifer-recharge-southern-africa/">southern Africa</a> have practised this for the past 40 years. </p>
<p>Aquifers can also be recharged <a href="https://unepdhi.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/WEB_UNEP-DHI_NBS-PRIMER-2018-2.pdf">naturally</a> when rainwater infiltrates deep into the ground. This can be encouraged through afforestation, agricultural terraces and the prevention of land clearing. These practices allow permeable surfaces to dominate the landscape, stabilise the soil through plant growth, and slow the flow of water.</p>
<p><strong>Monitoring aquifers</strong></p>
<p>Monitoring aquifers is vital to know how much water is left in them. Unfortunately many African countries have poor monitoring networks and infrastructure in place. The number of monitoring points in certain countries is <a href="https://www.un-igrac.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Kukuric%20and%20van%20Vliet%2C%202008.pdf">also dwindling</a>, owing to financial constraints. </p>
<p>Satellite data can be used for monitoring. One example is the <a href="https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/data/data-analysis-tool/">GRACE (Gravity, Recovery and Climate Experiment)</a> twin satellites which have provided insights into subsurface water storage over the past 20 years. This means that the changes in aquifer volumes can be monitored, but only at a very large scale. It’s necessary to know what’s happening on the ground. Localised monitoring networks are needed, with data loggers at multiple wells.</p>
<p><strong>Effective policies</strong></p>
<p>Policies and incentives play a major role in the use of groundwater. They influence the cost of energy and abstraction and the overall accounting of groundwater resources and environmental impact. </p>
<p>In an African context, good policies are missing in places. There are, however, some community practices which help to protect the resource, like the Qanat system. These types of systems should be encouraged and replicated. </p>
<p><strong>Groundwater dependent ecosystems</strong></p>
<p>Groundwater dependent ecosystems, such as wetlands, play a <a href="https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/fs_7_livelihoods_en_v5_2.pdf">critical role</a> for many livelihoods in Africa and need to be more effectively managed. These ecosystems use groundwater to support plant and animal life and ecosystem services, such as fresh water and clean air, throughout the year. </p>
<p>But they’re exposed to major risks because they’re often close to semi-arid and arid areas. This is particularly true in the Sahel region. Groundwater dependent ecosystems are often close to border crossings and transport routes. Human activities, such as over-pumping, could adversely affect how they function and lead to a loss of biodiversity. </p>
<p>The conservation of these water bodies is of the utmost importance for the preservation of water resources and livelihoods. Policies which protect them – like the <a href="https://www.ramsar.org/">Ramsar convention</a> – must be properly enforced. Governments could should also consider creating protected areas around some of these ecosystems. </p>
<h2>Managing resources</h2>
<p>It’s imperative that governments better monitor our water resources. Coupled with good practical solutions, such as managing pump rates, this will sustain groundwater resources for many years to come. </p>
<p>The monitoring network on our continent is unfortunately limited or non-existent in certain countries. In some, like South Africa, the network is slowly diminishing. This is unfortunate as the ability to measure allows better management of groundwater resources.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gaathier Mahed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Better monitoring of groundwater is important for sustainable management.Gaathier Mahed, Senior lecturer, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057062023-05-17T13:23:49Z2023-05-17T13:23:49ZSudan’s university students have a long history of political activism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526550/original/file-20230516-26779-zx2pv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Student activists have been galvanising forces in several popular uprisings.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ebrahim Hamid/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest fighting to <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/04/whats-behind-fighting-sudan">erupt in Sudan</a> has plunged the nation into a fresh crisis. Since 15 April, conflict between the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces has left nearly 800 people dead and forced about a million others to seek sanctuary abroad. It has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/27/sudan-conflict-why-is-there-fighting-what-is-at-stake">disrupted daily life</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/communal-violence-and-civilian-deaths-in-sudan-fuel-fears-of-widening-conflict">destroyed property</a> and <a href="https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2023/04/violence-shuts-sudans-universities-again-countries-consider-evacuating-students/">shut down universities</a>. </p>
<p>It is adult military generals who have created this political abyss. I believe that the country’s young people – particularly its university students – symbolise Sudan’s hopes of reconstructing its future. </p>
<p>I am an academic researching higher education, education in post-conflict contexts and comparative national systems of education. I have also served in government in South Sudan, as the director general for universities in the Ministry of Higher Education. As such, and given my own experiences as a student activist, I have a deep interest in the role of university students in Sudan.</p>
<p>It would not be the first time that university students have come to the forefront to drive political change. They have done so four times before: once in the struggle to gain independence from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Sudan/The-British-conquest">colonial Britain</a> in 1956 and thrice as the Sudanese people stood up to military regimes – in 1964, 1985 and 2019.</p>
<p>Sudan’s university students have not only spearheaded revolutions. They also contributed to a thriving campus culture that has given voice to multiple political views, ethnicities and religious beliefs. No matter the students’ individual differences, the four uprisings I discuss here were driven by something they had in common: the desire for Sudan to be democratically ruled.</p>
<h2>Liberation struggles</h2>
<p>Universities play <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-73575-3_3">various societal roles</a>. In Sudan, tertiary institutions have historically had two main functions. First, as with any other African country immediately after colonial rule ended, they are responsible for socio-economic development. They supply both the private and public labour forces. Civil servants were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44947360">particularly important</a> immediately after the British ceded control.</p>
<p>Second, Sudan’s university students have played a key role in liberation struggles. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Sudan/The-growth-of-national-consciousness#ref48958">Graduates General Congress</a> began its life in the 1940s as an association for alumni of Gordon Memorial College. This institution would ultimately become the University of Khartoum, located in Sudan’s capital city. </p>
<p>The congress’s members articulated calls for independence. They galvanised many other Sudanese to push for the withdrawal of the British colonial state.</p>
<p>After independence, universities in Sudan continued on the same political path. Students led three popular uprisings that toppled military dictatorships and restored civilian and democratic rule. </p>
<p>University of Khartoum students organised and drove the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/world/africa/echoes-of-an-arab-revolution-that-rocked-sudan-circa-1964.html">October 1964 revolution</a>. This ended <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/09/obituaries/ibrahim-abboud-82-was-sudan-s-leader-from-1958-to-1964.html">General Ibrahim Abboud’s</a> eight-year presidency. Students – including myself, an undergraduate at the time – were also key players in 1985, when protests and a civil disobedience campaign deposed president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/05/obituary-jaafar-nimeiri">Jaafar Mohammed Numeiri</a>.</p>
<p>Most recently, university students and academics were <a href="https://theconversation.com/academics-have-shaped-sudans-political-history-and-may-do-it-again-115232">at the forefront</a> of the popular uprising in 2019 that ended Omar al-Bashir’s rule after 30 years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/academics-have-shaped-sudans-political-history-and-may-do-it-again-115232">Academics have shaped Sudan's political history, and may do it again</a>
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<h2>Khartoum at the centre</h2>
<p>The University of Khartoum, in various iterations, has been central to all these protests. <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/university-khartoum">The institution</a> was originally a satellite college of the University of London. It was established as a public university at independence in 1956. </p>
<p>Two other regional universities, Gezira and Juba (in what is today the capital of South Sudan), were opened in the 1970s. The 1990s saw what scholars <a href="https://fanack.com/wp-content/uploads/Higher-Education-Revolution.pdf">have called</a> the “higher education revolution”, when the growing demand for tertiary education led to 26 new institutions being created in 1991 alone.</p>
<p>Most of these universities are in Khartoum. This geographical concentration consolidates students’ power. It means they are physically well placed to collaborate and coordinate with other powerful groupings in society, like <a href="https://timep.org/2022/10/17/building-democratic-institutions-in-sudan-amid-authoritarian-rule/">trade unions</a>, to push for political change.</p>
<p>Other tertiary institutions in Khartoum are influenced by the University of Khartoum’s political and social activism. They have emerged as melting pots in an ethnically and linguistically diverse nation. For many students, particularly those from the periphery like Darfur in the far west, the former southern Sudan, the easterners and the Nubians in the far north, university campuses provide the first meeting point with those of other backgrounds.</p>
<p>When I spend time on Sudanese university campuses, I frequently overhear ideological and political debates. These thrive side by side with academic work. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>It is not clear what lies ahead for Sudan. But if history is any indication, university students will be at the heart of civilian resistance – and could once again play a crucial role in pushing for democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kuyok Abol Kuyok does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sudan’s university students have played a key role in liberation struggles.Kuyok Abol Kuyok, Associate Professor of Education, University of JubaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047882023-05-10T15:56:58Z2023-05-10T15:56:58ZFor Tunisia’s muzzled media, Arab Spring is now a distant memory<p>“Every afternoon before I leave the office, I turn off my phone and remove the SIM card. I don’t want to authorities to track my whereabouts.” Ayman (anonymised for protection) is one of Tunisia’s most prominent media profiles, and among the dwindling number of journalists who dare to criticise the authorities. Now he expects to be arrested any day. His boss was arrested and interrogated in February.</p>
<p>This is a far cry from the heady days after the fall of the country’s autocrat, Zinedine Ben Ali (1987-2011), when Tunisia’s media sector was revolutionised along with the rest of society. Like in Egypt, the 2011 Arab Spring resulted in the fall of a severely authoritarian regime. Until the fall of Ben Ali Tunisia was a veritable police state. Then, in a very short amount of time, Tunisians managed to set up new and democratic institutions, including a functioning parliament, an accountable presidency and independent courts.</p>
<p>The revolution also sowed the seeds of new and independent media outlets – radio, television and digital newspapers. The state television and radio company, al-Wataniyya, was redesigned to be a public broadcaster along the lines of BBC. The Journalists’ Syndicate proved to be an efficient protector of journalists’ professional rights vis-à-vis the authorities. Tunisians soon got used to critical news coverage and raucous political debates on prime-time TV. Now, all these gains are threatened and ordinary people do not even seem to mind much. What happened?</p>
<h2>The dark side of free media</h2>
<p>Since 2015, we have been studying media-politics relations in Tunisia as part of a research project on <a href="https://www.nupi.no/en/projects-centers/journalism-in-struggles-for-democracy-media-and-polarization-in-the-middle-east">journalism in struggles for democracy</a>. Over the last seven years, we have conducted 53 in-depth interviews and two focus group interviews with Tunisian journalists, activists and politicians. The aim of our interviews was to understand how journalists deal with media instrumentalisation and what political role they play in hybrid settings fluctuating between autocracy and democracy. Our last visit was in March 2023, one and a half years after President Kays Saïed abruptly suspended parliament.</p>
<p>But let us first rewind to 2011, when Tunisia went from a police state where the media was part of Ben Ali’s propaganda system to a suddenly free (and initially chaotic) media environment. The reshaping of the media scene took place in a context of political turmoil: <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-journalism-in-the-grey-zone.html">a hybrid political situation</a> of continuously contested democratisation in which political and business elites were eager to exploit the media for their own purposes. A textbook example of this was the behaviour of Nabil Karoui, a businessman who built his wealth on audiovisual production, digital media, and urban advertising and is CEO of the public relations firm Karoui & Karoui World. As the owner of Tunisia’s most popular TV channels, Nessma, he personally influenced its editorial policies while acting as communication advisor for ex-<a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-essebsi-the-late-maestro-of-tunisian-politics-122403">President Beji Caid Essebsi</a> (2014-2019). Karoui also appeared in the documentary series <em>Khalil Tunis</em>, devoted to covering the activities of a charity he had set up to fight poverty – at the same time as he founded his own party and his presidential ambitions became ever clearer. While Karoui was a particularly blatant example of media instrumentalisation, many other politicians, media owners and public figures were involved in murky intrigues and deals.</p>
<p>Hard-working journalists in newspapers, radio and television saw the big gain from the revolution – free media – melt away before their eyes, as squabbling politicians and commentators for hire alienated the Tunisian populace from both politics and the news media.</p>
<h2>Populism vs. journalism: President Kais Saïed and the media</h2>
<p>Enter the presidential election of September 2019, which featured two dyed-in-the-wool populists as frontrunners. Both of them represented a danger to free and critical media, but in very different ways. Nabil Karoui, whom we have already mentioned, was a charismatic media magnate who used his own TV channel to manipulate the political climate. The Conservative Kais al-Saïed, who <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20191014-conservative-kais-saied-elected-president-of-tunisia-with-72-71-percent-of-vote">won the election with 72,71% votes</a>, was a former university lecturer in law who preferred to avoid the news media altogether. Saïed was nicknamed “Robocop” on account of his mechanic style of talking in interviews. His campaign relied not on media, but on grassroots activists going from door to door and arranging public meetings across Tunisia.</p>
<p>Saïed treats the media with the same contempt as he has shown toward political parties and parliamentarism. Journalists we spoke with in March said that the public broadcasting company has been reduced to a propaganda outlet. Saïed avoids relating to the private media, and prefers communicating with the public through announcements on Facebook, a very important communication platform in Tunisia. When the media contact the president’s office for statements on current affairs they receive no reply. It was telling that when a new and tame parliament opened on 13 March, no journalists from independent or foreign media were allowed inside the building so as to prevent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/13/press-banned-from-opening-session-of-new-tunisian-parliament-kais-saied">“disorder”</a>.</p>
<h2>The decline of journalism and the relativization of truth</h2>
<p>The president’s antipathy toward the media goes hand in hand with his intolerance of criticism and predilection for conspiracy theories. His widely reported, racist <a href="https://theconversation.com/tunisia-presidents-offensive-statements-targeted-black-migrants-with-widespread-fallout-201593">rant against sub-Saharan Africans</a> in February is only the tip of the iceberg. Several opposition leaders have been imprisoned since March, accused of <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/02/tunisia-president-saied-must-immediately-stop-his-political-witch-hunt/">“conspiring to undermine the state”</a>. Noureddine Boutar, the head of Tunisia’s main independent radio channel, Mosaïque, was arrested in February on charges of <a href="https://www.mosaiquefm.net/fr/actualite-national-tunisie/1137635/detention-de-boutar-la-ligne-editoriale-de-mosaique-fm-derange">‘attacking the highest symbol of the state and exacerbating tensions in the country’</a>. Journalists we met in March told us that they are accused of spreading fear among the public (now a punishable crime) when they simply report facts about Tunisia’s many economic and social problems.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525426/original/file-20230510-11912-8f7uo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since rising to power in 2019, President Saied has increasingly zapped Tunisia’s freedom of speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tunisia-3433_-_Want_to_buy_a_TV......_%287847360164%29.jpg">Dennis Jarvis/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are still strong journalistic voices who speak out against the attacks on liberty of speech. When we interviewed officials at the Journalists’ Syndicate, they took it for granted that they were being surveilled, but they were as defiant as ever, having participated in a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/5/tunisian-opposition-defies-protest-ban-with-rally">march for freedom</a> a couple of days before we met them.</p>
<p>However, the bigger picture is gloomy. Political content has all but disappeared from the previously intensely political TV channels. Journalists who want to do political reporting have difficulties earning a living from it. Moreover, Saïed seems to have succeeded in convincing substantial parts of the population that the news media are part of the corrupt elites and not to be trusted. As a result, people get their news from rumours on Facebook. As one media scholar told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I had problems convincing my own family that Saïed’s wildly exaggerated claims about the number of sub-Saharan African immigrants were necessarily absurd, because there are no epistemological authorities anymore. Announcements and rumours on Facebook have replaced fact-checked news as a source of information.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The dearth of sober, critical journalism does nothing to reduce the intense polarisation in Tunisian politics between <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/tunisia-politics-idCAKBN2RA05Z">the president, the Islamists, and the reactionary Free Constitutional Party</a>. They all have it in for journalists. Each camp constructs its own reality and viciously attacks those who challenge the relativisation of truth based on <a href="https://inkyfada.com/en/">objective and critical reporting</a>. We should not forget that Tunisian journalists can look to the <a href="https://rsf.org/en/classement/2022/americas">United States</a>, <a href="https://rsf.org/en/classement/2022/europe-central-asia">several European countries</a> and <a href="https://rsf.org/en/country/russia">Russia</a> for parallels to their own situation. Sadly, that does not help them much. Critical, fact-based journalism is under threat in many purportedly free and pluralistic societies, and Tunisia is presently one of the hotspots.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob Høigilt a reçu des financements de Conseil de recherche de Norvège. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kjetil Selvik a reçu des financements du Conseil norvégien de la recherche </span></em></p>Freedom of expression was the one remaining gain of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, but it is now severely threatened by a populist president.Jacob Høigilt, Professor of Arab studies, University of OsloKjetil Selvik, Research Professor in political science, Norwegian Institute of International AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039852023-04-17T21:52:35Z2023-04-17T21:52:35ZSudan crisis explained: What’s behind the latest fighting and how it fits nation’s troubled past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521406/original/file-20230417-14-9k84wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C170%2C4166%2C2628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sudan army soldiers are fighting a rival paramilitary group.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sudanese-greet-army-soldiers-loyal-to-army-chief-abdel-news-photo/1251884288?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Days of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/4/17/sudan-fighting-live-news-nearly-100-killed-as-clashes-spread">violence in Sudan</a> have resulted in the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sudan-fighting-military-rsf-eafa3246b1e3004a1a9f2b9af9561362">deaths of at least 180 people</a>, with many more left wounded.</em></p>
<p><em>The fighting represents the latest crisis in the North African nation, which has contended with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-59057559">numerous coups and periods of civil strife</a> since becoming independent in 1956.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://history.washington.edu/people/christopher-tounsel">Christopher Tounsel</a>, a Sudan specialist and interim director of the University of Washington’s African Studies Program, to explain the reasons behind the violence and what it means for the chances of democracy being restored in Sudan.</em></p>
<h2>What is going on in Sudan?</h2>
<p>It all revolves around infighting between two rival groups: the Sudanese army and a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/sudan-unrest-what-is-the-rapid-support-forces">paramilitary group known as the RSF</a>, or Rapid Support Forces.</p>
<p>Since a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/africa/sudan-coup-explained-intl-cmd/index.html">coup in the country in 2021</a>, which ended a transitional government put in place after the fall of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-16010445">longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir</a> two years earlier, Sudan has been run by the army, with coup leader General Abdel-Fattah Burhan as de facto ruler.</p>
<p><iframe id="nO9q2" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nO9q2/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The RSF, led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo – who is <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-conflict-hemedti-the-warlord-who-built-a-paramilitary-force-more-powerful-than-the-state-203949">generally known by the name Hemedti</a> – has worked alongside the Sudanese army to help keep the military in power.</p>
<p>Following Bashir’s ouster, the political transition was supposed to result in elections <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/sudan-coup-fears-amid-claims-military-have-arrested-senior-government-officials">by the end of 2023</a>, with Burhan <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59855246">promising a transition to civilian rule</a>. But it appears that neither Burhan nor Dagalo has any intention of relinquishing power. Moreover, they are locked in a power struggle that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/4/15/sudan-unrest-live-news-explosions-shooting-rock-khartoum">turned violent on April 15</a>, 2023.</p>
<p>Since then, members of the RSF and the Sudanese army have engaged in gunfights in the capital, Khartoum, as well as elsewhere in the country. Over the course of three days, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sudan-fighting-military-rsf-eafa3246b1e3004a1a9f2b9af9561362">violence has spiraled</a>.</p>
<p>The recent background to the violence was a disagreement over how RSF paramilitaries <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/sudan-s-military-warns-of-conflict-after-rival-force-deploys-/7050034.html">should be incorporated</a> into the Sudanese army. Tensions boiled over after the RSF started deploying members around the country and in Khartoum without the expressed permission of the army.</p>
<p>But in reality, the violence has been brewing for a while in Sudan, with concern over the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48987901">RSF seeking to control more of the country’s economic assets</a>, notably its gold mines.</p>
<p>The developments in Sudan over the last few days are not good for the stability of the nation or its prospects for any <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134137">transition to democratic rule</a>.</p>
<h2>Who are the two men at the center of the dispute?</h2>
<p>Dagalo rose to power within the RSF beginning in the early 2000s when he was at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-tracing-the-history-of-sudans-janjaweed-militia-118926">head of the militia known as Janjaweed</a> – a group responsible for human right atrocities in the Darfur region.</p>
<p>While then-Sudanese President Bashir was the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir">face of the violence</a> against people in Darfur – and was later <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CaseInformationSheets/AlBashirEng.pdf">indicted on crimes against humanity</a> by the International Criminal Court – the Janjaweed is <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur">also held responsible</a> by the ICC for alleged acts of genocide. While they were doing so, Dagalo was rising up the ranks.</p>
<p>As head of the RSF, Dagalo has faced accusations of overseeing the bloody crackdown of pro-democracy activists, including <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/11/18/they-were-shouting-kill-them/sudans-violent-crackdown-protesters-khartoum">the massacre of 120 protesters</a> in 2019.</p>
<p>The actions of Burhan, similarly, have seen the military leader <a href="https://www.hrw.org/africa/sudan">heavily criticized by human rights groups</a>. As the head of the army in power and the country’s de facto head of government for the last two years, he <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/pro-democracy-protests-set-to-mark-sudan-coup-anniversary-despite-crackdown-01666672508">oversaw a crackdown of pro-democracy activists</a>.</p>
<p>One can certainly interpret both men to be obstacles to any chance of Sudan transitioning to civilian democracy. But this is first and foremost a personal power struggle.</p>
<p>To use an African proverb, “When the elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”</p>
<h2>So this is about power rather than ideology?</h2>
<p>In my opinion, very much so.</p>
<p>We are not talking about two men, or factions, with ideological differences over the future direction of the country. This cannot be framed as a left-wing versus right-wing thing, or about warring political parties. Nor is this a geo-religious conflict – pitting a majority <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-south-sudan-turns-10-questions-over-the-role-of-the-church-emerge-amid-anti-clerical-violence-164018">Muslim North against a Christian South</a>. And it isn’t racialized violence in the same way that the Darfur conflict was, with the self-identified Arab Janajaweed killing Black people.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudan-burhan-hemeti-tensions-escalate-framework-dea">observers are interpreting</a> what is happening in Sudan – correctly, in my opinion – as a battle between two men who are desperate not to be ejected from the corridors of power by means of a transition to an elected government.</p>
<h2>How does the violence fit Sudan’s troubled past?</h2>
<p>One thing that is concerning about the longer dynamics at play in Sudan is the violence now forms part of a history that fits the trope of the “failed African nation.”</p>
<p>Sudan has, to my knowledge, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-coup-years-of-instability-have-made-the-army-key-power-brokers-170676">had more coups</a> than any other African nation. Since gaining independence from the U.K. in 1956, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-59057559">there have been coups</a> in 1958, 1969, 1985, 1989, 2019 and 2021.</p>
<p>The coup in 1989 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/sudans-bashir-admits-role-1989-coup-during-trial-2022-12-20/">brought Bashir to power</a> for a three-decade run as dictator during which the Sudanese people suffered from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/quran-and-ak-47-the-30-year-rule-of-sudans-omar-al-bashir">typical excesses of autocratic rule</a> – secret police, repressions of opposition, corruption. </p>
<p>When Bashir was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/11/omar-al-bashir-deposed-how-the-world-reacted">deposed in 2019</a>, it was shocking to many observers – myself included – who assumed he would die in power, or that his rule would end only by assassination.</p>
<p>But any hopes that the end of Bashir would mean democratic rule were short-lived. Two years after his ouster – when elections were due to be held – the army decided to take power for itself, claiming it was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/26/sudans-army-chief-defends-militarys-seizure-of-power">stepping in to avert a civil war</a>.</p>
<p>As striking as the recent violence is now, in many ways what is playing out is not unusual in the context of Sudan’s history.</p>
<p>The army has long been at the center of political transitions in Sudan. And resistance to civilian rule has been more than less the norm since <a href="https://countrystudies.us/sudan/20.htm">independence in 1956</a>.</p>
<h2>Is there a danger the violence will escalate?</h2>
<p>A coalition of civilian groups in the country has called for an immediate halt to the violence – as has the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-secretary-state-blinken-calls-immediate-end-violence-sudan-2023-04-15/">U.S. and other international observers</a>. But with both factions dug in, that seems unlikely. Similarly, the prospect of free and fair elections in Sudan seems some ways off.</p>
<p>There doesn’t appears to be an easy route to a short-term solution, and what makes it tougher is that you have two powerful men, both with a military at their disposal, fighting each other for power that neither seem prepared to relinquish.</p>
<p>The concern is that the fighting might escalate and destabilize the region, jeopardizing Sudan’s relations with its neighbors. Chad, which borders Sudan to the west, has already <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230416-chad-closes-borders-with-sudan-amid-armed-clashes/">closed its border</a> with Sudan. Meanwhile, a couple of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/egyptian-soldiers-captured-in-sudan-to-be-returned-says-rsf">Egyptian soldiers were captured</a> in northern Sudan while violence was happening in Khartoum. Ethiopia, Sudan’s neighbor to the east, is still reeling from a <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ethiopia">two-year war in the Tigray region</a>. And the spread of unrest in Sudan will be a concern to those watching an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/why-has-peace-eluded-south-sudan-2023-02-03/">uneasy peace deal</a> in South Sudan – which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/africa/10sudan.html">gained independence from Sudan in 2011</a> and has been <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/civil-war-south-sudan">beset by ethnic fighting ever since</a>.</p>
<p>As such, the stakes in the current unrest could go beyond the immediate future of Burhan, Dagalo and even the Sudanese nation. The stability of the region could also be out at risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Tounsel has previously received funding from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Social Science Research Council, the Doris G. Quinn Foundation, the University of Michigan, the Pennsylvania State University, Macalester College, and the University of Washington. </span></em></p>Violence in Sudan threatens to throw the troubled nation into chaos. A scholar of the region explains what is going on and what’s at stake.Christopher Tounsel, Associate Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1965432022-12-16T13:13:27Z2022-12-16T13:13:27ZMuslim Brotherhood at the crossroads: Where now for Egypt’s once-powerful group following leader’s death in exile, repression at home?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501383/original/file-20221215-22-5t8yv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C53%2C3994%2C2604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the Muslim Brotherhood protest at a rally in 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-supporters-of-ousted-news-photo/173509620?phrase=Muslim%20Brotherhood%20flag%20Egypt&adppopup=true">Carsten Koall/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ibrahim Munir, the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-ibrahim-munir-muslim-brotherhood-acting-leader-dies">died on Nov. 4, 2022</a>, in exile in London. While the news generated few headlines around the world, Munir’s death marks a critical moment in the evolution of a group founded nearly 100 years ago, as a social and religious movement.</p>
<p>Over the years, the Brotherhood grew into the most significant social movement and political opposition in Egypt. Its Islamist ideology – which calls for public policies in line with its interpretation of Islam – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/15/muslim-networks-and-movements-in-western-europe-muslim-brotherhood-and-jamaat-i-islami/">became widely influential</a> around the world.</p>
<p>But since a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html">2013 military coup</a> that removed the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi from power, the group has been all but destroyed, with most of its leaders either imprisoned, killed or in exile.</p>
<p>For now, the group has <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221107-muslim-brotherhood-assigns-temporary-acting-guide/">a new temporary leader</a> in Muhyeddine al-Zayet, a 70-year-old senior figure in the movement.</p>
<p>But the stark reality is that the Brotherhood is at a turning point: The movement either will have to reinvent itself or face the prospect of gradually fading into irrelevance.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/imatesan/profile.html">scholar of social movements</a> who has <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-violence-pendulum-9780197510087?cc=us&lang=en&">studied the evolution of the Brotherhood</a> and interviewed both members and defectors, I believe its fate hangs on three issues: how it responds to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s repression of opposition groups including the Brotherhood; which leaders guide the movement during its crisis; and how the group rebuilds in exile. </p>
<h2>Has the Brotherhood run its course?</h2>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood was <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/egypts-muslim-brotherhood">established in 1928</a> by Hassan al-Banna, a primary school teacher with a vision that piety and Islamic values can help transform the individual, reform society and ultimately bring about an Islamic state.</p>
<p>Appealing to Egyptians disillusioned with the country’s existing religious institutions, critical of its political system and angered by the Western interference in the Muslim world, the Brotherhood <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/03/world/africa/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-explainer/index.html">grew into a grassroots movement</a> with an intricate network of schools, newspapers and social services.</p>
<p>By the end of the 20th century, the Brotherhood dominated civil society in Egypt and became a prominent source of political opposition. It also established branches and affiliates throughout the Muslim world. </p>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/17/what-is-the-arab-spring-and-how-did-it-start">2011 Arab Spring</a>, which saw popular uprisings in a number of countries across the Middle East, the Brotherhood came to power in Egypt’s first free and fair elections. Its affiliated political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, won the largest parliamentary block, and its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, was elected president. By June 2013, however, disillusionment with the lack of political progress and the poor economic performance of the country led to widespread popular mobilization against the Brotherhood. A month later the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html">military ousted Morsi</a> from power. </p>
<h2>Emergence of two Brotherhoods</h2>
<p>When Brotherhood supporters took to the streets and demanded that the democratically elected president be reinstalled, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/08/egypt-clashes-morsi-muslim-brotherhood-military">police and army forces opened fire on demonstrators</a>. On Aug. 14, 2013, security forces brutally put down the sit-in in Rab’a Square in eastern Cairo, killing over 800 people, in what Human Rights Watch said <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt">likely amounted to crimes against humanity</a>.</p>
<p>For some Brotherhood members, the brutality of the security forces sparked a <a href="https://doi.org//10.1080/13510347.2016.1273903?journalCode=fdem20">desire for revenge and justified a violent response</a>.</p>
<p>For the most senior Brotherhood leaders, however, violence was neither politically pragmatic nor ideologically justified. In the absence of a clear vision for how to respond to the political crisis, many young members became <a href="https://doi.org//10.1080/13510347.2019.1630610">disillusioned with the organization</a>. </p>
<p>By 2014, the Brotherhood was not just losing members. Two additional fault lines emerged: the question of leadership and the question of exile. Mass arrests caused a leadership vacuum that led to a <a href="https://doi.org//10.1080/13510347.2019.1630610">new cadres of midranking members</a> taking over activities inside Egypt. </p>
<p>These new leaders adopted a more revolutionary tone and started operating independently of the older leadership. The parallel claims to authority and divergent visions over how to respond to the political repression <a href="https://research.sharqforum.org/2018/09/07/iran-and-the-egyptian-muslim-brotherhood-heading-towards-development-or-simply-repair/">led to a split</a> between the so-called “historical leaders” and the new leadership.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Photo of an elderly man in a black blazer and blue shift." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501384/original/file-20221215-15-i1ei6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Ibrahim Munir in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-general-of-the-international-organization-of-the-news-photo/173448728?phrase=Ibrahim%20Munir%20Muslim%20Brotherhood&adppopup=true">Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 2016 there were in effect two Muslim Brotherhoods: the original group, under the leadership of Ibrahim Munir as the deputy guide operating out of the U.K., and the <a href="https://research.sharqforum.org/2018/09/07/iran-and-the-egyptian-muslim-brotherhood-heading-towards-development-or-simply-repair/">so-called “General Office,” under the new leadership</a>. The General Office attracted many young revolutionaries, including women, but the group had significantly fewer resources, which led it eventually to dissipate.</p>
<p>I learned from interviews with Brotherhood members that with Munir operating as leader in exile, a deeply contested internal debate emerged over whether to restructure the movement and shift the strategic decision-making to the leaders abroad. Outside of Egypt, the organization established regional consultative councils in most host states with a significant Brotherhood presence, most notably in Turkey.</p>
<p>While this allowed for some semblance of organizational rebuilding, some leaders still insisted that all major decisions about the direction, tactics and strategies of the Brotherhood be made inside Egypt. </p>
<h2>Can the Brotherhood rise again?</h2>
<p>This is not the first time that the Muslim Brotherhood has been nearly destroyed by government repression. In 1954 a militant faction of the Brotherhood allegedly attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser, prompting <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-violence-pendulum-9780197510087?cc=us&lang=en&">a severe crackdown on the group</a>. The torture and abuse that Brotherhood members faced in prison inspired a new militant vision for activism and led a small group of Brotherhood members to start plotting attacks on government officials. The government discovered these cells before any plans came to fruition, leading to a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167886/making-the-arab-world">second major wave of repression in 1965</a>.</p>
<p>But the circumstances in which the Brotherhood finds itself today are different from these past periods of repression. It is more deeply divided than before. And importantly, the current repression comes after the movement came to power and had a chance to rule but ultimately failed.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/ABV_Egypt_Report_Public-Opinion_Arab-Barometer_2019.pdf">Arab Barometer</a>, a nonpartisan research network, shows that since 2013 Egyptians have been consistently skeptical of political Islam as expressed by the Brotherhood, even as the population remains largely religious. For for many of Egypt’s young people the Brotherhood cannot offer any solutions to the economic hardships facing the country, or the growing human rights abuses.</p>
<p>Faced with these internal divisions and challenging political circumstances, the road ahead will not be easy for the Brotherhood. As some of its former members have admitted, there is a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rethinking-political-islam-9780190649197?cc=us&lang=en&">tension between being a social movement and being a political party</a>.</p>
<p>The Brotherhood knows that many Egyptians agree with the group’s religious values at the same time that they are deeply critical of its political ambitions.</p>
<p>If the Brotherhood seeks to become a force of change again and attract a new generation of Islamist activists, I believe it needs to develop a new vision and theory of political agency that inspires both the youth in exile, who speak the language of inclusion, diversity and revolution, and Egypt’s young people, who hunger for freedom and economic opportunities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ioana Emy Matesan has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The Muslim Brotherhood once held the reins of power in Egypt. Now it faces internal splits, government repression and dwindling support.Ioana Emy Matesan, Associate Professor of Government, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1943262022-11-15T13:21:01Z2022-11-15T13:21:01ZNorth Africans’ experiences of World War II often go unheard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495150/original/file-20221114-21-pmhw1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C3%2C1020%2C726&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">German troops marching through Tunis in 1943.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tunisia-german-troop-marching-through-tunis-in-north-africa-news-photo/107427560?phrase=tunisia%20german&adppopup=true">Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November 1942, the Nazis occupied Tunisia. For the next six months, Tunisian Jews and Muslims were subjected to <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29530">the Third Reich’s reign of terror</a>, as well as its antisemitic and racist legislation. Residents lived in fear – “under the Nazi boot,” as Tunisian Jewish lawyer Paul Ghez wrote in his diary during the occupation.</p>
<p>One of us is <a href="https://sarahastein.com/">a historian</a>; one of us is <a href="https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/aomar-boum/">an anthropologist</a>. Together, we have spent a decade <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=32119">gathering the voices</a> of the diverse peoples who endured World War II in North Africa, <a href="https://www.worldreligionnews.com/issues/the-triangular-affair-between-muslims-france-and-jews-interview-with-ethan-b-katz/">across lines of</a> race, class, language and region. Their letters, diaries, memoirs, poetry and oral histories are both defiant and broken. They express both faith and despair. All in all, they understood themselves to be trapped in a monstrous machine of fascism, occupation, violence and racism. </p>
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<p>When most Americans think of the nightmares of the war or the Holocaust, they think strictly of Europe. Hate has a shifting color wheel, however – and we learn something new when we watch its spin in wartime North Africa.</p>
<h2>Crossing the sea</h2>
<p>The history of Jews settling in North Africa begins as early as the sixth century B.C., after the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Another significant wave of immigrants followed the Spanish Inquisition. At the start of World War II, <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jews-of-the-maghreb-on-the-eve-of-world-war-ii">a diverse North African Jewish population</a> of roughly 500,000 coexisted with Muslim neighbors.</p>
<p>North Africa’s Jews spoke many languages, reflecting their many different cultures and ethnicities: Arabic, French, Tamazight – a Berber language – and Haketia, a form of Judeo-Spanish spoken in northern Morocco. While a large number of North African Jews, particularly in Algeria, enjoyed the privileges of French and other Western citizenship, the majority remained subjects of local leaders. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An old, black and white postcard shows a group of girls standing outside a doorway in skirts and kerchiefs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495144/original/file-20221114-20-wgqeeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of Jewish girls in Debdou, Morocco, around 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Debdou_Fillettes_Juvies.jpg">D Millet E/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>During the Second World War, however, those who held French citizenship had it stripped away. Three European powers ruled North Africa during the war, all brutally.</p>
<p>Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were, for most of the conflict, in the hands <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france">of Vichy France</a>. This authoritarian government, which collaborated with Nazi Germany, was formed in July 1940 by armistice, after Germany’s successful invasion of France. It was ruled by Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, a French hero of the First World War, out of the southern city of Vichy.</p>
<p>All <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anti-jewish-legislation-in-north-africa?parent=en%2F54497">antisemitic and racist laws and policies</a> the Vichy regime imposed upon continental France were extended to its colonies in North and West Africa, pushing Jews out of professional sectors, stripping them of citizenship – if they had it to begin with – and seizing Jewish property, businesses and assets. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a man and woman standing while another woman sits between them. They all wear long robes or skirts and have their heads covered." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494965/original/file-20221113-16-dnvkcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Jewish family in Tangier, Morocco, in 1885.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jewish-family-tangier-by-1885-news-photo/55757507?phrase=jewish%20morocco&adppopup=true">LL/Roger Viollet via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The Vichy regime also continued racist policies begun by France’s Third Republic, which pushed young Black men from the empire into forced military service – and the most dangerous wartime posts. These forced recruits included soldiers <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-time-has-come-for-france-to-own-up-to-the-massacre-of-its-own-troops-in-senegal-35131">from Senegal</a>, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and Mauritania; French territories in present-day Benin, Gambia and Burkina Faso; and Muslim men from Morocco and Algeria.</p>
<p>In these ways, the French carried on a wartime campaign of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia, pairing these forms of racialized hatred from the colonial era with antisemitism. Antisemitism had deep roots in French and colonial history, but it <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2022-06-27/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/how-north-african-jews-have-been-erased-from-holocaust-history/00000181-a4fe-dcbe-a19b-a5ff8fc40000">found new force</a> in the era of fascism.</p>
<p>Antisemitic and anti-Black policy was also a bedrock of Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italian government, which ruled over Libya during the war. Italy first tested its <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/08/25/in-plain-sight-black-lives-matter-and-italys-colonial-past/">racist policies</a> in its colony of Italian East Africa, segregating local Black populations from Italian settlers. Mussolini’s regime then reshaped these policies of racialized hatred for Libya, where it pushed Jews out of the professions and the economy, seized property from thousands and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-10-31/ty-article/.highlight/a-childhood-in-benghazi-a-bar-mitzvah-in-bergen-belsen/0000017f-f0ea-df98-a5ff-f3ef381e0000">deported them to labor and internment camps</a>. Jewish children, women and men died from starvation, disease, <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/famine-wartime-north-africa-ukraine/">hunger</a> and forced labor. </p>
<h2>Camps on African soil</h2>
<p>Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia from November 1942 to May 1943. <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=32119">During this period</a>, the SS – the elite guard of the Nazi regime – imprisoned some 5,000 Jewish men in roughly 40 forced labor and detention camps on the front lines and in cities like Tunis. German troops also terrorized Muslim and Jewish girls and women who remained behind.</p>
<p>The Third Reich did not set out to deport Jews from North Africa to its death camps in Eastern Europe, but hundreds of Jews of North African heritage and some Muslims who were living in France <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2022-06-27/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/how-north-african-jews-have-been-erased-from-holocaust-history/00000181-a4fe-dcbe-a19b-a5ff8fc40000">did meet this fate</a>. They were deported first to the <a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/this-month/december/1942.html">internment camp of Drancy</a>, on the outskirts of Paris, and sent from there to concentration and death camps. Many died in Auschwitz.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/labor-and-internment-camps-in-north-africa">camps in North Africa and West Africa, too</a>. In addition to those the Italian fascists built in Libya, Vichy France and Nazi Germany ran penal camps, detention camps and labor camps. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a shirtless man in shorts pushing a heavy metal cart over a track." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C3%2C1020%2C695&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494777/original/file-20221110-26-gnvub5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rosenthal, a German Jewish prisoner, pushes a cart in the stone quarry of the Im Fout labor camp in Morocco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1172894">United States Holocaust Memorial Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Vichy regime alone built nearly 70 such camps in the Sahara, <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/03/30/85472142.html?pageNumber=107">breathing new life</a> into a colonial ambition of building a trans-Saharan railway to connect the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. The Vichy regime saw it as a conduit for supplying the front lines with forcibly recruited, Black Senegalese soldiers.</p>
<p>In these camps, as in the Nazi camps of Eastern Europe, the complex racist logic of Nazism and fascism took vivid form. Muslims arrested for anti-colonial activities were pressed into back-breaking labor alongside Jews and Christians who had fled war-torn Europe, only to find themselves arrested in North Africa.</p>
<p>These men broke bread with other forced workers from around the world, including <a href="https://spanishcivilwarmuseum.com/the-virtual-spanish-civil-war-museum/an-international-war/international-brigades/">fighters who had volunteered for Spain’s Republican Army</a> during its civil war. These Ukrainians, Americans, Germans, Russian Jews and others had been arrested, deported and imprisoned by the Vichy regime after fleeing Franco’s Spain. There were political enemies of the Vichy and Nazi regimes, too, including socialists, communists, union members and North African nationalists. Children and women were imprisoned as well. </p>
<p>Among this hodgepodge of prisoners, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SvM32zM7-g">many were refugees who fled Europe</a>, whether because of their Jewishness or because they were political enemies of the Third Reich. Inmates were overseen by French Vichy soldiers as well as <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20200707-french-mayors-urged-to-acknowledge-outstanding-contribution-of-african-soldiers-during-wwii">forcibly recruited indigenous Moroccan and Black Senegalese men</a>, who were often <a href="https://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/colonised-soldiers-french-empire">little more than prisoners</a> themselves. Sometimes the camp prisoners interacted with local populations: Saharan Muslims and Jews who provided them medical care, burial grounds, and food and sex for money. </p>
<p>Nazism in Europe was underlaid by an intricate matrix of racist, eugenicist and nationalist ideas. But the war – and the Holocaust – appears even more complex if historians take into account the racist and violent color wheel that spun in North Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People across much of North Africa were subject to racist laws and suffering at the hands of European powers during the Second World War.Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Professor of History, University of California, Los AngelesAomar Boum, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910892022-10-06T13:45:35Z2022-10-06T13:45:35Z‘Sea monsters’ were real millions of years ago. New fossils tell about their rise and fall<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488531/original/file-20221006-19-8xaxr1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thalassotitan teeth.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicholas Longrich</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sixty six million years ago, sea monsters really existed. They were mosasaurs, huge marine lizards that lived at the same time as the last dinosaurs. Growing up to 12 metres long, mosasaurs looked like a Komodo dragon with flippers and a shark-like tail. They were also wildly diverse, evolving dozens of species that filled different niches. Some ate fish and squid, some ate shellfish or ammonites. </p>
<p>Now <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667122001793?dgcid=author">we’ve found a new mosasaur</a> preying on large marine animals, including <em>other</em> mosasaurs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487600/original/file-20221002-27126-grh6vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The mosasaur Thalassotitan attacks a smaller mosasaur species, Halisaurus. Art by Andrey Atuchin.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new species, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667122001793?dgcid=author"><em>Thalassotitan atrox</em></a>, was dug up in the Oulad Abdoun Basin of Khouribga Province, an hour outside Casablanca in Morocco. </p>
<p>At the end of the Cretaceous period, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.12.007">sea levels were high</a>, flooding much of Africa. Ocean currents, driven by the trade winds, pulled nutrient-rich bottom waters to the surface, creating a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.04.043">thriving marine ecosystem</a>. The seas were full of fish, attracting predators – the mosasaurs. They brought their own predators, the giant <em>Thalassotitan</em>. Nine metres long and with a massive, 1.3 metre-long head, it was the deadliest animal in the sea. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487604/original/file-20221002-20-9yoxbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thalassotitan size.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most mosasaurs had long jaws and small teeth to catch fish. But <em>Thalassotitan</em> was built very differently. It had a short, wide snout and strong jaws, shaped like those of a killer whale. The back of the skull was wide to attach large jaw muscles, giving it a powerful bite. The anatomy tells us this mosasaur was adapted to attack and tear apart large animals.</p>
<p>The massive, conical teeth <a href="https://www.int-res.com/articles/ab2010/11/b011p213.pdf">resemble the teeth of orcas</a>. And the tips of those teeth are chipped, broken and ground down. This heavy wear – not found in fish-eating mosasaurs – suggests <em>Thalassotitan</em> damaged its teeth biting into the bones of marine reptiles like plesiosaurs, sea turtles and other mosasaurs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487601/original/file-20221002-27856-5899ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thalassotitan skull.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same site we’ve found what look like the fossilised remains of its victims. The rocks producing <em>Thalassotitan</em> skulls and skeletons are full of partially digested bones from mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. The teeth of these animals, including those of half-metre skull from a long-necked <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X10001851">plesiosaur</a>, have been partially eaten away by acid. That suggests they were killed, eaten and digested by a large predator, which then <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2011.631703">spat up the bones</a>. We can’t prove <em>Thalassotitan</em> ate them, but it fits the profile of the killer, and nothing else does, making it the prime suspect.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487602/original/file-20221002-12-xgatwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Remains of a small mosasaur, Halisaurus, showing teeth eaten away by acids.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Thalassotitan</em>, sitting at the top of the food chain, also tells a lot about ancient marine food chains, and how they evolved in the Cretaceous.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-found-dust-from-the-asteroid-that-wiped-out-the-dinosaurs-inside-the-crater-it-left-156232">Scientists have found dust from the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs inside the crater it left</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Evolution of a killer</h2>
<p>The discovery of <em>Thalassotitan</em> tells us about marine ecosystems just before the asteroid hit 66 million years ago, ending the age of the dinosaurs. </p>
<p><em>Thalassotitan</em> was just one of a dozen mosasaur species living in the waters off of Morocco. Mosasaurs made up a fraction of all the thousands of species living in the oceans, but the fact that predators were so diverse implies that lower levels of the food chain were diverse too, for the oceans to be able to feed them all. This means that the marine ecosystem wasn’t in decline before the asteroid hit. </p>
<p>Instead, mosasaurs and other animals – plesiosaurs, giant sea turtles, ammonites, countless species of fish, molluscs, sea urchins, crustaceans – flourished, then died out suddenly when the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1177265">10-kilometre wide Chicxulub asteroid slammed into the earth</a>, launching dust and soot into the air, and blocking out the sun. Mosasaur extinction wasn’t the predictable result of gradual environmental changes. It was the unpredictable result of a sudden catastrophe. Like a lightning strike from a clear blue sky, their end was swift, final, unpredictable. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487610/original/file-20221002-18-6lu4ah.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An asteroid approaching Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But mosasaur evolution may also have <em>started</em> with a catastrophe. Curiously, the evolution of the giant carnivorous mosasaurs resembles that of another family of predators – the <em>Tyrannosauridae</em>. The giant <em>T. rex</em> evolved on land at about the same time that mosasaurs became top predators in the seas. Is that a coincidence? Maybe not. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487608/original/file-20221002-3194-gtqfpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The tyrannosaur Tarbosaurus, from Mongolia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Longrich</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both mosasaurs and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0888-0">tyrannosaurs start to diversify</a> and become larger at the same time, around 90 million years ago, in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018213002514">Turonian stage of the Cretaceous</a>. This followed major extinctions <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article/109/5/560/183244/Nonmarine-extinction-across-the-Cenomanian?casa_token=EPiZkxT68YkAAAAA:1qGLmu4DhCdd7-h4BC3E0V3dfvjFGvTwz3GTuZ_FLpAa-PT-dJEe7wMknDCAgsCTMticuA">on land</a> and <a href="https://archives.datapages.com/data/sepm_sp/fg4/Biotic_Patterns_Across.htm">in the sea</a> around 94 million years ago, at the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary.</p>
<p>These extinctions are associated with extreme global warming – a “supergreenhouse” climate – driven by <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020PA004016">volcanoes releasing C02</a> into the atmosphere. In the aftermath, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195667119305373">giant predatory plesiosaurs</a> disappeared from the seas and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3827">giant allosaurid predators</a> were wiped out on land. With predator niches left vacant, mosasaurs and tyrannosaurs moved into the top predator niche. Although they were wiped out by a mass extinction, <em>Thalassotitan</em> and <em>T. rex</em> only evolved in the first place because of a mass extinction.</p>
<h2>The bigger they are, the harder they fall</h2>
<p>Top predators are fascinating because they’re big, dangerous animals. But their size and position at the top of the food chain also make them vulnerable. You have fewer animals as you move up the food chain. It takes many small fish to feed a big fish, many big fish to feed a small mosasaur, and many small mosasaurs to feed one giant mosasaur. That means top predators are rare. And apex predators need lots of food, so they’re in trouble if the food supply is disrupted. </p>
<p>If the environment deteriorates, dangerous predators can quickly become endangered species.</p>
<p>It’s this sensitivity to environmental change that makes predators like <em>Thalassotitan</em> so interesting for studying extinction. They suggest being a top predator is a risky evolutionary strategy. Over short timescales, evolution drives the evolution of larger and larger predators. Their size means they can compete for and take down prey. But over long timescales, specialisation for the apex predator niche increases vulnerability to disasters. Eventually, a mass extinction wipes the top predators out, and the cycle starts again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas R. Longrich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fossils of a giant killer mosasaur have been discovered, alongside the fossilised remains of its prey.Nicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1901512022-09-09T07:35:28Z2022-09-09T07:35:28ZAfrica’s dinosaur discoveries: five essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483193/original/file-20220907-14-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smile if you love dinosaurs as much as Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus loved being a carnivore.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YuRi Photolife</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few prehistoric creatures generate as much excitement and awe as dinosaurs. Whether it’s the “tyrant” T-Rex or a slim-necked Brachiosaurus, people are fascinated by these creatures that dominated landscapes all over the world - including across the African continent - hundreds of millions of years ago.</p>
<p>The dinosaurs are long gone (though we’re still surrounded by their direct descendants, birds). But researchers are still hard at work piecing together the fossil record to create a fuller picture of how dinosaurs lived, walked, ate and raised their young. Their discoveries offer a glimpse into ancient landscapes, helping modern scientists to better understand today’s climates and ecosystems.</p>
<p>The Conversation Africa has showcased a number of dinosaur finds on the continent. Here are five essential reads:</p>
<h2>A rich record</h2>
<p>Africa is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of humankind. But less attention is paid to its incredibly varied fossil record. Many of the planet’s most important life forms originated on the continent: bacteria-like organisms; many dinosaur species and, of course, primates – including humans. Even the rocks on the continent are among the oldest in the world. Some of them date back more than three billion years.</p>
<p>That’s what prompted Julien Benoit to create a syllabus for his palaeontology students that centred African fossil discoveries rather than focusing on finds from elsewhere in the world. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-rich-fossil-finds-should-get-the-air-time-they-deserve-91849">Africa's rich fossil finds should get the air time they deserve</a>
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<h2>Hidden in plain sight</h2>
<p>Many museums and universities keep extensive fossil collections. Their contents have been studied, labelled and catalogued. Sometimes, however, they hold secrets that can only be uncovered through a combination of scientific hunch and cutting-edge technology. That’s how Kimberley E.J. Chapelle discovered and described an entirely new species: <em>Ngwevu intloko</em> (“grey skull” in isiXhosa).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-fossil-hidden-in-plain-sight-in-south-africa-turns-out-to-be-a-new-dinosaur-121597">A fossil hidden in plain sight in South Africa turns out to be a new dinosaur</a>
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<h2>A giant African dinosaur</h2>
<p>Researchers are constantly rewriting the fossil record thanks to new discoveries. Dinosaurs’ fossilised footprints are a useful tool for this work, as evidenced by a – literally – gigantic find in Lesotho. </p>
<p>It was previously thought that ancient southern African landscapes were dominated by small and agile two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods. But Lara Sciscio and her colleagues’ study in Lesotho unexpectedly revealed that very large carnivorous dinosaurs with an estimated body length of between 8 and 9 metres (or 26 feet) – that’s a two-storey building or two adult rhinos nose to tail – lived in the region too.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-giant-dinosaur-that-roamed-southern-africa-200-million-years-ago-86004">Meet the giant dinosaur that roamed southern Africa 200 million years ago</a>
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<h2>Footprint finds</h2>
<p>Still on the subject of footprints, it turns out that fossilised dinosaur prints hold incredible detail about more than just the size and shape of the creature that made them. As Miengah Abrahams explains, they can reveal what organism made the tracks – different animals have different footprint shapes. They offer clues to the creature’s behaviour and may even contain evidence of what sort of environment dinosaurs roamed – did they sink into wet sand, or were they standing firmly on dry gravel?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/footprints-take-science-a-step-closer-to-understanding-southern-africas-dinosaurs-185480">Footprints take science a step closer to understanding southern Africa's dinosaurs</a>
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<h2>A toothy morsel</h2>
<p>Moving from feet to teeth: dinosaurs’ chompers hold important clues to their lives, diets and how they moved across landscapes. That’s why Femke Holwerda ventured to the Kem Kem beds, a geological formation in North Africa, to seek out fossil dinosaur teeth. Her discoveries allowed her to create a fuller picture of the long-necked, plant-eating (herbivorous) dinosaurs, called sauropods, from the Early Cretaceous period of North Africa.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-learned-from-dinosaur-teeth-in-north-africa-130894">What we learned from dinosaur teeth in North Africa</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The African continent is a rich repository for dinosaur fossils, including teeth and track marks.Natasha Joseph, Commissioning EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880262022-08-11T15:25:13Z2022-08-11T15:25:13ZBourguiba did a lot for Tunisian women. But was he their emancipator?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478707/original/file-20220811-14-y4negy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators gather in support of women's rights and equal justice in Tunis in June 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Yassine Mahjoub/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tunisia’s <a href="https://publicholidays.africa/tunisia/womens-day/">National Women’s Day</a> is often associated with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Habib-Bourguiba">Habib Bourguiba</a>, the country’s first president, who pursued the policy of state feminism. Bourguiba ruled the country for 30 years after its independence from France in 1957. In 1987 he was ousted in a coup d’etat by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zine-al-Abidine-Ben-Ali">Zine El Abedine Ben Ali</a>. Bourguiba’s state feminist policies earned him the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-44617-8_10#:%7E:text=Habib%20Bourguiba%20made%20the%20best,%E2%80%9Cliberator%20of%20Tunisian%20woman%E2%80%9D.">moniker</a> of the emancipator and liberator of Tunisian women. </p>
<p>But was he really their emancipator? </p>
<p>Like most Tunisian women, I grew up thinking this idea was true because this was the message the Tunisian educational system and media had communicated. When I started researching the history of the Tunisian feminist movement, however, I discovered that the reality was much more complex.</p>
<h2>Bourguiba’s state feminism</h2>
<p>State feminism refers to the government’s adoption of policies that foster women’s rights and improve women’s lives. Bourguiba was the <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/07/27/state-feminism-and-the-islamist-secularist-binary-womens-rights-in-tunisia/">pioneer of state feminism</a> in Tunisia. He used his powers to pass reforms that vastly improved women’s legal status. </p>
<p>These reforms were imposed from the top down and promoted women’s rights in a number of areas. </p>
<p>A few months after the country’s independence from France, Bourguiba instated the Personal Status Code. This granted women unprecedented liberties and social autonomy. It eliminated men’s practice of immediate divorce and provided equal divorce rights for women and men. Women’s consent became required for marriage. The <a href="https://www.judicaelleirakoze.org/patreon-post-state-feminism-in-tunisia/">right of a guardian</a> to marry off a woman without her permission was abolished. Polygamy was also outlawed. </p>
<p>As a result of these changes, the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-44617-8_10#:%7E:text=Habib%20Bourguiba%20made%20the%20best,%E2%80%9Cliberator%20of%20Tunisian%20woman%E2%80%9D.">labels</a> “the father of feminism” and “Tunisian women’s liberator” were given to Bourguiba. The labels reflected the paternalistic and patriarchal aspect of the Bourguibist feminist policies. They also mirrored the state’s monopolisation of the feminist cause. </p>
<p>In reality, Bourguiba deliberately marginalised Tunisia’s autonomous feminism. Different women’s unions appeared in the pre-independence period. Yet, after independence, Bourguiba opposed, <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-nouvelles-questions-feministes-2014-2-page-4.htm">marginalised and dissolved</a> them. He outlawed their activities in the name of “national unity” and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2017.1391770">replaced</a> them with the National Union of Tunisian Women in 1958. </p>
<p>The result, according to Tunisian researcher Chouaib Elhajjaji, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/chouaib-el-hajjaji/feminism-in-tunisia-brutal-hijacking-elitism-and-exclusion">was that</a> he killed the grassroots movement and turned it into a government sponsored one.</p>
<p>Bourguiba co-opted women’s rights by linking the National Union of Tunisian Women to his <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Democratic-Constitutional-Rally">Socialist Destourian Party</a>. He transformed the Women’s Union into a tool for his state feminism. </p>
<p>The result was an ambiguous policy. It <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/clio/286?amp%3Bid=286&lang=en">presented</a> itself as freeing and modernising, while maintaining a level of conservatism. This is what <a href="https://journals.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/feministdissent/article/view/292">explains</a> Bourguiba’s reinforcement of women’s traditional roles as wives, mothers and guardians of Islamic tradition in his speeches, despite his revolutionary ideas.</p>
<p>Co-opting women’s rights served his nationalist agenda, but not the feminist cause. The women’s union could not criticise the state’s gender politics. </p>
<p>My reading at Tunisia’s National Archives allowed me to notice the constant praise of Bourguiba in the publications of the Tunisian Women’s Union, particularly its journal Femme (Woman). The journal refers to Bourguiba repeatedly as the emancipator of Tunisian women. Indeed, the fact that he appointed the union’s first president, <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/20200308-radhia-haddad-pr%C3%A9sidente-femmes">Radhia Haddad</a>, reflects his hegemony over this female organisation.</p>
<p>Haddad herself would later <a href="https://journals.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/feministdissent/article/view/292">criticise</a> the lack of freedom of expression and association. Other feminist activists, like Amal Ben Aba and <a href="https://nawaat.org/2013/04/24/zeineb-turki-du-parti-al-jomhouri-la-priorite-est-de-realiser-une-paix-sociale">Zeineb Cherni</a>, also joined in denouncing <a href="https://journals.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/feministdissent/article/view/292">the state’s hold on feminism</a>. The state cracked down on them.</p>
<p>This created a need for an independent form of activism capable of acting outside the state agenda. As a result, an <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-nouvelles-questions-feministes-2014-2-page-4.htm">autonomous feminist movement</a> emerged in Tunisia in the 1980s. </p>
<h2>Independent feminism</h2>
<p>The independent groups signalled their divergence from the government’s official “feminist” structures. They allied themselves with opposition parties because they saw a link between the fight against sexism and the fight against authoritarianism. </p>
<p>Tunisian feminists chose to qualify their activism as “autonomous” to <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-nouvelles-questions-feministes-2014-2-page-4.htm">differentiate</a> it from the state’s approach.</p>
<p>For instance, in 1987, the <a href="http://alraidajournal.com/index.php/ALRJ/article/view/1323">Tahar Haddad cultural club</a> was founded as part of the push for independent voices. Its growth was challenged by Bourguiba’s decision that only his women’s union could operate. This hindered the actual <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2017.1391770">political representation </a> of the autonomous women’s movement. </p>
<p>The Tunisian independent feminist movement wanted to end the patronage of Bourguiba over women’s rights. Activist Sana Ben Achour illustrates this in her <a href="https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/as/2018-v42-n1-as03619/1045124ar/">comment</a> on the determination of the independent feminists who founded the Tahar Haddad Club to achieve their goals in spite of Bourguiba:</p>
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<p>Our relationship {with the National Union of Tunisian Women} was conflictual because the Tunisian feminist movement was born out of the will to break with tutelage, more particularly with the father figure, the figure of Bourguiba … We no longer wanted to hear the discourse, which made Bourguiba know what was best for us, women.</p>
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<p>Ben Achour throws light on the important problem of Bourguiba’s appropriation of achievements made in the women’s rights arena. This centralises the father cult. It also erases the role that Tunisian women’s rights activists played in advancing women’s rights. The most notorious example of this erasure is the Personal Status Code, which was celebrated as Bourguiba’s achievement. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/chouaib-el-hajjaji/feminism-in-tunisia-brutal-hijacking-elitism-and-exclusion">Elhajjaji</a> explains, this has resulted in</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ignoring the female activists who fought for these laws. School history books rarely mention names such as <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-683">Bchira Ben Mrad</a>, Radhia Haddad and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/feminism-in-tunisia-brutal-hijacking-elitism-and-exclusion/">Manoubia Ouertani</a>, but instead, it’s Bourguiba who is celebrated as the women’s ‘saviour’ and ‘liberator.’ </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/state-feminism-in-tunisia-reading-between-lines/">Amira Mhadhbi</a>, who exposes the oppressive aspect of Bourguiba’s state feminism, illustrates this further:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>President Bourguiba was declared the ‘liberator of Tunisian women.’ … This initiated a culture of political patriarchy. By effectively outlawing other forms of political leadership, Bourguiba stalled the women’s movement in its broader fight for autonomy from male authority.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The evidence presented so far reflects the limitations of Bourguiba’s state feminism. It is undeniable that the state feminist policies he pursued have benefited Tunisian women and girls in multiple areas. But, if independent feminists were deliberately marginalised by this male figure, then can we continue to call him the emancipator of Tunisian women?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jyhene Kebsi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Former president Bourguiba’s standing as father of Tunisian feminism has come under scrutiny.Jyhene Kebsi, Lecturer in Gender Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1795772022-04-06T14:55:48Z2022-04-06T14:55:48ZWorrying insights from UN’s first-ever assessment of water security in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453540/original/file-20220322-15111-o05byu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Franck Metois/ GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to water security – a reliable, good supply of safe water – just 29 African countries have made some progress over the past three to five years. Twenty-five have made none.</p>
<p>This data comes out of the <a href="https://inweh.unu.edu/publications/">UN’s first-ever assessment of water security</a> in Africa. Published by the <a href="https://inweh.unu.edu/">UN University’s Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health</a>, the assessment used 10 indicators to quantify water security in Africa’s 54 countries. Such an assessment had been done before in the Asia-Pacific region, but never for Africa.</p>
<p>The UN’s concept of water security encompasses various needs and conditions. These include: water for drinking, economic activity, ecosystems, governance, financing, and political stability. Water security, therefore, is not just about how much natural water a country has but also how well the resource is managed.</p>
<p>The assessment is limited by very poor data on some issues – such as access to drinking water or sanitation. It nevertheless offers some preliminary, but obvious, conclusions. </p>
<p>Overall levels of water security in Africa are low. Not a single country, let alone a sub-region, is at the highest “model” stage of water security. The top five countries – Egypt, Botswana, Mauritius, Gabon, and Tunisia — are at best at a “modest” (just above average) stage of water security. </p>
<p>Without water security, people are exposed to environmental and health risks, increased susceptibility to water-related disasters and lack water for economic and social use. </p>
<p>The assessment team hopes that as this quantitative tool develops, it will help generate targeted policy recommendations and inform decision-making and public-private investments toward achieving water security in Africa.</p>
<h2>Key findings</h2>
<p>The assessment introduced five stages of water security: Emerging (a score of 0 – 45), slight (45 – 60), modest (60 – 75), effective (75 — 90), and model (90 – 100).</p>
<p>Except for Egypt, all countries scored below 70. Only 13 of 54 countries were found to have a “modest” level of water security. Somalia, Chad and Niger appear to be the three least water-secure countries in Africa. </p>
<p>Over a third of the 54 countries had “emerging” level water security, representing a large gap to be closed to reach an acceptable level. These countries are home to half a billion people. </p>
<p>The situation doesn’t appear to be improving very quickly. Between 2015 and 2020, the continent as a whole progressed only by 1.1% based on the indicators. </p>
<h2>Examining the indicators</h2>
<p>Here is an overview of how countries fared on each indicator.</p>
<p><strong>Access to drinking water</strong></p>
<p>Access to “at least basic” drinking water services ranged from 37% of the population in the Central African Republic to 99% in Egypt. Regionally it ranged from 62% in central Africa to 92% in north Africa. Africa’s average basic drinking water service is 71%. This leaves behind about 29% of the total population, or more than 353 million people. </p>
<p>“At least basic” means access to improved water sources – such as piped water, protected hand-dug wells and springs. These either need to be “safely managed” (accessible on premises, available when needed, and free from contamination) or can be collected in a trip of 30 minutes or less.</p>
<p><strong>Access to sanitation</strong></p>
<p>Access to sanitation – meaning access to, and use of, sanitation facilities and services – was broadly similar at the regional level. There’s an average of 60% access to limited sanitation. This means at least 40% of the total population (483 million people) are left behind. </p>
<p>A few countries – Seychelles and most countries in north Africa – have reached, or nearly reached, 100%. The most challenged countries are Chad and Ethiopia. </p>
<p><strong>Access to hygiene facilities</strong></p>
<p>This indicator refers to access to practices like hand washing. The greatest access was found in north Africa (67%), the least access was in west Africa. Liberia was the lowest in the region with less than 10% access. </p>
<p>Chad and the Central African Republic suffer from the highest number of deaths from diarrhoea, an indicator of ineffective hygiene practices.</p>
<p><strong>Per capita water availability</strong></p>
<p>The amount of water available per person was highest in central Africa, with the Republic of Congo considered Africa’s most water-rich country. At the other end of the spectrum, half of the countries in north Africa appeared to be absolutely water scarce. </p>
<p>Water availability has recently declined in west, central and southern Africa. This was most notable in Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Mozambique and Malawi.</p>
<p><strong>Water use efficiency</strong></p>
<p>This indicator assesses the economic and social value. The score is a sum of efficiencies – a measure of how well a country uses the water it has in its economy.</p>
<p>On this basis, water use efficiency appears to be lowest in north Africa (with Somalia lowest at the national level) and highest in central Africa (with Angola highest at a national level). </p>
<p><strong>Water storage infrastructure</strong></p>
<p>Water storage in large dams, measured in volume (m3) per capita, is deemed best in the southern Africa, worst in east Africa. </p>
<p>South Africa, with over 25% of all large dams in Africa, is outscored by Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, likely due to just one mega reservoir in those countries. </p>
<p>Half of all countries score very low, reflecting the continent’s low level of water storage development. Only Ethiopia and Namibia have increased their storage over recent years. </p>
<p><strong>Wastewater treatment</strong></p>
<p>Scores are highest in north African countries, lowest in east and west Africa, where 12 countries in each region treat less than 5% of wastewater. No country treats more than 75%. Only Tunisia, Egypt and Lesotho treat over 50% of wastewater.</p>
<p><strong>Water governance</strong></p>
<p>Governance takes into account the various users and uses of water with the aim of promoting positive social, economic, and environmental impacts. This includes the transboundary level. </p>
<p>Water governance appears to be most advanced in north and southern Africa and least advanced in central Africa.</p>
<p>Nationally, Ghana reported reaching 86% of integrated water resource management implementation in just two years – a significant improvement. </p>
<p>Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, and Comoros are the lowest-performing countries.</p>
<p><strong>Disaster risk</strong></p>
<p>Disaster risk is a measure of the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets, which could occur to an ecosystem, or a community in a specific period of time. </p>
<p>North Africa appears to be the least risky sub-region (it has less exposure or high ability to adapt), with Egypt the least risky country. West Africa was the riskiest.</p>
<p>Some 49 of 54 African countries have seen increased disaster risk scores over five recent years.</p>
<p><strong>Water dependency on neighbouring nations and water resources variability</strong></p>
<p>Egypt stands out as Africa’s most water-dependent country. It relies on the Nile river which flows through 10 countries – Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, and Sudan – before reaching Egypt. And the southern Africa sub-region has a wide disparity in the available water per year.</p>
<h2>Preparing for the future</h2>
<p>Our paper calls for a pioneering effort to create global standards for water security measurement data and assessment.</p>
<p>Some critical components of water security simply cannot be assessed without good data. For example, it’s not possible to estimate the percentage of the African population that will have access to safely managed drinking water services or safely managed sanitation by 2030, a key UN Sustainable Development Goal.</p>
<p>Our water security assessment tool is a work in progress, guided by a goal of an influential and nationally-owned tool used by all African countries and that it helps generate targeted policy recommendations and inform decision-making and public-private investments in Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179577/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>500 million people live in 19 African countries deemed “water insecure”.Grace Oluwasanya, Research Lead for Water, Climate and Gender, Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations UniversityDuminda Perera, Senior Researcher: Hydrology and Water Resources, Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673132021-09-12T08:22:29Z2021-09-12T08:22:29ZWhy Algeria cut diplomatic ties with Morocco: and implications for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420075/original/file-20210908-25-1s4hkj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita (R) welcomes his Israeli counterpart Yair Lapidis to Rabat, in August 2021.
The normalisation of relations between the two precipitated the breakup of Moroccan-Algerian diplomatic ties. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Alal Morchidi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The breakup of diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/algeria-says-cutting-diplomatic-ties-with-morocco-2021-08-24/#:%7E:text=Speaking%20at%20a%20news%20conference,on%20the%20Western%20Sahara%20issue">in August</a> is the product of a long history of tension. The two nations have never had long periods of friendship, notwithstanding the many factors that bring them together. Indeed, they belong to the same <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/documents/report-regional-integration-maghreb-2019-challenges-and-opportunities-private-sector-synthesis">Maghreb region</a>, share the same religion (Sunni Islam and Maleki rite) and identity, and speak a similar dialect. They also share a <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/algeria%E2%80%93morocco-border/g1229dss0?hl=en">1,550km common border</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, Algerian and Moroccan people are so close that it is difficult to distinguish them. But, historical, political and ideological dissimilarities since their respective independence weigh heavily in the relations between these “brotherly” countries. </p>
<p>How can one account for the tensions that have characterised their relations, which have now gone through a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1169bh2">second breakup in diplomatic relations</a>? The first, initiated by Morocco, was from 1976 to 1988.</p>
<p>I have researched relations between Algeria and Morocco for more than 40 years and published studies on the topic. Relations between the Algerian and Moroccan governments have seldom been cordial. This is due to the different nature of their anti-colonial struggle, their dissimilar political systems, and opposite ideological orientations. </p>
<p>In the last decade, Morocco exploited the lethargy of Algeria’s diplomacy and the paralysis of the political system to advance its interests, often to the detriment of Algeria. The reawakening of Algeria’s diplomacy and its decision to counter what it considers Morocco’s “hostile acts” resulted in the latest breakup.</p>
<p>Their tumultuous relationship has been an impediment to the integration of the region, which could bring sizeable benefits to both. Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia founded the <a href="https://maghrebarabe.org/fr/union-du-maghreb-arabe/">Arab Maghreb Union in 1989</a>. But since 1996, the union has become moribund due to repeated tensions in Moroccan-Algerian relations.</p>
<p>The divergences of recent years are potentially far more consequential. They could threaten the stability of the whole North Africa region.</p>
<h2>History of Algerian-Moroccan relations</h2>
<p>Algerian nationalists had relatively good relations with <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-relations-internationales-2011-2-page-77.htm.">King Mohammed V of Morocco</a> He died in 1961, one year before Algeria gained its sovereignty. Morocco became independent <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/11/326269/morocco-celebrates-64-years-of-independence-from-european-colonizers">in 1956</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Algerian-War">Algeria</a> in 1962. </p>
<p>King Mohammed’s son, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hassan-II">King Hassan II</a>, who succeeded him, made claims over Algerian territory. He invaded the country <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-21026-8_19">in 1963</a>. This resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Algeria’s ill-equipped fighters.</p>
<p>Although short, this war shaped the minds of the Algerian military-political establishment. There was an era of cooperation between 1969 and the mid-1970s. But the conflict in Western Sahara, invaded by Morocco under the so-called Green March <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-34667782">in 1975</a>, resulted in another era of tensions.</p>
<p>Indeed, in March 1976, Algeria’s recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, proclaimed by the Sahrawi nationalist movement, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Polisario-Front">Polisario Front</a>, saw Morocco break diplomatic relations with Algeria. Many other African countries recognised the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Relations were restored <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14123260">in May 1988</a>. </p>
<p>The renewal of relations was based <a href="https://www.tsa-algerie.com/rupture-des-relations-avec-le-maroc-le-texte-integral-de-la-declaration-de-lamamra/">on a number of agreements</a>. These were:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a commitment to enduring relations of peace </p></li>
<li><p>good neighbourliness and cooperation</p></li>
<li><p>hastening the building of the Great Arab Maghreb</p></li>
<li><p>Algeria’s noninterference in Morocco’s domestic affairs </p></li>
<li><p>solving the Western Sahara conflict through a referendum on self-determination. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>From Algeria’s perspective, Morocco has reneged on all of them. </p>
<p>In the background, there has been a continuous buildup of Algerian-Moroccan tensions.</p>
<h2>Growing tensions</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, Algeria underwent a bigger crisis than it had ever known. The country was <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/remembering-algeria-1992-first-arab-spring-never-became-summer">devastated</a> by civil strife opposing the state, and armed Islamist groups. In 1994, in the midst of that crisis, Moroccan authorities <a href="https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/56799/attack-hotel-asni-marrakech-straw.html">falsely accused Algerian intelligence</a> of being behind the deadly terrorist attacks at the Asni hotel in Marrakech.</p>
<p>Morocco imposed visas on Algerians, including those holding another citizenship. Algeria retaliated in imposing visas and closed its land borders with Morocco. In late 1995, Morocco froze the institutions of the Arab Maghreb Union due to Algeria’s support for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.</p>
<p>A shift in relations seemed to have occurred when <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14118854">Abdelaziz Bouteflika</a> became president of Algeria in April in 1999. He planned on meeting King Hassan II to iron out differences. But the king died in July that year. His successor <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1559304">Mohammed VI</a> showed no inclination for a resolution of Western Sahara under United Nations terms.</p>
<p>Amazingly, during his presidency, Bouteflika not only neglected the question of Western Sahara, he also instructed officials not to respond to any Moroccan hostile actions.</p>
<p>Following his <a href="https://theconversation.com/bouteflika-steps-aside-as-algerians-push-to-reclaim-and-own-their-history-114380">forcible removal in April 2019</a>, Algeria reiterated its support for the principle of self-determination. </p>
<p>For its part, Morocco had been lobbying the <a href="https://au.int/en">African Union</a>, Europe and the US for support for its claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara. Two events in the last 10 months escalated tensions. The first was an attack on Sahrawi demonstrators <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/world/middleeast/morocco-military-operation-western-sahara.html">in El-Guergarat</a>, the buffer zone in the south of Western Sahara, by Moroccan troops. Then there was <a href="https://www.undispatch.com/western-sahara-conflict-upended-by-a-trump-tweet/">a tweet from President Donald Trump</a> announcing US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in Western Sahara.</p>
<p>These constituted part of Algeria’s decision to break up diplomatic relations with Morocco. </p>
<p>Trump had traded Moroccan occupied Western Sahara in exchange for <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Joint-Declaration-US-Morrocco-Israel.pdf">Morocco normalising relations with Israel</a>. Other Arab states did the same thing in the framework of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/">Abraham Accords</a> brokered by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. </p>
<p>Before the Abraham Accords, Moroccan officials displayed relentless hostility toward Algeria to which the Algerian government did not respond. Trump’s tweet on <a href="https://twitter.com/ap/status/1337069459551506432?lang=en">10 December</a> seemed to galvanise Morocco’s hostile attitude toward Algeria. </p>
<p>Algeria perceived both decisions as a real threat to its national security. </p>
<p>Algiers’ threshold of tolerance against acts it considered hostile came <a href="https://fr.sputniknews.com/amp/international/202107191045896006-soutien-marocain-aux-separatistes-kabyles-le-debut-dune-dangereuse-escalade-entre-alger-et-rabat/">in mid-July</a> when Morocco’s ambassador to the UN distributed a note expressing support for a group fighting for the secession of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24042103">Kabyle coastal region of Algeria</a>. The group is listed as a terrorist group by Algeria. This resulted in Algeria recalling its ambassador in Morocco for “consultations” and <a href="http://www.mae.gov.dz/news_article/6594.aspx">asking Morocco to clarify</a> whether this was the ambassador’s sole decision or the government’s. It never received a response. </p>
<p>Another hostile act in the eyes of Algeria was a <a href="https://www.afrik.com/pegasus-plus-de-6000-algeriens-espionnes-par-le-maroc-dont-lamamra">vast spying scandal</a> revealed by a consortium of international newspapers and human rights organisations. They found that Morocco had targeted more than 6,000 Algerians, including many senior political and military officials.</p>
<p>Algeria decided to break diplomatic relations with Morocco as of 24 August.</p>
<h2>Implications of the breakup</h2>
<p>The breakup may result in geopolitical realignments. But all will depend on whether Morocco will escalate tensions and use the Israeli card against Algeria, or whether it will seek to reduce tensions. </p>
<p>Algeria has already begun strengthening its control at the Algerian Moroccan border. It could create serious problems for Morocco if it decided to expel the tens of thousands of Moroccans (many of whom are illegal migrants) from Algeria. </p>
<p>There are wider implications too.</p>
<p>The breakup has marked the death knell of the Arab Maghreb Union, which was already dormant. The strained relations will either mean the regional grouping remains at a standstill or a new grouping might emerge.</p>
<p>And the rivalries between Algeria and Morocco can be expected to intensify at the African Union over <a href="https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/PoliticalStudies/Pages/The-Admission-of-Israel-as-an-Observer-in-the-African-Union.aspx">Israel’s observer status at the AU</a>, and over Western Sahara. </p>
<p>In the economic realm, the Algerian energy minister announced in late August that the contract for the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline (GME), which goes through Morocco, will not be renewed after it <a href="https://www.algeriepatriotique.com/2021/08/26/lalgerie-ne-renouvellera-pas-le-contrat-du-gazoduc-traversant-le-maroc/">expires on 31 October 2021</a>. The decision has now <a href="https://www.olcnbvc4jz.com/renouvellement-du-gazoduc-maghreb-europe-lalgerie-a-tranche/">been confirmed</a>. The pipeline goes directly from northwest Algeria and then crosses Mediterranean.</p>
<p>Instead, Algeria will distribute natural gas to Spain and Portugal via the pipeline, MEDGAZ.</p>
<p>The term impact of this breakup is unpredictable. What’s certain, however, is that Algerian-Moroccan rivalry will intensify.</p>
<p><em>The views and opinions expressed in the article are the sole responsibility of the author and are not endorsed by Business Kedge School or those of the Brookings Doha Centre.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yahia H. Zoubir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the last decade, Morocco exploited the lethargy of Algeria’s diplomacy and the paralysis of the political system to advance its interests, often to the detriment of AlgeriaYahia H. Zoubir, Visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and Senior Professor of International Studies and Director of Research in Geopolitics, Kedge Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1659442021-08-11T15:00:15Z2021-08-11T15:00:15ZInsights for African countries from the latest climate change projections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415545/original/file-20210810-13-1bx8nj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flooding is projected to increase in eastern Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toney Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">IPCC</a>) – a body of the UN tasked with providing scientific information on climate change – has released <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/#SPM">a major new report</a>, pulling together evidence from a wide range of current and ancient climate observations. It’s the most up-to-date understanding of climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science.</p>
<p>It is crucial that we have a good understanding of the findings as they give an indication of what our future could look like. </p>
<p>According to the report global warming is evident, with each of the last four decades being successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850. Average precipitation on land has also increased since the mid-20th century. In addition, there is high confidence that mean sea level increased by between 0.15 and 0.25m between 1901 and 2018.</p>
<p>The major concern is that as warming continues, more extreme climate events, such as droughts, are projected to increase in both frequency and intensity. This warming is mainly driven by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities such as burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) and coal production.</p>
<p>When it comes to African countries, the report projects an increase in average temperatures and hot extremes across the continent. The continent will likely experience drier conditions with an exception of the Sahara and eastern Africa.</p>
<p>Alarmingly, the rate of temperature increase across the continent exceeds the global average. In addition, as warming continues, the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events are projected to increase almost everywhere in Africa. Maritime heatwaves and sea level rises are also projected to increase along the continental shores.</p>
<p>Looking into the future, global warming could lead to an increase in hot extremes, including heatwaves. It could also lead to a decrease in cold extremes. </p>
<p>The projected dry and hot conditions will have a devastating impact on a continent where the economies of most countries, and the livelihoods of most people, are dependent on rain-fed agriculture. In fact, changes to the climate will affect almost all parts of our lives.</p>
<h2>Regional impacts</h2>
<p>In a scenario where global warming will reach at least 2°C by mid-21st century (as predicted by the report), southern Africa is highly likely to experience a reduction in mean precipitation (water vapour that falls, such as rain or drizzle or hail). This will adversely affect agriculture. Specifically, the region is likely to witness an increase in aridity, and droughts. We are already seeing this in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/may/10/at-least-1m-people-facing-starvation-madagascar-drought-worsens">Madagascar</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-real-water-crisis-not-understanding-whats-needed-126361">South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>This has serious implications for all sectors including agriculture, water and health. Drought would also likely reduce hydroelectric generation potential, adversely affecting energy dependent sectors. We are already seeing this at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/zambians-water-shortage-drought-lake-rainfall">Kariba dam</a> which sits between Zimbabwe and Zambia.</p>
<p>In addition, there will be more tropical storms in the region. In southern Africa there’s been a southward shift in the occurrence of tropical cyclones. This is due to sea temperatures increasing as a result of global warming. The concern is that these events will be particularly destructive as seen in <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/tc-2018-000001-mdg">Madagascar</a> and over <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/cyclone-idai">Mozambique</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-sea-temperatures-are-shaping-tropical-storms-in-southern-africa-73139">Rising sea temperatures are shaping tropical storms in southern Africa</a>
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<p>In relation to eastern Africa, the report projected an increase in mean precipitation that favours agriculture. However, increases in the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation and flooding may cause a counter effect in some areas, such as arid and semi-arid lands.</p>
<p>There has been some conflicting information regarding rainfall in eastern Africa. This follows <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7207">observations</a> that the general circulation models, used in preparation of IPCC reports, do not simulate the observed rainfall well over the region. Most models project increase in rainfall while observations <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0091-7">report the opposite</a>. This has been termed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0140.1">‘the paradox of east Africa climate’</a>. This observed <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0091-7">shortening of rainfall season</a> that is not captured by the models explains the paradox.</p>
<p>Besides rainfall, the recorded and projected temperature which is expected to increase will decrease the snow and glaciers in the region. A rise in temperatures will result in <a href="https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-020-03224-6#auth-Sadie_J_-Ryan">a rise in malaria</a> cases especially in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2012.00315/full">highland areas</a> within the region. </p>
<p>Northern Africa is a climate change hotspot. The report anticipates with high confidence increase in temperatures in the region,<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-021-00178-7#auth-George-Zittis">causing extreme heatwaves</a>. Projected drying will increase aridity that already <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae013">begun to emerge</a> in the region and worsen water scarcity. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-worsening-water-crisis-in-north-africa-and-the-middle-east-83197">A worsening water crisis in North Africa and the Middle East</a>
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<p>Further, the situation will increase the risk of forest fires, a threat to ecosystems. As is currently seen in Algeria where, so far this year, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58165169">more than</a> 100 fires have been reported across 17 provinces, killing over 40 people. </p>
<p>The report also anticipated that there will be a reduction in mean wind speed over northern Africa. The wind speed is dependent on temperature and consequently atmospheric pressure changes. This will limit the region’s wind power potential, however – on a positive note – it will equally reduce dust storms that cause <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/focus-areas/environment/SDS">health impacts</a>, such as causing and aggravating asthma, and bronchitis. </p>
<p>Similarly, west and central Africa are projected to record a reduction in mean precipitation and experience more agricultural and ecological droughts. All these cast a dark cloud on agriculture and water in the region.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lagos-is-getting-less-rain-but-more-heavy-storms-what-it-can-do-to-prepare-134437">Lagos is getting less rain, but more heavy storms. What it can do to prepare</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Along the African coastlines, the relative sea-level rise is likely to contribute to an increase in the frequency and severity of coastal flooding in low-lying areas, like the recent <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/01/africa/lagos-sinking-floods-climate-change-intl-cmd/index.html">cases in Lagos</a>, Nigeria. This causes massive destruction to delicate coastal ecosystems and will displace communities that live in coastal towns. The sea level rise equally causes saltwater intrusion, limiting availability of fresh water.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-affecting-agrarian-migrant-livelihoods-in-ghana-this-is-how-156212">Climate change is affecting agrarian migrant livelihoods in Ghana. This is how</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Which way for Africa?</h2>
<p>Despite the projection of decrease in mean precipitation over nearly all the regions of Africa, heavy precipitation and pluvial flooding is likely. The increase in wet extremes has far reaching effects on nearly all socioeconomic sectors, from agriculture, water, environment to infrastructure. These are some of the key sectors in socioeconomic development. </p>
<p>This – compounded by <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-driving-africas-population-growth-and-what-can-change-it-126362">growing populations</a> – gives a worrying picture of the challenges that lie ahead. This is likely to widen the existing development gap, calling for concerted effort to strengthen response mechanisms to future challenges posed by climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Ongoma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The report projects an increase in mean temperatures and hot extremes across the continent. Worryingly the rate of temperature increase across the continent exceeds the global average.Victor Ongoma, Assistant Professor, Université Mohammed VI PolytechniqueLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1613942021-05-26T19:02:43Z2021-05-26T19:02:43ZHow the Arab Spring changed the Middle East and North Africa forever<p>Ten years after people rose up against their leaders in country after country around the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, what can we say about how society, politics and religion have changed in the region?</p>
<p>To put it mildly, the social, cultural, religious, political and strategic events that history will remember as the “Arab Spring” sent a shockwave across an entire region. Today, the legacy of this chain of events is contested and to an extent still uncertain, but one thing is clear: the conditions for engaging in politics in these countries have shifted completely.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Lire cet article en français:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/revolutions-arabes-an-x-des-societes-a-jamais-transformees-161029">“Révolutions arabes, an X: des sociétés à jamais transformées”</a></p>
<hr>
<p>It’s true that in many places, like Egypt, we’ve seen a return to some form of the authoritarianism that reigned before the people asserted their right to take part in politics at the beginning of the 2010s. But social powers are the forces that write the definitive version of history, and these have seemingly been disrupted forever.</p>
<p>Citizens now know that ruling power is fragile; it can be shaky; it does not last forever. In 2021, the question is no longer whether it’s possible to topple a regime, or at least make it grant concessions, but rather what the cost-benefit analysis is for a process of political change. What price are people prepared to pay to see their situation improve?</p>
<h2>The power of protest</h2>
<p>The most obvious change has been the redefinition of political space in Arab societies. This has been shown again and again in the years since 2011, from the recent protests in <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210309-protesters-in-lebanon-block-roads-over-worsening-poverty">Lebanon</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50595212">Iraq</a>, to the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/end-line-algerias-hirak-movement">Hirak movement</a> in Algeria.</p>
<p>Across North Africa and the Middle East, protests and demonstrations of public anger are no longer simply seen as signs of a challenge toward authorities, but rather as the potential forewarning of an uprising, or even a revolution.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKGpBJHzbkI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Each social crisis opens the floodgates for real and uninhibited challenges to the regimes in power. Even <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200921-protests-against-sisis-rule-break-out-across-egypt/">Egypt</a>, which in 2013 saw a return to authoritarianism that would make previous regimes in other Arab countries pale in comparison, <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200929-even-egyptians-in-rural-areas-are-protesting-again/">is not exempt</a>. Activists and groups have learned how to speak out against the government, often at <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/13/egypt-no-end-escalating-repression">great personal risk</a>. A majority of citizens are now reasoning based on the hypothesis that the players currently holding power can be removed.</p>
<h2>Secularism v religion</h2>
<p>Across the region, the social and political spheres have become more secular, as both a cause and a consequence of the Arab Spring. The push for democratisation both fed into and was fed by the belief in egalitarian citizenship. Regimes, feeling challenged, encouraged sectarian attitudes and divisions, hoping to transform a vertical conflict (between society and authority) into a series of horizontal disputes (Sunnites against Shiites, Muslims against Copts, Arabs against Kurds, and so on).</p>
<p>In other words, by changing the original narrative, which was mainly secular and drew on political and social progress as a foundation, certain regimes placed their survival above that of their country’s unity. Syria is a <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/sectarianizing-faith-safeguarding-authoritarianism-in-syria">textbook example of this</a>.</p>
<p>While a number of religious groups, Islamists among them, took the side of popular uprisings during the Arab Spring, it is nevertheless difficult to give a definitive judgement on the role of specific religious groups, both at the time and since. It would be hard to compare Tunisia’s <a href="https://carnegie-mec.org/2019/09/05/ennahda-s-uneasy-exit-from-political-islam-pub-79789">Ennahda</a>, for example, with Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, given how widely communication, strategies, and even long-term goals vary from one group to another.</p>
<p>This is partly because the Arab Spring uprisings were not religious by nature; they were never built on the necessity of defending religious traditions, and even less so a threatened Muslim identity. Nor was the Islamist narrative the engine for these changes. Religious figures and movements jumped on the bandwagon, but they never managed to control the direction of these wide-reaching movements.</p>
<p>However, in burgeoning democracies, starting with Tunisia, the power distribution phase gave way to other laws, specifically those regarding the ability to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23210458?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">siphon off votes</a>. Islamist groups were clearly masters of this game, boosted by their claimed capital of moral and political purity and long-established abilities to mobilise people.</p>
<p>And so over the past ten years we have seen the subject of religion take centre stage, as social revolutions, in becoming constitutional and partisan, had a duty to tackle the question at the same time as Islamist parties were integrating themselves into national political scenes in transition. Right now, the key takeaway is undeniably the rupturing of the Islamist landscape.</p>
<h2>The rise of jihadism</h2>
<p>Though jihadism has been an important part of the political and religious landscape in Arab countries and elsewhere for several decades, this phenomenon was indirectly strengthened by the uprisings in the early 2010s.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://mepc.org/journal/jihadism-arab-world-after-2011-explaining-its-expansion">rise of jihadism over the past ten years</a> is connected to the fact that parts of these societies, particularly the youth, saw the Arab Spring uprisings from two related perspectives. On one hand, it was clear that the revolutions were not going to bear fruit immediately. On the other, they were no longer exclusively rooted in the present time and in their country’s society as it had always been. Another utopia existed, and jihadism competed with that promised by revolution.</p>
<p>As a result, certain countries such as Syria, which is still gripped by civil war and a serious sovereignty crisis, became echo chambers for Arab tensions, or even laboratories for new kinds of violent, radical movements to spread, as illustrated by Islamic State’s caliphate in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smoke rises from buildings in the Islamic State’s former caliphate in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province near the Iraqi border, a day after the group was declared defeated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402659/original/file-20210525-23-1kx4oif.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Islamic State’s former caliphate in eastern Syria, a day after the group was declared defeated by the Syrian Democratic Forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Guiseppe Cacace/AFP</span></span>
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<p>The undeniable politico-religious violence that has arisen since 2011, driven by jihadi movements, is also social and generational. Jihadism attests to the fact that the political realities in the regions are currently at an unprecedented crossroads, between the shift away from traditional religion, the plight of governments, and the many social, economic and psychological tensions weighing on entire populations desperate to see their hopes come to pass.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is published as part of <a href="https://www.ipev-fmsh.org/fr/transition-from-violence-lessons-from-the-mena-region/">IPEV Live: Transition from Violence, Lessons from the MENA</a>, a series of eight live conversations held every Tuesday from May 18 to June 29, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohamed-Ali Adraoui ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>In the ten years since the Arab Spring, the countries affected have transformed completely. Here’s how.Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, Chercheur, London School of Economics & Membre du Panel international sur la sortie de la violence, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1381252020-05-08T10:45:39Z2020-05-08T10:45:39ZThe poetic power of Idir, the artist who took Algerian music to the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333394/original/file-20200507-49565-1boomon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Salvatore di Nolfiepa/EFE/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/iconic-algerian-singer-berber-idol-idir-dies-70-200503141909813.html">death</a> of Algerian icon <a href="https://idir-officiel.fr">Idir</a> has brought an important chapter of Algerian music to a close. Through his brilliant career, Idir modernised and promoted the richness of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kabyle-people">Kabyle</a> melodies and poetry, popularised North African culture, and advocated for unity and tolerance both in Algeria and in France.</p>
<p>Looking at Idir’s life in music is looking into Algeria’s relationship with its history and identity, but also questioning what it means to be exiled in a new country, France, and to be a citizen of the world.</p>
<p>Hamid Cheriet, better known as Idir, was born in 1949 and grew up during the Algerian <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/11/a-chronology-of-the-algerian-war-of-independence/305277/">War of Independence</a> in Aït Yenni, a small village bordering the Djurdjura mountain range of Kabylia. It is within this setting that Idir developed a deep understanding of the rich oral traditions of his own Kabyle culture, a branch of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berber">Amazigh (Berber)</a> culture. </p>
<p>Through his mother and grandmother’s roles as hosts of vigils within their local community, where local poetry and tales were recited, Idir came to learn the power of words from a young age. </p>
<p>Initially he did not pursue a career in music. But his life took a turn in 1973 when he was called on at a moment’s notice to replace the Kabyle singer Nouara at Radio Algiers. It led to his recording <em>Rsed A Yidess</em> (May Sleep Come) and <em>A Vava Inouva</em> (My Dad). <em>A Vava Inouva</em> would soon become his most iconic work as well as one of the first North African songs to gain international recognition. </p>
<p>In 1976, after completing his military service and moving to Paris, at the request of the French label Pathe-Marconi, he produced his <a href="https://bit.ly/2A8q9si">first album</a>, named after his hit <em>A Vava Inouva</em>. This marked the beginning of a long and fruitful career in music.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333421/original/file-20200507-49573-peb1xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Idir and his daughter Tanina Cheriet perform in Paris in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Wolff/Patrick/WireImage</span></span>
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<h2>Ambassador of Kabylia</h2>
<p>Shortly after gaining independence from the French, the new Algerian government began a steady-paced process of <a href="http://countrystudies.us/algeria/53.htm">arabisation</a> throughout the country. This involved promoting Arabic as the national language. This denied much of the country’s rich linguistic and cultural diversity. This was particularly true among the Amazigh factions of the population, who accounted for a third of the total. </p>
<p>These repressive government policies resulted in mass political <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1362938042000325813">protest</a> throughout Kabylia in 1980, a period known as the <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/berber-spring">Berber Spring</a>, later followed by the <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/black-spring">Black Spring</a> in 2001. These two periods of social unrest were violently repressed by the Algerian government. </p>
<p>It is these repressive policies that Idir, a fierce defendant of his Kabyle heritage, dedicated much of his life to fighting. He did this through his unapologetically Kabyle music and his role as an advocate for Kabyle culture. </p>
<p>Some artists, such as the late <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lounes-Matoub">Matoub Lounes</a> – another great figure of Kabyle music – were outwardly critical of the government in their lyrical content. Idir’s lyrics bore their power in their poetic depictions of Kabyle social life and culture. </p>
<p>The songs <em>A Vava Inouva</em> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFOU-MIHqz0"><em>Zwit Rwit</em></a> (Shake It Move It), both on his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDY30v6wSzQ">debut album</a> and the cornerstones of his career, are good examples of this. The first is a melancholic ballad, portraying the atmosphere of the vigils which he attended in his childhood. The second is an exhilarating dancing piece that conveys the upbeat mood of a wedding.</p>
<p>This album, followed by <em>Ayarrach Negh</em> (For Our Children) in 1979, bears the musical mark of Idir’s sound. It is a savant blend of traditional instruments: the shepherd flute which he learned to play as a child, the bendir (a frame drum), the tambourine, and darbuka (a goblet-shaped drum) accompanied by the guitar, bass, and drums. </p>
<p>Filled with a feeling of melancholia and nostalgia as an exile in France, his songs convey his deep yearning for home and touch upon universal themes. It is in their universal essence, bearing collective memories and histories, that his songs retain their power.</p>
<h2>Multicoloured and multicultural</h2>
<p>After a decade-long break from show business, Idir returned to centre stage in 1991 with a compilation release, followed by the release of his third album two years later. In 1993’s <em>Les chasseurs de Lumières</em> (Light Hunters) Idir addresses his favourite themes: exile, liberty and love. It came at a time of serious political <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Algeria/Civil-war-the-Islamists-versus-the-army">upheaval</a> with Algeria experiencing a violent and bloody civil war between the military government and Islamist groups. </p>
<p>Though Idir remained true to his specifically Kabyle heritage, he maintained a strong sense of Algerian pride through which he sought fraternity, democracy, and secularism, in those times of trouble and uncertainty. As such, he appeared in a collaboration with the renowned <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/09/10/khaled-and-the-myth-of-rai/">Raï singer Cheb Khaled</a>, in 1995, for a concert in Paris promoting peace, liberty, and tolerance, amongst a Berber and Algerian Arabic speaking audience.</p>
<p>A long-time advocate for unity, Idir continued to promote peace and a sense of togetherness with the release of his album <em>Identités</em> (Identities) in 1999. This included collaborations with a wide variety of artists from different backgrounds: French, North African, Malian, and Ugandan. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A Vava Inouva in concert in Algiers in 2018.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In an attempt to bridge the two shores of the Mediterranean Sea, <em>Identités</em> also featured a moving duo with Franco-Spanish musician and producer Manu Chao called <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCWVZyjz0Cw">A Tulawin (Une Algérienne Debout)</a></em> (A Standing Algerian), a powerful message of hope for a country ravaged by civil war. The album also linked Kabylia with Celtic folk music, in which he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt0J7P4yDZU">performed</a> with Scottish singer Karen Matheson and the Breton guitarist Gilles Servat, in innovative collaborations. </p>
<p>The album encapsulated a vision of a multicultural and multicoloured France, one which he would later reassert in his 2007 album <em>La France des Couleurs</em> (France of Colours).</p>
<p>In his two last albums, <em>Adrar Inu</em> (My Mountain) and <em>Ici et Ailleurs</em> (Here and There), released in 2013 and 2017, Idir offered a more intimate picture of his music, going back to the source of his inspiration, his natal Kabylia, with reinterpretations of some of the classics of the French popular music repertoire, such as <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTtnlpEiTnE">La Boheme</a></em> (Bohemia) with the late Charles Aznavour. In 2018, for the first time in 38 years, Idir appeared on stage in Algiers for a concert celebrating the Berber New Year. Two years later he proudly talked in interviews of the current peaceful protests in Algeria.</p>
<p>Idir produced only a handful of studio albums. Nevertheless his contribution to the world of music and culture was immense. He will be remembered for promoting his Kabyle heritage to the world, thus contributing to its sustainability against cultural erasure, for seeking a peaceful, democratic, secular, and united Algeria, and for his vision of tolerance and integration in France. All artfully – and subtly – done through his music.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugo Hadji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Looking at his brilliant career is looking into Algeria’s relationship with its history and identity, but also questioning what it means to be exiled.Hugo Hadji, Doctoral Researcher in ethnomusicology, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1308942020-02-11T12:49:10Z2020-02-11T12:49:10ZWhat we learned from dinosaur teeth in North Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313683/original/file-20200205-149738-1bmqilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Examining the fossilised teeth of dinosaur species like Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus can reveal clues about their diets and place on the food chain.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YuRi Photolife/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As dinosaurs go, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/345/6204/1613.full.pdf"><em>Spinosaurus</em></a> is one of the most recognisable: a predator with sharp claws, a long jaw full of teeth, and a big sail on its back. It lived near rivers, hunting for fish, 100 million years ago in a place that’s now desert; the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Geological-setting-of-Kem-Kem-beds-Morocco-and-Continental-Intercalaire-Algeria-Taouz_fig1_328889641">Kem Kem beds</a>, a geological formation in North Africa.</p>
<p>Much like <em>Spinosaurus</em>, most of the dinosaurs that have been found fossilised in the area were supported by that riverine system. The remains of crocodile-like animals and fish are the most common fossil finds, especially in sediments from Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. The ecosystem supported a large community of predatory dinosaurs that ate meat or fish, as well as a minority of plant-eating ones.</p>
<p><em>Spinosaurus</em> and his carnivorous relatives have gotten a lot of scientific attention, but the plant-eating part of the community has not been much in the spotlight.</p>
<p>I’ve just published a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338689936_Sauropod_dinosaur_fossils_from_the_Kem_Kem_and_extended_'Continental_Intercalaire'_of_North_Africa_A_review">paper</a> in the Journal of African Earth Sciences which compiles all the finds of long-necked, plant-eating (herbivorous) dinosaurs, called sauropods, from the Early Cretaceous period of North Africa. </p>
<p>Most of the fossil finds were teeth, which can tell us about the type of animal, what it ate and whether its location changed over time. The teeth provide information to reconstruct a complete palaeoecosystem. And further research stemming from these teeth finds will allow us to understand more about how different species lived together and where they all fitted into the food chain.</p>
<h2>Tracking teeth</h2>
<p>These sauropod fossils are, unfortunately, rare. For every sauropod tooth found, about 30 predatory dinosaur (theropod) teeth are <a href="https://doc.rero.ch/record/209284/files/PAL_E4031.pdf">found</a>. It’s not clear why there was such an imbalance between the carnivores and the herbivores. It might have to do with the riverine <a href="https://doc.rero.ch/record/209284/files/PAL_E4031.pdf">ecosystem</a>, which supported fish-eating and other meat-eating animals more than it did plant-eaters.</p>
<p>Despite the rarity, there is some evidence of the presence of herbivores: <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/3403/">ornithopods</a>, two-legged plant-eating dinosaurs (like <em>Spinosaurus</em> they had “sails” on their backs), as well as sauropods, the big, four-legged, long-necked dinosaurs mentioned in the new paper.</p>
<p>We also don’t know why bones were not so well preserved in this area. Only a few instances of more complete skeletons are known so far, from Morocco (<em><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24524186.pdf">Rebbachisaurus garasbae</a>)</em>, Tunisia (<em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3080">Tataouinea hannibalis</a></em>), Niger (<em><a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewilsonja/JAW/Publications_files/Sereno&Wilson2005.pdf">Nigersaurus taqueti</a></em>) and Egypt (<em><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/292/5522/1704.full.pdf">Paralititan stromeri</a></em>). </p>
<p>But teeth are made of harder material than bone: tooth enamel. This hard mineral endures time and burial much better than bone. Another reason teeth are found more often than bones is that sauropods would <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714237/">shed</a> their teeth quite often – every 14 days, in the case of <em>Nigersaurus</em>. </p>
<p>Teeth can reveal a lot about diversity when they are reasonably well-preserved. In <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338689936_Sauropod_dinosaur_fossils_from_the_Kem_Kem_and_extended_'Continental_Intercalaire'_of_North_Africa_A_review">our study</a>, we compared all known occurrences of sauropod teeth and found three different types. These were titanosauriform (think <em>Brachiosaurus</em> from the movie Jurassic Park), titanosaurian (a more evolutionary advanced type of the titanosauriform) and rebbachisaurid (something like <em>Brontosaurus</em>, but with a lower neck and broader muzzle). So far, most tooth types can be linked to a type of sauropod that is represented by bone material as well. But there are instances where there are only teeth – a mysterious clue to an unknown type of sauropod. </p>
<h2>Diet and migration patterns</h2>
<p>Sauropod teeth have been used as a tool to assess migration. </p>
<p>An earlier <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/5925/">study</a> I conducted together with sauropod expert Dr Verónica Díez Díaz found similarities between North African and Southern European sauropod tooth types. </p>
<p>Migration in the Early Cretaceous between the two continents (a sort of “island hopping” in the Mediterranean) has been shown in several other <a href="https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3628262">studies</a>, and our latest research further confirmed these finds. Some sauropod teeth from North Africa even resemble findings from South America, showing <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jorge_Calvo5/publication/312979654_Rebbachisaurus_tessonei_sp_nov_A_new_Sauropoda_from_Albian-Cenomanian_of_Argentina_New_evidence_on_the_origin_of_the_Diplodocidae/links/5c4f6904299bf12be3ea293b/Rebbachisaurus-tessonei-sp-nov-A-new-Sauropoda-from-Albian-Cenomanian-of-Argentina-New-evidence-on-the-origin-of-the-Diplodocidae.pdf">evidence</a> for a common ancestor between the sauropods of these two continents.</p>
<p>Teeth can also tell us about diet, as they are the main tool for gripping and processing food. One tooth of a Moroccan sample, for instance, shows extreme polishing. This suggests the dinosaur species in question had a grit-based, low-browsing diet.</p>
<p>One way to learn about diet is by looking at microwear. These are microscopic scratches on the worn surface of the tooth, where the tooth was grinding together with an opposing tooth, or with food. Coarse microwear, like pits and big, wide scratches, tends to indicate more grit in the diet, and finer microwear – like small scratches – suggests softer vegetation. </p>
<p>Another way to infer diet, or, more broadly, trophic level (where an animal was in the food chain), is to measure trace elements from dental enamel. While they are alive, animals’ bodies take up trace elements through food and water. These elements are stored in their bones and in their teeth. Calcium builds up more than other elements, so the more calcium is present compared with other elements, the higher the animal is in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ajpa.1330760106">food chain</a>. </p>
<p>So far, it seems that rebbachisaurs and titanosauriforms had different dietary lifestyles. This makes sense: they were both long-necked dinosaurs, but they differed in neck length, height and posture, so they probably ate different types of vegetation. This would have allowed them to avoid competition with each other.</p>
<p>The next step in the study of the North African fossils is to look at the whole ecosystem using the teeth of both carnivores and herbivores. <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2018.0197">Isotope analysis</a> has already been done, shedding light on the feeding ecology of <em>Spinosaurus</em>. The next step is to look at strontium trace elements, to find out more about exactly where each animal was in the food chain and how the different dinosaurs coexisted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Femke Holwerda is affiliated with Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and Fachgruppe Paläoumwelt, GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany</span></em></p>Teeth can reveal a lot about diversity when they are reasonably well-preserved.Femke Holwerda, Postdoctoral researcher, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302542020-01-24T15:18:08Z2020-01-24T15:18:08ZLibya: why enforcing an arms embargo is so hard<p>A group of countries involved in the ongoing civil war in Libya <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-libya-peace-summit-agrees-on-commitment-to-un-arms-embargo/a-52058307">agreed at a meeting in Berlin</a> on January 19 to uphold a UN arms embargo and stop international meddling in the country’s conflict. </p>
<p>Germany wants to find a way to end the ongoing conflict in Libya to prevent the North African country from becoming a “new Syria”. With Libya <a href="https://theconversation.com/migrants-calling-us-in-distress-from-the-mediterranean-returned-to-libya-by-deadly-refoulement-industry-111219">a key transit country</a> for migration on the shores of Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her European partners have a keen interest in stabilising the country. Also present at the Berlin meeting were representatives from Turkey, Russia, the UAE, Egypt, Algeria, Italy, France, the UK, the US and China who all have interests in the country.</p>
<p>My own ongoing research is looking at the ideology of different Islamist and Salafi groups in Libya since the overthrow of Muammar Gadaffi in 2011, a dimension that is often underestimated in the dynamics of the conflict. Since April 2019, Libya has been embroiled in another wave of civil war, initiated by the head of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar, who aimed to take over the capital, Tripoli, from the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is backed by the UN. </p>
<p>While the attack by Haftar’s LNA caught the GNA – and the international community – by surprise, so far, he has failed to seize Tripoli from the GNA, led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Both sides of the conflict rely on groups that carry ideological imprints that shape their behaviour and affect their international alliances. </p>
<p>For example the fall of Sirte to the LNA on January 6 was <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-libya-security/libyan-commander-haftars-forces-say-they-have-taken-sirte-idUKKBN1Z51L0">enabled by the changing of sides of 604 Brigade</a>, that espouses Salafism, a branch of Sunni Islam, and specifically the teaching of Saudi scholar Rabee al-Madkhali. Previously affiliated with the GNA, the group has now allied itself with the LNA, showing the potential repercussions of having Salafi-Madkhali groups present in the security forces on both main sides of the civil war in Libya. </p>
<p>Haftar’s military offensive has been characterised by repeated <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/libya-haftar-announces-decisive-battle-capture-tripoli-191212205130743.html">declarations of a “zero hour”</a> and claims – none of them fulfilled – that Tripoli would soon fall to his forces. His offensive has been <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/final-report-panel-experts-sudan-s202036-enar">supported by foreign powers</a> via arms shipments, and the deployment to Libya of military equipment and foreign fighters. </p>
<p>The new emphasis in Berlin on enforcing the arms embargo is crucial to the prospects of peace in Libya. Ending foreign interference is essential to alleviate the suffering of the local population who have been the target of multiple airstrike campaigns in recent years. Ultimately, the Berlin peace conference was right to emphasise the importance of a political solution over a military “win”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen-could-inhibit-a-peace-deal-in-libya-130391">Why 'too many cooks in the kitchen' could inhibit a peace deal in Libya</a>
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<h2>Nearly a decade of sanctions</h2>
<p>The UN Security Council placed an arms embargo on Libya in February 2011 relating to the supply of arms and military equipment to and from Libya. Initially, the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2011/02/367672-security-council-imposes-sanctions-libyan-authorities-bid-stem-violent">sanctions targeted the Gadaffi regime</a> because of its brutal and systematic violations of the human rights of anti-government protesters. </p>
<p>The sanctions regime has been <a href="https://www.sipri.org/databases/embargoes/un_arms_embargoes/libya/libya_2011">amended three times</a> since then, most recently in July 2016 to authorise states to inspect vessels on the high seas off Libya’s coast believed to be in violation of the arms embargo. </p>
<p>From the start, there were challenges connected to the longstanding <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40970843?casa_token=8k8T-bzeRMoAAAAA:e1r6_bT3b3x8KB_UcMoteOi3ThK0D7X5N3ECbkj4zRHfewRtmOKFuzt3YWR3uiCAooY9c4As5gjxoL1iS5-LQfhXGRvtXX1okP6WE4Im1-fjia5X&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">absence of a global enforcer</a> that is capable, interested and willing to bring violators of the arms embargo to task.</p>
<p>Breaches of the arms embargo have come from different directions. First from states that intervene – usually on behalf of their local proxies. And second, non-state groups such as militias and smugglers, who are emboldened by official embargoes to import and sell weapons illegally. These militias are, however, unlikely to be deterred by international naming and shaming or warnings of punishment. </p>
<p>Reports by multiple UN expert panels, the latest <a href="https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2021151/S_2019_914_E.pdf">published in December 2019</a>, have outlined breaches of the arms embargo. The experts reported that the UAE and Egypt have breached the arms embargo by supplying weapons to forces affiliated with Haftar’s LNA. More recently, Haftar’s forces have also benefited from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/world/middleeast/russia-libya-mercenaries.html">support of the Russian mercenaries</a> from the infamous Wagner group, accused of <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/06/rise-fall-russian-private-army-wagner-syrian-civil-war/">waging secret wars</a> on the Kremlin’s behalf around the world.</p>
<p>The different armed factions fighting on behalf of the GNA have mostly received military support from Turkey, which has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/libya-gna-accepts-turkish-offer-military-support-sources-191219130438161.html">increased its involvement</a> considerably in recent months to try and prevent Haftar’s military victory. The presence of Chadian and Sudanese armed groups in support of forces affiliated with both the GNA and LNA have also been singled out by UN experts. </p>
<h2>Chances for change are slim</h2>
<p>The countries at the Berlin conference were therefore right to emphasise and agree <a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/the-berlin-conference-on-libya-1713882">a commitment to</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya and urge all international actors to do the same. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While this commitment is desperately needed, it’s not sufficient to end the conflict and the big challenge is how to enforce the embargo. The lack of an impartial, international enforcing power makes this all the more complex. </p>
<p>The theoretical structures are in place, the reporting mechanisms are clear, and the UN experts have provided thorough evidence of breaches of the embargo, but it’s unlikely that the UN Security Council will agree to apply sanctions as a result. The ingrained wariness and diverging interests among international powers over Libya means they have little trust in the impartial implementation of sanctions. The foreign states supporting the GNA and LNA don’t believe the other will stick to the embargo – and nobody wants to weaken their allies’ chances of victory.</p>
<p>Individual sanctions need to be decided by the UN Security Council, which is riddled by diverging interests and dictated by the veto power of its permanent members. For example, one of the most obvious candidates for sanctions would be the UAE. But, given the closeness between the UAE and the US, which has <a href="https://wtop.com/middle-east/2019/09/a-look-at-foreign-military-bases-across-the-persian-gulf/">military forces stationed in the UAE</a>, the Americans are unlikely to want to jeopardise the relationship by pushing sanctions. </p>
<p>A stable truce in Libya needs an efficient arms embargo. The ultimate beneficiaries of such an embargo – the Libyan population – are unlikely to see any improvements soon. The years of international meddling have led to many countries having steadfast interests in Libya, and as it currently stands, no one is willing to take losses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Inga Kristina Trauthig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With dozens of international players meddling in Libya, nobody wants to see their side weakened.Inga Kristina Trauthig, Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and PhD Candidate at King's College, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254002019-10-23T13:28:24Z2019-10-23T13:28:24ZChild marriage in North Africa: still a lot to be done<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297645/original/file-20191018-56194-1dpsrrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Morocco reformed its family law in 2004 to increase the legal age of marriage to 18.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year about <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage/">12 million of the world’s children</a> will be married before they turn 18. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">UNICEF</a> figures suggest about 18% of them will be boys and about 82% girls. </p>
<p>Child marriage is widespread across developing countries, cultures and religions. It violates the rights of children and has widespread and long term consequences. It is driven by gender inequality, poverty, patriarchal traditions and the precarious socio-economic position of women, especially in rural areas. </p>
<p>The practice continues in the Middle East and Africa, even though many countries have laws banning it. In West Africa, Niger has the highest prevalence: 76% of all marriages there involve children. It is followed by the Central African Republic with 68%, Mali with 52% and Guinea with 51%. In North Africa, the figure for Mauritania is 37%; Egypt 17% and Morocco 13%. </p>
<p>Child marriages are slowly declining. Progress is most dramatic when it comes to the marriage of girls under 15 years of age. In North Africa, the percentage of women married before age 18 <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">has dropped</a> by about half, from 34% to 13%, over the past three decades. Nevertheless <a href="https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-015-0060-5">child marriages</a> are still prevalent in the region.</p>
<p>In my book, “<a href="http://www.mapfes.ma/fr/parution-dun-nouvel-ouvrage-collectif-sur-le-mariage-des-filles-mineures-au-maghreb/">Le marriage des filles mineures au Maghreb”</a>, I explore the impact of child marriages. In particular, I show how the marriage of underage girls has a devastating effect on their lives. I also show how it <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">hinders countries from achieving the UN sustainable development goals</a>. This is particularly true when it comes to education, health, gender equality, and the fight against poverty.</p>
<p>Yet the problem is rarely integrated into the national development debate and is seldom tackled by governments. The book shows that Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have ratified international human rights treaties and adopted universal conventions, but aren’t putting them all into practice. </p>
<p>There have been some encouraging signs. The three North African countries have made headway in <a href="http://riverapublications.com/assets/files/pdf_files/moroccos-experience-with-gender-gap-reduction-in-education.pdf">educating girls</a> and improving their living conditions during the past four decades. This has contributed to the decrease in child marriage.</p>
<p>They are good <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/july-2008/women-north-africa-secure-more-rights">examples</a> of effective intervention to end child marriage. </p>
<p>But Morocco, in particular, still has much further to go. More than 30,000 underage girls entered into arranged marriages in <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/03/241745/study-shows-30000-female-minors-enter-wedlock-year-morocco/">2018</a>. The country reformed its family law in 2004, but still allows young girls to marry before the legal age of 18 with the permission of a judge, and under circumstances such as a pregnancy. The conditions remain vague.</p>
<p>It’s also a country where violence against women is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-morocco-women-violence/many-women-in-morocco-face-abuse-at-home-some-are-now-speaking-out-idUSKCN1TB1Y3">not</a> receding. </p>
<h2>Forced despite consequences</h2>
<p>Several economic, social, and cultural factors drive underage marriage. Poverty and old traditions often force young girls into it. Families calculate that there will be one less person to feed when a girl goes to her husband’s home. </p>
<p>A reason often cited is family honour. Families overlook the fact that child marriage often leads to domestic violence, divorce and sometimes <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c770/42e6c7bcf5060ca36c1313627c8519446a9f.pdf">even suicide</a>.</p>
<p>My book argues that, regrettably, legal measures to protect women and girls by criminalising child marriage face substantial hurdles. These include a conservative culture, the accommodation of religious fanatics, and gender-based discrimination.</p>
<p>The consequences of child marriage can be devastating. </p>
<p>Little girls see their childhood curtailed and their adolescence confiscated. They run <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372345/">medical risks</a>. Many girls don’t survive the first pregnancy and <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/themes/health/">die during childbirth</a>. They may suffer mental health problems, as well.</p>
<p>Girls are also forced to <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/themes/education/">drop out</a> of school. </p>
<h2>Steps towards ending child marriage</h2>
<p>Women’s and human rights organisations <a href="https://www.unicef.org/morocco/media/181/file/Mariage%20des%20enfants%20au%20Maroc.pdf">emphasise</a> the need to end child marriage through legislation. They also call for severe sanctions against violations of the law and violence against women. </p>
<p>In my book I also stress the need to establish and implement laws and policies that criminalise child marriage. These marriages should <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/the-problem-the-child-marriage-act-1342720">become illegal</a>, with no exceptions. Facilitating or participating in them should be made a criminal offence. </p>
<p>But the legal route is not enough. Other steps need to be considered. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Raising awareness among parents and young people. Research <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/media_68114.html">shows</a> that some parents are not aware of the consequences of child marriage and that they are prepared to change when they become aware. Many marry their daughters simply because early marriage is the only option they know.</p></li>
<li><p>A national strategy for the integration of women in economic, social, cultural and political development. One way of doing this would be to introduce income-generating projects for poor families, especially in rural and distant areas. This would supplement the work being done by the state and civil society organisations <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/07/250611/morocco-highest-inequality-index-north-africa/">to eradicate</a> – or at least reduce – illiteracy, poverty and inequality.</p></li>
<li><p>Concerted efforts to ensure women are educated. </p></li>
<li><p>Increased access to health care.</p></li>
<li><p>Support and funding for women’s organisations to protect girls’ rights.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>To meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating child marriage by 2030, governments and civil society leaders in North Africa should continue their efforts to reform family laws.</p>
<p><em>Moha Ennaji ‘s most recent books are Minorities, Women and the State in North Africa and Moroccan Feminisms.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moha Ennaji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The region has made progress but efforts must continue to end a harmful practice rooted in poverty and tradition.Moha Ennaji, Professor of Linguistics, Gender, and Cultural Studies, Université Sidi Mohammed Ben AbdellahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1246842019-10-16T09:19:57Z2019-10-16T09:19:57ZTunisia’s new president Kais Saied has a big job to wrestle the country back from its political elites<p>The election of Kais Saied, a 61-year-old former law professor and political outsider, to the Tunisian presidency was not surprising: he represents the Tunisian ideal of how the ruling class should be. The size of the vote in his favour was impressive. He won 73% of the vote in the second round run-off, with more than 3m Tunisians voting for him.</p>
<p>Saied represents a version of the Tunisian reformist, a political stereotype that has long been <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-moderne-et-contemporaine-2009-5-page-14.htm#">integral to Tunisian identity.</a> In his <a href="https://www.leaders.com.tn/article/28189-abdelhamid-largueche-kais-saied-plebiscite-president-la-vertu-comme-enjeu-politique">ill-defined political project</a>, he plans to alter the Tunisian political system by decentralising its power structures and introducing more direct democracy. This will be an arduous task that will attempt to reverse a process of centralisation that has been going on for more than 500 years. </p>
<p>At the same time, his views in <a href="https://www.leaders.com.tn/article/28189-abdelhamid-largueche-kais-saied-plebiscite-president-la-vertu-comme-enjeu-politique">recent public debates</a> left many moderate Tunisians flabbergasted, especially when he claimed that he did not hold the idea of <a href="https://www.leaders.com.tn/article/28189-abdelhamid-largueche-kais-saied-plebiscite-president-la-vertu-comme-enjeu-politique">equality between men and women</a> in high esteem, or when he rejected questions about the <a href="https://www.leaders.com.tn/article/28189-abdelhamid-largueche-kais-saied-plebiscite-president-la-vertu-comme-enjeu-politique">rights of minorities</a>. </p>
<p>These contradictions create inevitable perplexities, especially when Tunisia’s two elected institutions – parliament and the president – seem to have two different and sometimes opposed political projects.</p>
<p>The presidential election followed parliamentary elections on October 6, in which preliminary results <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20191009-islamist-inspired-ennahdha-party-leads-tunisia-election-initial-results-show">show the moderate Islamist party, Ennhada,</a> will be the largest party. Ennhada <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-tunisia-election-islamists/moderate-islamist-ennahda-backs-saied-in-tunisias-presidential-run-off-idUKKBN1W42VA">backed Saied</a> in the second round of the presidential election. </p>
<h2>Insecurity and corruption</h2>
<p>Saied takes over a country facing a complicated future. Extremist organisations continue to threaten foreigners and Tunisian national interests. Border instability is putting a strain on the security forces, while social protests, often spontaneous, continue to impact life, especially in the capital, Tunis.</p>
<p>Families continue to resort to <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2019/09/24/pauvrete-en-tunisie-realites-et-illusions_1753369">loans to save the day</a>, while many believe that the sums swallowed up in palaces or prestige constructions, would be better invested in building industries. According to a survey by Transparency International released in August 2019, <a href="http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/generalnews/2019/08/02/tunisia-corruption-on-the-rise-transparency-international_d22dc8d7-f7a5-451b-930a-49c0f7ff2675.html">67% of Tunisians perceived that corruption had worsened</a> in the past year. </p>
<p>This trend, of elites enriching themselves, is reminiscent of the aftermath of Tunisia’s independence in 1956, when Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first leader after independence, and his elite accessed power. This same trend repeated itself under the presidency of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and it has not disappeared. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tunisie-comment-la-corruption-gangrene-le-pays-91294">Tunisie: comment la corruption gangrène le pays</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many Tunisian politicians neglect the economic and social issues <a href="https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/tunisias-upcoming-challenge-fixing-the-economy-before-its-too-late/">affecting the country</a>. Worryingly, this shows the political class is unable to transform the needs of the population into real policies. Tunisians are no longer willing to be bought with short-term policies, such as the <a href="https://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/tunisie-a-lheure-comptes/00090425">increase of salaries and pensions</a> that happened on the eve of these elections. The ruling party’s candidate didn’t make it to the second round of the presidential run-off.</p>
<h2>Entrenched relationships</h2>
<p>There is a considerable risk that Tunisians may continue to be hostage to a political class more motivated by personal gain than by the republican and democratic ideals that permitted the country to gain independence, and that were reiterated during the 2011 Jasmine revolution.</p>
<p>The logic of the Tunisian political class lies in horsetrading with Europe for help in reducing the threats of terrorism and immigration. But all this keeps the Tunisian population in a perpetual state of insecurity. </p>
<p>In reality, it looks like the old setting of colonial rule in Tunisia might be rebadged and maintained by today’s crop of politicians. The discourse of the Tunisian political class does little but repeat the previous agreements with Western powers that were renegotiated when Tunisia gained independence. </p>
<p>There continues to be a focus <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNEDXUMzeaA">by political elites</a> on the need to support democracy in Tunisia because that’s what Europe needs and expects. According to this argument, the equation is simple. Poverty and unemployment inevitably produce terrorism and emigration, and if Europe doesn’t want to receive immigrant groups and doesn’t want to be harmed by terrorism, it should provide the potential to stabilise Tunisian democracy through a strong economy.</p>
<p>This is a logic that both Bourguiba and Ben Ali used to push forward their own personal interests, including within Tunisia’s security system, by getting economic and political support. After the fall of Ben Ali in 2011, there was then a redistribution of power within the security system, with the establishment of new strongholds of power by newly emerging lobby groups.</p>
<p>But today, Tunisia’s security apparatus continues to be almost byzantine in its <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR304.pdf">complexity and secrecy</a>. The ongoing implementation of intelligence reform in Tunisia is a difficult task involving great political and security dangers. But this is perhaps an issue that Saied should make his own priority. Failing to do so would inevitably risk leaving once again a restricted minority controlling the security apparatus’s power to influence domestic politics, with considerable and predictable consequences.</p>
<p>For now, it’s difficult to predict whether the new president will be able to truly emancipate Tunisia from its past, revolutionising the political system and changing its power structures away from the lobby groups.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omar Safi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Parts of Tunisia’s political discourse look a lot like its colonial past.Omar Safi, Teaching Fellow, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1205582019-08-07T13:38:51Z2019-08-07T13:38:51ZFrench cannabis legalization debate ignores race, religion and the mass incarceration of Muslims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287107/original/file-20190806-84210-1dsw0i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evidence suggests that Muslim men in France have been disproportionately arrested and jailed for cannabis-related crimes since the drug became illegal in 1970.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/francisco_osorio/4977990504/in/photolist-8zTv9u-B1k938-6afVLk-87j3TU-8pdjy4-hP7vgs-8TfWUQ-RTuk8L-286TveU-M4roSU-27PfhL8-29c9WnD-SthGRk-26rpDLS-286Nae3-Sh5Y3t-26rsHMb-M4r8jQ-Srk5bE-286V31w-4KqDVQ-6afVDi-6afVyR-7gvLPB-E1RSo-59cKgy-7CsArq-7gzA71-7Cszo9-7gzBJU-8VeEE6-StLf8R-21inHSo-dDKSHJ-Rr8diz-StnAiF-AtWitz-25uMaQt-QBavfz-2crXZ5w-225FvMS-Sh5ZXR-7kj7sT-RecthX-Sh61da-SBqZUA-SBrz7C-StnCrP-B33Fs7-27Per9T">Francisco Osorio/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last summer in France, dozens of “CBD cafés” suddenly opened across the country.</p>
<p>Exploiting a legal loophole originally created for hemp farmers, these pop-up businesses sold queuing customers oils, drinks and salves infused with cannabidiol, a cannabis compound <a href="https://theconversation.com/cbd-rising-star-or-popular-fad-110146">that is a faddish if unproven “cure”</a> for insomnia, anxiety and more. The French government reacted quickly and by mid-June had <a href="http://www.drogues.gouv.fr/actualites/cannabidiol-cbd-point-legislation">officially prohibited the sale of CBD</a>. The CBD cafés vanished within a month. </p>
<p>But France’s brief experiment with cannabidiol seems to have started a movement to legalize cannabis, which has been illegal since <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000321402&categorieLien=id">1970</a>. </p>
<p>On June 19, dozens of French economists, physicians and politicians published an open letter in the popular news magazine <a href="https://www.nouvelobs.com/societe/20190619.OBS14590/l-appel-de-70-medecins-elus-economistes-pourquoi-nous-voulons-legaliser-le-cannabis.html">L’Obs</a>, denouncing the “bankruptcy” of cannabis prohibition and imploring the nation to “Légalisons-Le!” Soon after, an economic advisory council to the French prime minister released a <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jo_pdf.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000321402">report</a> criticizing France’s drug war as a costly “French failure” and calling for cannabis legalization on financial grounds. </p>
<p>Then, in July, France’s drug safety agency <a href="https://ansm.sante.fr/S-informer/Actualite/Cannabis-a-visee-therapeutique-en-France-l-ANSM-souscrit-au-cadre-de-la-phase-experimentale-de-mise-a-disposition-propose-par-le-Comite-d-experts-Point-d-information">approved</a> the launch of medical cannabis trials in France — something physicians and activists have pushed for since 2013. </p>
<p>France’s drug policy debate largely echoes similar conversations that have lead a <a href="https://theconversation.com/marijuana-expands-into-3-more-states-but-nationwide-legalization-still-unlikely-106512">dozen U.S. states</a> to legalize and regulate cannabis since 2014, but for one difference: France has all but ignored the <a href="https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/cory-booker-calls-marijuana-justice-biden-says-drug-criminals-shouldnt-be">link</a> between <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/legal-marijuana-made-big-promises-racial-equity-fell-short-n952376">race</a>, cannabis and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/nyregion/marijuana-legalization-african-americans.html">mass incarceration</a>.</p>
<h2>France’s hidden war on drugs</h2>
<p>Evidence suggests that cannabis prohibition over the past 50 years has disproportionately punished France’s Muslim minority. </p>
<p>About one-fifth of French prisoners were convicted for drug offenses, according to the <a href="http://www.justice.gouv.fr/art_pix/Stat_Annuaire_ministere-justice_2017_chapitre8.pdf">French Ministry of Justice</a> – a rate comparable to that of the <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html">United States</a>. Nearly all of them are men. </p>
<p>There is no demographic breakdown of this population, because the French credo of “absolute equality” among citizens has made it <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-french-law-makes-minorities-invisible-a7416656.html">illegal since 1978 to collect</a> statistics based on race, ethnicity or religion. But sociologist <a href="http://cadis.ehess.fr/index.php?1142">Farhad Khosrokhavar</a>, who studies France’s prison system, has found that roughly half of the 69,000 people incarcerated today in France are Muslims of Arab descent.</p>
<p>Muslims make up just 9% of France’s 67 million people.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287106/original/file-20190806-84244-16wo80g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>According to a <a href="http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/rap-info/i0595.asp">January 2018 study</a> commissioned by the French National Assembly, of the 117,421 arrests for drugs in France in 2010, 86% involved cannabis. Cannabis arrests are rising quickly, too. The same study reported that number of people arrested annually for “simple use” of cannabis in France increased 10-fold between 2000 and 2015, from 14,501 to 139,683.</p>
<p>Taken together, this and <a href="https://www.ofdt.fr/BDD/publications/docs/DCC2019.pdf">other data</a> suggests that up to 1 in 6 prisoners in France today may be an Arab Muslim man who used, possessed or sold cannabis. </p>
<h2>Hashish assassins</h2>
<p>The disproportionate impact of French drug laws on Muslim men is unsurprising considering that the French have long associated Muslims with cannabis – specifically hashish, a cannabis resin.</p>
<p>As I argue in my <a href="https://digital.library.temple.edu/digital/collection/p245801coll10/id/490292/">doctoral dissertation</a> and forthcoming book on the history of hashish in France, the 19th-century French believed this mild drug caused insanity, violence and criminality among Muslim North Africans.</p>
<p>Writing in the early 1800s, the famed French scholar <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5656689h/f85.item.r=Sacy">Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy</a> popularized the idea that the word “assassin” derived from the Arabic word “hashish” and that both originated with a Muslim sect called the Assassins of Alamut, who operated during the Crusades. </p>
<p>First described in the 1300 Italian travelogue “<a href="https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14300/">The Travels of Marco Polo</a>,” the Assassins of Alamut were rumored to use an “intoxicating potion” to dupe devotees in Iraq and Syria into becoming assassins. Sacy believed the potion was made from hashish, citing contemporary Arabic references to the sect as the “al-Hashishiyya,” or “hashish-eaters.” </p>
<p>These assassins, Sacy argued, “were specifically raised to kill” by their leader, known as the Old Man of the Mountain. They were fed hashish to ensure “absolute resignation to the will of their leader.” </p>
<p>Though largely a fiction, Sacy’s contentions about cannabis-eating Muslim assassins <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/SHAD30010050">gained traction</a> in France, particularly in medicine. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287108/original/file-20190806-84195-1mfz8rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Hashish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_medical_hashish(2).jpg">Mjpresson/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Dozens of mid 19th-century doctors cited Sacy’s work in their research, my research uncovered. They believed that Western pharmaceutical science could “tame” hashish – this dangerous and exotic intoxicant from the Orient – for use by physicians to treat such fearsome diseases as insanity, the plague and cholera. </p>
<p>Medical hashish, primarily in the form of tincture, <a href="https://digital.library.temple.edu/digital/collection/p245801coll10/id/490272">flourished</a> in France during the 1830s and 1840s. </p>
<p>But the French soon grew disillusioned with their wonder drug. Cannabis, we now know, eases the symptoms of some diseases – but it cannot cure cholera.</p>
<p>As failed treatments mounted and many of the medical philosophies that underpinned the use of hashish became obsolete in France by the late 19th century, its use as medicine largely ended. In <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000845281&categorieLien=id">1953</a>, France made medicinal hashish illegal. </p>
<h2>Colonial reefer madness</h2>
<p>The link between hashish and violent Muslims, however, was ingrained in the national consciousness. And it influenced French public policy for decades.</p>
<p>Officials and physicians in French colonial Algeria, viewing hashish use as a cause of <a href="http://jubilotheque.upmc.fr/ead.html?id=CS_000020_020#!%7B%22content%22:%5B%22CS_000020_020_toc298%22,false,%22%22%5D%7D">insanity and violent criminality</a>, filled psychiatric hospitals across Algeria with local Muslims supposedly suffering “folie haschischique” – basically, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/re-criminalizing-cannabis-is-worse-than-1930s-reefer-madness-89821">reefer madness</a>.”</p>
<p>Such thinking also helped justify the creation of the <a href="https://www.editions-zones.fr/livres/de-l-indigenat/">Code de l’Indigènat</a> in 1875, a French law that institutionalized racism and apartheid in French North Africa by officially designating Muslims as subjects rather than citizens. </p>
<p>In the name of promoting “colonial order,” France established separate and unequal legal codes that promoted the segregation, <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/1717?lang=fr">forced labor</a> and civil rights restrictions of Muslims and other Africans.</p>
<p>The stigmatizing association between Muslims, hashish and criminality persisted after the end of the <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668311.001.0001/acprof-9780199668311-chapter-5">French Empire</a> in 1968. It followed North Africans who emigrated to France, who were believed to <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/french-historical-studies/article-abstract/36/3/479/9749/Colonial-Techniques-in-the-Imperial-Capital-The?redirectedFrom=fulltext">prone to violence</a> and criminality and as such subject to government surveillance, interrogations and excessive police force in France.</p>
<p>French parliamentarians seeking to criminalize cannabis in the late 1960s embraced these discriminatory views. </p>
<p>They described the nation’s growing drug problem as a “<a href="http://archives.assemblee-nationale.fr/4/cri/1969-1970-ordinaire1/015.pdf">foreign plague</a>” spread by Arab drug traffickers. One French National Assembly member even cited Sacy, reminding fellow lawmakers that cannabis had once inspired a cult of Muslim murderers called the “Hachichins.” </p>
<p>French lawmakers today probably would not use such discredited research or stigmatizing language to connect Muslims to cannabis. But the number of Muslims imprisoned for drug-related crimes suggests that this historic racism is alive and well in France. </p>
<p>If France moves to regulate legal cannabis, many doctors, pot smokers and libertarian economists will surely rejoice. But it may be French Muslims who benefit the most.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David A. Guba Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Muslims make up 9% of France’s population and half of all its prisoners – many convicted on drug charges. But social justice isn’t part of the country’s growing debate on legalization.David A. Guba Jr., History Faculty, Bard CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1191342019-07-01T11:02:12Z2019-07-01T11:02:12ZWhere next for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after death of Mohamed Morsi<p>The death of Egypt’s former president, Mohamed Morsi, in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/mohamed-morsi-dead-ousted-president-egypt-collapses-after-court-session">Cairo court on June 17</a>, on the same day he was elected six years previously, closed a chapter in Egyptian history. Morsi was the first president of Egypt to be elected in popular, representative and multiparty elections. But his burial in a graveyard alongside previous leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood group is a symbolic indication that a different approach within the 90-year-old organisation has not yet happened. His family <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/18/mohammed-morsi-swiftly-buried-denied-public-funeral-hometown/">wasn’t allowed to bury</a> his body as he wished in his birthplace in the Delta village of Edwa.</p>
<p>Morsi led the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s first official political arm, and stood at the climax of its social, political and ideological struggle. His time as president only lasted one year and ended with the group plunged into its worse ever internal and external crisis. Six years on, the group still seems unable to find its way forward in a rapidly changing national, regional and international landscape.</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood was <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-109268859/al-ikhwan-al-muslimeen-the-muslim-brotherhood">founded as a social movement by Hassan Al Banna</a> in the eastern Egyptian city of Ismailia in 1928, as a reaction to the fall of the Ottoman empire. The Brotherhood’s understanding is that Islam should encompass all aspects of life: political, social and personal. The early Brotherhood thought they could spread this concept by engaging in elections and by integrating into established social and political structures. </p>
<p>The group flourished under the Egyptian monarchy and managed to spread rapidly in Egypt and across the world until it faced its first crackdown under President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. It started to rebuild its structure again from the 1970s onward under presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. </p>
<p>After the revolution that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.html">overthrew Mubarak in 2011</a>, the Brotherhood was initially undecided about whether the time was right for the group to put up a candidate for the presidential elections that followed. Its guidance office voted twice to reject running for the presidency but the group’s strong man, Khairat El Shater, managed to overturn this decision and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-nominates-presidential-candidate/2012/03/31/gIQAnIZpnS_story.html?utm_term=.4ba6afc7775d">won the group’s approval</a> to run for president. However, he was among a group of candidates <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/2012414185229419379.html">discredited by the electoral commission</a> and Morsi replaced him. </p>
<p>Members who defected from the Brotherhood in 2013, who I’ve interviewed for my PhD research into the group’s political communications, maintain it should not have participated in the presidential elections. That remains the perspective of many of its current members.</p>
<h2>Factionalism</h2>
<p>During Morsi’s presidency there was no difference between the Brotherhood’s structure and that of its party political arm. All media, social and even religious activities of the members were combined.</p>
<p>During the Mubarak era, the Brotherhood had been a <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/7e542a35eba1798efa0aaa351b531d05/1?cbl=32013&pq-origsite=gscholar">key player</a> in the lives of Egyptians. It built hospitals and schools, established charities, helped the poor and dominated unions of both workers and students. None of this appeared to be helpful for running the country when the Freedom and Justice Party had full power. It was accused by critics of “Ikhawanisation” <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=B3orDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=morsi+and+the+ikhwanisation&ots=ZjQLf04W0Z&sig=NqujUSJYYVQ40eSWFUPpkcoD-U4#v=onepage&q=morsi%20and%20the%20ikhwanisation&f=false">of the country</a> – that they wanted Brotherhood members to occupy all the sensitive posts in the country. The liberals, leftists, Christians and other forces within Egyptian society were concerned about what effect the dominance of religion would have under the Brotherhood’s rule. </p>
<p>After the army <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/03/mohamed-morsi-egypt-second-revolution">ousted Morsi from power in July 2013</a>, the group split into many factions. In the clampdown by the military that followed, it was designated as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-explosion-brotherhood/egypt-designates-muslim-brotherhood-as-terrorist-group-idUSBRE9BO08H20131225">a terrorist organisation in Egypt</a> later that year and the Freedom and Justice Party <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28722935">was banned</a>, accused of being linked to violence in the Sinai peninsula, which it denied.</p>
<p>Since then, its leaders – who are now mainly outside Egypt – have struggled to convince many of remaining young members to accept that the peaceful approach established by Al Banna 90 years ago remains the right one to reach the group’s goals. Al Banna planned for the group to build and develop the individual Muslim, then the Muslim family, then Muslim society, then the Muslim state, then unity between Muslim countries, finally reaching “mastery of the world”. </p>
<p>After 2013, the Broterhood’s youth members kept asking the group’s leaders that if they had been removed from power so easily once they had been given the opportunity to rule Egypt, what was the point of keeping to that path. Many young members believed that they would have to find other ways to make the “Islamic project” succeed.</p>
<p>Mass trials of members of the Brotherhood <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/08/egypt-sentences-75-to-death-in-rabaa-massacre-mass-trial">found them guilty</a> of a string of violent offences in late 2018, handing down death sentences to many. Many youth left the group after 2013, protesting about the dominance of the same leaders who they held responsible for the group’s crisis. </p>
<h2>Intransigence</h2>
<p>In my research, I’m finding that the Brotherhood is only prepared to tactically modify a few of its political strategies, no matter how big the change around them is. While its leaders in exile are using slightly more national language to address the whole Egyptian nation, it continues to use the same main themes of communication it was using before Morsi came to power. </p>
<p>Before they were banned in Egypt in 2013, the group’s affiliated media houses, the <a href="https://fj-p.com/">Freedom and Justice newspaper</a> and Misr 25 TV channel, used to attack their opponents with accusations of violence, claiming that they didn’t represent Islam, were financed by foreign sources and didn’t act in Egypt’s national interests. They asserted that they alone represented Islam as a political force in Egypt, that they had refined understanding of its teachings and that following them was a duty for every Muslim. The Brotherhood’s media in exile are still using the same ideological framework.</p>
<p>Morsi’s death provoked an outpouring of mourning in Egypt and in countries where the Brotherhood still has a presence, such <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-egypt-mursi-brotherhood/thousands-of-brotherhood-supporters-in-turkey-mourn-egypts-mursi-idUKKCN1TJ1CV">as Turkey</a>, Qatar and the UK. While much of Egypt looks ready to move on – particularly with many Egyptians focused on the African Cup of Nations which Egypt is hosting – it appears many of the Brotherhood’s supporters had still hoped that Morsi might have one day returned as president. But unless the group makes big changes to its political strategies and internal policies, it’s unlikely they will be playing a role in Egyptian politics any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohamed Taha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Muslim Brotherhood has been slow to adapt to its new reality.Mohamed Taha, PhD Candidate, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1190312019-06-18T20:58:14Z2019-06-18T20:58:14ZMohamed Morsi: death of Egypt’s former president shows deep state was always going to triumph<p>Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48668941">died on June 17</a> in court in Cairo where he was on trial facing charges of espionage. He will be remembered for a short and divisive presidency and his failure to deliver the hopeful visions of Egypt’s “Arab Spring”. His legacy: the unprecedented consolidation of authoritarian rule by Egypt’s current military regime.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2012, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/06/201262412445190400.html">Morsi’s narrow victory</a> was hailed by the West in the wake of the uprising that saw the ouster of his predecessor Hosni Mubarak. But within a year, even Egyptians who had cast their votes for Morsi were clamouring for his removal, in what some described as the largest public protests in world history.</p>
<p>Morsi was not a popular president. His electoral triumph against Mubarak lackey Ahmad Shafik was so close that it aroused suspicions of a deal with the army. Neither of the two candidates represented Egypt’s liberal voice, whose votes were <a href="https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/peace_publications/election_reports/egypt-final-presidential-elections-2012.pdf">split between a plethora of candidates</a> and who failed to consolidate as an effective “third way” during the first round of voting.</p>
<p>An engineer by training, Morsi in fact had little experience in politics before his rapid rise to power in 2012. Within months of his inauguration it seemed clear that he was unable to command the support of the Egyptian people. On the international stage, a series of embarrassing blunders intensified the wave of domestic criticism that culminated in his downfall in 2013.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/morsis-authority-ebbed-away-but-egypt-is-dangerously-divided-15774">Morsi's authority ebbed away, but Egypt is dangerously divided</a>
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<h2>The balance sheet</h2>
<p>Initially, Morsi showed promise. His first speech to the Egyptian people deployed the language of national unity and reform of the security state, clearly appealing to the sentiments expressed in the 2011 revolution of “bread, freedom and social justice.” In November 2012, he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-conflict.html">brokered a ceasefire</a> between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, reassuring the international community that Egypt would continue to play the role of mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>
<p>Just one day after this success, however, Morsi announced a presidential decree that marked the beginning of the end of his rule. On November 22, 2012 he issued a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/23/protests-egypt-presidential-decree">constitutional declaration</a>, appointed a new public prosecutor, and gave himself what many saw as dictatorial powers – making presidential decrees immune to judicial oversight. While Morsi claimed that these measures were necessary to protect the revolution and transition to a constitutional democracy, he was accused of appointing himself as “Egypt’s new pharaoh”. </p>
<p>In response to widespread protests, Morsi annulled the declaration but insisted on proceeding with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/world/middleeast/egypt-draft-constitution-vote.html?module=inline">snap referendum</a> on the new constitution which <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20829911">passed with a 63% majority</a> but a low voter turnout of only 33%.</p>
<p>The constitutional crisis was a critical turning point and provided the army with a window of opportunity to present itself as “the saviour” of the Egyptian people. In late April 2013, the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20130623-egypt-morsi-opposition-tamarod-revolt">Tamarod</a> (meaning “rebel”) campaign was officially launched with the goal of collecting 15m signatures by June 30 – the anniversary of Morsi’s presidential victory – to call for early elections. Evidence has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/07/03/how-egypts-generals-used-street-protests-to-stage-a-coup/?utm_term=.f233c3bf2828">since emerged</a> suggesting that the movement operated with the approval and support of the military and security agencies as well as supporters of the former Mubarak regime. Leaked <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/world/middleeast/recordings-suggest-emirates-and-egyptian-military-pushed-ousting-of-morsi.html">recordings of conversations</a> between Egyptian military figures revealed that the group drew funds from a bank account administered by the Ministry of Defence and replenished by the United Arab Emirates. </p>
<p>Millions of Egyptians heeded Tamarod’s call and on July 3, the defence minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared that the army had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/middle-east-live/2013/jul/03/egypt-countdown-army-deadline-live">suspended the constitution</a> and deposed the president in order to “end the state of conflict and division” that had marked Morsi’s presidency.</p>
<h2>Sisi clampdown</h2>
<p>In retrospect, Morsi’s brief time in power looks relatively benign when compared to the authoritarianism that followed Sisi’s military coup. The Muslim Brotherhood has long been demonised by the political elite since the founding of Egypt’s republic in 1952. In fact, Morsi’s brief presidency clearly demonstrated that the interests of the “deep state” would ultimately triumph. The Muslim Brotherhood could never have dominated Egypt in the way that many feared because they simply had too many enemies.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/egypt-hopes-for-democratic-future-die-as-al-sisi-marches-country-towards-dictatorship-with-parliaments-blessing-113491">Egypt: hopes for democratic future die as al-Sisi marches country towards dictatorship – with parliament's blessing</a>
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<p>Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is regarded as a terrorist group and an existential threat to the Egyptian people. Not only is it a crime to be associated with the organisation, but the Egyptian regime has made it clear that any dissent whatsoever will be crushed.</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood no doubt sees Morsi as the latest martyr in an ongoing battle with the Sisi government. He was <a href="https://theconversation.com/morsi-death-penalty-completes-military-takeover-of-egypt-41948">sentenced to death</a> in 2015 in a ruling that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/mohamed-morsi-death-sentence-overturned">was subsequently overturned</a> in 2016. </p>
<p>The inhumanity of Morsi’s treatment in prison, where he was kept predominantly in solitary confinement, will evoke previous acts of brutality against the group, not least the public massacre of over 1,000 supporters of the Brotherhood in August 2013, described by <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt">Human Rights Watch</a> as the worst mass killing in Egypt’s history. The UN has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48680603">called for an investigation</a> into Morsi’s death. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, while high profile, Morsi’s fate is by no means exceptional. He is simply the latest and most visible victim of a regime committed to imposing its will on the nation without concern for the human cost. Nonetheless, the vast majority of Egyptians will not be mourning the death of their first democratically elected president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dina Rezk receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for her research.</span></em></p>An obituary of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, who died in court in Cairo.Dina Rezk, Lecturer in Middle Eastern History, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.