2024-07-30 12:36:31
Consisting of 4 chapters, this 159-page work offers an in-depth analysis of the history of relations between the Kingdom of Morocco and the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
“The analysis of Morocco’s historical roots in sub-Saharan Africa, which would explain its great contemporary involvement, as well as its influence across the continent, is the central issue of this work,” we read in the introduction to the book by Bakary Sambe, Regional Director of the Think tank “Timbuktu Institut”, based in Dakar.
“In the historical part, this work is based essentially on the work of recent years on the continuous anchoring of the Kingdom in the African environment while taking advantage, at the same time, of Arabic sources which appear to have been little exploited until now”, adds the author, a lecturer-researcher at the Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis (northern Senegal).
Professor Sambe, author of several works and studies, including “Islam and Diplomacy, Morocco’s African Policy”, also questions in his work “the successive strategies through which Morocco’s current relations with the rest of the continent constantly call upon, on the one hand, historical-symbolic resources, and on the other hand, religion as a driving and legitimizing force”.
According to the author, “this constantly realistic diplomacy of Morocco has been able, through important periods of its relations with Africa, to make of all its combined resources a lasting lever of influence.”
Chapter I of the book deals with “the historical dimension of this relationship and the trans-Saharan interactions through which Morocco has granted itself an African role based from the beginning, in large part, on the strength of religious symbols and the way in which the Kingdom has always succeeded in providing effective leverage in its continental deployment.”
As for Chapter II, it focuses on religious or spiritual constants which “constitute a lasting foundation on which Rabat has been able to build a +special+ relationship with the rest of the continent. This relationship has been able to be maintained both in its content and in its main orientations, including, during the colonial era, through brotherhood networks”, notes Bakary Sambe.
Chapter III explores “the eminently strategic phase” of Morocco’s African policy, where this country “proceeded to convert its historical-symbolic identity to conquer the economy and markets of the time of diversification of partnerships on the continent.
“Accelerated with the advent of HM King Mohammed VI on the Alawite Throne, the high point of this process was the great return to African authorities which inaugurates an era, without common measure, of diplomatic pragmatism, in the era of new economic and geostrategic challenges on the continent”, notes the Senegalese political scientist.
For Chapter IV, it opens with “the prospects of a new Moroccan role in an Africa endowed with a new status through recent geopolitical developments” and successively deals with “the way in which the Kingdom is gradually establishing itself as a geostrategic bridge at the heart of new confluences and competitions, and how Africa has become for Morocco the key piece that could allow it to claim a role of “bridge state+”.
The presentation of this new work will take place soon in Senegal.
2024-07-30 12:36:31