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War or Peace in the Mediterranean ?
What scenarios for the Mediterranean future?
At the start of the twenty-first century marked by a dizzying acceleration in the history of humanity, with its procession of tragedies, wars and epidemics, the Mediterranean, a pivotal place between cultures and civilizations, is at a crucial moment in its history. Twenty-five years after the Barcelona Conference of November 3-5, 1995, the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean area have never been so close to the risks of war and armed confrontation, the resurgence of identity and cultural folds and the rise of fundamentalist Islamism.
Indeed, at the dawn of the 21st century, the Mediterranean presents Alas! the most alarming clues in terms of the risk of increased fractures between the two shores, internal fragmentation in neighboring countries, environmental degradation and regional political instabilities. This is how all the indicators agree that there are major threats to the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean area today :
- Blocking of prospects for real peace in Palestine and stalling of the conflict in Syria,not to mention the sudden deterioration of the situation in Lebanon
- Specter of wars and conflicts around gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean caused by Turkey's expansionist inclinations
- Threat of civil war in Libya which has become a real powder keg, a closed field of rivalries between the great regional and international powers
- Persistence of tensions between Algeria and Morocco because of the Western Sahara issue
- Unprecedented migratory crisis which is on the way to making the Mediterranean “an open-air cemetery” for migrants from all sides of the South from the South.
It is to be believed that the most pessimistic scenarios announced by Plan Bleu for 2025 are coming to fruition before their time. Such a catastrophic scenario is in reality a cry of alarm launched to political leaders, to civil society actors on the urgency of action to save the Mediterranean, which risks becoming in the immediate and future a real mirror of the growing disparities between the North and the South of the planet, maybe even a “dead sea of the XXI century” as predicted some voices of ominousness!
Therefore, the question to be raised today is as the following :
- a).What are the bridges and gateways to be rebuilt in the Mediterranean in order to overcome the constraints and misunderstandings of the past and the present and to prepare for the future?
- b).How to identify the strategies, mechanisms and actors likely to contribute to laying the foundations of the Mediterranean in the 21st century, by giving it a new geopolitical centrality that it has long lost?
To tell the truth, these are the two leitmotifs, the two terms of the difficult equation on which will depend the future of Mediterranean relations. Hence the need for renewed reflection on the optimal and alternative strategies for the emergence of a global Mediterranean society for the twenty-first century .
In this tumultuous context, Tunisia is determined to stay the course, against all odds, to remain a land of East-West encounters, a bridge between the two shores of the Mediterranean and well beyond between the North and the South. To this end, it is called upon more than ever to re-launch an active diplomacy of mediation, reconciliation and arbitration at the Arab, Mediterranean and African level.
AREAS OF EXPERTISES
Diplomacy / International Organizations
Maghreb / Mediterranean / Africa
Geopolitics North / South, South / South
Tourism and Cultural Heritage
Public Relations and Communications
MY PUBLICATIONS
This section of the website contains a list of indicative publications including books, book chapters, papers and reports produced by the author over the past twenty years .
MY CONFERENCES
This section of the website encloses a list of indicative and selected significant events including conferences, meetings and seminars taking place all over the world that the author has attended over the past twenty years
Friday August 31st, 2018
