Arab World
As a Moroccan think tank, the Amadeus Institute naturally focuses on the Arab World. Morocco, located at the westernmost point of the Maghreb, is the farthest country from the Gulf – the center of the Arab World. Yet it is an inherent part of this region and is both at the edge of the far-reaching Arab-Muslim influence and at the doorstep of Spain, where the Arab-Muslim civilization brought science, technology and cultural prosperity in the past. The Arab world, a tremendously diverse civilization, is today in need of a definition that will allow an understanding of its complex identities.
The concept of the Arab World is sensitive: it brings together identities with a common cultural base but also risks assimilating very diverse realities. In the same fashion, the concept of the “Latin World” today does not carry the meaning it once had in the past. The secularization of states has created distinct nationalities and divergent dialects. Arab countries are nonetheless tied to together through a religious and cultural bond – their written lingua franca is the language of the Koran.
The Arab world is continuously in a quest for a unified political ideology – one can recall the contradictory 50s and 60s pan-Arabic movement and the universal caliphate aspirations – that will establish it as an influential power block. These competing movements are marked by a sentiment of decline in the modern period, when compared to their historical prosperity and power. Finally, and most importantly, the Nakba and the establishment of the Jewish state brought about an Arab realization of vulnerability in the contemporary world.
Western media analyses often lump together the Arab world, terrorism and Islamism. The Amadeus Institute encourages a strong union of Arab states through economic cooperation and political negotiations, around the “Arab peace initiative” for instance. All these issues are discussed during the MEDays Forum and analyzed by the Center of Analysis and Publication.
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