DWhat will our tomorrows be like? We live in a world in crisis. A fractured world, trapped between radicalism, populism and despair. A world where the unthinkable, war at the gates of Europe, has nevertheless happened, recalling the fragility of peace and of nations. Future generations will have to face challenges that we cannot even imagine: global warming, mass immigration, demographic crisis, populist collapses. We live in dangerous times. And it is in this anxiety-provoking context that we perceive more than ever the waste represented by the non-integration of the Maghreb countries, the enormous and invisible risk that this poses to this region.
In recent years, we have seen tensions grow. Not a week goes by without a new incident, a new controversy, darkening relations between our countries. We are saddened by the idea that future generations of Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, Libyans, live with their backs to each other, without knowing each other, without meeting each other, victims of propaganda or prejudice. These generations are held hostage to political disputes, those of history or geography. They would have us believe that the Maghreb is only a utopia, an abandoned horizon and that we should accept to live like isolated islands, trenches of indifference.
We all know that non-integration is costly to our countries. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that a Maghreb union would earn countries the equivalent of 5% of their combined gross domestic products. But, beyond the figures, it is a much broader and deeper concern that torments us. That of violence, of inherited and nurtured conflicts. That of the spark that would drag us into a gear of destruction.
Take the outstretched hands
However, we have many things in common that can ease our storms: languages, a religion, our history, landscapes, fights and ancestral solidarity, and even a certain way of life. We are not naive and we also know that we have our specificities, our own characters and that long and painful conflicts oppose us. But it seems to us that we have to take all the hands that are outstretched and support all the initiatives in favor of better integration, of a realistic and lucid construction. Today, irresponsibility and recklessness, vanity and misinformation only fuel tensions. We are made into wars and we feel that it is urgent to alert, to give voice to hope and maturity. To dissociate oneself from the disaster. Will we have the courage to assume our mistakes and our selfishness in the face of future generations?
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