Dear Edgard,
So many are the hours we have spent together in the various colloquy and meetings held throughout the world since I had of being introduced to you, more than twenty years ago, at Rome Club, thanks to late Aurelio Peccei, "Futuribles" and to late Bertrand de Jouvenel. These men were a perfect model of the generous human soul, infused with a universal perception of the human being. Such men have become a very rare commodity in the West to the extent that, in these hard times, you yourself have become an anachronism.
Many a document, personal note and letter have we exchanged in this period! We have also managed to overcome numerous crises and misunderstandings because our relationship was based on tolerance and on mutual respect for each other's value system.
Your latest letter on January 24th, 1991 meant to me the acme of a relationship based on strong feelings of friendship and brotherhood and on an intellectual complicity buttressed by such principles as the belief in the right of all human beings to dignity and freedom.
At a time when the rift between North and South, between Europe and the Arab world, between the Northern and the Western banks of the Mediterranean and between France and the Maghreb, as completely set them asunder with no possibility going back to past political and economic domination and cultural arrogance, I want to tell you again in all sincerity that our friendship means so much to me and that nothing can spoil it.
I am still moved by the deep, heartfelt honesty you displayed in your
January 22nd, 1991 interview with Radio France International (RFI). Your
cri de coeur will remain ever engraved in the minds of your numerous friends
and admirers throughout the Arab world.
This open fax is not addressed to you as a friend and brother, but as President of the Paris-based Arab World Institute (IMA) whose invitation I accepted to become member of its Council which, in turn, honored me by inviting me to serve on its Select Committee.
During that meeting which was held thirteen months ago, I insisted on something I had emphasized many years before with the Rome Club, "Futuribles" and the International Development Association (SID) over which you used to preside with competence and dedication, namely that there is danger in the lack of cultural communication between North and South because of the North's refusal to understand or even listen to "the other."
In the public report on the first session of the meeting of the Cultural Consultative Committee of the Arab World Institute, held in Paris from 8 to 10 January 1990, it is stated in page 4 that Mahdi Elmandjra upholds that future conflicts would be neither political nor economic but rather cultural, and that measures have to be taken to deal with them through tolerance and respect for other people's values as a first step towards the establishment of balanced relations.
We are going through the most barbarous conflict in the history of mankind. What is being perpetrated is a cultural and human genocide long since hankered for by the West. I mentioned this as early as September 12th in an article published in the October 1990 issue of "Futuribles," in which we both serve as members of the Board of Directors.
This is a North-South conflict with cultural stakes, a conflict which signals the onset of a post-colonial era. Actually it is the first world war. The 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 wars had chiefly European origins. They occurred at a time when virtually the whole Third World was colonized and was denied the right to express itself.
Conversely, the war which was launched deliberately by the West on January 17th, 1991 and which I had anticipated during an interview with RFI on September 27th 1990, will not end with the advent of what the coalescing forces already call the "post-war" era. It will certainly persist for a while, though not in military form.
It will be a long series of developments which will keep at least one
generation busy throughout the world. It will thus require a large measure
of tolerance and understanding from all parties in order to make it possible
for the 21st century generations to survive in peace, mutual respect and
dignity for all. But until such time arrives--and I know it will sooner
or later because I believe in the inherent qualities of man whatever his
origin--I can only say farewell to North-South dialogue, to
Euro-Arab dialogue, to Mediterranean cooperation, to "francophony" and to "co-development." This will hold true regardless of what certain governments which are completely severed from their populations are likely to say at some international meetings over the few months or even years to come.
However, dialogue between free men - and there are quite a few of them - is, for its part, eternal and nobody can interrupt it. It is on these grounds of universal humanism that peace-loving and well-intentioned men and women will have to fight hatred and build up the future. May God stand by those who have patience.
From a loyal friend opening his mind to a man of heart and principle.
Most sincerely yours,
Mahdi Elmandjra
Rabat, February 23rd, 1991
* Al-Alam, 27/2/91 and 9/3/91, Rabat;
* Al Khabar, 27/2/91 and 28/2/91, Algiers;
* Al Khadra, n 40, 1/3/91, Tangiers;
* EFE, Spanish Press Agency, 25/2/91;
* Al Kachkoul, 11/3/91, Rabat.
1. 1 23 February 1991 at 17:00 hrs GMT (deadline of the ultimatum to Iraq)