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The Maghreb Review is the oldest, longest-running English- and French-language journal dedicated to the study of North Africa. For some four decades, the review has published articles by distinguished scholars from the US and the UK, from the Maghreb and from many European and Middle Eastern countries in fields ranging from archaeology and anthropology, to politics and economics, to history, literature, art, women’s studies and religion. The editorial board of The Maghreb Review is drawn from academic institutions in no less than ten different countries.
The twenty-first century has brought an intensification of the process of globalization – worldwide flows of resources, goods, information, ideas and people. And it has brought resistance to globalization through the assertion of the rights of territorial states and the identities of particularist groups.
The study of the Maghreb in English-speaking universities began in the 1950s and 1960s, an era of anti-colonial nationalist reassertion in the Maghreb, as indeed in the rest of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Much scholarship concentrated on the end of colonial rule, the establishment of new nation-states and the process of modernization within political parameters set by the new nationalism. The names of the Maghreb states – Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – have been common in the titles of The Maghreb Review articles. But this focus on the territorial state might be seen as an aberration from longer-term patterns in the Maghreb. One might also argue that the Maghreb can play a unique and dynamic role in a global age. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of the region is that, while it sustains intense local traditions, it has long been a crossroads with links to sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Further, it is misleading to call the states of the Maghreb national since they all share a common Berber, Arab and Islamic heritage.
As we advance through the twenty-first century, therefore, we would like to encourage more attention to the Maghreb’s crossroads character – to its interaction through migration, trade, travel and cultural-educational links with other regions. We would also like to promote theoretically informed comparison with neighbouring regions including sub-Saharan Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Southern France, Italy and the former Ottoman lands, the Middle East and with more distant areas that share related historical experience, such as Central Asia, Southern Africa or South and Central America. We might venture to suggest that the concept of a territorially-bound region is only workable when one sees how that region overlaps with others. The Maghreb is at once part of the Mediterranean, of the Middle East and North Africa, and of the Saharan worlds. Indeed, the Maghreb could be said to be distinguished by the number and variety of regions with which it overlaps.
The Maghreb’s vocation as a place for inter-regional cultural dialogue is by no means a new one. In the Middle Ages, the western Islamic world (then including much of Spain) was the scene of interchange between Islamic, Christian and Jewish cultural and intellectual traditions. The great challenge for the new process of globalization is not to be reduced to imposing bland uniformity and acquisitive consumerism, but rather to promote respect among and dialogue between evolving traditions, both those of world civilizations and of local communities. The study of Maghrebi history and culture can play a significant role in meeting this challenge.
Since the 1990s, the social and political dynamics of North Africa and the Middle East have changed in many ways. The Middle East has plunged into turmoil with the crumbling of Iraq and Syria and the rise of ISIS1. Libya, on the border between the Maghreb and the Middle East, has been drawn into that turmoil. It has also become the center of a new crisis with the sharp rise in the number of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa and from Syria seeking to enter Europe on boats from Libya,
Yet the rest of the Maghreb has become quite stable. Tunisia’s transition to a constitutional democracy where political power can change hands without destructive upheaval stands in sharp contrast to settings such as Egypt and Syria. To the south, Nigeria, a region with long historic ties to the Maghreb, has also managed a transition to electoral democracy. Conflict has been confined mainly to the northeastern area of Nigeria, an area with long historical ties to the region that is now western Libya. The instability in northeast Nigeria extends into neighbouring countries along the shores of Lake Chad – Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. This instability is driven in part by environmental factors – periodic drought and the shrinking of Lake Chad. Libya has become a hub of migration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. Many of the migrants come from the coastal areas of West Africa, not from the Sahel. Some European leaders initially supported accepting them as refugees, but by 2017 they had shifted to opposing what was becoming a flood of migrants, and they came to see the Maghreb governments as key allies in stopping this flood. Many of those seeking to reach Europe were stuck in Libya where they were treated as slaves, a reminder of the trans-Saharan slave trade that had taken place before the colonial era. In a larger perspective, this crisis reflects the high rate of population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and the slow growth or shrinking in Europe of industries with a high demand for cheap labour.
As global observers ponder the chaos of the Middle East it would be worth their while to pay more attention to the Maghreb, looking at how the states of this region have proven successful in solving their own conflicts, and also in working to promote negotiated solutions in Libya and Mali. The Maghreb Review can play a useful role in this both by offering insights of the region today, and by putting recent developments into a long term historical perspective.
The Maghreb Review has a strong tradition of fostering scholarly dialogue through conferences held not only in London but in a variety of European locations, and drawing together scholars from an extraordinary variety of backgrounds. This openness is facilitated by The Maghreb Review’s strong tradition of independence from political sponsorship, its commitment to drawing together different points of view and its dedication to bridging all conceivable academic subjects from prehistoric climatic change to contemporary literature. We are contemplating further electronic aids to facilitate the review’s role but we remain convinced of the importance of direct personal contact.
The Maghreb Review is not simply an academic journal but an alternative scholarly enterprise. The review’s editorial offices are located not in the antiseptic corridors of a huge academic institution but rather in a bookstore located in London’s cultural heartland of Bloomsbury. This location lends the review both a remarkable independence from the institutional constraints and short-term calculations of large-scale institutions, and a splendid human warmth as a place where people from all over the world can come to browse, to exchange ideas and enjoy a cup of tea served by the review’s indefatigable editor, Mohamed Ben Madani. The conferences sponsored by the review are likewise on a human scale, informal, famous for lively discussion and marvellous meals.
We invite all those interested in the Maghreb directly, or interested in joining the cultural and intellectual dialogue related to this crossroads region, to join in this alternative scholarly enterprise by subscribing, recommending a subscription to your colleagues and University Librarian, contributing to the review, or enquiring about conferences or coming in for a visit to The Maghreb Bookshop at:
45 Burton Street, London WC1H 9AL, United Kingdom,
Telephone and fax: (020) 7388 1840
Email:
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