When tragedy turns foe into friend
Despite their troubled pasts with Morocco, some nations offered generous aid after Friday’s earthquake, opening a path for peacemaking. All that’s needed is humility.
Members of Spain's Military Emergency Unit work to rescue people in Anougal, Morocco, after the Sept. 8 earthquake.
Reuters
One global trend in recent years has been the ability and generosity of people to keep pace with frequent mass disasters. This has been evident in Morocco since Friday’s earthquake that destroyed parts of historic Marrakech and surrounding villages in the North African nation. Scores of countries quickly prepared to send assistance as well as made gestures of mourning and solidarity. The Eiffel Tower, for example, went dark on Saturday night.
Like many disasters, this one opened opportunities for aid from countries that Morocco sees as adversaries. Accepting such aid would set a tone of peacemaking as it allows for contact between peoples, enabling trust to grow. Any healing of tense ties between nations starts with the humility to accept such help.
A good example was seen after February’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Greece was one of the first to send aid, even though at the time it was making threats against Turkey over a territorial dispute in the Aegean Sea. The gesture of aid cooled tensions. Turkish leaders restored diplomatic channels. The two countries’ foreign ministers toured affected areas together in a sign of renewed unity.
When another neighbor of Turkey, Armenia, offered to send rescue teams, Turkey opened a border crossing for the first time in 30 years to let them in. “I will always remember the generous aid sent by the people of Armenia,” Serdar Kiliç, Turkey’s envoy to Armenia, wrote on Twitter. Israel offered aid and medical teams to Syria. Although Damascus publicly refused, it quietly accepted the help.
Morocco now has a similar opportunity with Algeria, one of the first countries to reach out with compassion after the quake despite severed diplomatic relations over ethnic and regional disputes. Algiers opened its airspace immediately to Morocco-bound aid flights and offered to send rescue workers and medical teams. Israel and France – two other countries that have complicated histories with Morocco – have made similar offers.
Morocco has yet to accept that help. But Algeria’s gesture reflects the overwhelming support that ordinary Moroccans and Algerians share for warmer ties and open borders. “There is ... a moral duty that our country cannot shirk,” tweeted Algerian journalist Sid Ahmed Semiane, affirming the government’s offer. “No political conflict should silence our humanity.”
Emergencies like fires, floods, and earthquakes are compelling a fresh look at ways to use such events for peacemaking. “Since climate change affects everyone and natural disasters strike indiscriminately, nations can look beyond ideological, ethnic, religious, and other differences – and even prior conflicts – to forge ties in a collective battle against something that threatens them all,” wrote Limor Simhony, an Israeli policy analyst, in Foreign Policy. That work requires generosity as well as the humility to welcome it.