Egypt’s relations with African nations, particularly those in the Nile Basin, have recently seen an increase in political and economic activity—an inevitable development given the rising threat to Egypt’s share of Nile water and Israel’s growing political influence across Africa over the past decade.
This could explain the high-profile visit of Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif to Ethiopia, accompanied by a large delegation of businessmen representing over seventy Egyptian companies. In Addis Ababa, Nazif held an initial closed-door meeting with his Ethiopian counterpart, Meles Zenawi, before a broader session was joined by members of both countries’ delegations, including Egypt’s ministers of electricity and energy, international cooperation, trade and industry, health, and agriculture.
Discussions focused on facilitating economic cooperation through agreements aimed at encouraging and protecting investment. The Egyptian delegation stressed its strong interest in investing in Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular, highlighting its strategic significance as a Nile Basin country.
The delegation also insisted on the importance of developing the Nile Basin Initiative as a comprehensive framework. The argument was that improving living standards across the Nile Basin would strengthen the region’s strategic and economic significance, making integration among its countries essential, given their shared geography and resources.
This is, no doubt, a pragmatic economic move by Egypt in response to the current African context. However, what seems to have been forgotten—or deliberately ignored—is that Ethiopia has historically been one of the most hostile nations to Islam, exhibiting a level of brutality even beyond that of the West, which has been in a state of ‘hysteria’ since the 9/11 attacks. Ethiopian Muslims, who make up an estimated 65% of the country’s population according to international figures, continue to pay the price of this animosity, while the Ethiopian government refuses to acknowledge this demographic reality.
Ethiopian Muslims take pride in being the first community in the world to embrace Islam, dating back to 615 AD, when persecuted Muslims from Mecca sought refuge there. The city of Negash in modern-day Ethiopia was the first place where Muslims settled in Africa, marking the beginning of Islam’s peaceful expansion through trade and other means. However, over the centuries, the role of Muslims in Ethiopian governance and policy-making has steadily declined due to sectarian bias. Not all Ethiopian emperors followed in the footsteps of the just Negus; among the worst persecutors was Emperor Haile Selassie, who treated Muslims as second-class citizens.
Two years ago, Ethiopia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Omar Idris, issued a desperate appeal to the Arab and Islamic worlds to intervene against an aggressive campaign of Christian proselytisation targeting Ethiopian Muslims. He stated that Ethiopian Muslims had endured decades of suffering and marginalisation at the hands of successive Ethiopian rulers, who viewed them as enemies. This hostility resulted in widespread killings, systematic persecution, and the destruction of mosques over an extended period, alongside the exclusion of Muslim-majority areas from development plans.
Last year, Libération, the French newspaper, exposed atrocities committed by the Ethiopian army in the predominantly Muslim Ogaden region in the east of the country. Reports detailed the destruction of villages, forced displacements, rapes, and assassinations that had been ongoing for over a year. The Ethiopian government categorically denied these allegations.
However, a report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) later confirmed that recent satellite images supported claims that the Ethiopian army had burned entire towns and villages in Ogaden.
This raises an uncomfortable question for Egyptian policymakers. Egypt has long considered itself the leading power in the Arab and Islamic worlds, with Cairo serving as the intellectual and religious capital of Islam for over a thousand years. In today’s world of isolated cultural spheres and inward-looking pragmatism, is the modern philosophy of ‘national interest first’ a justifiable excuse to disregard Egypt’s historical, cultural, and moral standing? Does it justify sending a high-level delegation to shake hands with those responsible for the bloodshed of an entire population? Regardless of religion, these are human beings. Or is Egypt’s current economic crisis more pressing than any moral considerations—making these so-called principles nothing more than the fantasies of historical bravado, in a world that has never known anything but the ruthless game of self-interest?
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.