PRAGUE -- The late President Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire once declared that the north African countries, which pride themselves on their Arabic descent, should be excluded from the then Organization of African Unity.
Mobutu's rule was, of course, deeply flawed, but he was not alone within the pan-African movement in such thinking. The antagonism between the blacks of sub-Saharan Africa and the inhabitants of the Continent's north remains a reality that impedes the prospect of any union between them.
Northern hostility, separatism and racism toward the southerners are at the center of this split. However, in our current era of political correctness, outright separation between the north and the south remains unmentionable.