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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 November 1999 Issue No. 454 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 November 1999 Issue No. 454
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Scratch a liberalisation policy
By Omayma Abdel-LatifPerhaps the venue for the conference on Egypt's economic, political and social ills under the new orthodoxy of economic liberalisation was no coincidence. The room which saw the signing of hundreds of documents by British Commissioner Lord Cromer at the turn of the century played host earlier this week to a gathering of more than 20 Western and Egyptian scholars discussing the challenges facing the Egyptian state on the threshold of a new millennium. Ironically, such challenges, which seemed new to many and stirred heated debates, were perhaps but a consequence of the legacy inherited from the colonial state of which Cromer was one architect.
The three-day sessions were the culmination of a two-year project carried out by CEDEJ (Centre d'Etudes et de Documentation Economique, Juridique et Sociale) in collaboration with Berlin's Freie University to study structural change on both the political and social fronts and new modes of action as they unfold in the period of economic liberalisation.
Three themes dominated the discussions: the effects of the process of economic liberalisation in some Arab countries; Islamism as a mode of collective action marking the early years of structural adjustment, and the all too common theme of globalisation. While the conference was meant to monitor the evolution of these processes in the countries of the Mediterranean basin, very few sessions were devoted to Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia or Palestine. Egypt, on the other hand, emerged as a target of fierce debates.
In the words of Dina El-Khawaga, assistant professor at Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science and the conference's co-organiser, the project was not to seek root or branch solutions of Egypt's pressing economic, political and social ills but was rather concerned with "different aspects of the new orthodoxy of economic liberalisation".
Some were certain that economic liberalisation is bound to stimulate a real increase in political participation and that more Egyptians will engage in political debate and will exercise their right to join interest groups and parties. But Professor Ray Bush of Leeds University, who carried out extensive research on agricultural modernisation in Egypt, maintained an opposite view. He believes that liberalisation has been used as "a vehicle to expand, rather than reduce, state power".
"The rhetoric of poverty alleviation, market liberalisation and tenure reform is a point of entry for sustaining the state power, although not necessarily the authority of the state," Bush explained. Liberalisation, according to Bush's reading, means that the state will exchange some of its autonomy in decision-making for access to some of the abundant resources held by its citizens.
A related issue that triggered stormy debate was whether Egypt should be considered an industrialised capitalist society. Enid Hall of the American University in Cairo (AUC) asserted that "Egypt today is certainly a very different place economically than it was in the 1970s. Egypt is now part of the world capitalist system."
Hall cited as evidence of Egypt's industrialised nature the expansion of industrial cities which have sprung up in the past two decades -- for the most part Egyptian-owned and operated. However, according to her interpretation, the most unresolved issue, which has resulted in this shift, is the labour situation in the new capitalist order.
Debating the same notion of capitalism but from a rather Orientalist perspective, Samy Zubaida of Birbeck College, London University, said that while capitalism seems to be the "only viable basis for the future of civil society in the region", he nevertheless questioned the fact that the kind of capitalism being implemented in Egypt or elsewhere is "real", not only because it was associated with the state but also since "both real capitalism and real liberalism are features of the West alone".
Zubaida downplayed the importance of the fact that the emergence of a new bourgeoisie would lead to an overt political role for it or support for political liberalisation since they entered what he described as a "pact" with the state and, therefore, would follow the broad economic directives of the state in exchange for significant profits.
Following a similar line of reasoning, historian Roger Owen of Harvard University dismissed the possibility that the emerging business class in Egypt could have any vision of political reform or even pursue the formation of a political party to advance their interests. Sketching out a scenario for better economic management, Owen stressed the importance of developing an understanding of the rules of the present global economic system, on the one hand, and the generation of an economic strategy in which both government and private sector come together to identify major goals and accommodate major conflicts, on the other.
Criticism was directed against opposition political parties which have turned, in the words of one participant, into talking shops and remained incapable of making serious inroads at the expense of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
The opposition parties were also blamed for not being able to mobilise vast numbers of "apathetic, cynical members of Egypt's sprawling marginalised lower and lower-middle class".
Some speakers were essentialist in their assessment of the regional political scene. One discussant flatly rejected the possibility that "democracy will develop in the Middle East region in the near future". According to this reading, even the process of political liberalisation is in jeopardy in the few countries that have implemented it.
When the discussion shifted to the modes of action that have accompanied the structural adjustment programme, two main themes emerged: Islamism and the retreat of the state from civil society.
Foreign funding for civil society organisations in the Middle East came under heavy criticism from both the Western and Egyptian sides. Drawing conclusions from a lengthy discussion on civil society and the state in both Egypt and Palestine, Imco Brouwer of the European Institute exploded a bombshell by stating that the donors' priorities were "safeguarding Israel" and that democratisation "was not among their highest priorities".
