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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Misr wa Riyah Al-'awlama (Egypt and the Winds of Globalisation), Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, 1999. pp264
Monthly supplement
Alexandria re-inscribed
No One Sleeps in Alexandria, Ibrahim Abdel-Meguid, tr. Farouk Abdel-Wahab, The American University in Cairo Press, 1999. pp409
Southern PartThe Crusades through Muslim eyes
The Crusades -- Islamic Perspectives, Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press, 1999. pp648Economic schizophrenia, global style
Misr wa Riyah Al-'awlama (Egypt and the Winds of Globalisation), Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, Cairo: Dar Al-Hilal, 1999. pp264Canine ruminations
Darourat Al-Kalb fil Masrahiya (The Need for the Dog in the Play), Girgis Shukri, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation, 2000. pp101History and parallel history
Tumanbay: Al-Sultan Al-Shahid (Tumanbay: The Martyred Sultan), Emad Abu Ghazi, Cairo: Mirette, 1999. pp96Sun Dancer speaks his sorrow
Prison Writings: My Life is my Sun Dance, Leonard Peltier, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999. pp243Novel of novels
Al-Bashmouri II, Salwa Bakr, Cairo: Supreme Council of Culture. 2000, pp151Chagall's Arabian Nights: Four Tales from The Thousand and One Nights with lithographs by Marc Chagall, Prestel Verlag, 1999. pp163 Read caption
To the editor
At a glance
A shorthand guide to the month compiled by Mahmoud El-WardaniMagazines & Periodicals
* Al-Kotob: Wughat Nazar (Books: Viewpoints), a Monthly Review of Books, issue No. 14, March, 2000, Cairo: The Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publishing
* Aafaq Ifriqiya (African Horizons), quaretrly, Cairo: State Information Service, issue no. 1
* Al-Thaqafa Al-Alamiya (World Culture), bimonthly cultural magazine, Kuwait, no.99
Books
* Al-Riwaya fi Nihayat Al-Qarn (The Novel at the End of the Century), Ali El-Ra'i, Cairo: Dar Al-Mustaqbal, 2000, pp371
* Al-Himaya wal-Iqab: Al-Gharb wal-Mas'ala Al-Diniya fil-Sharq Al-Awsat (Protection and Punishment: The West and the Religious Question in the Middle East), Samir Morqos, Cairo: Miret, 2000, pp210
* Al-Wataniya Al-Misriya fil-Asr Al-Hadith (Egyptian Nationalism in Modern Times), Amina Higazi, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation, 2000, pp555
* Khamriya, Amin El-Ayyouti, Cairo: Al-Hilal, 2000, pp121
* Awlamat Al-Faqr (The Globalisation of Poverty), Michael Chossudovsky trans. Mohamed Mostagir, Cairo: Sotour, 2000, pp328
* Hal Intahat Ostourat Ibn-Khaldoun? (Is the Myth of Ibn-Khaldoun over?), Mahmoud Ismail, Cairo: Dar Qibaa, 2000, pp333
Books is a monthly supplement of Al-Ahram Weekly appearing every second Thursday of the month. We welcome contributions and letters on subjects raised in this supplement. Material may be edited for length and clarity; and should be addressed to Mona Anis, Books Editor, Al-Ahram Weekly, Galaa St., Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt; Faz: +202 578 6089; E-mail: m.anis@ahram.org.eg
For advertising call +202-5780233; Fax +202 394 1866To see other book supplements go to the ARCHIVES index.
Illustrations courtesy of International Commitee of the Red Cross
"Folk drawings and tales", Cairo, 1996
Economic schizophrenia, global style
Reviewed by Abdel-Khaleq Farouq
Two salient features mark the writings of Dr Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, professor of political economy and chairman of the Department of Economics at Cairo University. The first is the straightforward lucidity with which he handles inherently complex and specialized issues. The second is his depth of treatment and clear-sighted prognosis of future trends in the light of current realities and cumulative experience. His new book could not have been more appropriately timed to help fill the gap in the layman's knowledge of economic affairs in general and the dynamics of globalisation in particular, which is now sweeping the world in an inexorable rush. Egypt and the Winds of Globalisation takes its readers on a unique intellectual journey through the tumultuous changes following the end of the Cold War and through the newly emerging maps of international influence and the balance of power.
In spite of the relatively small size of this book -- 264 pages divided into four main sections -- it represents a thorough and meticulous attempt to answer the major question that continues to preoccupy intellectual and decision-making centres the world over, and particularly in the Third World: How do we contend with the dangers of globalisation while securing for ourselves a greater scope for historical manoeuverability?
In the first section of the book, the author offers a thought-provoking reading of the social and political ramifications of the various statistics and indexes brought forth from the 1996 census as these compare to those of the 1986 census. He notes, for example, the marked increase in the number of commercial establishments in Egypt -- 1.8 million establishments in 1996, up from 1.2 million in 1986. Of these, 48 per cent (864,000 businesses) are low- to medium-scale retail outlets for food products (286,000) or readymade clothes (416,000), from which the author deduces a growing preponderance of tertiary economic activities.
From here he embarks on a rapid tour across the panoply of pressing and contentious issues confronting the Egyptian economy, issues such as privatization, money laundering, the prerequisites for scientific and technological advance and the extent to which Egypt can buffer itself against financial crises, such as that which rocked Southeast Asia and Japan in 1997.
This latter issue in fact forms the focus of the book's second section, in which Abdel-Fadil informs a very readable narrative with an array of the kind of tantalizing statistics that are seemingly always at his fingertips. The Southeast Asian financial crisis, he writes, was a manifestation of what he terms the "schizophrenia" in the global economy. Daily transactions on the international stock markets spiraled from US $80 million in 1992 to $1,260 million in 1995 and were expected to reach $2 trillion by the beginning of the new millennium. Furthermore, the ratio of financial speculation to real trade in goods and services increased from 10:1 at the beginning of the 1980s to 100:1 by the end of the 1990s. This being so, the author concludes, the world of finance has acquired its own self-fueling momentum, entirely divorced from the actual movement of trade in goods and services and tangible investment in productive enterprises. In Southeast Asia this balloon burst, jeopardizing thirty years of uninterrupted progress in economic performance.
Abdel-Fadil points to two financial indicators that should have served as early warning signals of the approaching crisis. The first is the ratio of accessible foreign currency reserves to the short-term financial commitments of both the private and public sectors. In Korea, for example, this ratio stood at approximately 0.34 per cent on the eve of the 1997 crisis. The second indicator is termed the "hot money" indicator, referring to the rapid influx and outflow of purely speculative investments. The greater the proportion of "hot money" to the total influx of foreign investment the more perilous the threat to national economic stability. In Southeast Asia there were numerous factors that contributed to allowing these indicators to rage out of control. But, above all, there should have been a much more vigilant monitoring, firstly, of the deficit rates, particularly as regards short-term loans, and, secondly, of the volume of "off-balance transactions" or the banks' incidental foreign currency obligations.
Abdel-Fadil underscores the dangers of a spiraling balloon economy with a poignant, yet ironic example. Shortly following the Southeast Asian crisis, the largest international brokerage firm, the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) Company, folded. Its directors, Merton and Scholz, had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for their computational models for offsetting the dangers of international financial fluctuations, but nevertheless, all their financial wizardry could not rescue their company from disaster.
Nor could the mechanisms of the free market and economic deregulation save the economies of Brazil, Russia, Mexico and the countries of Southeast Asia from the ravages of successive financial storms. So grave was the situation that, between 1995 and 1999, international financial agencies and the governments of the US and Europe had to intervene in the economies of six major capitalist nations. The economic salvage programmes cost a staggering $230 billion -- the price for keeping the international economic order afloat.
In the aftermath of the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis, Malaysia under Dr Mahatir Mohamed instituted a homegrown economic salvage operation, and the third section of Abdel-Fadil's book represents a case study of Malaysia's rebellion against the rules of globalisation in the realm of finance. In defiance of the recommendations -- which should be read as the orders -- of the IMF, Malaysia imposed tough restrictions on the outflow of short-term capital, stopped the trade of shares of Malaysian companies in the international stock markets and froze the exchange rate of the Malaysian currency against the dollar. Dr. Mahatir Mohamed's policies were highly popular at home and were admired by other Southeast Asian governments. But they were certain to bring down the wrath of the international financial centres, which waged a relentless campaign of rumour-mongering aimed at fueling internal Malaysian political disputes.
In the concluding section of his book, Abdel-Fadil attempts to project future global economic trends in the light of conflicts between the various international economic blocs that have become the predominant feature of the contemporary international economic order, before rounding out his discussion with an overview of the new lines of intellectual controversy with a special focus on "the Third Way" -- a European attempt to strike a historical compromise between unbridled capitalism and the prerequisites of social justice.
While Egypt and the Winds of Globalisation is a compilation of articles published by the author in Egyptian and Arab periodicals over the past two years, their thematic ordering in book form furnishes that essential cohesiveness that renders the subject matter more readily accessible to the general reader. In general, Abdel-Fadil's insightful study of the dynamics of globalisation offers much food for thought to Egyptian and Arab specialists and researchers, keen to forecast future trends in the hopes of formulating policies and solutions that can offset the hazards and capitalize on the benefits of globalisation. If, indeed, there are benefits to be gained from it.
