17 - 23 January 2002
Issue No.569
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 17 - 23 January 2002 Issue No.569 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Chicken or egg debate -- again
Which comes first, political or economic modernisation? Shura Council members debated, yet again, the seemingly eternal question, reports Gamal Essam El-Din
The Shura Council concluded on Saturday a five-day debate on a 269-page report entitled "Modernising Egypt" -- one in a series of publications flooding the market in recent weeks bearing the same title. The two other works that stood out was the one issued by the state-supervised Institute of National Planning (INP) and the book written by Sami Khashaba, head of Al-Ahram newspaper's cultural section. The three works agree that for this country to modernise, it must keep pace with the information age and the technological revolution.
The Shura Council's report came in response to President Hosni Mubarak's call on the consultative upper house to contribute to the existing intellectual effort aimed at formulating "a strategic vision" on means of modernising Egypt in the new century.
The council's report, however, neglected to cite political reform as a prerequisite for national renewal, vaguely speaking of the importance of strengthening democracy by reinforcing the multi-party system and developing the electoral system.
While debating the report, a minor clash over democratisation erupted in the council between the spokesman of the liberal-oriented Wafd Party, Mohamed Sarhan, and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Kamal El- Shazli. Sarhan said that despite its talk of modernisation, the government is still resisting calls for political change. "There is a pressing need to amend the 1971 constitution and the 1956 Political Rights Law to reinvigorate our political system and ensure honest elections," Sarhan said.
Defending the government, El-Shazli argued that "there was no need to amend the existing constitution since its articles do not stand in the way of legislative amendments aimed at modernising society politically."
A recent report issued by Freedom House, an American non-profit organisation advocating democracy and freedom worldwide, ranked Egypt among the "not free" countries of the world and called for political reforms.
Shawki El-Sayed, deputy chairman of the council's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, criticised the manner in which his colleagues conducted the discussions. "The debates have shown that a lot of people are still standing adamantly against change. Egypt is suffering from an acute democratic sclerosis," El-Sayed said.
He lamented the fact that the "Modernising Egypt" report was discussed on the same day the council had approved a new law limiting judicial supervision on April's municipal elections.
For its part, the INP's 193-page report is a compilation of lectures delivered by some of Egypt's most prominent thinkers and intellectuals. Among the contributors are El-Sayed Yassin, a consultant with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, and Osama El-Baz, the president's top political adviser.
Yassin stressed Egypt's desperate need for political reform. "Our political system has to be renewed and reformed. The multi-party system is suffering from serious deterioration," he said.
Yassin strongly believes Egypt's political future lies in adopting liberal democracy. He denounced the government for imposing restrictions on civil society. "A case in point is the existing NGO law, which was drafted to bar citizens from taking individual initiatives aimed at modernising society's institutions," he said.
Khashaba's 198-page book focused on religious reform. He argued that the country's advancement can only be brought about through developing Upper Egypt, which accounts for more than half of Egypt's land area and around 40 per cent of its population. "Upper and rural Egypt have been the breeding ground for all extremist and conservative beliefs that stand against enlightenment and socio-cultural development," he said.
He said the government is required to launch an "enlightenment campaign to change the cultural face of Upper Egypt." Upper Egypt, the birthplace of Taha Hussein, Egypt's most enlightened thinker, has now turned into a "reservoir of extremist beliefs," Khashaba lamented.
Commenting on the Shura report, Prime Minister Atef Ebeid focused on the economic aspects of modernisation.
To bridge the gap between us and the industrially developed world, Ebeid said, Egypt must adopt a policy of complete economic openness to the outside world. "We must get rid of our old conceptions and historical prejudices about the world. We must seek knowledge from various sources even if we were hostile towards some of these sources at some point. Knowledge knows no nationality," he said.
According to Ebeid, modernisation requires scrapping old institutions that have lost their appeal and are no longer capable of keeping pace with the changing times. He said the government should be recruiting highly competitive and creative initiative-takers to spur advancement.
"Egypt has been very successful in several production sectors, such as agriculture, textiles, construction industries, telecommunications and furniture. This was achieved at the hands of the private sector," he said.
The majority of the INP's economists share Ebeid's view that Egypt's economic future lies in adopting free- market policies. However, Ibrahim El- Essawi, a leftist INP economist, thought differently. El-Essawi believes Egypt must adopt a self-reliant approach in its programme for economic modernisation. "I know that Egypt can never stay isolated from the outside world, but free-market policies will lead us to complete economic dependency," he said.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page