By Heba Fahmy
CAIRO: “Despite the kind of government that comes next, be it liberal, leftist or Islamist, they can all agree on the importance of implementing social justice,” member of the Muslim Brotherhood Magdy Saad said during a press conference held at the Lawyer’s Syndicate on Tuesday.
The press conference brought together liberal, Islamist and leftist wings to discuss social justice in Egypt.
Amr Hamzawy, political analyst, research director and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and member of Egypt is Freedom Party, represented the liberal wing. Wael Khalil, computer engineer at LinkDotNet as well as a prominent blogger and member of the Popular Alliance Party, represented the leftist wing, with Saad representing the Islamist.
The three prominent figures agreed that the state needed to get more involved in the process of achieving social justice and economic reform in the coming period.
They criticized the former regime’s economic policies and corruption which caused the deterioration of the status of Egypt’s poorer sects that represent 45 percent of Egypt’s population.
“We lived in a stagnant economic life during the former regime, where the small and medium businesses didn’t grow and the big businesses stayed on top,” Hamzawy said.
“Twenty percent of the people monopolize 60 percent of the GNP in Egypt,” he added.
Khalil agreed saying, “Around 5 percent of the businessmen were in control of our economy and we claimed that this was the system that worked.”
Khalil said that around 46 percent of the people participated in the Egyptian revolution for economic reasons including the low standards of living and unemployment, while 19 percent participated for democracy, according to a study by the International Republican Institute (IRI).
“This was the hunger revolution or the revolution of the poor that everyone was warning against,” he added.
Saad said that “the former regime served the interests of a limited number of businessmen while ignoring the needs of the majority of Egyptian people.”
He added that families in Sohag governorate in Upper Egypt live on 35 piasters a day.
The three panelists agreed that scale taxation, government insurance and setting a reasonable minimum wage were the main methods to achieve social justice and prevent the monopoly of certain businesses.
Scale taxation reaches 35 percent in the United States, 40 percent in France, 50 percent in Britain and 60 percent in Denmark, while in Egypt it only reaches 25 percent, according to Khalil.
Hamzawy said that the state should introduce laws that provide equal opportunities and competition between the medium and small businesses and the larger businesses.
Hamzawy suggested that the government provide tax relief and support the small and medium sized businesses at the beginning to allow them to strongly compete in the economic arena.
Saad said that social justice was one of the main principles of the Islam.
“One of the Islamic state’s main objectives is to protect the underprivileged,” he said.
Saad cited zakat as one of main pillars of Islam that guarantees social equality, adding that Islam endorsed any methods that achieve social justice, even if they are taken from the West.
He suggested reviving the Muslim concept of endowments to boost the economy. Endowments include setting a specific asset or building to serve education or health.
Nearly 50 to 60 percent of schools in Turkey are based on endowments, according to Saad. Around 40 percent of agricultural land in Egypt was used as endowments for social development, he added.
Khalil said that profit is usually the main motive behind any business, when it should rather depend on the people’s needs. He also condemned the media for portraying the workers’ demands and protests as class protests that hinder the country’s economic growth, although these people represent at least a quarter of Egyptians.
He also criticized the media and economic experts for spreading “myths,” that scale taxation and setting higher minimum wages will be bad for businesses and investments.
“Of course these [experts] get paid a lot more than the minimum wage,” he said. “The people have the right to receive good, education, healthcare and reasonable minimum wages.”
