CAIRO: One is cautious while another remains optimistic, whereas the third remains ambitious. These viewpoints summarize the opinions of socio-economic experts Galal Amin and Saad-Eddin Ibrahim, and the Freedom and Justice Party’s Hassan Malek, one year after the uprisings of 2011.
Speaking under the slogan of “The Developmental State in the Arab Region,” the Al-Jazeera-hosted “Weghat Nazar” debate was held in conjunction with and at the culmination of a seminar by the United Nations Development Program which showcased their latest issued report on the same topic.
Debate moderator Ayman Sayyad opened by reminding the audience of the slogan raised in Egypt in 2011: “bread, freedom, and social justice,” and proceeded to preview some news clippings.
One of the clips showed a worker telling the camera “They say that there’s a million in Egypt that get paid LE 1 million and 80 millions who are below poverty standards … there’s no middle class.” The clip was from April 2010. “Are these same questions still posed?” asked Sayyad.
“Those who have the power are not really interested in economic development, and those who are really interested do not have the power,” said Amin, noting that he usually concluded his lectures with that paradoxical anecdote.
Amin, a distinguished researcher, author and economics professor, explained that development, which was commonly viewed for a long time (by the ruling regimes and the economic literature) as a technical economic issue, was rather about political economy.
He cited Stanislav Andresky’s book “Social Science as Sorcery,” which argued that the humanities have changed due to ignoring social problems, whether as a result of malice or good intentions.
In comparison, “the [UNDP report] treats the issue of Arab development as one of political economy, and so it adopts the idea of the ‘developmental state’,” he said, adding that another positive feature was that it lacked a definition for such a state, leaving it open and thus fitting with his earlier anecdote.
In the developmental state, “there is no rampant corruption, and the law is enforced as well as the preservation of an independent judiciary,” he said, noting however that it required collective Arab cooperation. He contrasted the term with the “soft state”, being the complete opposite.
The 1950s and 1960s in particular were the era of Arab development, which were succeeded by 40 years of a ‘soft state’, Amin explained. The five “softest” countries were the ones hit by uprisings, he said.
The magnitude of participation was a major feature of the uprisings, not only in quantity but also quality. “There has never been a revolution … where all classes, religions and sexes, combined together, with these features,” he added.
However Amin argued that the promises of the uprisings have been reduced to the current state of despair, at which point he passed the floor to Ibrahim, sociology professor and director of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies.
Ibrahim noted that he rarely agreed with Amin, except on this occasion. He, however, was optimistic about the future because of the many metaphorical “liberation squares,” at which people regularly protest to push their demands. “The people have entered politics for the first time.”
In a recent visit to Tunisia, Ibrahim said he also found much despair, especially the feeling that “the revolution was being hijacked,” as was in Egypt, by “the forces who participated lately [the Muslim Brotherhood] and those who didn’t at all [the Salafis] and even forbade going against the ruler.”
While making comparisons to the Russian revolution in 1917 and the Iranian revolution in 1979, which featured the rise of the communists and Islamists respectively from minor forces to majority ones, Ibrahim was asked if he foresaw hunger riots and unrest in Egypt.
Napoleon rose to power by the same means during the French revolution, he noted.
“It is a great challenge, but it can be surpassed with good management and good treatment,” Ibrahim said. “If the people are guaranteed outcomes, whether within months or even a year, they’ll be patient … if you treat them with respect and parity.”
On his part, Malek discounted the possibility of hunger unrests due to the “social cohesion and solidarity” experienced in the region and particularly in Egypt, which he attributed to the local customs, values, and adherence to religion.
He also spoke highly of the UNDP report, noting that it matched the Freedom and Justice Party’s vision, and how it criticized the former regimes’ marginalization of citizens, thereby preventing them from participation and economic involvement due to rampant corruption.
The FJP vision centered on empowering enterprises and allowing for a strong role for government oversight, with both public and private working in synchronization, Malek explained.
Amin, however, was skeptic; he noted a discrepancy, especially regarding full agreement with the UNDP report.
Noting that the “difference” would be in the steps and mechanisms undertaken, he said, that reform should begin with the economy rather than with morals. “Good manners are beneficial, but if you preach about them for a hundred years without fixing the economic situation, there will be no effect.”
Citing Marx’s “the proletariat has no homeland,” Amin said that he would add “that the poor have no homeland either.”
