Tariq Ramadan and Slavoj Zizek on the future of Egyptian politics

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

Very interesting. Just in case you don't know: Ramadan is an Islamic Socialist (A secular Socialist who values Islamic traditions), and academic - Zizek is a philosopher with a Marxist background. Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. I agree quite a bit with both of them, what about all of you?

[Treize]

Ah yes, Tarriq the double-tongued.

[Tiberios]

As long as the new government is democratic and secular, I'm happy.

[Heinz Guderian]

He has an illustrious and brilliant grandfather may Allah rest his soul.

[Platon]

I just love Slavoj Zizek

[Gromovnik]

Very interesting. Just in case you don't know: Ramadan is an Islamic Socialist (A secular Socialist who values Islamic traditions)

So he's something like a national socialist, but with religion instead of nationalism thrown into the mix?

Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Islamic Brotherhood.

Great...

[4th Regiment]

Ah yes, I remember articles of Zizek about poor little Kosovo Albanians, and needed “denazification” of genocidal Serbs, years ago. He did not have clue what he was talking about, but it looked so “inn”, “liberal”, (euro postmodern ) ”leftist”, “human rights defending” and trendy of the time. Of course, now every half literate grandma knows it is pure crap, but who remember that…it is important to be in trend.

And another guy - "Islamic Socialist (A secular Socialist who values Islamic traditions) " ??!! What that means?! How the hell you can mix retrograde, tribal Dark Age society “values” and life style of Koran and sheria law with modern socialism

[Randarkmaan]

And another guy - "Islamic Socialist (A secular Socialist who values Islamic traditions) " ??!! What that means?! How the hell you can mix retrograde, tribal Dark Age society “values” and life style of Koran and sheria law with modern socialism

"I believe in God and I think the Quran is a nice book, and I find the idea of an egalitarian society to be desirable"

That's how I would do it...

Just kidding, he actually wants to murder our newborn and rape our sisters.

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

He has an illustrious and brilliant grandfather may Allah rest his soul.

His grandfather wasn't that bad, he founded the IB as an anti-imperialist front to fight the British. It was simply Islamic, and not fundamentalist.

"I believe in God and I think the Quran is a nice book, and I find the idea of an egalitarian society to be desirable"

That's how I would do it...

Just kidding, he actually wants to murder our newborn and rape our sisters.

Basically the first one.

[Gromovnik]

His grandfather wasn't that bad, he founded the MB as an anti-imperialist front to fight the British. It was simply Islamic, and not fundamentalist. Unfortunately, sections of it were linked to the Nazis. During its history it went from a moderate Islamist internationalist movement, to flirting with fascism, to what it is now - a mostly conservative Muslim group with radical elements on both the right and left. (The majority of members hold beliefs that are basically a Muslim version of the U.S. religious right)

lol at the "unfortunate links"... so, what's your opinion about gun crazy, Bible totting (or it was the other way around) US religious right that thinks Sarah Palin is the greatest MILF ever? I think they're not so bad, and founded as an anti-imperialist front to fight the British. And so on, and so on...

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

lol at the "unfortunate links"... so, what's your opinion about gun crazy, Bible totting (or it was the other way around) US religious right that thinks Sarah Palin is the greatest MILF ever? I think they're not so bad, and founded as an anti-imperialist front to fight the British. And so on, and so on...

1. Al-Banna did not have links to the Nazis, other members of the group (Primarily in Palestine) did. I said "unfortunate" because it is one of a few dark stains on a group which had many admirable goals, not because I 'm trying to minimize these connections.
2. Lolwut?

[Pious Agnost]

So he's something like a national socialist, but with religion instead of nationalism thrown into the mix?

And thus it was that a democratic socialist became like a national socialist, but with democracy instead of nationalism.

Wonderful.

[Thorn777]

Whats with Angela Merkel and her dangerous CDU? Whats with Sadat for that matter?

Islam=/=Bad
Islam&Socialism=/=Nazi

[Jingles]

I like particularly the part where Zizek discusses the myth that Afghanistan is and has always been a fundamentalist, backwards country.

[Gromovnik]

Yeah, OK... they're all about democracy and non-violence.

[motiv-8]

Yeah, OK... they're all about democracy and non-violence.

Ah, more dodging I see. You literally have no idea what the Muslim Brotherhood was/is and who al-Banna was and stood for, do you?

[Thorn777]

@Gromvik

Sadat, the man who signed a peace treaty with Israel and with it isolated Egypt in the Arab-world of that time, also was a member of the MB.

Now your going to say Helmut Schmidt was also a member of Die Hitler Jugend, ain't ya. Why you so mad? Is it because of your fellow Slovenian Zizek?

[Gumpfendorfer]

Here is far better explanation for what is what happening in Egypt. Bad economics. As always the root cause for any social upheaval, and wiht certainly most dictatorial regimes collapse at some point: Monopolization of the economy by a few holding all the official cards. Good read for the Great Muslim Scare posse. Although don't think it will fall into fertile grounds there.

Egypt's Economic ApartheidThe headline that appeared on Al Jazeera on Jan. 14, a week before Egyptians took to the streets, affirmed that "[t]he real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalization."

The Egyptian government has long been concerned about the consequences of this marginalization. In 1997, with the financial support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government hired my organization, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy. It wanted to get the numbers on how many Egyptians were marginalized and how much of the economy operated "extralegally"—that is, without the protections of property rights or access to normal business tools, such as credit, that allow businesses to expand and prosper. The objective was to remove the legal impediments holding back people and their businesses.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

By HERNANDO DE SOTO

The headline that appeared on Al Jazeera on Jan. 14, a week before Egyptians took to the streets, affirmed that "[t]he real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalization."

The Egyptian government has long been concerned about the consequences of this marginalization. In 1997, with the financial support of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government hired my organization, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy. It wanted to get the numbers on how many Egyptians were marginalized and how much of the economy operated "extralegally"—that is, without the protections of property rights or access to normal business tools, such as credit, that allow businesses to expand and prosper. The objective was to remove the legal impediments holding back people and their businesses.

After years of fieldwork and analysis—involving over 120 Egyptian and Peruvian technicians with the participation of 300 local leaders and interviews with thousands of ordinary people—we presented a 1,000-page report and a 20-point action plan to the 11-member economic cabinet in 2004. The report was championed by Minister of Finance Muhammad Medhat Hassanein, and the cabinet approved its policy recommendations.

Egypt's major newspaper, Al Ahram, declared that the reforms "would open the doors of history for Egypt." Then, as a result of a cabinet shakeup, Mr. Hassanein was ousted. Hidden forces of the status quo blocked crucial elements of the reforms.

Today, when the streets are filled with so many Egyptians calling for change, it is worth noting some of the key facts uncovered by our investigation and reported in 2004:

• Egypt's underground economy was the nation's biggest employer. The legal private sector employed 6.8 million people and the public sector employed 5.9 million, while 9.6 million people worked in the extralegal sector.

• As far as real estate is concerned, 92% of Egyptians hold their property without normal legal title.

• We estimated the value of all these extralegal businesses and property, rural as well as urban, to be $248 billion—30 times greater than the market value of the companies registered on the Cairo Stock Exchange and 55 times greater than the value of foreign direct investment in Egypt since Napoleon invaded—including the financing of the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam. (Those same extralegal assets would be worth more than $400 billion in today's dollars.)

The entrepreneurs who operate outside the legal system are held back. They do not have access to the business organizational forms (partnerships, joint stock companies, corporations, etc.) that would enable them to grow the way legal enterprises do. Because such enterprises are not tied to standard contractual and enforcement rules, outsiders cannot trust that their owners can be held to their promises or contracts. This makes it difficult or impossible to employ the best technicians and professional managers—and the owners of these businesses cannot issue bonds or IOUs to obtain credit.

Nor can such enterprises benefit from the economies of scale available to those who can operate in the entire Egyptian market. The owners of extralegal enterprises are limited to employing their kin to produce for confined circles of customers.

Without clear legal title to their assets and real estate, in short, these entrepreneurs own what I have called "dead capital"—property that cannot be leveraged as collateral for loans, to obtain investment capital, or as security for long-term contractual deals. And so the majority of these Egyptian enterprises remain small and relatively poor. The only thing that can emancipate them is legal reform. And only the political leadership of Egypt can pull this off. Too many technocrats have been trained not to expand the rule of law, but to defend it as they find it. Emancipating people from bad law and devising strategies to overcome the inertia of the status quo is a political job.

The key question to be asked is why most Egyptians choose to remain outside the legal economy? The answer is that, as in most developing countries, Egypt's legal institutions fail the majority of the people. Due to burdensome, discriminatory and just plain bad laws, it is impossible for most people to legalize their property and businesses, no matter how well intentioned they might be.

The examples are legion. To open a small bakery, our investigators found, would take more than 500 days. To get legal title to a vacant piece of land would take more than 10 years of dealing with red tape. To do business in Egypt, an aspiring poor entrepreneur would have to deal with 56 government agencies and repetitive government inspections.

All this helps explain who so many ordinary Egyptians have been "smoldering" for decades. Despite hard work and savings, they can do little to improve their lives.

Bringing the majority of Egypt's people into an open legal system is what will break Egypt's economic apartheid. Empowering the poor begins with the legal system awarding clear property rights to the $400 billion-plus of assets that we found they had created. This would unlock an amount of capital hundreds of times greater than foreign direct investment and what Egypt receives in foreign aid.

Leaders and governments may change and more democracy might come to Egypt. But unless its existing legal institutions are reformed to allow economic growth from the bottom up, the aspirations for a better life that are motivating so many demonstrating in the streets will remain unfulfilled.

Mr. de Soto, author of "The Mystery of Capital" (Basic Books, 2000) and "The Other Path" (Harper and Row, 1989), is president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy based in Lima, Peru.

[Gromovnik]

@Gromvik

Sadat, the man who signed a peace treaty with Israel and with it isolated Egypt in the Arab-world of that time, also was a member of the MB.

Now your going to say Helmut Schmidt was also a member of Die Hitler Jugend, ain't ya. Why you so mad? Is it because of your fellow Slovenian Zizek?

why is my (supposed) ethnicity so important in this thread?