Without foresight and sacrifice Egypt in the future will be but an improvement on, not a departure from, its present state, writes Abdel-Moneim Said In the early 1970s I was a postgraduate student in North Illinois University and I shared a room with a British colleague. We were both studying and working as teaching assistants. We used to chat a lot. We'd talk about what we were studying, what we taught, and what was going on in our countries. As you may expect, an Egyptian and a Briton could find a lot to say about the history of relations between their countries. Back then I still believed in traditional Egyptian wisdom, which sees the British occupation as the main reason for Egypt's backwardness and British wealth as an outcome of exploitation. I said my piece and discovered, to my shock, that my friend was befuddled. When it was his turn to speak, he argued that Britain achieved progress because of the sacrifices its people have made. He listed not only the technological achievement his country made during industrial revolution, but also the sacrifices the British people made. He spoke of the first cities and how crowded they were. He told me of countryside people and how they were lured to the city, hoping to find work, but many ended up in the gutter. He also mentioned the women and children who had to work long hours in front of sweltering furnaces in iron factories. The dramatic picture he drew wasn't a complete surprise. I had read David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, two novels that offer a blood curdling insight into English life during the industrial revolution. I had also read much about the various sacrifices that nations go through during their various stages of development. As a major in political theory, I was also familiar with Karl Marx' account of the changes that industrial societies go through. In time, my British friend and I began to appreciate each other's views. What I wish to say is that progress comes at a price, something we rarely mention in this country. Things are rather simple in Egypt. The most people would ask for is amendment of articles 76, 77, and 88 of the constitution and the election of an opposition figure. This, it is said, would make Egypt another Switzerland, and maybe better even. To avoid any misunderstanding, let me remind you that the amendment of the above articles was a request of many Egyptian intellectual and politicians since the constitutional amendments of 2005 and 2007. I was one of those who wrote about this matter and discussed it in various political forums. I was even among those who called for a new constitution altogether. But the issue of change in Egypt is much greater than that. Change is not only a function of legal and constitutional reform. It is also a function of public policy. And I believe it depends on the price that the whole country -- government as well as the people -- is willing to pay. Last week was the week of Mohamed El-Baradei par excellence. He appeared for six hours or more on television, gave interviews, and held meetings that culminated in one with Arab League chief Amr Moussa. The two men agreed on the importance of "change" in Egypt. Before leaving the country, El-Baradei said that he formed a "national assembly for change". Let's discuss change. Let's discuss what course of action may propel the country into a different and much better future. But before we do so, let me tell you that our current situation is being inaccurately assessed. Also, the comparisons we make between us and other countries are often erroneous. If we keep relying on guesswork, we're in risk of losing track of reality. El-Baradei, to my surprise, was less than accurate in his remarks. He said that per capita income in this country is not $1,200, but -- by all international accounts --$2,180. And because the dollar can buy more stuff in Egypt than in other countries, some experts put real per capita income at $5,347. Egypt's ranking in the UNDP's Human Development Report was pathetically low: it was ranked 123 out of 177 countries. But Egypt was ranked 82nd in the poverty criterion, which is not too bad. Those in Egypt who live on less than $1.25 a day are less than two per cent of the population, and those living on less than $2 are 18.4 per cent. When cited by El-Baradei, this figure became 42 per cent of the population -- a percentage that no international report seems to corroborate. The Human Development Report also gauges the level of "social justice" in various countries. Here, Egypt scores 32.1, much better than South Africa at 57.8, China at 41.5, Iran at 38.3, and Venezuela at 43.4. If we look chronologically, we'll see that the human development gauge for Egypt has increased form 0.496 in 1980 to 0.703 in the latest report of 2007. And let's not forget that our population grew from 40 million to 80 million in the meanwhile. Still, what El-Baradei said was not devoid of truth. The poor in Egypt are about 20 per cent, according to international reports, and the next 20 per cent may live above the line of poverty, but not much above it. El-Baradei seemed to ignore the fact that 60 per cent of Egyptians are not poor or even semi-poor. What is true, however, is that Egypt is still an underdeveloped country. A lot of countries have done a lot better than us. At Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies we have published relevant data comparing Egypt to other countries. When we compared Egypt with South Korea and how the two have performed since 1960, the result was discouraging. This is the crux of the matter. Comparison offers a criterion for progress and change. But before comparing the outcome, one has to be ready to discuss the price that must be paid to arrive at the same results. We have to be aware of the sacrifices that we need to make to get ahead. This brings us back to what I said at the beginning of the article. Whether it is a matter of countries that became advanced in the 19th century, such as Britain and the US, or countries that achieved progress in the first half of the 20th century, such as Germany and Japan, or the Asian, Latin American, and East European countries that surged ahead in the second half of the 20th century, in all cases great sacrifices have been made, the most important of which has been the change of prevalent cultures and well-established policies. Einstein once said that you cannot keep doing the same thing and expect different results. In our case, you cannot maintain policies of subsidy that have been abandoned across the world and expect to advance. You cannot maintain outdated education policies. You cannot sustain a health system that is not helping anyone. We cannot keep distributing wealth before creating it. And yet our political elite seem to be more interested in what happens abroad than at home. And when the elite pays attention to the home front, they opt for a political system that blends legislation with religious opinion. This is not going to help us catch up with Turkey, let alone South Korea. Interestingly enough, in six hours of television appearances by El-Baradei he was asked only once about subsidies. And his answer was quite interesting too, for he said that we need to maintain bread subsidies but should maybe rethink energy subsidies -- the same thing the government is saying. Apparently, we are hell bent on maintaining a system of subsidies that has been ditched by each and every advanced nation. What goes for subsidies goes for other aspects of policy. We seem to be generally more interested in managing the battle with poverty than in managing the creation of wealth. This alone sets us apart from other countries that have surged ahead. For Egypt to perform as well as Turkey, South Korea, Malaysia, Brazil and India it needs to adopt policies similar to theirs. We need to look into the economic measures these countries have taken to attract local and foreign investment. We also need to look into the way they deal with poverty, subsidies and free education. The above countries have all had to introduce economic and social measures that may have been painful at first, but that led to benefits later on. Malaysia is one of the most successful countries in attracting foreign investment. In 1986, it issued a law allowing foreigners to own 100 per cent of shares in companies that export 80 per cent of products abroad. It also allowed companies that export anywhere between 51 per cent and 79 per cent to allow foreigners to enjoy similar benefits. Companies exporting anywhere between 20 per cent and 50 per cent were permitted to let foreigners own up to 51 per cent of their capital. The government, which was criticised, said that an export-driven economy needs hard currency and technology transfer to grow. Meanwhile, local investors were delighted to work with foreign partners. It is such measures that make us different from our Asian counterparts. Last year, Vietnam attracted $63 billion of foreign investment while we settled for $8 billion. This happened because Vietnam believes that cooperation with major international corporations puts it in touch with consumers around the world. Vietnam and other Asian countries are all following in the footsteps of Japan, a country that conquered international markets through high quality and affordable prices, through hard work and knowledge of the global market. Turkey did very much the same. It encouraged domestic and foreign investment while reducing the size of the public sector and motivating private business. Consequently, the Turkish private sector has become the primary engine of growth and the main reason for the country's high growth rates. Turkey has also reformed its banking system, issued a foreign investment law, and passed a law for the protection of intellectual and industrial rights. The same thing happened in India where the government launched a wide-ranging economic reform programme that offered many incentives to investors, downsized the government, and simplified the tax system These countries -- including East Europe both now and under communism -- all had systems that are unlike anything we have now. These countries realised that you cannot advance without providing adequate funding for education. Good education, like good food, is costly. These countries know that subsidies are bad for the economy and that foreign investors are good. And they know that democracy can be achieved only in a fully-fledged modern state. From now and until the presidential elections of 2011, let's ask ourselves: Which Egypt do we want? Do we want it to be part of the 21st century, as all advanced nations are? Or do we want a slightly improved version of what Egypt was for the past six decades? Before we agree on a political system, let's first agree on what this system is supposed to do.
