Soapbox: The death of capitalism By Azza Ahmed Heikal When Roland Barthes wrote his famous essay "The Death of the Author", a new school of criticism began to spread in Europe and America. It abolished all personal and individual aspects that might influence the text, whether social or psychological. The text, Barthes said, is the creator of its own identity. After World War I and the invention of television, philosophers, men of culture, politicians and economists adopted new concepts and ideas. These concepts correlate the benefit of the world to the benefit of the individual, not to the welfare of the community or humanity. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1988 announced officially the victory of capitalism and the birth of globalisation, an era of huge enterprises merging for the sake of vested interests -- i.e. the interest of those who own the capital and command political and military sovereignty. Suddenly, everything collapsed and the jaundiced face of reality revealed itself. The cries of the poor and the hungry were heard at last and the whole system and philosophy of capitalism proven fake and illusionary. No one can live on the corpse of the other since people have to share life together. As the Prophet Mohamed once said: "The one who has extra carriage has to give it to the one who has not got any." It is not only charity; it is social-humanitarian partnership. Money is simply coins of copper or gold, but the human is of a holy power that deserves to live heaven on earth. Sarkozy's call for a more humanitarian capitalism is just the beginning for a new era of socialism, where society is anew at the centre of attention and community is the core of all economic systems. Humanity is to be born again after the death of capitalism.
