One Arab World

More on Arab economic cooperation and codependence

One of my favored authors while I was coming up was David Eddings with his Belgariad (a ten volume novel of Gods and sorcery). The reason I mention this is because I vividly remember the narration through which he described a wealthy island nation in the context of the story. The rich island Melcene, off of the east coast of Mallorea, was described as a tiny island city that traded commodities that were actually on the mainland, without their physical presence (an odd concept in the fictional, more medieval world, and an obvious reference to New York in how the island of Manhattan through its exchanges trades Americas and the worlds products in various forms of stocks, bonds, and such.)

Fantasy aside, Dubai's structural, networking, and financial resource are the envy of the world. Dubai has every single element in place, from labor to technical expertise to an unparalleled infrastructure and geographical centrality, to offer the grounds for a world class exchange.

Unfortunately for Dubai, the city state has neither a product to sell nor the land and manpower to make it. Dubai produces virtually nothing, and it can't. Sure they can, and do, concentrate on services (This is the usual gateway for tiny states. Top five economies with commercial services rating highest in percentage of GDP, in order; Singapore, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Malaysia. 

This approach will, however, leave them much exposed to the world economy that they rely on but, that aside, let us look at the top 5 nations just mentioned. True, the United States is their biggest market collectively but the United States is everyone's biggest market so in this case a constant we can remove. Let's group them as Singapore and Malaysia, and Ireland, Belgium, and Netherlands. The first group services Asia, primarily Japan and China  , while the other services, primarily, the EU. This is their means of survival. Their punitive sizes have forced them to evolve into these catering states if they are to enjoy self-determination. 

I understand more than most how small and virtual this world is becoming. However, any economist will tell you that inter or domestic trade is more beneficial than import/export. 

A unified Arab or Middle East stock exchange has supposedly been in the works for a while but google or even searches on economic portals will turn up next to nothing. The only thing you will get for sure is financial analysts saying

"The establishment of one Middle East  stock exchange is an exigency in light of the huge developments in international money markets and the smallness of the Arab money market which is too weak to compete."

And

"The unification of criteria and auditing and financial systems in the Arab world was an essential precondition to create this stock exchange which would boost the competitiveness of Arab economies and enhance the pace and volume of investment and money flows in the region."

            My idea is to list it in Dubai, not Cairo, as proposed. In doing this Egypt would be losing many benefits; the prestige of housing it with the direct investment in support areas (the telecom, hospitality, and tech industries all get a boost, not to mention the effect on labor), the sociopolitical stability it brings, as well as the experience it creates for its employees and corporations. Because of this Egypt, as well as the rest of the Arab countries that list, could gain concessions from Dubai, for example; a minimum quota of low level Egyptian labor to be allowed working visas in Dubai, a minimum quota of direct investment into Egypt (to help raise the ratio of Arab investment abroad to Arab investment in Arab states from a dismal 80:1 to at least a more respectable 2:1 enjoyed in many EU states), as well as exclusive deals to import Egyptian goods.

            What goods does Egypt have to show for? Not much…yet.

Egypt has the land and manpower Dubai lacks. The Sahara is an incredibly vast stretch of barren, unused land that's ecosystem could tolerate the effect of heavy production better than almost anywhere. At 70+ million, the Egyptian population is about 1/4 to 1/3 that of the Arab world (depending on how you determine the Arab world its population is between 200 to 350 million).

            Take the proposed concessions Egypt would easily get out of Dubai for letting it house an Arab World Stock Exchange; the work quota would immediately alleviate domestic pressure on unemployment and housing, while the direct investment would fund product Dubai needs and has guaranteed to buy.

            This form of economic codependence will also help ensure future continuation as Egypt would gradually lose the experience to house its own exchange and Dubai would have too much invested in Egypt and its work force comprised too heavily of Egyptians for either side to allow relations between them to move anything but forward.

            This is only a microcosm of the bigger picture. I propose intentionally forging these Sino-Taiwanese economic relationships throughout the Arab world in a quest to a unified Arab Economy.

Karim Elsahy

Comments
For future reference I edit comments that I repeat in posts under no specific guidance. I do not edit the original version but I do delete some that are unrelated to this sites aim as this is not intended to be a personal blog (and I have a lot of funny friends). My editing usually consists of nothing more than deleting unrelated portions and spell checking.

 
Why "Neo Pan Arabism"?

I have only used that term once and am currently debating its reuse. I defined "Pan Arabism" in the opening of the "My Argument for Pan-Arabism" post and argued that the importance of differentiating it from "Arab Nationalism" and "Arabism". The addition of the prefix "Neo" was an attempt to distance a new attempt at Pan Arabism from previous failed attempts. The only problem is that "Neo" tends to be to closely associated with Renaissance or "rebirth", and who wants to see a failure reborn.

We are scrutinizing little details like this because we understand the importance PR is to play if anything like this is to emerge. As I mentioned in a previous post the most powerful party's pushing Pan Arabism was the Bathist of Syria and Iraq and the Nasserites of Egypt and, currently, no one in their right mind would want to be associated with them.

Pan Arabism is the logical, elusive savior of the Arab People.

It is the severely tarnished ideal that never saw fruit. No Arab would touch it now but ANY, even semi-intelligent, Arab you explain Pan Arabism too will agree that it would be the only way we could rise out of our dilemma. Pan Arabism was never tried but was condemned because most of its previous advocates were thieves and criminals.

Why not a trading bloc (or even political union) like the EU?

That is exactly what I am advocating. Read the post "My Arab World", it's the one just before the one you commented on.

Wouldn't that be more acceptable to (for instance) the Copts?

Religion has nothing to do with ethnicity or the definition of the term "Arab". Some of the greatest Arabs in every sector (Sawiras and family in the private sector and Butros Khali former Secertary General of the UN, for example) are Coptic. Some of the Palestine's most dynamic defenders (Hanan Ashrawi, Edward Said, and George Habash) are, or were, Christian.

There are three factors which may assist to varying degrees in determining whether someone is considered Arab or not:

• Political: whether they live in a country which is a member of the Arab League (or, more vaguely, the Arab world); this definition covers more than 300 million people.

• Linguistic: whether their first language is Arabic; this definition covers more than 200 million people.

• Genealogical: whether they can trace their ancestry back to the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula.

Pan Arabism is a secular ideal focused primarily on trade and self-determination.  

One of the first and most obvious constraints to growth a developing country faces, because it is just that…a developing country, is that it begins to lose its greatest minds. Since this is usually only from the elitist society, our society, and if your reading this then yours as well; the educated, the wealthy, and those with the means to travel, it is imperative that we try to reverse this trend ourselves. It only takes one great mind to start a Microsoft or GE of our generation that in turn can employee by the tens of thousands. It's a path ten times harder than the one taken by the usual path of our parents; "go to Saudi or the States, make a bunch of money and try to get back before you have kids."

Here is the paradox; Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail could have stayed in Egypt and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Egypt from Egypt, but had he stayed would he have won at all?

Had he stayed and managed the impossible feat of accomplishing that in Egypt there would have been a surge in foreign investment for a new design development sector in the Egyptian economy. In turn that would have opened up the more realistic chance of a future generation of Egyptian engineers and scientists to winning a Nobel Peace prize in chemistry, from Egypt. Moreover the pool of potentials would be exponentially larger because it would no longer be a monopoly held by the elite.

This doesn't happen because of the defeatist attitude we have inherited from our parents. That a person be called "stupid" (by the educated no less) for choosing to pursue a degree in his own country is an occurrence found no were else in the world. Until the next Ahmed Zewail comes out of Egypt we will have to be content with reverse engineering for the Chinese.

So to finally answer your statement we are coming back to Egypt as expatriates no more, full to the brim with ideas, determined to see them through. If the system doesn't work we'll fix it and if you call me an idiot or naïve, you'll just be a defeatist.

Karim Elsahy

This post started off as a response to a comment my friend Orientalism made but got carried into the size more appropriate for a post on its own. Here is his comment first.

I understand your qualms my friend, I really do. You have to learn to put things in historical perspective though. The EU started off fifty years ago with only six countries, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, as a loose economic common ideal. Of course till today it is fractured and unharmonious but it still represents the largest trading bloc in the world. It is already beginning to destabilize existing world monopolies and gain clout in what it sees as cases of unfair trade (Microsoft and Chinese textiles)

As it gets closer to ratifying its constitution, choosing a single foreign minister, and developing a more united front it will further reap the benefits for its citizens economically and serve the global community with a much needed balance to the United States.

Now compare the problems we face as Arabs to unity with the problems our European counterparts face. The obvious first is our tribal clannish attitude. 

"Ana wakhouyah 3ala ibn khalti, ana wakhouyah wibn khalti 3ala el ghareeb."
("Me and my brother vs. our cousin, but me my brother, and my cousin vs. a stranger.")

A good example of this is how Egyptians complain of all the Palestinians in our country and how they are using up our precious resources and jobs. How they cause all these problems at home. Of course as soon as CNN broadcasts another Israeli atrocity the entire population is up in arms.

This mentality can actually be used to our benefit. As I have mentioned before (in my foreword to this site) people unite against a common threat. The movie Independence Day shows an interesting example. The first time the entire world (more interestingly the Israelis and the Arabs) unite is to fight off a common single threat, the aliens.

"Union: 
the hope of our Arab Nation, being convinced that Arab Unity is a call of history and of the future, and a demand of destiny; and that it cannot materialize except through an Arab Nation, capable of warding off any threat, whatever the source or the pretexts for such a threat."

I am sure most of the Arab World will agree the majority of the world is threatening us. Not necessarily militaristically though, occurrences such as Iraq are rare and won't happen again for a long time anyway; neither Syria nor Iran. America isn't ready for another ugly war, the American people just want to get their economy going again, and GW has his legacy to work towards for the remainder of his term. Not to mention that it would be a very hard sell to the global community (even the republican representation of one ..ie. England, Poland, and a couple of Atlantic Islands) after botching the criteria for war (WMD's), the scandals (Abu Gharib), and the casualties (1500+ American, 100,000+ Iraqi). 

No we are not threatened militaristically, and even if we are, it is only on an economic platform that power is achieved in the twenty-first century. It's the size of your market caps, your GDP's, and your deficits. Not your guns, tanks, and fighters, that is all secondary and in our case inconsequential anyway. All Egypt can do militaristically after spending half its wealth on its military for the past half century, not to mention the US military aid and cooperation it receives, is bully Sudan. Military parades are for our forefathers. We should be the generation parading Neguib Sawiras and Mohamed Al Fayed up and down the AutoStrade.

Moreover, the EU is a federation of 20 languages! Can you even begin to understand the implications of trying to unite with someone you can't talk too or understand except on an extremely formal level involving translators? We have ONE language.

Feuds? Europe has been at war with itself since someone started writing history. Our history together as Arabs is arguably amongst the most homogonous of any proposed federations. Yeah, look into it.

Culture? Our front for architectural style, for example, is completely uniquely Arab or Islamic. The average person recognizes the domes, the minarets, the mashrabias as ours but it takes an architectural critic to classify what region and era it's from. Compare that that to English vs. Italian.

Religion? Take away the symbolism attached to a Middle Eastern worshiper… Muslim, Christian, and yes… Jewish and you can't tell what religion they are. Take away the skull caps, the crosses, and the side burns and your left with bearded men that look exactly the same, that are spiritual, and frown on sex. Compare that to the Western polarization of beliefs? Abortion clinics and gay Bishops? "If you don't accept Christ you'll go to hell" vs. Atheism?

Geography? One tunnel under the Gulf of Aqaba would make us contiguous. Even without look at what the Angloshere (America, Canada, Britain, and Australia) has managed to accomplish in trade.

No, we have the means and capability to form an economic behemoth. All we need is the courage and conviction to say "Enough". Enough to our crooked leaders and their damning policies, enough to foreign interference and their selfish ends, and enough to sitting on our asses waiting for things to get better on their own in the future while we complain about our present situation.

Karim Elsahy

The forword, First, and Second Part of the Proclamation of the Constitution of the Arab Rebublic of Egypt.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROCLAMATION  

We, the people of Egypt, who have been toiling on this great land since the dawn of history and the beginning of civilization.
 
We, the people working in Egypt's villages, cities, plants, centers of education, industry and in any field of work which contributes to create life on its soil or which plays a part in the honor of defending this land.

We, the people who believe in our immortal and spiritual heritage, and who are confident in our profound faith, and cherish the honor of man and of humanity; We, the people, who in addition to shouldering the trust of history, carry the responsibility of great present and future objectives whose seeds are embedded in the long and arduous struggle, and which hosted the flags of freedom, socialism and unity along the path of the great march of the Arab nation. 

We, the Egyptian people, in the name of God and by His assistance, pledge indefinitely and unconditionally to exert every effort to realize: 

FIRST: 

Peace to our world: 
being determined that peace should be based on justice, and that the political and social progress of all peoples can only be realized through the freedom of these peoples and their independent will, and that any civilization is not worthy of its name unless it is free form exploitation whatever its form. 

SECOND: 

Union: 

the hope of our Arab Nation, being convinced that Arab Unity is a call of history and of the future, and a demand of destiny; and that it cannot materialize except through an Arab Nation, capable of warding off any threat, whatever the source or the pretexts for such a threat. 

This site has been down for the past couple of days due to exceeded bandwidth. Considering it was only the second of the month and the entire last month combined didn't even come close to the limit I was cynical and suspicious, not flattered by what would appear to be a spike in readership.

Bots and Crawlers (programs that automate clicks to a site, typically used to illegally drive up references from adverts) are nothing new. The only thing new is the low some will stoop too to shut me up.

The only form of contact with blog.com is email that does not work. I went ahead and upgraded my plan anyway but if someone tech savvy could help me isolate and block the ip add that's doing this I would really appreciate it. Check out the blog stats at the bottom of the left column and look for the 10k+ hits that are way off. Email me at onearabworld@hotmail.com with any help. Thank you.