Davos Dithers While Cairo Burns
In the pristine air of the Swiss Alps, the worlds power elites gather at an annual World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. In this rarefied Hall of the Mountain King’s, Prime Ministers, CEOs and the esteemed emissaries of the global elite get some valuable face-time with each other to assess the world situation and figure out ways to arrange it more to their likeness. Russian Prime Minister Medvedev was scheduled to give the welcoming address but had to cancel because a Chechen suicide bomber blew himself up in Moscow’s busiest airport taking a couple dozen travelers with him.
Busy looking inward to protect personal interests, the fiduciaries of global solvency stew about regulatory overreach and the added burden it creates as the ruling elites balance the demands of worldly subsistence with the perplexities of generating sufficient cash flows to cover dividend payments to shareholders. More often than not the heft of shareholder concerns outweighs the growing immiseration of the world’s troubled masses. The deeply held sacred dogma that enlarged prosperity for the wealthy benefits the disenfranchised is being increasingly challenged as the wealth gap rises against a backdrop of growing economic duress and political instability.
The growing movement to topple Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak illustrates the failure of a global trickle down political economy. Mubarak has held office since Anwar Sadat’s unceremonious removal from office is receiving urgent signals from the Egyptians that he has clearly overstayed his welcome. For three decades, Mr. Mubarak and his military caliphate have been the recipients of generous western aid packages designed to maintain a tenuous peace with Israel. Stitched together at Camp David in the closing days of the Carter Administration; the sibling rivalry between Abraham’s jealous children remains incendiary and its stability will be tenuous at best considering the growing role of The Muslim Brotherhood in challenging Mubarak’s continued rule.
The United States sends Egypt $1.5 billion in military aid each year. Its seem a small price to pay to guarantee the peace with Zion and to underwrite a strategic ally in the volatile Arab world. It’s also a perfect political foil to counterbalance Israel’s favored nation status. But US aid and IMF loans have financed Mubarak’s autocracy creating deep political fissures within Egypt. These aid programs have widened the wealth gap by limiting opportunity to a select few; abetted political disenfranchisement that encouraged social unrest, fueling Islamic radicalism and the urgent need for democratic reforms.
The game plan followed in Egypt for the past three decades is not working. The nature of western aid to Egypt and how it was used to benefit the military ruling elites illustrate the conundrum of the Davos Hajiis. Aligning economic development and political empowerment of the world’s disenfranchised with the needs of the global capitalist elites has failed to deliver on its promise. The pursuit of Mule and Sparrow economics have engorged the elites and left the many sparrows emaciated.
When the Davos delegates leave their ski chateaus for an afternoon on the slopes, as they exit the lifts at the top of the world, it may yet still be possible to glimpse the growing crowds amassing in Tahrir Square. It may still be possible to connect the dots of promoting the inclusive economics of reciprocity and social democracy. The revolutionaries gathering in Liberation Square are joining with the dispossessed to give full voice for an agenda of change.
The elites have stored up too much wealth for themselves. The masses have remained wanting, impoverished of goods and denied liberty, fed a steady diet of repression they stoke fires in Tahrir Square signaling the time for change has arrived.
Music selection: Edvard Grieg: In the Hall of the Mountain Kings
Risk: Middle East, political stability, economic prosperity, global economy, democracy, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, Davos, IMF, Israel, Tahrir Square, revolution, military rule, Jimmy Carter, Mule and Sparrow Economics, Camp David Accords, Medvedev, Anwar Sadat, World Economic Forum
