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Fungah posted:How are things expected to get better for Egypt? Even if a liberal, secular government is elected, the underlying problems are not going away. The only economic lifeline is IMF loans which any new government will have to gut food and fuel subsidies in order to receive which I'm guessing won't go down at all well. Yeah the economic problems are going to be one the bigger issues in the long run, Egypt never really developed something such as a strong export market and also doesn't have access to massive energy reserves like the Arab gulf states to help bring in foreign hard currency. 
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Jul 4, 2013 14:49
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quote:Toilet paper of a kind used for... I've never wanted to see the end of a sentence more.
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Jul 4, 2013 14:53
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Boogaleeboo posted:The thing that is unique about Egypt is that the military already controls so much of the country's wealth and infrastructure. There's no reason for them to take over officially. It'd be like Walmart trying to take over the United States. Why bother? It's more hassle for no more money. It's in their best interests to nominally listen to the will of the people while getting paid, because it gives them the popular support they need to keep the machine running smoothly [for them]. At a certain level of power and influence, actual governing just slows you down. I accept that fully, but it's firstly not really unique (it also applies or historically applied to many countries in Southeast Asia for example which still experienced coups that led to full-blown military dictatorships) and secondly has nothing to do with whether or not a functional democracy is or can be in place, which is the point I was taking issue with. If a democracy is free to make policy decisions just so long as it doesn't disagree with the whims of a junta on the sidelines then it's not a democracy.
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Jul 4, 2013 14:56
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Economically, in the absence of a strong economic base it seems their biggest goal should be to improve public safety and thereby enhance tourism, which can bring in some much-needed cash. Something needs to be done about the thugs who have taken root in major cities, as well as the rampant sexual assaults.
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Jul 4, 2013 15:28
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etalian posted:Yeah the economic problems are going to be one the bigger issues in the long run, Egypt never really developed something such as a strong export market and also doesn't have access to massive energy reserves like the Arab gulf states to help bring in foreign hard currency. Glazed ceramic flags?
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Jul 4, 2013 15:47
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pentyne posted:Glazed ceramic flags? "Flag" also refers to paving stones, so I'm assuming what that means. Fancy phrasing for "tile floors."
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Jul 4, 2013 16:02
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etalian posted:Yeah the economic problems are going to be one the bigger issues in the long run, Egypt never really developed something such as a strong export market and also doesn't have access to massive energy reserves like the Arab gulf states to help bring in foreign hard currency. These are some of my favorite charts. 
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Jul 4, 2013 16:16
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etalian posted:Yeah the economic problems are going to be one the bigger issues in the long run, Egypt never really developed something such as a strong export market and also doesn't have access to massive energy reserves like the Arab gulf states to help bring in foreign hard currency. Holy poo poo, 2,5% of our optical fiber cables came out of Egypt? I'm honestly surprised. There's hopefully a lot of growth left in that and other, related fields. Egypt could become our refuge if China ever decides to stop building our computer parts!
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Jul 4, 2013 16:28
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Fist of Foucault posted:I accept that fully, but it's firstly not really unique (it also applies or historically applied to many countries in Southeast Asia for example which still experienced coups that led to full-blown military dictatorships) and secondly has nothing to do with whether or not a functional democracy is or can be in place, which is the point I was taking issue with. If a democracy is free to make policy decisions just so long as it doesn't disagree with the whims of a junta on the sidelines then it's not a democracy. While Southeast Asian militaries often intervened in the name of national crisis, I don't think the comparison works as well here, namely because the Egyptian military hasn't plonked themselves right into government, as the Burmese and Indonesian army leaders did, even as an interim measure. The judge they appointed doesn't seem to be an army lackey, and they've promised to form a "government of technocrats" along with a promise "not to exclude anyone or any movement". The Brotherhood purge is a bad idea because it runs contradictory to what they've promised and allows MB to claim political victimisation. But otherwise, I'm of the opinion the coup was probably the humanitarian solution.
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Jul 4, 2013 16:31
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Al-Monitor has an interesting read about women during the protests. There have been 91 cases of sexual assault over the last 5 days according to Human Rights Watch. It shows there's people out there who are doing what they can to help women go to these things safely, but  Cairo.  http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/07/human-shield-protects-egyptian-women-protesters.html
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Jul 4, 2013 16:41
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I think the takeaway here is that this new government is also on notice. Regardless of who it is, or if the military is actually in control of Egypt, these folks need to produce. It should be... relatively corruption-free, and dedicated to fixing the biggest or most obvious problems at the start of things. So, given their tools, what are the worst problems facing Egypt right now, and what will make things appear to be better most quickly? Is it possible Morsi embezzled the hell out of everything into the MB's coffers? Further, while I agree with the doubts and concerns Ham has, you've got to step back and look at results. What's the difference between a free government and one backed by a secret military cabal in the next year? In the next five years? If they can make it past five years, no matter how much power the military has, the government will become legitimate, and gain power on its own recognition. Basically, here's the three questions. What's the worst thing that could happen? What's the worst thing that's likely to happen? And, given the various needs and desires of the people controlling things _and_ the people implementing things, what's the most likely thing to happen? Warcabbit fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 17:08
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Spiderfist Island posted:Yeah, I don't think you can give much slack to a party who thought it was a good idea to appoint a fundamentalist associated with the Luxor terror attacks as the governor of Luxor. Wow, had never heard of that before. Between that and the massacring of Christians in the past few years, you'd have to be daft in the head to visit Egypt. Which I guess goes right to the heart of some of the economic problems. They have world famous landmarks, but tourists are justifiably too scared to visit. If anything, that fear will rise given that you now have pissed off, out-of-power fundamentalists.
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Jul 4, 2013 17:13
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Volkerball posted:There have been 91 cases of sexual assault over the last 5 days according to Human Rights Watch. These are just the ones we know about on top of it. A report by the UN on sexual harassment and assualt in Egypt said near 90% of women don't bother going to authorities nearby.
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Jul 4, 2013 17:31
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Libluini posted:Holy poo poo, 2,5% of our optical fiber cables came out of Egypt? I'm honestly surprised. There's hopefully a lot of growth left in that and other, related fields. Egypt could become our refuge if China ever decides to stop building our computer parts! That's "2.5% of Egypt's exports are optical fiber cables" not "2.5% of fiber optic cables used in any one country or the world at large are from Egypt".
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Jul 4, 2013 18:09
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Hey does anyone have a list of infrastructure that Egypt needs to improve? Im trying to figure out relatively neutral things that aid money could go to. 
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Jul 4, 2013 19:49
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etalian posted:It's sort of the political version of buyer's remorse even though in this case they didn't want to wait until 2016 to make him go away. I remember watching a BBC documentary where they followed a westernized girl from a wealthy Coptic family through the 2011 protests and up to the first free parliamentary elections. It was ultra-black comedy if you got the joke, as she protested alongside the creeps of Tahrir square. The punchline was that the Islamist landslide came as a terrible shock to her, even though her dad had warned her all throughout that this was going to be the outcome if her protests succeeded. How could it have happened? All her friends supported secular parties! If there is any buyers remorse, it is probably remorse from formerly naive or idealistic secularists about the whole becoming-a-democracy thing. I wonder how many Muslim Brotherhood voters from last year were protesting against Morsi? They will be a tiny proportion of the protesters, I would guess- maybe I am totally wrong. Anyway, I don't think I have read anyone mention the Algerian coup of January 1992 as a relevant historical event to consider. Up to half a million were protesting in Algiers against the landslide victory of the Islamists in the first free elections there, and the army also decided to step in- the obvious difference I guess is that they didn't let the Islamists into power before banning them. Hopefully the MB have discredited themselves with their performance in government enough that their disenfranchised support don't resort to Algerian levels of violence.
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Jul 4, 2013 19:54
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It's lovely but what are the options for mid-east nations? Brutal dictatorships that are sort of secular and pro-west, or brutal Islamist "democracies" that are anti-west? Does the region just need a few generations of the later before it can naturally grow into not-poo poo? I really wonder how the region would have been without western meddling, or even if the west just stopped setting up puppet governments at the turn of the century.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:00
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Xandu posted:The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928. It's not going to go down easily. How does when it was founded have anything to do with whether it'll go away or not? The Carlists were a very old movement too, and yet...
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Jul 4, 2013 20:03
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Baronjutter posted:It's lovely but what are the options for mid-east nations? Brutal dictatorships that are sort of secular and pro-west, or brutal Islamist "democracies" that are anti-west? Does the region just need a few generations of the later before it can naturally grow into not-poo poo? MB was not anti-west at all.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:06
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iCe-CuBe. posted:How does when it was founded have anything to do with whether it'll go away or not? The Carlists were a very old movement too, and yet... They've survived a long time despite being forced underground and suppressed. Its leaders have been jailed and killed. They may well lose a lot of supporters, but it seems naive to think they're going to disappear because they were forced out of power.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:06
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Baronjutter posted:It's lovely but what are the options for mid-east nations? Brutal dictatorships that are sort of secular and pro-west, or brutal Islamist "democracies" that are anti-west? Does the region just need a few generations of the later before it can naturally grow into not-poo poo? The indescribable mess that is Lebanon.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:09
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The Real Quaid posted:I remember watching a BBC documentary where they followed a westernized girl from a wealthy Coptic family through the 2011 protests and up to the first free parliamentary elections. It was ultra-black comedy if you got the joke, as she protested alongside the creeps of Tahrir square. The punchline was that the Islamist landslide came as a terrible shock to her, even though her dad had warned her all throughout that this was going to be the outcome if her protests succeeded. How could it have happened? All her friends supported secular parties! If there is any buyers remorse, it is probably remorse from formerly naive or idealistic secularists about the whole becoming-a-democracy thing. I wonder how many Muslim Brotherhood voters from last year were protesting against Morsi? They will be a tiny proportion of the protesters, I would guess- maybe I am totally wrong. Yeah it's somewhat dubious to expect the MB to build a genuine democracy seeing their ideology and also how the army massacred them over the years. While certain not as hardline as Salafists they still have a looney deference to religious in their ideology and also the sour fundie's anger with being mocked using things such as satire. For Morsi he made many mistakes but probably the biggest one was going after the military in 2012 by demanding things such as resignations in the SCAF before strengthening his own power base first. He pretty much underestimated the power of the military especially when the next popular uprising put him in a weaker position similar to Mubarak.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:09
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Lawman 0 posted:Hey does anyone have a list of infrastructure that Egypt needs to improve? Parts of Cairo lack any infrastructure whatsoever, and have built informal economies around cleaning up the trash that gets dumped on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manshiyat_Naser
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Jul 4, 2013 20:10
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Ham posted:MB was not anti-west at all. It's amazing how many people do not realize this, I mean the whole economic plan was basically "Free markets for ever!" which is why I'm perplexed at why so many Republicans (US) hated them.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:20
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Can i just say that Adli Mansoor looks way too much like a Chicago alderman to be trustworthy.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:21
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The Real Quaid posted:I remember watching a BBC documentary where they followed a westernized girl from a wealthy Coptic family through the 2011 protests and up to the first free parliamentary elections. It was ultra-black comedy if you got the joke, as she protested alongside the creeps of Tahrir square. The punchline was that the Islamist landslide came as a terrible shock to her, even though her dad had warned her all throughout that this was going to be the outcome if her protests succeeded. How could it have happened? All her friends supported secular parties! If there is any buyers remorse, it is probably remorse from formerly naive or idealistic secularists about the whole becoming-a-democracy thing. I wonder how many Muslim Brotherhood voters from last year were protesting against Morsi? They will be a tiny proportion of the protesters, I would guess- maybe I am totally wrong. Do you remember what the documentary was?
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Jul 4, 2013 20:23
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cloudchamber posted:Parts of Cairo lack any infrastructure whatsoever, and have built informal economies around cleaning up the trash that gets dumped on them. Well improving that would be a start! Urban hellscape indeed. 
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Jul 4, 2013 20:27
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LP97S posted:It's amazing how many people do not realize this, I mean the whole economic plan was basically "Free markets for ever!" which is why I'm perplexed at why so many Republicans (US) hated them. "Muslim Brotherhood" might as well be "Nazi Communists" to your typical Republican.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:28
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etalian posted:Yeah the economic problems are going to be one the bigger issues in the long run, Egypt never really developed something such as a strong export market and also doesn't have access to massive energy reserves like the Arab gulf states to help bring in foreign hard currency. If anything, this shows just how weak Egypt's energy sector is and how weak Egyptian exports are in general. The market isn't exactly flooded with Egyptian Gold, Suits, or Glazed Ceramic Flags
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Jul 4, 2013 20:28
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LP97S posted:It's amazing how many people do not realize this, I mean the whole economic plan was basically "Free markets for ever!" which is why I'm perplexed at why so many Republicans (US) hated them. Wrong flavor of theocracy.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:30
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/09/2012924143455660450.html Good piece about some of the poorer parts of Cairo.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:31
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I don't see how things will get better for Egypt without a lot of (non US, non-IMF) aid. China could in theory do something and not have a bunch of evil strings attached ("in order to receive this loan, you must ensure that even more people will be unable to afford food and fuel, and you must sacrifice your public sector to the Milton Friedman, who waits dead but dreaming"), but they've got little reason to assist. Venezuela can't do much, the EU won't do anything, so I guess Egypt is screwed for the foreseeable future even with several Sabbahi terms.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:43
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The Real Quaid posted:Anyway, I don't think I have read anyone mention the Algerian coup of January 1992 as a relevant historical event to consider. Up to half a million were protesting in Algiers against the landslide victory of the Islamists in the first free elections there, and the army also decided to step in- the obvious difference I guess is that they didn't let the Islamists into power before banning them. Hopefully the MB have discredited themselves with their performance in government enough that their disenfranchised support don't resort to Algerian levels of violence. Ugh. I hope that Egypt doesn't end up like Algeria did. Go through a brutal civil war and end up run by a military clique.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:54
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OwlBot 2000 posted:I don't see how things will get better for Egypt without a lot of (non US, non-IMF) aid. China could in theory do something and not have a bunch of evil strings attached ("in order to receive this loan, you must ensure that even more people will be unable to afford food and fuel, and you must sacrifice your public sector to the Milton Friedman, who waits dead but dreaming"), but they've got little reason to assist. Venezuela can't do much, the EU won't do anything, so I guess Egypt is screwed for the foreseeable future even with several Sabbahi terms. It's amusing how Egypt repeats its history, back in the age of colonialism Egypt did a similar thing with being overly dependent on foreign loans, foreign military aid and influence to keep the country running. The last decade also saw lots of neo-liberal improvements for the country such as privatizing state industries, lower corporate tax rates and also lowering tariffs to appease the "free trade" gods.
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Jul 4, 2013 20:54
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There's no indication the military will run things for more than 18 months, and even then it won't be them directly running things. If they try, I don't think they'll have much of a country to run or economy to leech off of. Edit: vvv Rules Are Rules! You can't let things like "context" and "meaning" come into such decisions. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 20:55
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So I wonder what the odds of the US actually canceling the whole military aid package to Egypt because the of the coup?
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Jul 4, 2013 20:57
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OwlBot 2000 posted:I don't see how things will get better for Egypt without a lot of (non US, non-IMF) aid. China could in theory do something and not have a bunch of evil strings attached ("in order to receive this loan, you must ensure that even more people will be unable to afford food and fuel, and you must sacrifice your public sector to the Milton Friedman, who waits dead but dreaming"), but they've got little reason to assist. Venezuela can't do much, the EU won't do anything, so I guess Egypt is screwed for the foreseeable future even with several Sabbahi terms. Egypt has gotten quite a lot of aid from Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
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Jul 4, 2013 21:08
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You think there's no strings attached from Qatar or KSA?
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Jul 4, 2013 21:09
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Food insecurity is brought up a lot, people are angrier when their country is led by assholes and it is coupled with the fact that food prices are rising and availability is declining. It is interesting to note that virtually throughout all of history Egypt was primarily an exporter of foodstuffs, until the 19th century, when Muhammad Ali switched much of Egyptian agriculture over to cash crops (cotton primarily) rather than grain (the guy pretty much ran Egypt as his own personal colony, as a springboard to launch his ambitions for Ottoman Syria and the Empire itself, he even stated that he modelled his administration on British India IIRC), and this trend was followed by successive kings of Egypt and I would guess intensified during the British occupation. And now Egypt is almost completely dependent on imported grain. Is there no way to turn back the clock on this? I mean tourism is nice and all, but I can imagine that becoming food independent and (possibly?) producing surplus food in a world where food insecurity is becoming ever more visible might be more valuable. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 21:21
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Randarkman posted:It is interesting to note that virtually throughout all of history Egypt was primarily an exporter of foodstuffs, until the 19th century, when Muhammad Ali switched much of Egyptian agriculture over to cash crops rather than grain (the guy pretty much ran Egypt as his own personal colony, as a springboard to launch his ambitions for Ottoman Syria and the Empire itself, he even stated that he modelled his administration on British India IIRC) and now the country is pretty much completely dependent on imported American grain. B-b-but I thought Muhammad Ali was the greatest? 
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Jul 4, 2013 21:26
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