Once again, the world is talking about Obama—the ‘miracle leader’—whom many nations seem to believe holds the key to solving their problems. They see him as a man with extraordinary powers, capable of reshaping the world, despite the disastrous legacy left behind by George Bush. And with the upcoming presidential visit to the United States, the pens have resumed their chorus of praise, just as we had finally recovered from the wave of ‘Obamamania’ that surrounded his historic speech at Cairo University.
Recently, the Egyptian-American Business Council attempted to stir the stagnant economic waters with a lot of ‘talk’. The council’s chairman told a newspaper: ‘Despite declining investments and the weak prospects for a free trade zone, the Egyptian private sector remains optimistic about Obama’s administration.’ It all sounds wonderful, but the truth is, this is nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream. The history of Egyptian-American economic relations is filled with agreements that, the more they accumulate, the more they become a burden—not just economically, but politically as well. The ‘QIZ’ agreement is a case in point.
Leaving aside the ever-shrinking and heavily conditional American aid, these agreements have not delivered any tangible benefits to the general public. Perhaps a small elite of business owners have profited from this so-called economic cooperation, but only through its import-driven side. We need to be realistic when discussing these deeply imbalanced trade agreements. In such deals, the larger economy always dominates, dictating the flow of goods to the smaller economy—which, in this case, is Egypt, a country that lacks full control over its industrial inputs and market mechanisms.
Meanwhile, after the United States exported its financial crisis to the rest of the world, leaving its own economy in a dire state, we must ask ourselves: what exactly can this bankrupt system offer us? Will they open their markets to Egyptian exports? And even if they do, how will they pay for them? The reality is that the US desperately needs to push its own exports in every direction, including towards Egypt—a long-time political ally.
They might try to lure us by slightly cracking open the door for some Egyptian exports that are relatively valuable to them. The usual cheerleaders in the press will then celebrate this as a great ‘Egyptian-American partnership’. Perhaps we will even see more of those patronising stickers declaring ‘From the American People’ slapped onto aid shipments, as if we were some kind of beggar economy. But in practice, the trade balance will only continue to tilt further against us. Our markets remain wide open—to the Americans and to everyone else—and we keep opening them more and more. One day, we may even find ourselves having to remove the doors altogether, as they will have become utterly useless.
What is truly baffling, however, is the connection between all this and the myth of Obama. Why is he constantly ‘inserted’ into every supposed glimmer of hope, no matter how distorted it may be? This strange and naïve obsession with waiting for a saviour is reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s famous absurdist play Waiting for Godot, written in 1948. In Beckett’s world, ‘Godot’ is a diminutive form of ‘God’—a figure the play’s characters await in vain, believing he will rescue them from their misery, as though he possesses divine powers. It seems the Irish writer’s spirit has returned, and we are now all waiting for ‘Obama’—the Godot of our time.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.