It was entirely expected for Essam Sharaf to welcome Barack Obama’s decision to reduce $1 billion of our debt, exchange it for projects, and allocate another $1 billion in loan facilities to fund several projects in Egypt. This came as the first reaction from the government to the American president’s speech on what they now call the ‘Arab Spring,’ delivered last Thursday evening, in which he pledged to support Egypt’s economy after the January 25 Revolution. May God reward him.
We must understand that Sharaf’s enthusiastic and grateful response to the U.S. administration is simply a predictable act of necessary international diplomacy, even if it is unjust or farcical, as is often the case. Meanwhile, we writers and taxi drivers are blessed with the freedom to express our opinions on anything we like or dislike, disregarding all these diplomatic niceties entirely.
From a perspective unconcerned with these tiresome formalities, it seems that Obama (may his home always be a haven for the righteous) has chosen to continue the same transparent American policies that even Uncle Farag the mechanic, who wasn’t allowed by the previous regime to learn to write his own name, can see through. Mr. Obama has decided to bless us with aid that, on the surface, appears to be a charitable gesture to the revolution but is, in essence, a desperate attempt to maintain American influence in Egypt in particular and the region in general. This, of course, is standard practice in the world of political games.
However, Uncle Farag, who thanks Obama for his generosity, knows well that these limited debt waivers, to be exchanged for projects, will merely perpetuate the cycle of conditional American investments, which are always more beneficial to the Americans than to the Egyptians from both economic and political perspectives. We must remember that these investments, like others, compel their recipients to import expensive American equipment and expertise exclusively, ensuring that the ‘donated’ funds return to their original owners in no time, with added profits. Politically, there’s no need to elaborate on the mechanisms through which the U.S. imposes its agenda and blackmails decision-makers regarding numerous internal and regional matters, as they have done regularly.
As for the other billion, granted to us in the form of ‘soft loans,’ this is nothing but another desperate attempt to preserve the same global financial corruption and economic imperialism imposed on us and other developing countries by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. These are the very institutions of political scandals since their creation in the 1940s, and now sexual scandals, thanks to Strauss-Kahn, the playboy former head of the IMF.
Obama’s generous offer to assist Egypt in recovering its stolen funds from the previous regime, along with the optimism this statement has sparked among some—perhaps many—due to the strength of U.S. intelligence in tracking information, is nothing but mockery and an assumption of the recipient’s naivety. How can an agency deeply entangled in the political, economic, and strategic corruption of Mubarak’s regime incriminate itself, like a repentant criminal deciding to hang his own noose?
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.