Abstract:
As the title indicates, Prof. Galal Amin started to write his book “Zwangsglobalisierung. Die USA, die Araber und die Muslime vor und nach den Ereignissen des September 2001” [“Globalization by Force. The USA, the Arabs and the Muslims before and after the Events of September 2001”] before September 11, and when the world was shaken by the attacks of New York and Washington, he quite naturally included them into the topic of globalization. As Egyptian economist, Prof. Amin offers a strongly critical perspective on globalization seen from Cairo, capital of Egypt and largest metropolis in the Arab world. Amin defends, based on Keynes, interventions by the state in the economy in the interest of planned developmental politics. He emphatically contradicts promises of development by free market liberalism. He sees the hegemonic position of the USA in the Middle East as forms of neo-colonial rule, which to implement is – from his viewpoint – the task of the State of Israel. In his eyes, Israel’s politics towards the Palestinians delegitimize the human rights discourse, which is dominated by the West anyway, by abasing it to a unilateral instrument of domination. In the end, conflicts of ideologies and civilizations are merely the expression of politics of economic interest. According to him, this is the very motivation behind the American Middle East policy and, therefore, this has to be used as the explanatory criterion.
By translating into German this voice from the banks of the river Nile, the German-speaking reader is provided with direct access to an indigenous reaction from the Arab world towards globalization. For sure, Amin’s perspective is only one among many Arab positions and there are many other voices from the southern shore of the Mediterranean which could be quoted – yet this has to be left to later translation projects. The topics he addresses and the attitude he exposes thereby do reflect important topics, as they have been in the public discourse in Egypt and other Arab countries during the last years. The original Cairene publisher Dar El Shorouk is one of the leading Egyptian publishing houses. “Zwangsglobalisierung” was written for an Egyptian public and, thus, was not commissioned by some western research institute as so many other “voices from the Arab world” have been. The Western tourist who, after visiting the Egyptian Museum with all its Pharaonic glories, manages to cross the traffic jam of the wide Midân al-Tahreer, the “Liberation Circus”, and follows one of the streets to the left of the American University, finally will reach the circle of Midân Tal’at Harb, which is surrounded by hotels, clothing stores, travel agencies and highly frequented bookshops with their display. If he searches through the latest arrivals in the bookshelves or asks some of the friendly booksellers, he will certainly be offered some of Prof. Amin’s books.