“Sharm el-Sheikh’s Economic Development Conference”

    Egypt’s Development Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh ended on 15 March, 2015, sparking a debate among the Egyptian opposition. But it looked like a debate between malice and gloating on the one hand, and “tolerance” and “promoting the national interest” on the other. The nature of the arguments leads one into thinking that the debate is actually about the very assembly of the conference or the attraction of foreign investment.
The regime focused excessively on the significance of the conference, claiming that it would lay the foundation for the next phase in Egypt. This drew some sections of the Egyptian opposition to hope that the conference would fail, fearing that its success might bolster tyranny. Others, meanwhile, presented a more “ethical” notion, opining that the “fruits of this conference will only be reaped by generations to come in the next couple of decades. By the time, both the ruling regime and the opposition might perish, hence they are not entitled to expropriate the future of the faultless generations.”