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Press Release Beyond
Capitalism: A Southern Perspective The
Egyptian economist Samir Amin
will be awarded the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought 2009 (Berlin) This year's
Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought will be awarded to one of the most
important and most influential intellectuals of the Third World, the Egyptian
economist Prof. Dr. Samir Amin.
He stands for the conscious self-reliance of developing countries, in
particular of the Arab World, and calls for a new internationalism to not
just overcome the crisis of capitalism, but to emerge from a capitalism in
crisis. Samir Amin will
receive the award personally on December 3, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. The
financial collapse of September 2008, which triggered off what is known as
'the crisis', was expected by Samir Amin, albeit not in precise date, as a natural
development and part of the crisis of late capitalism beginning as early as
the 1970s. Amin thinks globalized capitalism from the side of those victimized
by it. He argues that the big contemporary crises, such as the energy crisis,
food crisis, ecological crisis and climate change, are all part and parcel of
the same fundamental problem, namely contemporary capitalist globalisation
based on exploitation of resources. “The present crisis is therefore neither
a financial crisis nor the summation of multiple systemic crises, but a
crisis of the imperialist capitalism of the oligopolies.” The only way out of
this dead end that Amin sees lies in a negotiated
globalisation without hegemonies and the renewal of a creative Marxism. The Ibn
Rushd Fund, named after the philosopher Ibn Rushd/Averroes (1126-1198)
supports freedom of speech and democracy in the Arab World by annually
awarding the Ibn Rushd Prize. The prize's focus shifts every year, and has so
far been put on the fields of Journalism, Women's Rights, Criticism,
Politics, Philosophy, Literature, Reform of Islam, Human Rights, Film and
Arab Enlightenment. In 2009, the eleventh prize will be awarded to "an
Arab expert of economy who has tackled in his/her work the problems of
economic development in the Arab World."
Samir Amin
grew up in Egypt and studied economics in Paris. After a PhD in Economics in
1957 he worked as head of the research department at the Organisation of
Economic Development in Cairo. In 1966 he qualified as a university lecturer
for Economics and taught at various universities in France and Senegal. He
was advisor to the Ministry of Planning in Bamako (Mali) and Director of the
UN African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) for a
period of ten years. Since 1980 he has been directing the African Office of
the Third World Forum, an international non-governmental association for
research and debate. He is currently the President of the World Forum for
Alternatives. Prof. Samir
Amin will receive the award personally on December
3, 2009 at 6 p. m. in Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung,
Franz-Mehring-Platz 1 in Berlin 10243 (U-Bahn 5, Station: Weberwiese or
S-Bahn Ostbahnhof, Bus
240 or 347). The
German social scientist and peace studies expert Prof. Dieter Senghaas from the Institute for Intercultural and
International Studies (InIIS) of Bremen University
will present the laudatory speech. A
reception with tea and baqlawa will conclude the
celebrations and leave room for personal discussion. Short biographies of members of
the jury Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought Christofstr.
5 76227
Karlsruhe Germany Tel.:
0049 (0) 721-1517745 Fax: 0049
(0) 721-9158750 |