Influencing the Influencers

Can you talk about this idea of democratizing corporate influence? How and when did you come up with that concept, and what do you mean exactly?

Well, the concept, or anyway, the wording, democratization of corporate influence, actually occurred to me when I was in the Zenzana. That's the solitary confinement in prison. You know, in many ways, being in the Zenzana was actually an intensely creative and productive time for me intellectually. I wasn't allowed to have paper or pens or pencils or anything like that, but I discovered that you could take aluminum foil and use it to write on the walls. The meals that they used to give me came wrapped in foil, and you could tear off a piece of the foil and crumple it up into, like, a pencil shape, and you could use it to use the edges to write on the walls.

So I was writing all of this out when I was in the Zenzana. In the late nineteen nineties and the early two thousands, we had the whole anti globalization movement, you know, the anti WTO, World Trade Organization, the anti IMF protests, and all of that. And that's when my generation, started to recognize the power that corporations have over government. But the thrust of all of those movements was that this, was unelected, unaccountable power, and it was bad. And they wanted to, reverse the trend of private sector power and to restore, as it were, democracy.

But somehow, when this phrase popped into my head in the zenzana, in solitary, democratization of corporate influence, it was like an epiphany for me. Because private sector power, is not going to be reversed. It's here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. And by insisting that your goal must be to do away with private sector power, this seems to me that you're just consigning yourself to futility. And what's more, there's no real reason why private sector power has to remain unaccountable.

It is extremely vulnerable to public pressure and to activism, even more so than governments. I mean, the operating principles, of corporations dramatically simplify the whole issue if you think about it. And it occurs to me that, you're making a terrible mistake if you view the transfer of power to the private sector as disempowering to the public. Because, look, corporations are not ideological. Their agendas are completely transparent.

They're profit driven. They speak the language of dollars and cents, of profit and loss, of revenues and expenses. And there are innumerable ways, that the public, that the population, can communicate with corporations using that language if you think creatively. There are so many ways that you can impact a company's profits and their expenses directly or indirectly if you think creatively and think your way through and do a proper analysis. But there are comparatively few ways actually that you can influence a politician, particularly relative to the influence that corporations have.

You'll never you'll never be able to compete with them in influence. So this is essentially the idea, to influence those who have influence or to democratize their otherwise undemocratic influence, to make business, use its coercive power over political policy in ways that reflect the will and the interests of the public. And so I started to just apply political language and political understanding and political interpretations to the private sector. Instead of customers, people are the constituents of this or that company. Your purchases from this or that company are ultimately political donations.

You are funding, whatever industry whatever industry that company belongs to. You're funding that industry's corporate lobby, And they're gonna use that lobby to get policies that benefit them exclusively and not you, not their customer constituencies, unless you make them. So it seemed to me, and it still does, that political activism has to be transferred towards the private sector just as power itself has been transferred to the private sector. It doesn't make any sense, to keep, directing your efforts towards politicians and towards the government when real power lies elsewhere. You have to address power where it is.

So when I was released from prison, I began writing about Egypt and strategies for the anti coup opposition movements there. I focused exclusively on the private sector, multinational corporations, foreign investors, Egyptian firms that were collaborating with the neoliberal program and so on. Basically, the powers behind, SCC, the private sector powers behind the coup, the owners and controllers of global financialized capital who were conquering Egypt behind the scenes. But you have to understand, that what I was talking about was extremely new and unfamiliar to, the political opposition parties in Egypt, especially to the Islamic opposition groups. They had ISIS on the brain.

They had Daesh on the brain. They had Al Qaeda on the brain. So there were attacks, violent attacks against foreign companies like KFC, tactics that I never advocated and consistently warned against. But some of these groups, seem to have read my writing, maybe. And the only thing that they took from my writing, was that they should use the same old tactics, the same old violent armed tactics that they were used to, but against Western companies instead of against police or army checkpoints.

But the mere fact, that the private sector was being targeted and that there were, a number of actions taken, correct actions, nonviolent actions against Western business, against Western business interests. Just the fact that this was being done, was even being talked about in Egypt caused absolute panic. The powers behind the coup were apoplectic. The IMF was afraid that they might lose Egypt. So then when violent attacks occurred, the western media went berserk.

Reporters who had never cared a wit, when, the Sisi government massacred a thousand people at Rabah were suddenly aghast over a KFC being firebombed. And they turned the whole thing, into a violent extremist movement to overthrow the government, and I was the mastermind. I'm telling you, they were glad, that someone had committed a violent act so that then they could use that violent act to discredit the whole strategy because the the the strategy itself was purely nonviolent. It was disruption without bloodshed. It was profit loss, not loss of life.

And they did not want that strategy to proceed. And this confirmed to me, that this was absolutely the right strategy because it shook power. It shook power from Cairo to New York to London to Washington, and they attacked me mercilessly for it. And the more they attacked me, the more it confirmed to me that it was the right approach. Now despite what was said about me at the time, I never talked about overthrowing the Sisi government.

I didn't even talk about driving foreign corporations out of Egypt. As a Muslim, I don't believe that we're allowed, to overthrow a Muslim government even if they're tyrants, unless there's clear and open kufr on the part of the ruler. And so I never advocated overthrowing Sisi. I saw Sisi as a dictator who was himself taking dictation. Even if I believed that it was Islamically acceptable to overthrow him, which I didn't and I don't, but if I did believe that, I didn't even see that there was a point in doing that because sisi is just middle management.

I believed Islamically that the Egyptian people had every right to oppose foreign domination, and I believe that's what they were suffering and are suffering. And I believe that they had every right to confront corporate imperialism. But even with that, what I advocated was actually a strategy that would convince multinational corporations and foreign investors to use their power and influence in less exploitative and domineering ways. That's all we were asking for. We were trying to convince them, that it would be a better business decision to not impose society wide suffering and poverty on the Egyptian people.

The disruption that I advocated was a form of collective bargaining. If you wanna stay in Egypt and make money, okay, but be fair. Don't make your profits at the expense of the people of Egypt. Don't subjugate and enslave their nation. That's why the slogan was no justice, no profit.

If you uphold justice, then we have no problem with you making money. We have no problem with you profiting. And this again, seems to me perfectly consistent with Islam. Corporations should not be allowed to violate and interfere with the objectives of the sharia for society. The religion, the honor, the safety, the livelihoods, the well-being of the society must all be preserved and protected.

And this is the religious basis for what I'm talking about. You know, the West has made business a morality free zone, but there's no such thing in Islam. Just as an individual cannot be allowed to run amok in the society, disturb the peace, threaten the safety and security of the public, humiliate the people, or enslave free men and women, neither can a corporation, neither can foreign investors, neither can the IMF or the World Bank. And if those private sector powers have subjugated our governments, then when we oppose them, we are in fact defending the sovereignty of our governments and helping them to reclaim that sovereignty. That seems to me perfectly acceptable in Islam, perfectly acceptable in the Sharia, so long as it does not entail causing general mayhem and chaos in the broader society.

I think that this approach is also completely consistent with the Islamic concept of the which I've talked about before, because, we are literally focusing on the people and the institutions in the society that have the most influence and trying to recruit them, to use their influence for the good of that society. I saw this strategy work as well, when I was working on the we are all Rohingya now campaign, But it also got derailed for much the same reason as what happened in Egypt because, armed groups emerged. And frankly, the emergence of these, armed groups in, Rakhine province in Myanmar seemed to me at the time, quite dubious as to whether or not they were even organic. Now I know that Muslims, have been trained to have a knee jerk aversion to the word, democracy or to democratization. I'm not even gonna go into all of the misconceptions that our people have around those words.

But in this context, all we're talking about is accountability. We're talking about, the power of the private sector being constrained within moral limits in terms of their impact on society. We're talking about making the, general welfare more important than the private profiteering of corporations. We're talking about the society, being prioritized over shareholder dividends. We're talking about, individuals and institutions who wield private sector power acting like responsible members of the community rather than as predators or parasites or as conquerors.

So no one should balk at the term democratization of corporate influence nor should anyone, object to the concept. Once you grasp the idea of treating corporations and treating the private sector as the political entities that they are, then you can explore any number of strategies for how to motivate them, or persuade them to use their influence in positive ways. You just have to analyze the company itself, its ownership, its stakeholders, its customer base, its interests, its impact, and so on. And then you mold your strategy and tactics accordingly and according to your own resources. But again, I feel that we have a far better chance of influencing business than we have of influencing governments who are themselves subordinate to business.

You know, I've said before, if you want to make a positive change in your society, there's basically three ways to do that, which relate to the Either you seek to influence the people of influence, which is what I'm talking about, or you seek to change the character and the membership of the or you seek to become a member of the yourself. But in a way, if you are able to successfully influence the people of influence, then you have already become a member of that group of influential people. And that means that you have already, also successfully changed the character and the membership of that group. So it seems to me, all three of these approaches actually come down to just the one. Influence the influencers, and you can change your society for the better.