“Nationwide Protests Demand the Ultimate Economic Solution: Just Print More Money

Satirical Title

“Nationwide Protests Demand the Ultimate Economic Solution: Just Print More Money”

English Translation (International Version)

Breaking News: Reports indicate coordinated and organized movements among representatives of public-sector employees’ unions, pensioners, and private-sector workers in preparation for comprehensive sit-ins and strikes across Cairo and all governorates. These actions are expected to escalate gradually—if necessary—toward full-scale civil disobedience, coinciding with massive million-person demonstrations.

The protests aim to demand that the President and the newly formed government print massive quantities of banknotes in order to raise the minimum wage and pensions to levels that would meet the bare minimum of humane living standards, amid rampant inflation and insane increases in the prices of goods and services.

The protesters argue that such measures are urgently needed to confront what they described as the government’s rabid appetite for tearing the flesh of citizens and sucking their blood through fees, taxes, and the soaring costs of water, electricity, gas, internet services, and more.

The General Coordinator of the Movement of Employees, Pensioners, and Private-Sector Workers added that protesters are also demanding the immediate printing of additional banknotes to be deposited directly into their accounts as a special bonus, given the imminent arrival of the holy month of Ramadan and the associated surge in household spending on food and clothing.

He further noted the financial pressures of preparing for Eid al-Fitr, including traditional pastries, cash gifts for children, family visits, outings, and leisure activities—expenses the government deliberately ignores, having already looted pension funds, burdened employees with taxes and deductions, and then evaded any meaningful compensation or relief.

Analytical Commentary for the International Reader

This satirical text operates as an economic farce disguised as a breaking-news bulletin, exposing the collapse of rational economic discourse under prolonged crisis.

1. Printing Money as Popular Demand

The core joke—and indictment—is that citizens themselves demand what is universally known to be an economic disaster: uncontrolled money printing. The satire suggests that when inflation becomes unbearable, even monetary insanity starts to look like social justice.

The text does not mock the protesters as ignorant; instead, it indicts the system that has pushed people to the point where magical thinking replaces policy.

2. Mimicking Official Crisis Language

The structure imitates state media urgency: “Breaking News,” “coordinated movements,” “gradual escalation,” “civil disobedience.” This formal tone clashes violently with the absurdity of the proposed solution, revealing how bureaucratic language can normalize nonsense.

3. The State as Predator

The imagery of the government “tearing flesh” and “sucking blood” pushes rhetoric to grotesque realism. It reflects how fiscal policy is experienced at street level—not as numbers, but as physical extraction from daily life.

4. Religious Calendar vs. Economic Reality

By invoking Ramadan and Eid expenses, the satire highlights a uniquely potent contradiction: a state that speaks the language of morality, faith, and national unity while structurally preventing citizens from performing basic social and religious practices.

5. From Protest to Monetary Delusion

The final irony is devastating: demands are not for reform, accountability, or redistribution—but for more paper money, as if inflation itself has trained citizens to think in symbols rather than substance.

This reflects a broader authoritarian-economic pathology:

When policy fails long enough, fantasy becomes a survival strategy.

Why This Works Internationally

For non-Arab readers, the text resonates as a universal critique of late-stage economic governance:

Hyperinflation cultures

Populist fiscal illusions

Governments that manage poverty rhetorically rather than structurally

It belongs to the same satirical lineage as Swift’s A Modest Proposal, where the logic of power is followed faithfully—until it destroys itself.

لو تحب:

أربطه مباشرة بنماذج economic magical thinking في أمريكا اللاتينية أو إفريقيا

أو أدرجه ضمن فصل بعنوان:

“Inflation as Political Pedagogy: Teaching Citizens to Demand Their Own Ruin”

"Revolution for Eid Cookies: Egyptian Workers Demand Government Print More Money So They Can Afford Cake"

A Satirical Text by Al-Nadim Al-Raqmi (The Digital Nadim)

---

URGENT /

Reports of coordinated, organized movements emerging among representatives of civil servants' unions, pensioners, and private sector workers, preparing for comprehensive sit-ins and strikes in Cairo and all governorates, followed by gradual escalation if necessary to reach the stage of full civil disobedience, coinciding with massive million-man demonstrations demanding the President and the new government print massive quantities of currency notes in order to raise the minimum wage and pensions to a level sufficient for the barest minimum standards of humane living amid the state of extreme inflation and the insane hikes in the prices of goods and services, and sufficient to confront the state of governmental rabies as it devours the flesh of citizens and sucks their blood through fees, taxes, water bills, electricity bills, gas bills, internet bills... etc.

The General Coordinator of the Movement of Civil Servants, Pensioners, and Private Sector Workers stated that they are also demanding the printing of additional quantities of banknotes and their immediate deposit into their accounts as a special bonus in view of the approach of the holy month of Ramadan and what this religious season requires in terms of doubled expenditures on food and clothing, not to mention preparations for Eid al-Fitr and what it necessitates in terms of Eid cookies, cash gifts for children, visits to relatives and kin, outings and picnics... etc. — matters which the government ignores, turning a blind eye and deaf ear, after it looted pension funds and burdened employees with taxes and deductions, then evades compensating them or easing their circumstances.

---

Literary, Political, and Economic Analysis: The Satire of Collapse and the Humor of Hunger

I. Introduction: When Eid Cookies Become a Revolutionary Demand

This text, published by the pseudonymous Egyptian satirist "Al-Nadim Al-Raqmi" (The Digital Nadim), represents a dark turning point in contemporary Arabic political satire. It does not merely mock corruption or authoritarianism; it satirizes economic collapse itself and the impossibility of demanding rights when the very meaning of rights has disintegrated. The text presents a tragicomic scene: a populace demanding that the government print money so they can eat; a government that prints money, thereby worsening inflation; and everyone trapped in a vicious circle, aware of the absurdity but unable to stop the machine.

For the international reader, this text offers a window into how ordinary people in collapsing economies process their reality—not through analytical economics, but through gallows humor, bureaucratic parody, and the transformation of sacred religious rituals into unaffordable luxuries.

---

II. Literary Analysis: The Rhetoric of Hunger and the Comedy of Collapse

1. Parody of "Legitimate Demand" Discourse

The text brilliantly mimics the formal structure of union statements and protest communiqués: "coordinated movements," "comprehensive sit-ins and strikes," "gradual escalation," "full civil disobedience," "million-man demonstrations." This administrative-revolutionary vocabulary is deployed in service of primitive, pre-political economic demands: we want to eat, we want Eid cookies, we want cash gifts for children.

The devastating irony lies in the contradiction between the monumental form and the fragile content. This is a revolution for cookies. But the text does not mock the protesters; it mocks the historical moment when cookies have become a revolutionary demand because basic necessities themselves have become unattainable.

2. Absurdist Amplification and the Poetics of Grocery Lists

The text reaches its satirical peak in the ritualistic, almost liturgical enumeration of Ramadan and Eid expenses: "doubled expenditures on food and clothing," "Eid cookies, cash gifts for children," "visits to relatives and kin," "outings and picnics." This is not padding; it is a narrative tactic that transforms a protest statement into a shopping list from hell.

The result: a text that slides from political discourse into a burnt recipe book. Eid is no longer joy; it is a line item in a punctured family budget. Cookies are no longer dessert; they are a symbol of unattainable middle-class normality.

3. The Carnivorous State: Flesh-Eating Metaphors

The text resurrects a rich Arabic metaphorical tradition for describing oppression: "devouring the flesh of citizens," "sucking their blood." These metaphors personify the state as a predatory creature and transform economic policies into acts of cannibalism. The satire lies not in the metaphors themselves (they are traditional) but in their bureaucratic hybridization: "the state of governmental rabies as it devours the flesh of citizens through fees, taxes, water bills, electricity bills, gas bills, internet bills... etc."

The "... etc." is the final punch. The internet, symbol of the twenty-first century, has become just another line item in the catalog of plunder. Absurdity reaches its zenith when the right to connect with the world becomes a casual "etc." in a protest statement.

---

III. Political Economy Analysis: The Madness of Monetary Policy

1. Demanding Money Printing: Satire of Trapped Consciousness

At the heart of the text lies a monumental economic paradox: the protesters demand that the government print money, even though money printing is a primary cause of the inflation they are protesting. This is not mockery of the protesters' ignorance; it is mockery of the vicious circle in which Egyptian political economy is trapped:

· The government faces budget deficits → it prints money → inflation rises → the pound collapses → prices soar → citizens protest → the government increases spending to ease tensions → it prints more money.

The text exposes that everyone is now a prisoner of this circle. The government cannot break it, the citizen does not understand it, and the intellectual watches it with bitter satire. The demand to print money is not economic illiteracy; it is a desperate scream: do something, anything, even if it's wrong.

2. "Looting Pension Funds": The Silent Crime

The text references a specific scandal: the looting of pension funds. This refers to a real controversy in Egyptian public discourse, where state institutions were accused of using insurance and pension fund reserves to finance large, unprofitable mega-projects, threatening the solvency of the entire pension system.

The satire here is double-layered:

· Looting the money, then evading compensation for the victims.

· The victims themselves demanding more money printing as compensation—transforming public debt into inflation that devours everyone.

3. The Absent State: Present Through Its Absence

In this text, the state is present through its absence. There is no president, no ministers, no social dialogue. There is only "the government" as an abstract entity that "turns a blind eye and deaf ear." This is a personification of power's retreat in the face of collapse: the state abandons the citizen to starve, abandons him to protest, abandons him to demand money printing, then abandons him to drown in inflation.

The state's absence is the zenith of its repressive presence: it exists enough to collect taxes and raise prices, and is absent enough to bear responsibility.

---

IV. Social and Cultural Analysis: Ramadan and Eid Under Siege

1. Deconstructing the "Religious Occasion Economy"

The text offers a radical critique of the commodification of religious rituals. Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr are no longer spiritual occasions; they are financial burdens threatening family cohesion. Egyptians no longer fear only hunger; they fear inability to perform socially mandated joy rituals: cookies, cash gifts, visits, outings.

The satire here targets three parties simultaneously:

· The government: which ignored citizens' needs during a religious season requiring expenditure.

· Society: which transformed joy into an exhausting financial obligation.

· The citizen: who can no longer distinguish between necessity and luxury, between worship and consumption.

2. Eid Cookies as Symbol of Silent Collapse

In Egyptian culture, Eid cookies are not merely sweets; they are symbols of generosity, joy, and solidarity. When cookies disappear from Egyptian homes, the idealized image of Eid disappears with them. Demanding "Eid cookies" in a protest statement is an acknowledgment that the image has shattered, that Egyptians can no longer perform the simplest rituals of joy.

The text does not mock this demand; it sanctifies it through satire. It says: we have reached the point where we demand our right to cookies, because all other rights have been stripped from us.

3. Populist Language and Semantic Explosion

The phrase "easing their circumstances" (al-tawsi' 'alayhim) is a crucial cultural key. It is the language of the affectionate father, or the paternalistic president, who "eases circumstances" for his children when he is able. The text uses this phrase in a political-economic context to create satirical friction between authoritarian paternalism and the reality of impotence.

The president is not a father, the government is not a family, and "easing circumstances" is no longer possible because the treasury is empty. The text exposes the metaphors of power and reveals their emptiness.

---

V. The Text in Context: Al-Nadim Al-Raqmi's Project and the Descent into Daily Hell

1. From Shablanga to Al-Khankah to Cookies: A Trajectory into the Abyss

We can trace an ascending trajectory in Al-Nadim Al-Raqmi's choice of subjects:

Text Subject Level of Abstraction

Shablanga Organized corruption Political/Administrative

Mayor Abdel Shakour Global corruption networks Geopolitical

Hindy Abu Laban Discourse of veneration and submission Ideological

First Commenter Awards Writer-reader relationship Existential/Digital

The Cookies Text Economic and living collapse Daily/Corporeal

This trajectory is not random. The Digital Nadim is descending from heaven to earth, from critique of empire to critique of the price of bread. The satire grows more bitter as it approaches the body.

2. Transformation of the Satirical Persona: From Intellectual to Citizen

In his early texts, Al-Nadim's voice resembled that of the organic intellectual: analyzing, deconstructing, exposing. In this text, the analytical voice disappears, replaced by the voice of the hungry citizen who speaks the formal language of official statements because he possesses no other.

This transformation is a literary achievement: proof that satire is not the exclusive property of elites, and that the voice of ordinary people, when precisely crafted, can be sharper and more eloquent than any academic analysis.

---

VI. Conclusion: The Last Cookie

This text is a satirical elegy for a holiday that no longer exists. The cookies the protesters demand are not dessert; they are symbols of everything we have lost: dignity, security, the ability to predict the future, the right to celebrate life.

The satire here is not intellectual luxury, nor rhetorical style; it is the only psychological survival mechanism remaining. When you lack the money to buy cookies, when you lack the power to change reality, when you lack hope for a better tomorrow, all that remains is laughter.

Laughter at cookies that have become a revolutionary demand.

Laughter at Eid that has become a memory.

Laughter at a state that prints currency worth less than the ink used to print it.

---

Why This Text Matters for International Readers

1. It Translates Economic Crisis into Human Terms

International news reports cover Egypt's inflation, currency devaluation, and public debt in percentages and statistics. This text translates those numbers into cookies, children's gifts, and family visits—the intimate texture of ordinary life that economics cannot capture. It shows what "200% inflation" actually means: a father who cannot afford to buy his child a Eid gift.

2. It Documents the Evolution of Protest Discourse

The text captures a historical moment in Egyptian protest culture: the transition from demanding political rights (2011: "Bread, Freedom, Social Justice") to demanding the means of bare survival (2024: "Print money so we can afford cookies"). This is not regression; it is the logical consequence of counter-revolution and economic orthodoxy.

3. It Exemplifies a New Mode of Arabic Literary Production

Al-Nadim Al-Raqmi represents a generation of Arab writers who have abandoned traditional publishing institutions (which are either co-opted or bankrupt) and migrated to social media platforms. His work is born digital, lives digitally, and risks digital death through platform censorship. This is not a marginal phenomenon; it is the future of Arabic literature under authoritarian conditions.

4. It Proves Satire's Role as Cognitive Survival

In societies where direct political speech is criminalized, where journalism is monopolized by loyalists, and where academic discourse is confined to regime-approved parameters, satire becomes the last remaining laboratory for critical thought. This text does not just entertain; it thinks. It analyzes the monetary policy of the Central Bank through the metaphor of Eid cookies. It critiques IMF-imposed fiscal austerity through a shopping list. This is intellectual work disguised as humor.

---

For Publishers and Literary Translators

This text, along with others in Al-Nadim Al-Raqmi's oeuvre, represents a significant contribution to world satirical literature. It belongs on the shelf alongside:

· Jonathan Swift ("A Modest Proposal"): for the technique of pushing official logic to its absurd extreme.

· Franz Kafka ("The Trial"): for the depiction of bureaucratic systems that consume their own subjects.

· George Orwell ("Animal Farm"): for the compression of complex political history into simple, devastating allegory.

· Slavoj Žižek: for the ability to diagnose ideological fantasy through jokes.

Translation challenges:

· The bureaucratic parody must preserve the deadpan formality of the original.

· Culturally specific items (Eid cookies, cash gifts, family visits) should be explained in brief footnotes, not exoticized or elided.

· The "... etc." — that casual, devastating dismissal of internet access as just another plundered commodity — must retain its throwaway quality.

---

The Digital Nadim is not a comedian. He is a dissident disguised as a comedian. And his subject is not laughter, but survival.

This analysis was prepared for academic and publishing purposes. For rights inquiries, permissions, or manuscript submissions, please contact the author's representative through the established secure channels.