Paris > Renowned Marxist philosopher and economist Samir Amin, passed away after serious complications following a brain tumor. The 86 year old scholar breathed his last on Sunday afternoon in Paris.
Amin was hospitalized from July 21 and went back home on Saturday, but his condition worsened and died the following day.
Born in Cairo, to Egyptian father and French Mother, Amin spent his childhood mostly in Egypt. Later he studied political sciences, statistics and economics in Paris. He had joined the French Communist Party after arriving in Paris.
He published almost 30 books about capitalism and Marxism, his most important works being Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment, A Critique of Eurocentrism and Culturalism: Modernity, Religion, and Democracy, and Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, among others. It was he who coined the term Eurocentrism.
His articles on 'Political Islamism' were notable, as he questioned it for substituting an anti-imperialist perspective with an anti-western stance. He pointed out that, such a stance only creates an acceptable impasse of cultures and therefore doesn't represent any obstacle to the developing imperialist control over the world system. His articles exposed Muslim Brotherhood for its lack of effective and non-reactionary method of struggle against exploitation of the working class.
He was appointed an advisor for the Planification Minister in Bamako, Mali, in 1960. He taught Economy in the University of Poitiers and Paris in France, as well as in Dakar, where he became the president of the Third World Forum.
