GLOBALIAMagazineQuarterly | Issue 04 | December 2008EUR 6, USD 9, GBP 4.50, AED 32, MYR 29, ZAR 60

A new focus on the worldCover story: Tilting the balance? Russia andits ties to the Muslim world.

Law: Following the lead. The Europeanscriticise Bush, but copy him.

Africa: A fair share in the wealth. On thefailure of democracy in South Africa.

Imag

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Moscow is also a city of Muslims, page 14.

EDITORIALBy Abu Bakr Rieger.

COVER STORYTilting the balance? Russia and itsties to the Muslim world.

Also a city of Muslims. The Russian capitalconnects East and West.

INTERVIEW“More and more difficult”. Zaim Saidi on thefinancial crisis and Indonesia.

BUSINESSGreen power for London. E.ON buildsthe world's biggest wind farm.

After Oil, your own private nuclear power plant?

FINANCETectonic shifts. The Muslims and the financial crisis.

Forgotten, but still relevant. Essay: Ezra Pound and thefinancial crisis.

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Image: Aziat Sabri (Moscow, November 2008)

The forgotten conflict. Freedom is dying out in Kashmir, page 38.

CONCEPT AND EDITORIAL

LAWFollowing the lead. The Europeans criticiseBush, but copy him.

ASIAThe siege of Bombay. Capitalism breaths through Terrorism.

The forgotten conflict. Freedom is dying out in Kashmir.

AFRICAA fair share in the wealth. On the failureof democracy in South Africa.

EUROPEThe beginnings of a change. Potential ofthe Muslims for industrial cities.

THOUGHTThe Oligarchic Tendency. From Politea toThe Time of the Bedouin.

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CHIEF EDITORAbu Bakr Rieger

PUBLISHERIZ Medien GmbHBeilsteinerstr. 12112681 BerlinGermany

ASSOCIATE EDITORSulaiman Wilms

DISTRIBUTIONIZ Medien GmbH

PRINTINGmsk marketingserviceköln

GLOBALIA Magazine reserves theright to shorten letters. Readers’letters, guest articles and quotationsdo not necessarily represent theopinions of the Editors, nor doarticles by named authors.

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GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

EDITORIAL

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EDITORIAL

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Dear Reader,

this is the fourth print edition of the Globaliamagazine.

In this edition we deal in particular with therelationship of the Islamic world to Russia. Evenbefore the onset of the finanial crisis a numberof observers had already recognized Russia asthe actual winner of the cold war. The conflictin Georgia clearly demonstrated that Russiadoes not consider its continental role as beingmerely a subservient of the transatlantic alliance.

Through its wealth in ressources - and alongsideTurkey, the other great connecting link on theEurasian continent – Russia will undoubtedlycontinue to play a prominent role after the crisisof the virtual currency system.

Prime Minister Putin has not only brokensystematically with the communist past of hiscountry but has also successfully curtailed thegrowing power of the Russian oligarchs whichemerged in the lawless period of upheaval.Russia’s strength – which Putin recognised andfostered – is certainly the sovereign control ofits ressources.

20 million Muslims now live in this multiethnicstate. Needless to say, Russia is aware that arelaxed and constructive relationship towardsthe Muslims of Eurasia can only increase itsown global political influence. The alternativewould be numerous, new and intractable terri-torial conflicts with yet further victims dyingpointless deaths.

The question today, of course, is whether theMuslims of Russia will find an authentic middleway; a way beyond any extremist ideology orbanale esotericism. Neither of these twoextremes, in the long term, will be able tointegrate or educate the Muslim masses ofRussia.

EDITORIALBY ABU BAKR RIEGER

It is time to resolve positively the tragic eventsin the Caucasus which still characterize Russia’srelationship with Islam. It should be rememberedonce more that the age of meaningful nationalconflicts and wars of liberation are a thing ofpast.

The Globalia project continues to grow.Alongside our strong internet presence and thefurther development of our print edition, weare also concentrating on the “Globalia ThinkTank”.

The aim of this feature – in addition to theformation and support of Muslim journalists –will be the ongoing development of the corethemes of our magazine: this will involveintensive analysis in the field of geopolitics,biopolitics, technology and culture.

Naturally, we want to continue to present thoseimportant minds and thinkers from all over theworld who think beyond the demarcations ofnational borders.

The jurist Carl Schmitt pointed out that all theconcepts of the state and politics prevalent inthe west today are in fact “secularisedtheological concepts”.

For an understanding of Islam and indeed alsoof the Muslims, it is of utmost importance towork out an independent and specific Islamicterminology. In order to interpret Islam cor-rectly, one must expose afresh European think-ing for what it actually is, and then analyse itsinfluence on the Muslims – not least becauseterrorism makes use of a modern ideologywhich is incompatible with Islamic thinking ofthe last centuries.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

COVER STORY

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COVER STORY

The world is witnessing an unprecedented

decline of American hegemony and the rise

of Russia in parallel as a formidable energy

superpower. Russia, after the breakup of the

Soviet Union, which Putin termed the greatest

geopolitical catastrophe in her history, lay

ostensibly crippled for almost a decade

towards the end of which period a group of

oligarchs began dictating both the domestic

and foreign affairs of the country.

Though Putin himself rose to power under

such dictates, he however, could see that any

sympathetic approach to such power would

only ruin the nation further. He not only saw

this; he also responded with calculated

precision. The Khodorkovsky affair, the

regulation of economic policies to curb

oligarchic power and, most importantly, the

nationalisation of a major part of the energy

industry, were the most significant steps that

he took to restore Russia’s capacity to act as

a major player on the international stage.

Today, after the events in Georgia, it has

become clear that Russia would no longer

tolerate a unilateral power in the world that

at any moment it deems fit, is not only ready

to denounce such dominance but is also ready

to respond boldly and appropriately. Russia

has been calling for a multi-polar world for

some years now with its new presence in

such an important a region to the USA as the

Middle East, actually reflects the steps Russia

is resolutely taking to transform this call into

action.

It is necessary, first of all, to bring to mind

that the Middle East as a whole consists of

the major OPEC countries with the largest oil

and gas reserves. While only strategic in

having influence over the Mediterranean, it

is a link to Europe,Africa and Asia and it has

a large percentage of the world’s Muslim

population.

When the world saw a shift from coal to oil

as the primary source of energy, Britain – and

later the US contrived and carefully prepared

the Middle East to be by far – the most

important land mass to serve this purpose.

The Sykes-Picot agreement, in the midst of the

“The balance of power is changing. The world is

changing. It is no longer a unipolar world. New

centres of power are emerging. Russia is one

pole. The Islamic world is another pole. If we join

these two poles then we would have a better

leverage on the world stage.” (Veniamin Popov,

director of the Russian Centre for Partnership of

Civilisations)

TILTING THE BALANCE?RUSSIA AND ITS TIES TO THE MUSLIM WORLD

Great War, most cleverly carved out the

countries of the Middle East to supply the

energy needs of the Anglo-American

hegemony. Thereafter, the Middle East has

been the most crucial energy supplier to them.

It continues to remain so today.

Even at present, the Iraq war and the

imminent Iran conflict are buttressing

evidence to this strategic importance of the

Middle East – chiefly as a region of energy

resource rather than anything else. For a newly

emerged energy-superpower such as Russia,

a strategic alignment – a subtly imposing,

pragmatic and influential presence – in the

Middle East is indispensable to counter any

unilateral political decision taken by a single

power in the world.This is not an entirely fresh

entré into the region. In fact, Russia has been

in the Middle East before.

The Soviet era saw the USSR allied to Algeria,

Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria. Generous

financial aids were given to these countries

for government spending, to build industrial

infrastructure, gas and oil pipelines, to

conduct nuclear research and build nuclear

power plants and for scientific research. The

former Sovietunion was a traditional arms

supplier to these Middle Eastern states. In

short, there was a budding economic,

diplomatic and military cooperation between

the two parties.

On the other hand, it is worthy of note that

the Soviet Union did not have any bilateral

relations with countries like Saudi Arabia,

Israel and Jordan, which were all part of the

Anglo-American alliance that was waging

war on Communism. Thus the bilateral

relations Soviet Russia had with a part of the

Arab world were, in large, propelled by

ideological impulse.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

COVER STORY

After 1991 however, with Yeltsin’s Presidency,

Russia ceased all Soviet relations with the

Middle East. For almost a decade, there was

no involvement in the region with the

exception of arms supplies and nuclear

relations with Iran, which Russia has

maintained to date despite all US-Israeli

opposition, thanks probably to the

Federation’s 10 billion US-Dollar investment

in Iran’s nuclear program besides any other

reasons. As for the, all ties ceased.

Thus, until Putin’s Presidency, an entr’acte

phase of withdrawal from the international

stage and concentration on internal affairs set

in on the history of Russia.The new Federation

of Russia, from the start of the new

millennium, washed its hands off all politics

and diplomacy based on any form of ideology.

This accounts for Russia’s good ties at present,

for example, with Israel as well as with Iran

and Syria.

The new focus, commencing from Putin’s term

of office, became energy (oil, gas and nuclear)

and the using of it as a political and econo-

mic tool to restore the nation’s independence

from international organisations (settling the

national debt for example), to bolster up the

economy, and to restore Russia’s international

superpower status. In fact, all of these, Putin

has now successfully executed.

In the course of this new phase in Russian

history, three dramatic events occurred,

indicating Russia’s return to the Middle East

after the Yeltsin entr’acte phase. They are as

follows:

• Putin’s April 2005 visits to Egypt, Israel and

the Palestinian territories

• Russia’s refusal to recognise Hamas and

Hizbullah as terrorist organizations and its

March 2006 invitation to the newly elected

Palestinian leadership, Hamas, to visit Moscow

• Putin’s February 2007 visit to Qatar, Saudi

Arabia and Jordan

Putin’s April 2005 tour is of great signifi-

cance, since it was the first time a

Russian/Soviet leader ever visited Israel as

well as being the first return to Egypt after

Khruschev’s last trip to the country in 1964.

The second event indicated beyond doubt

that Russia was defying all diplomatic bounds

laid down by the United States in the Middle

East and was not willing to adhere to US

unilateral decisions even in matters

pertaining to the War on Terror.

The invitation to Hamas had come only a year

after Putin’s visit to Israel and even though

it outraged them, the Israelis could not in

effect respond to that bold action since Hamas

had just won a democratic and completely

legal electoral process and therefore had to

be regarded as the official leadership of

Palestine.

It was a brilliant move of what can be termed

as a peace offensive that reflected Russia’s

intentions to pursue an independent course

in the Middle East.The third event marked an

important Soviet/Russian leader’s visit to the

region and hence the opening of a new

chapter in Russian-Arab relations.

In addition, Russia was one of the ‘quartet

nations’ – Russia, US, EU and UN – assem-

bled to effect the ‘road map’ for peace to

resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This

was in fact the beginning of Russia’s return

to her Soviet participation in the Middle East

peace process.The latest update on the matter

is that on the 9th of November, the quartet

mediators met at the Egyptian resort of Sharm

El-Sheikh and decided that the next quartet

meeting will be hosted in Moscow after the

new US administration comes to power to

discuss the realisation of an independent

Palestinian state. Palestinian leader, Mahmoud

Abbas, has visited Moscow four times to

prepare for peace negotiation meetings and

now it seems that such a meeting in Moscow

next spring is highly probable, and it will

better enable Russia to influence the peace

process of the region.

In order to put Russia’s pronounced presence

in the Middle East into perspective, the build

up of Russian-Arab relations in the past few

years to what it has become today, is

necessary to its aims.

Russia, Saudi Arabia and QatarIn September 2003, Crown Prince Abdullah

of Saudi Arabia visited the Russian capital

and signed a five-year oil and gas coopera-

tion agreement. Following that, Putin in his

high profile visit to the Kingdom in February

2007 was accompanied by heads of major

Russian state companies: Gazprom, Lukoil

and Russian Railways. It was clearly a business

delegation. Besides signing approximately

Today, after the Georgi-

an event, it has become

clear that Russia would

not tolerate a unilateral

power in the world

and at any moment it

deems fit, is not only

ready to denounce such

dominance but is also

ready to respond boldly

and appropriately.

8 9

COVER STORY

ten agreements on mutual investments and

economic cooperation, Putin also offered to

supply arms and nuclear reactors to the

Kingdom, encouraged and invited Saudi

businessmen to increase investments in Russia

and acknowledged the idea of establishing

a Russo-Saudi bank to facilitate this co-

operation.

Lukoil clinched a lucrative 40-year deal with

Saudi Arabia to develop the gas reserves in

the northern part of the Rub Al-Khali Desert.

The possibility of Russian Railways

constructing a railway line from Mecca to

Medinah was also discussed.

The following November, Prince Bandar visited

Moscow and signed the first Military

Cooperation agreement between the two

countries.A subsequent agreement on military

technical cooperation was signed on 14 July

2008 by another Saudi delegation to Moscow.

Indeed, what Putin had mentioned in his

address to Saudi business leaders in his

February 2007 visit to the Kingdom is worthy

of note: “We know all too well how fast the

world economy is developing and how much

energy it needs now and will need in the

future … and that means that (Russia and

Saudi Arabia) are not competitors but allies,

not competitors but partners in the develop-

ment of the world’s energy markets.”

In Putin’s visit to Qatar – which, bearing in

mind has the third largest gas reserves in the

world and the largest Liquefied Natural Gas

(LNG) production and export facilities, and

which is one of the EU’s focus countries in

diversifying from dependence on Russian gas

– agreements were signed to form a Russian-

Qatar Gas council. Another memorandum

calling for mutual understanding and the

possibility for cooperation between Lukoil

and Qatar Petroleum was also signed. The

meeting also included discussions to establish

a gas cartel by Russia, Iran and Qatar.

Concerning Jordan, Putin’s visit was the first

time Russia had made agreements to

construct gas and oil pipelines, to protect

investments and to sell arms. King Abdullah

II, by attending the MVSV 2008 arms display

in Moscow, has shown interest in Russian

weapons. He has also sent humanitarian aid

to South Ossetia – food and medical equip-

ment – clearly to strengthen ties with Russia.

Jordan too, like Saudi Arabia, having been an

American-Israeli ally all this while, has now

shown itself willing to diversify from that

dependence.

Anouncing the cooperation agreement between the Russian Lukoil and Qatar Petroleum.

Image: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

COVER STORY

Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and Jordan

spell an energy alliance with ominous

implications for US primacy in the Middle

East.And while Saudi, Qatar and Jordan seek

to diversify from dependence on the US, Russia

and Iran have demonstrated continued

defiance and opposition to US interests.

Cementing Soviet-alliance withSyria, Egypt and LibyaSyria is to Israel what Georgia is to Russia.

The Georgian event that exposed Israel’s

hypocritical involvement in Russian affairs

has forced Russia’s return to her Soviet

alliance with Syria. A few days before the

MVSV 2008 arms display in Moscow, Syrian

President, Bashar Al-Assad, flew into the city

(this was immediately after the Georgian

event) and met with Medvedev and Putin. A

Syrian delegation attended the arms

exhibition. Israel is clearly irked by the new

alliance and it seems obvious that Russia’s

move was deliberately intended to respond

to Israel’s involvement in the training of the

Georgian military. Russia appears to be saying

that if Israel meddles in Ossetia, then there

is no reason why Russia should not meddle

in the Israeli-Syrian Golan Heights border

conflict and reap some profits thereby

through arms sales to the former Soviet ally.

Being caught in a conflict with Israel, Syria

has no other door to knock besides Russia’s

for arms support. China is another possibil-

ity but it is doubtful whether the purely

business-oriented China is ready to risk being

caught in a political conflict with the US and

Israel.

A number of economic agreements had

already been signed between Syria and

Russia during an earlier visit to Moscow by

President Bashar Assadin January 2005.

March 2005 saw the Russian company Tatneft

sign an agreement with Syria to explore and

develop new oil and gas deposits in the coun-

try. In December the same year, Stroytransgaz

signed contracts to construct a 200 million

US-Dollar gas processing plant in Syria and

160 million US-Dollars worth of gas pipelines.

Furthermore, a 2.7 billion US-Dollar prelim-

inary deal was settled to begin construction

in a future of oil-refining and petrochemical

complex in Syria. Assad, after the US

confirmed the installation of anti-ballistic

missiles in Poland, has now offered Medvedev

rights to deploy Russian missiles in Syrian

territory. If Moscow does that, the presence

of Russian arms in the Arab countries would

be increased – another threat to US primacy

in the region.

While Russia has possibly used Syria to check

and warn Israel in response to the Georgian

event, it has concentrated effectively in the

process of establishing more vital and

lucrative connections through energy

cooperation with the country. However, in

case Israel steps into Georgia again, Russia

could quite predictably take up its Iskander

missile sales to Syria, halted for the moment

in order to preserve its equally beneficial trade

relations with Israel.

The lesson drawn from this, is that Russia is

punctiliously avoiding being ideologically

motivated either way, maintaining friendly

ties with both Israel and Syria. It should be

stated in passing, that there is an enormous

Russian Jewish population in Israel which

brings a very significant financial inflow of

wealth into Russia.

During his November 2004 visit to Egypt, the

then Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Fradkov,

signed several economic agreements with

the former Soviet ally. Consequently, Putin’s

April 2005 visit to Egypt effected a number

of improvements in Russo-Egyptian relations.

Included was a business forum that took place

in which a civilian nuclear cooperation

between the two countries took place with

a declaration on bilateral relations signed

describing the two countries as “strategic

partners”. Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak,

visited Moscow in November 2006 and met

with Putin to discuss the construction of a

Russian industrial zone in Egypt. In April, the

following year, Russian industry and energy

minister,Viktor Khristenko went to Egypt and

signed a memorandum on establishing this

zone. Facilities were proposed to produce

equipments for power stations and the oil

industry. As far as arms sales are concerned,

Egypt has frankly conceded preference for

US weapons.

Russia has also shown considerable interest

in re-establishing ties with former Soviet allies,

Algeria and Libya, as well. The first Gazprom

office in Libya has already begun functioning.

After his last visit to Russia in 1985, Qaddafi,

on the 1st of November, accompanied by a

large delegation flew to Moscow and met

with Medvedev and Putin for the purpose of

increasing investment and business cooper-

ation in various spheres. He said, “The door

to enhancing cooperation in civilian spheres

is open to Russia.” He mentioned to Putin that

cooperation between Russia and Libya would

have a positive effect on the international

political situation and the geopolitical balance

of power.

This was a clear reference to the already

declining American hegemony, the rise of

Russia’s economic superpower status that is

based primarily on energy, and Libya’s

willingness to cooperate with Russia to

catalyse this. Qaddafi, like Bashar Al-Asad,

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GLOBALIAGLOBALIA || Issue 04 Issue 04 || December 2008December 2008

COVER STORY

has further discussed with the leaders of

Russia the possibility of a Russian naval base

in Libya to check American military invol-

vement there. President Qaddafi has also

accepted an invitation from the Chechen

President to visit the North Caucasus in 2010.

He is also making arrangements to buy

military equipment from Russia and the

former Soviet countries again.

It is evident now that Russia has successfully

re-established former Soviet ties with Syria,

Egypt and Libya.

Russian-Arab Business CouncilThe RABC is another trade organisation that

has to be taken into account in order to

understand Russian-Arab relations. Establi-

shed in the year 2002 as a joint venture for

business cooperation between the Russian

Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the

General Union of Chambers of Commerce,

Industry and Agriculture of 22 countries on

the Arab side, the RABC is a foundation to

facilitate and strengthen commercial ties

between the two sides.

Since most of the Arab

world is Muslim, advan-

cing Russian-Arab rela-

tions has great signifi-

cance to Russia for the

very reason that for it-

self has approximately

20 million Muslims.

between Russian and Arab businesses, and

stimulating innovative activity.”

It is also critical for Russia to align itself

strategically in the Middle East in order to

have influence over the Mediterranean, a

major trade route between the Middle East

and Southern Europe. In the region, Greece

and Cyprus are already considered Russia’s

Trojan Horses in the EU. Italy, France and

Spain have for the most part proved

themselves to be Russia’s strategic partners,

demonstrating willingness to cooperate, parti-

cularly in the production and transport of

energy. With this background, Russia’s

alignment with Egypt, Turkey (another vital

state that Russia has reinforced its ties

with), Syria, Israel, Algeria and Libya

demonstrates clearly that Russia’s influence

in the Mediterranean is bound to grow.This

implies greater opportunities for Russia to

enter with Qatar into LNG supply contracts

to Europe, with LNG demand growing and

Russia having for some time now, shown

signs of an intention to enter the trade. The

opportunity appears ripe now.

Though not an entirely political organisation,

the RABC has created opportunities for

Russian and Arab corporations to trade with

the two governments, thereby paving ways

for increased mutual investments.

The Council has so far set up three new off-

shoot committees: Russian-Syrian, Russian-

Egyptian and Russian-Lebanese, in order to

concentrate individually on these bilateral

ties. The Chairman of the RABC, Vladimir

Yevtushenkov stated,“The Council’s main job

is to create joint committees entrusted with

specific projects between Russia and Arab

member countries, establishing direct contacts

Russia’s new diplomacy: Prime minister Medvedev with the Syrian President Asad.

12 13

COVER STORY

Finally, since most of the Arab world is

Muslim, advancing Russian-Arab relations

has greater significance since Russia itself has

approximately 20 million Muslims. Putin’s

alliance with the Arab-Muslim countries and

his public denunciation and criticism of US

hegemony, has won the favour of a large

portion of Muslims in his country and around

the world.

Russia is now an observer in the OIC and

considers cooperation with the Muslim world

crucial. The following extract from a June

2006 speech by presidential adviser Aslambek

Aslakhanov sums up Russia’s position in the

Middle East:“The Middle East and the Islamic

world are important for us as partners in

trade and economic cooperation, a market for

military hardware, and in perspective, as a

partner in the energy sphere, and in high

industrial technologies. Russia wants to con-

solidate its role as a go-between in settling

political disputes between different countries

and civilizations … Russia and the US may

have different positions on international and

regional issues, and different attitudes to

Muslim nations. Russia and the US are cer-

tainly rivals in the Middle East and the rest

of the Muslim world. The question is what it

is based on and how far it may go. It is only

fair that Russia does not want to play the role

of a US junior partner in Middle East affairs

and in questions pertaining to the destinies

of the Muslim world. But Russia can and must

be a partner of the US and the West when its

national interests are not prejudiced.”

Russia, it can be seen now, has not only -

meticulously avoided its former ideological -

approach, but has subsequently returned to

its Soviet allies to form new partnerships.

Secondly, alignments with the Arab world so

far have been based, for the most part, on

energy cooperation. Thirdly, Russia’s military

presence with troop deployment and arms

supply to Arab countries has similarly

increased.

Resurgent Russia, as it has come to be

known, has entered the Middle East Peace

Process – Muslim support for Russia, in

contrast that for the US is gradually rising.

Since Russia is now popular for having used

energy as a political tool on numerous

occasions in Europe, its current presence in

the Middle East might possibly deliver a

similar potential for such power in this region

as well.

This much is clear as Russia’s national inte-

rests – mainly economic – have not been

unduly prejudiced with her leaders willing to

cooperate with the US, especially now that a

non-aggressive, potentially cooperative and

dialogue-compliant new administration under

Obama is coming to power in the US in the

new year. Otherwise, Russia remains the only

power capable of checking US primacy in the

world. In this regard, there are possibilities

that a New Cold War might well emerge,

since Kremlin sources are already indicating

that Medvedev might resign with Putin

becoming president again.

Text Hasbullah bin Hidayatullah

The russian energy wealth is one of the cornerstone of Moscows’ strategy.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

COVER STORY

Muslims in Russia: a contradictory thought to

many. State interference, religious oppression

under the Soviet Union, the ignominious

conflict of the northern Caucasus – yet all

these have produced a picture which only

partly reflects, if at all, the true state of affairs.

A look at the diverse Muslim community in

the Russian capital is an experience which

puts things into perspective.

The onion towers of the Kremlin, one of

Moscow’s trademarks and a significant tourist

magnet, are clue enough that the city’s history

is different from that of any comparable

western European capital. The unique archi-

tecture of the domes reminds us the centuries-

long relationship between the Russian

authorities and their Muslim subjects.

Despite all the obvious tensions, Islam and

Muslims are not considered as an immigrant

or foreign presence as they are in western

European cities, rather they constitute one of

the Russian population’s traditional ingre-

dients. Anyone who doubts this should see

some of the successful segments of Moscow’s

Muslim community. There are Muslim

restaurants on a par with those of Istanbul.

Personal encounters with Muslim Muscovites,

be they ethnic Russians or Tatars, reveal the

kind of self-confidence and intelligence which

is rare among western European migrants.

Moscow, which in the late Middle Ages came

under the sovereignty of the Golden Horde,

is now the European city with the largest

Muslim population after Istanbul. As many

as three million Muslims live in Moscow and

St. Petersburg combined. The Office of the

Grand Mufti estimated in 2006 that up to two

million Muslims live in Moscow. On Fridays

and holidays, the few large mosques are so

full that some of the congregation have to

pray outside on the street.

However, even though Islam is one of Russia’s

autochthonous religions, the relationship

between Muslims and official politics is often

an ambivalent one. While politicians on a

national level are open to Muslims and strive

to build up stable links with the Muslim

world, attitudes towards Muslims can also

be marred by racist attacks and nationalist

rhetoric in the public arena.

In the future, communities in Moscow will play

a much more active role within Islam in Europe.

Unlike many of the communities in Western

Europe, Russian Muslims do not suffer from an

identity split due to a past history of migration.

Islam is considered – even though there have been

tense moments – part of Russia’s identity.

ALSO A CITY OF MUSLIMSTHE RUSSIAN CAPITAL CONNECTS EAST AND WEST

At the same time, Muslims in the Russian

capital enjoy freedoms that their brethren in

other parts of the continent do not have. As

the capital of the Eurasian Russian ‘empire’,

Moscow is also the locus of the nation’s

Muslim activities. Among the key Muslim

figures are Ravil Gainutdin (Director of the

‘Spiritual Administration’ of Russia), Abdul-

vahid Niyazov (Director of the Islamic Cultural

Centre, which is allied to Gainutdin’s

organisation), Marat Saifutdinov, and Harun

Sidorov, who heads a national association of

Russian Muslims.

In conversation with Globalia Magazine,Amir

Hamdani, a Muslim of Russian extraction,

spoke about the situation of the Muslims in

the capital. A practising lawyer in his twen-

ties, Hamdani claims that the religious life of

Moscow’s Muslims is determined by the

“bureaucratic structures” of the official

Muslim religious institutions. Known as the

Spiritual Administration, these function as

official points of liaison with the government.

“Some groups have organised themselves in

political opposition to these bodies, and

propagate, what you might call, a ‘political

Islam’, but without constituting any kind of

real, living community.” In contrast to the

ethnically defined institutions set up by majo-

rity Tatar or Caucasian groups, the National

Organisation of Russian Muslims (NORM) is

fast developing a Muslim community itself

and to which Hamdani himself belongs.

As has been said, Muslims are not an alien

element in Moscow’s historical make-up. In

the 16th century, a period of Czarist expansion

to the East, Muslims began to settle in the

capital in the quarter which became known

as ‘Tatarskaya Sloboda’. Under the commu-

nist Soviet Union the Muslims, like adher-

ents to other religions, were oppressed and

14 15

COVER STORY

prevented from practising their way of life.

But after Perestroika many more born-

Muslims began to settle in the capital, and,

according to Amir Hamdani, “thousands of

Russians also began to enter Islam.”

In theory, Muslims enjoy full rights and

opportunities in Moscow. But in fact they see

themselves confronted with difficulties in

their daily live, for two reasons. The un-

resolved conflict in the Caucasus, in which

“separatists and terrorists have appropriated

the name of Islam for themselves,” had a

negative effect on public opinion, says

Hamdani. Then there is also the problem of

illegal immigration. Both of these things

have produced something of a negative

public atmosphere.

Amir Hamdani is nevertheless highly

optimistic.“Despite these setbacks, if you are

a recognised Russian citizen then you have

every opportunity to live in Moscow and

practise your religion.” There are, he points

out, many successful or rich Muslim business-

people in Moscow, and there is also a growing

interest in Islamic knowledge among the

Muslim youth.

As in other European cities, mosques are one

of the visible elements of Islam in Moscow.

There are currently five official mosques,

which are managed by the “Spiritual Admi-

nistration” of Russia’s Muslims. Apart from

those, many Muslims meet to pray together

in Jamat Khanas and private apartments.

When it comes to building mosques there are

also parallels with the rest of Europe; with

construction projects meeting with approval

in some political quarters and resistance in

others. In 2004 Moscow’s mayor, Yuri

Luzhkov, supported the erection of a new

mosque in the capital, whereas at the end

of 2007, there was a heated debate about

the construction of new mosques between

the Muslim community and the governor of

the Moscow region, Boris Granov.

Political issues aside, the Muslims of the city

are involved in a wide range of other activities,

and among the most dynamic are the Muslim

women.According to Aysha Ivanova, a young

Muslim academic, Muslim women do

occasionally have to deal with discrimination

in the workplace; nevertheless, she claims,

they make an important contribution to

Islamic life in Moscow. “Many of them are

very active. They have founded a number of

associations, and run organisations for women

and children.”

2007 saw another example of how Moscow’s

Muslims have organised themselves civil

projects; the opening of a Muslim clinic.

Grand Mufti Shaykh Ravil Gainutdin,

described the opening of the clinic as a

“historic event”. Situated in the south-east

of Moscow, the establishment is part of a

private healthcare centre and currently em-

ploys 50 doctors and nurses. According to

Gainutdin, the institution satisfies “the right

of every Russian citizen to receive treatment

in accordance with their own traditions.” If

the model is successful, then it is intended

to set up other similar institutions in other

parts of Russia.

While in western Europe the image of Islam

is sadly still based in many people’s eyes on

the conflicts and contradictions of the era of

migration, in Moscow, a dynamic Muslim

community has emerged. Forward-thinking

European Muslims believe that in the future,

with the capabilities and connections that

the community possesses, it could play a

stabilising and constructive role for Muslims

in Europe generally.

Text By Sulaiman Wilms

Image: AP Photo/ Sergei Ponomarev

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

INTERVIEW

Indonesia has already been hit hard by the Asia

crisis in 1997. Its impacts – especially in the field

of economic and monetary stability – are still

being felt by most of the population. There are

no estimates yet as to what the current crisis will

bring for the impoverished population.

“MORE AND MORE DIFFICULT”ZAIM SAIDI ON THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND INDONESIA

Indonesia was hit hard by the financial

crisis in 1997, so much so, that its people

are still feeling its effects over ten years

later. Nowadays, the biggest Muslim

country in the world is not just faced

with the impact of the recent crisis, but

is also entangled in the economic power

struggle between Western interests and

a growing Chinese influence. Indonesia’s

economy, as in other so-called ‘Third

World’, countries, suffers from the

in short, the cost of living generally is

increasing. As far as most Indonesians are

concerned, regardless of the economic crisis

in the US, the situation in Indonesia has been

worsening for the last ten years. The main

thing is that the cost of living is still very

high. In other words, despite the govern-

ment’s claim that the poverty rate is in decline,

in fact, life for people is becoming more and

more difficult.There must be something more

fundamental that we have to look at in order

for people to see what the real cost of the

crisis is so that we can have a better

perspective on, and better cures for the

disease of the economy.

Globalia: So the effects of the 1997 crisis

impacted Indonesia more than the

current financial crisis so far?

Zaim Saidi: Yes, because it directly impacted

on the local financial industry. Even so, what

is happening right now will probably have a

more noticeable impact in the near future,

given, as we can see, there may well be a

domino effect with the financial crisis

affecting other parts of the world, because,

as we know, that the current financial system

is an integrated world network. So what is

happening in the US or in European countries,

will affect Indonesia, for instance.

Globalia: How does Indonesia see itself

economically between the US, on the one

side, and China, on the other?

Zaim Saidi: China is having an ever-increasing

influence on the economy. We can see this

from people’s daily experience, as people buy

more and more Chinese products. You can

see it in food, machinery, clothes, toys;

anything.The thing is that Chinese products,

on the one hand, are cheap compared to

problems of foreign sweatshops, strip-

mining and de-forestation.

In order to find out more about the

situation in the Archipelago, we spoke

with Zaim Saidi, a professional journalist

and counselor living in the capital,

Jakarta. He is also an expert on the socio-

economical activities of non-governmen-

tal organisations (NGOs) and educates

personnel on matters relating to public

relations and fund-raising. In addition,

Zaid Saimi is the director of a project

promoting the introduction of a bi-metal-

lic currency system, the gold Dinar and

the silver Dirham. For this purpose he

heads up and operates a wakala in the

Indonesian capital.

Globalia: Concerning the economic

situation in Indonesia, how has it been

affected by the current crisis?

Zaim Saidi: The impact appears not much

better than, when compared to the similar

crisis of 1997, the effects of which Indonesians

are still feeling. That impact can still be seen

in the food prices, energy prices and clothing,

16 17

INTERVIEW

other products, even though on the other,

quality-wise, they are not always very good.

Because people’s purchasing power is

weakening and the cost of living is rising

higher and higher, Chinese products are

becoming more popular. On another level,

the influence of China is also strong, for

instance, in the energy sector because

Indonesia now exports quite a lot of liquid

gas to China.

Globalia: Do you expect Indonesia to be

taken over by China economically?

Zaim Saidi: The one thing that has become

clear with the entrance of China into the

Indonesian economy, is that the economic

capacity of the country is shrinking; the

production capacity and, I guess, also the

know-how. In other words, what is happening

right now is that Indonesia is becoming a

consumer zone. The capacity of the country

in terms of producing and manufacturing

goods has been reduced with knowledge

slowly being lost due to the influx of Chinese

products. So I would expect that if nothing is

really changed, and that the government and

the people of Indonesia fail to respond in a

proper way, we will see China as the dominant

force in the country.

In fact, despite mainland China in the

Indonesian context, we must understand that

in Indonesia we see the dominant economic

actors as the so-called overseas Chinese,

Indonesian-born Chinese. They have a very

strong link, of course, with their families or

their kin on the mainland. So, the business

network, I am sure, although I have no hard

facts to hand, is very strong. A lot of Indo

nesian-born Chinese have investments in

China, because the other problem in Indonesia

right now is that most foreign investors see

Indonesia as unstable, which is why there

has been quite a big flight of capital from In

donesia to China, mainly through these

Indonesian-born Chinese. If you look at the

figures, they are only 3 per cent of the

Indonesian population but they control 95

per cent of the Indonesian economy – so you

can see how strong they are. All the manu-

facturing, industry, distribution, market places;

basically, the outlets of almost all products

are under the control of the Indonesian-

Chinese.

Globalia: How would you compare Indo-

nesia and Malaysia in economic terms?

Zaim Saidi: Malaysia seems to be in a better

position. If you look at the 1997 event, the

Malaysian government took a stronger stance

by rejecting the intervention of the IMF and

the World Bank. We can see that the impact

of the crisis was not as bad for Malaysia as

it has been for Indonesia. Secondly, we can

see the flow of Indonesian labourers going

to Malaysia as another indication; thousands

of Indonesian workers are trying to make a

living in neighbouring countries.

Globalia: How do you see the existence

of so-called sweatshops in Indonesia,

manufacturing goods for international

companies, such as Nike?

Zaim Saidi: That’s another matter. Since the

eighties, many multi-national companies have

been operating in Indonesia thanks to friendly

government policy towards large corpora-

tions.There are a lot of electronics companies,

clothing companies, food producers and now

even computer companies. They’ve also

created these so-called ‘free-zone’ areas.

However, in the last few years, quite a few of

these companies have closed down.

This has happened because they have seen

that there are better places; they are moving

to Vietnam or China, even Thailand. They are

footloose investments, so they can go anytime,

anywhere they like; anywhere they can make

a bigger profit. In general though, the

presence of these multi-national companies

does not necessarily make the country’s

economy or the people’s situation better.They

are looking for cheap raw materials, cheap

labour and high number of consumers. We

have 220 million people living in Indonesia,

so for them, Indonesia is very important

because they can get what they want: raw

materials, cheap labour and a market.

Globalia:You are working on a project to

reintroduce a bi-metallic currency,

specifically the gold Dinar and the silver

Dirham. Could you tell us a bit about

your project and the intentions behind it?

Zaim Saidi: Before answering that question,

let me add one more factor, which is the

financial sector itself.After the crisis in 1997,

the dependency of the Indonesian finance

sector on foreign investors increased.

Ironically, in the name of monetary

independence, the strength of this foreign

financial industry in the country has

strengthened. One of the indications is that

in 1999, a law was passed giving indepen-

dence to the Central Bank, making the

Governor of the Central Bank quite separate

from the cabinet of the Republic of Indonesia,

so he is, therefore, not actually answerable

to the Indonesian President.

Today, if you look at the ownership of the

finance industry, foreign bankers own almost

fifty per cent of it.This therefore is one of the

causes for the economic difficulties in the

finance industry.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

INTERVIEW

One of the basic indicators of poverty, in the

real sense, is people’s purchasing power.

However, if you look at the mainstream

indicators of poverty, as defined by the World

Bank for instance, you will find misleading

figures.They will be stated in terms of income

per capital, or in terms of income per day, for

instance, $2 USD a day is the lowest level of

poverty. But, in reality, it doesn’t mean

anything, because what really makes people

poor or better off is their ability to buy things,

in other words, their purchasing power. Now,

if you look at the purchasing power – let’s

use gold as our standard – in 1947,

immediately after the independence of the

Republic of Indonesia, when the central bank

produced the so called paper ‘Rupiah’, the

price of gold was 2 Rupiah per gram.

Now let’s jump to the early 60’s; from 1945

to 1965 was the period known as the Old

Order under President Surkarno, but in 1967

there was a dramatic change when

Surkarno’s regime was ended because it was

considered too leftist; too close to the

communist and socialist ideologies. So

Suharto came in as the second president who

was in fact fully supported by the

international banking system; the IMF,World

Bank and many other international banks, so

bringing him lots of investment.

From that period on, the Republic of Indonesia

embraced a capitalist economic system. I

want to use the gold price as an indicator, so

in 1965, the gold price had already jumped

by about 100 fold to 200 Rupiah per gram,

during the time of the so named New Order.

Because of the influence of international

banking, you can see from time to time, that

at various moments, the government was

forced to devalue the Rupiah. If I remember

correctly, five times during a thirty-year period,

the New Order government was forced to

devalue the currency. As I said, in 1965, the

gold price was 200 Rupiah per gram, so it was

already 100 times the price it was when the

Central Bank was first established in 1947.

Now let’s jump to 1997, thirty years after the

The sweatshops are a by-product of the economic sell-out of Indonesia.

New Order government took power, in other

words, after thirty years of capitalism and

oppression in the country, the gold price at

the time had reached 20 thousand Rupiah per

gram. So, from 2 Rupiah, to 200 Rupiah and

thirty years later, to 20 thousand Rupiah,

about 100 times higher again. Then, imme-

diately after the crisis, the gold price jumped

to an astonishing 100 thousand Rupiah.Today,

2008, the gold price is about 280 thousand

Rupiah per gram! In just over sixty years,

from 1967 to 2008, from the beginning of the

Republic of Indonesia until today, the

purchasing power of Indonesians has been

reduced about 140 thousand fold. Money is

nothing but numbers. It is for this reason that

we should use gold as the standard, because

gold is, and has been money. It’s very clear

that the only currency that can bear so-called

inflation, is either gold or silver. So, what I am

saying is that had the people in government

still kept, let’s say, a gram of gold in their

pocket, now they would have no problem. A

gram of gold in 1947 is worth a gram of gold

in 2007.

Globalia: So, what do you feel is a viable

solution to the current crises?

The bi-metallic currency is the best solution

to the current and recurring monetary crises.

There is no other way than to embrace the

bi-metallic system than in the shape of the

Gold Dinar and the Silver Dirham.The question

is how do we start? The task of Muslims,

wherever they are, is to do it on a practical

level, just to implement it. As our experience

in Indonesia has shown, the first thing to do

is to return to the collection of the Zakat,

because it is clearly defined that the Zakat

on monetary wealth can only be paid in either

the Gold Dinar or Silver Dirham.That’s the first

thing.

18 19

INTERVIEW

Globalia: What are you actually doing in

Indonesia by way of implementing the

Dinar and how does your wakala

operate?

Zaim Saidi: That is the next stage. After the

Dinar has been minted, then the immediate

thing to be done is distribution. How to

distribute the coin and at the same time

educate the public about its use. For the

distribution, we have developed this wakala

network. So basically, the wakala will have

several functions; when fully operational, its

first function will be the distribution of the

coin itself, meaning people can exchange the

coins.

The second function will be its transfer-

ence, when people want to send currency

to other places, for example, to their

children, their families, their friends, etc.

The wakala network will function as a

courier of the coins.

The third function of our wakala will be to

act as a keep-safe, because people nowadays

are anxious as to where to keep the gold

because of security issues. So what the wakala

can do is to provide a gold keeping service.

So what we’ll do is keep the gold in a safe

place for a small charge, like a safe deposit

box.

The fourth function, in order to make the gold

coins an effective currency, is the provision

of a payment system so that people can

actually perform transactions with the gold

and silver coins; the payment system will be

equipped with electronic mediums like a

mobile phone or an internet-based function.

However, since an internet-based system is

not very secure perhaps the mobile phone

system would be safer.

In Indonesia, we are already at the stage

where we have the first three functions but

we are yet to develop the last one, which is

the most important part of all because, once

we have a payment system then I am sure

more and more people will join and exchange

their paper money for gold.

Globalia: Do you see interest in the Dinar

increasing due to the collapse of the

financial system?

Zaim Saidi: Of course, yes. If you look at the

development of the Dinar and the wakala

in Indonesia, we started our first wakala in

the year 2002, and then by 2003 or 2004,

we already had three sub-wakalas. At the

beginning we were very small. Our first

wakala was started with 25 gold Dinars,

and slowly, we we have seen the use of the

Dinar increase rapidly, especially in the last

year, after the sub-prime mortgage crisis in

the US. If you look at the absolute number,

it’s still very small, but in terms of growth and

the spread in the use of gold, it’s very

convincing. In the last 10 months, since the

mortgage crisis in the US in November 2007,

we’ve seen more and more people ex-

changing their paper money for gold. We

established a master wakala in February 2008

and until now, we’ve founded 17 effective

wakalas.

If you look at the growth in the minting of

the coin itself, it’s also very encouraging. From

the master wakala, we are reaching a figure

of about 1500 coins a month. In terms of

numbers it may seem very small, but if you

look at the people who are getting gold Dinars

and the growth and the spread, we can see

that in one, two, three more steps, we might

see a fully functioning gold Dinar economy.

Globalia: Thank you very much!

Interview Yasin Alder

The permanently devaluated Rupiah is in need of a functioning alternative.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

BUSINESS

According to the German power group E.ON,

Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Group has now provided

details of its involvement in the construction

of the London Array, to be the world’s biggest

offshore wind farm. E.ON and the Danish

energy conglomerate Dong Energy had

previously held equal shares in the

undertaking, but now E.ON has transferred

20 per cent of the mega-project to the

Arabian enterprise.

E.ON’s Chief Executive,Wulf Bernotat, spoke

about the collaboration with the Arab

company: “The London Array is a significant

project aimed at tapping into the enormous

potential of offshore wind power. We very

E.ON and Masdar have joined forces to partner

in the London Array, an offshore wind farm project

which, when built, will be the world's largest

offshore scheme. The wind farm will be installed

on a 90 square mile (145 square kilometre) site

and will be built in two stages.

GREEN POWER FOR LONDONE.ON BUILDS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST WIND FARM

much welcome the fact that the British

government has expressed its support for

this important undertaking. And we are

pleased to have found a strong partner in

Masdar who can work with us in

implementing this challenging undertaking,

as well as other projects in the field of

renewable energy. The London Array is part

of our strategy of massively expanding E.ON’s

renewable energy portfolio, towards which

we will be investing around six billion euros

between now and 2010.”

Sultan Al Jaber, who heads the state-financed

Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company,

considers E.ON an innovative partner for the

future, especially since the Germans have

numerous other projects on the table that

represent potential investment opportunities

for his group.To begin with, however, they will

work together to build the London Array wind

farm in the Thames estuary to the east of the

city.Around 271 wind turbines, with a planned

capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts, will

eventually supply approximately 750,000

households with electricity. The total cost of

this giant find farm will run to around 2.6

billion euros, with the first building phase of

up to 175 turbines due for completion in

2012. For the United Kingdom, the project is

an enormous step forward in terms of

renewable energy.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed a

personal interest in the contract, commenting

after a meeting with the heads of E.ON and

Masdar: “This is an excellent example of the

partnership we need between oil producing

and oil consuming countries to develop new

energy sources and technologies, diversifying

their economies and reducing our dependence

on carbon.The scope and vision of the London

Array is ground-breaking, and it catapults the

United Kingdom to the forefront of offshore

wind development.”

Ed Milliband, Britain’s Secretary of State for

Energy and Climate Change, stated: “The

London Array project, at 1000 megawatts,

will be the largest offshore wind farm in the

world.” Offshore wind power has the

potential to create as many as 70,000 new

“green jobs” for the country, and the wind

farm could provide enough power for a

quarter of London’s homes and will contribute

significantly towards achieving Britain’s

renewable energy targets.As soon as the go-

ahead is given, building will begin around 20

kilometres off the coast of Kent and Essex.

Masdar is an initiative of the United Arab

Emirates for the development and promotion

of renewable energies. Its best-known project

is the construction of a completely eco-

friendly model city supplied fully by

renewable energy, 30 kilometres east of the

capital Abu Dhabi. Masdar is working with a

string of power companies and suppliers in

the field of innovative renewable energies, and

is constantly on the look-out for investment

opportunities.

The Masdar Group is already well known in

Germany, having begun on 20 August 2008

with the building of a new factory in

Thüringen.A high-tech production facility for

the manufacture of thin-layer solar modules,

it is situated at Erfurter Kreuz, south of the

regional capital, and is scheduled for

completion in autumn 2009. The Gulf Arabs

are investing 150 million euros in the project,

promising to create 180 jobs by 2010 and 600

jobs in the medium term. (Source: www.arab-

text.ch/Globalia Magazine)

BUSINESS

Text By Peter Ziegler

After Oil, your own privatenuclear power plant?

Over the past few decades, it has becomeapparent to all that the current situationwith regards to energy is untenable; wesimply cannot carry on in this way.According BBC Meteorologist, Helen Willets,our climate is changing at an unprecedentedrate. As things stand, we in the West areoverly dependent on foreign oil reserves.

Oil production is in decline while,consumption from emerging markets(namely, China and India) is acceleratingand shows no signs of slowing down;experts predict that between 20 and 40billion barrels could still be recovered inthe next 40 years. After that, who knows?

Even though most agree that nuclear poweroffers clean, emission-free, affordableenergy, some environmentalists have foundcause for concern, just as they have withalmost every other conceivable alternative;as nuclear power is the cause of environ-mental contamination, so they say windturbines are harmful to birdlife, solar po-wer is too expensive, and the list goes on.

All that aside, until now, has still seen theproblem of the impracticality of nuclearpower: it is primarily available from large,expensive power stations that take decadesto build. Because of their impracticablenature, it is often difficult to build them inareas where they will be of most benefit,either due to a lack of available land, thepopulation where they are needed beingtoo small to warrant the expense of amassive power station, or some otherreason. All that could be about to changewith the invention of Hyperion.

Developed at the Los Alamos NationalLaboratory, like a conventional power

20 21

station, it is said to provide clean, emission-free nuclear energy, at a fraction of the costof fossil fuels.The main benefit of Hyperionis its size, which at approximately 1.5 metersacross is literally small enough to betransported by road or by sea. Unlike itsmuch larger cousin, the Hyperion modulesare completely unobtrusive, especially, sincethey are buried beneath the ground.

The technology behind Hyperion supposedlyensures that it is also extremely safe. Themodules include no moving parts and aredelivered sealed, so there is no need forthem to ever be comprised. Even if onewere to be opened, the material insidewould not be suitable for proliferationpurposes. There is also no risk of a ‘meltdown’, as the small amount of fuel insidecools down instantly. And as if that wasn’tenough, the amount of waste created issaid to be minimal (about the size of a foot-ball over a five year period). With a singleHyperion module, it is potentially possibleto power 25,000 average-sized homes, orthe industrial equivalent, for half a decade.

Some still remain sceptical about theviability of the project. According to LosAlamos Study Group Executive DirectorGreg Mello, “This whole idea is loony andnot worthy of too much attention. Of course,factoring in enough cronyism, corruption,official ignorance and boosterism, it'spossible the principals could make somemoney during the initial stages, before thecrows come home to roost.”

So, could Hyperion hold the key to theworld’s energy problems? Let’s just say thatnot everyone thinks so.

Text By Adil Morrison

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

FINANCE

In order to find new ways of thinking, with regards

to questions on the economy and the monetary

system, everything needs to be revised. The effects

of the financial crisis are deafening and give an

eerie glimpse of the future. We already know of

the mass poverty that contributes to the enormous

number of fatalities, either as a direct result of

mal-nutrition and disease, or one of global pover-

ty’s by-products violent crime, drug addiction,

riots and civil war.

TECTONIC SHIFTSTHE MUSLIMS AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

“When crisis strikes, it is the poor and

disempowered whose lives are most

thrown off balance and are the slowest

to recover, sometimes never to be regain

the position they were in before,” Sakiko

Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs

at the New School in New York

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on

September 14 proved to be the first sign of

the still unfolding global financial crisis. Since

then, worldwide, 9 trillion dollars has been

spent to prevent a complete depression

reminiscent of 1929’s Great Depression. The

world's media is talking about a so-called

“financial crisis”. In the USA, there was an

even more misleading term established, the

“credit crunch”. Unlike previous historic

Immediate impact of the financial crisis: A lot of people in the USA are doomed to lose their homes through foreclosure.

22 23

FINANCE

events, we are not without information; on

the contrary, we are being bombarded with

more or less meaningless facts.

While the mainstream global discourse is

focused on the description of recent events

– beginning in the USA and then spreading

in real-time to rest of the world – as merely

a crisis, there is a dire need for a different -

perspective, which enables us, Muslims and

Non-Muslims, to understand its meanings.

That the global crisis might be a historic

drumbeat or even a turn of an era; is surely

no surprise. Mountains of unpayable debt,

inflation and speculation; the irrationality of

unbridled capitalism was clear for anybody

who wanted to see it.The so-called “Western

enlightenment” left the economic sphere a

long time ago.

In order to find new ways of thinking, with

regards to questions on the economy and

the monetary system, everything needs to be

revised; from the geopolitical impact of the

crisis, and the subsequent tectonic shift of

influence to different zones like Eurasia or

China; to the dire need for the Muslims in the

world to start thinking anew on issues of

currency, which go beyond an attempt to

contain capitalism within the so-called

“Islamic Banking”. There is, at this very

moment, an imperative for new questions –

and of course new answers.

The effects of the financial crisis are dea-

fening and give an eerie glimpse of the future.

We already know of the mass poverty that

contributes to the enormous number of

fatalities, either as a direct result of mal-

nutrition and disease, or one of global-

poverty‘s by-products: violent crime, drug

addiction, riots and civil war.

“This was a crisis of

capitalism and even the

greatest advocates of

the free market are for-

ced to face reality that

when capitalism fails it

has to be bailed out by

the state. It is capitalist

when it goes up and

socialist when it comes

down.” Dr Terry Lacy

The large movements of wealth within the

East are laying foundations. Trade and

manufacturing from China, the booming

service industries of India, Russia spinning the

web of oil and gas pipelines into Western

Europe and the Turkish return to dominate

Middle Eastern politics.

At present, Western styled economics is

merging with the traditions of the East. This

can be seen with Chinese imperialist

tendencies marking its economic policies, as

opposed to its political assertions. Their

emergence as a powerful force in trade, and

being the biggest creditor for most of the

developing and third world as well as the

USA, is causing a shift that once prevailed in

the West.

With money comes power:Turkey and Russia,

prior to the collapse in Wall Street, decided

to pay off their debt by 2008. What was also

of interest, was that these two countries,

along with a few others including Brazil and

Argentina, rejected new dollar-based loans.

Russia seemed on the verge of a meltdown

when foreign investment dried up; a condition

caused by the Russo-Georgian war, then later

compounded with the crisis that erupted on

Wall Street. The Kremlin responded by

pressuring oligarchs to inject up to 30 per cent

of their wealth into the financial markets and

banks, and to buy up collapsing financial

institutions. This move may have helped to a

certain degree, but the Kremlin still faced

major difficulties. Without much hesitation

Russia dipped into its own reserves, and

forked out a figure in the region of 400 billion

dollars. Over 200 billion was spent buying up

all of their foreign debt, and a further 180

billion on company debts.

The drop in commodity prices has further

impacted the economy. Its acquisition of a 7

per cent stake in the Caspian Pipeline con-

sortium from Oman raised its share to 31 per

cent. Such moves made by Russian firms are

tied-in with the prospect of controlling Central

Asian oil flows to the money markets of

Europe. The profitability of Russian interests

rest with such consolidations of pipeline

geopolitics. As Putin once stated, “whoever

controls the production, distribution and the

price of oil controls power.”

Both Turkey and Russia appear to have

reverted to old foreign policies, with regards

to their stance on Europe, that have left them,

for a long time, insecure and at the mercy of

dominant powers. Both countries have turned

towards old foreign policies to once again

regain their lost identities.

Turkey has given itself a new lifeline by

reaching out to old domains, such as actively

taking part in trade with North Africa and

the Middle East and is now using its influence

to broker peace deals in some conflict areas.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

FINANCE

Using this crisis as a prelude for a new

Russian financial architecture, President

Medvedev proposed that the (dollar)

monopoly be replaced. For sometime now,

Russia has been assessing this concept, it

seems to have become an official doctrine

of Russian policy. In his annual address to

the federal assembly, the President

announced the first step necessary in the

process to convert trade of oil and gas

exports to Rouble.

This seems to challenge long standing notions,

in play for the last century, yet Russia may not

be the first to call for a change in the regional

currency for procuring important resources.

There is a sense of change setting in the

domains of world polity.

Russian Centre for Partnership of Civilisations

director Veniamin Popove, spoke clearly at the

Russian-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group

held in Jeddah: “The balance of power is

changing. The world is changing. It is no

longer a unipolar world. New centres of

power are emerging. Russia is one pole. The

Islamic world, led by the Kingdom of Saudi

Arabia, is another pole. If we join these two

poles then we would have a better leverage

on the world stage.”

As of late, links between the Muslim World

and Russia are growing at a considerable

rate.Already an observer at the Organisation

of Islamic Conference, Moscow has stepped

up its role within the Muslim World thereby

gaining much of its sympathy.The 1997 Asian

crisis has lead to many developments with-

in the financial structures of the Muslim world.

Malaysia seems to have got away with little

harm ever since its move away from the risk

markets to the more subdued “Islamic

finance”.

A proposed alternativeIt is due to the crisis, that “Islamic Banking”

and its proponents have become increasingly

confident.This segment of the financial indus-

try, albeit developing for quite a while, has

seen an increase in interest during the past

years and months, since international banks

began incorporating this aspect of the finan-

cial services market into their own portfolios.

“We are not dependent from bonds and

stocks,” assured Adnan Ahmed Yousef,

Chairman of the Union of Arab Banks. Steven

Amos, from the Islamic Bank of Britain,

described the trade with non-existing wealth

as forbidden for the “Islamic Banks”.

Furthermore, is it impossible for his bank to

loan money to other banks.

The global Muslim finance industry is esti-

mated to be growing at about 20 per cent per

year and has funds under management of

between 1 trillion and 2 trillion US-Dollars.

Hatem El Nakrashaoui, Dean of Theology at

the University of Doha, thinks that Islam offers

“an alternative to capitalism” for the “radical

reformation” of the global financial system

to come. His Saudi-Arabian colleague, Sulai-

man El Audah, suggested an international

summit at which a framework for such an

“Islamic alternative” could be formulated.

Entangled within the financial webAlthough the “Islamic Banks” seem to have

surpassed the first wave of this crisis, they

cannot escape the flaws of the banking

systems. In the Gulf States, for example, their

boom has been directly linked to the

construction boom.“The fate of Islamic banks

in the region is closely tied to the property

markets as they are required to underpin

transactions with physical assets due to the

ban on interest”, reports Frederik Richter.

Ankara, however, sees EU membership and

trade as the most important long-term anchor

for the economy. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan

said,“that if Turkey were firmly planted in EU

membership, process investor confidence

would be built.” But membership of the EU

can be considered only an option for Turkey,

and not a must. Old doors to the Middle East

and Central Asia have been re-opened. Due

to the importance of pipeline geopolitics and

foreign trade, this area, for Turkey, has

become more significant.

The other important aspect is, that Turkey

witnessed its trading with neighbours as a

shield to financial fluctuation caused by the

crisis. State Minister Kursad Tuzmen proposed

a free trade zone between Muslim countries

and urged that, “We should realise this

quickly”.Tuzmen went on to say that although

there has been a 10 per cent decline in the

share of Turkish exports to the EU, it has

managed to increase its overall exports by 35

per cent. This was due to its doubling of

exports to countries from the Organisation for

Islamic Conference (OIC).

24 25

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GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

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“Islamic banks may initially have been viewed

as [being] less impacted because they are

unable to invest in the instruments that

caused the current instability some 18 months

ago”, said Danie Marx, Head of Treasury and

Capital Markets at European Islamic

Investment Bank.“However, as the instability

drags on, and the second-phase impact of

the crisis spills over into the region, either as

restricted liquidity or adverse movement in

asset prices, for example in real estate, it

could start to hurt them.”

Another downfall for the proponents of the

“Islamic Banks” is the recent state of the

Sukuks market. Mushtak Parker has an

estimate of this financial product. “Perhaps

the biggest impact of the credit crunch has

been on the market. Sukuk are Islamic

securities, whose issuance has dramatically

proliferated over the last decade. […] Sukuk

structures and arrangers such as Malaysia’s

CIMB group and banks such as HSBC,

Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Citigroup,

all confirm that the Sukuk market has virtually

'dried up’ as a result of the credit crunch.”

So far, the financial industry, discussed above,

is not independent but inter-linked with the

existing monetary system.“The reality is that

so far Islamic finance has been very integra-

ted into global capitalist structures, with little

emphasis on extending the more radical and

unique profit and loss sharing concepts to

poorer Muslims in poorer countries,” said the

development economist Dr Terry Lacy.

Counter-argumentsSo far, even taking the obvious existing

problems of “Islamic banking” into account,

there seems to be a consensus within the

Islamic world that this is the most promising

answer to the crisis of capitalism, but there

are very strong arguments that suggest that

“Islamic Banking” is too much of an intrin-

sic part of general banking to be able to live

up to its promise. One of the strongest, but

by far not the only critic of “Islamic Banking”

is the Islamic scholar and economist Umar

Ibrahim Vadillo, who has been working for

more than 20 years on the subject of Islam

and currency.

He reasons:“Islamic Banks are still Banks. By

their financial practices”, says Vadillo,“these

institutions are linked to fractional reserve

banking.” And fractional reserve banking is

“the essence of fiat money”. This money is,

according to Vadillo’s argument, and that of

many other serious critics of the prevalent

monetary system, the root cause of the

problem at hand.

Vadillo concludes, “in Islam you cannot use

debts as money. In the case of paper money,

which is not backed by specie (it is no longer

a debt, although it used to be), the banker

is trading with receipts whose value is due

to the legal compulsion of the State. The

present paper money is in fact a tax. There

is no way of allowing this in Islam. Not only

do the Islamic Bankers trade with paper

money, they contribute to the creation of

more paper money through the creation of

deposits. It must be noticed that a bank

deposit functions just like money.”

Islamic Banks are clearly not exempt from

the overall system of creating “money out of

nothing”, which is the core of fractional

reserve banking. It is responsible for most of

the money in circulation. Vadillo’s final

Bibliography

Umar Ibrahim Vadillo,“Fatwa on Banking”,October 2006.

Loretta Napoleoni, “Rogue Economics”,Seven Stories Press, April 2008.

Frederik Richter, “Gulf Arab Islamic bankseye slowing real estate”, InternationalHerald Tribune, 17 October 2008.

Mushtak Parker, “Islamic finance and theglobal financial crisis”,The Muslim News,25 October 2008.

Terry Lacey, “The Muslim World and theGlobal Crisis”,The Tripoli Post, 2 November2008.

26 27

FINANCE

argument is crushing: “Islamic Banking is

part of banking. It is Haram and its practice

is the most deceitful machination against

Islam that we have ever had in our history.”

Going back to the basicsThere is a growing discontent with the exis-

ting monetary system in the Muslim World

compounding a serious need for change.

Muslim scholars like Vadillo, but also politi-

cians, especially Dr Mahathir Mohammed,

are therefore demanding the establishment

of an Islamic real-money currency and the

return to correct Muslim business contracts.

“In 2001, Malaysia attempted to reintroduce

the Gold Dinar as a reserve currency to be held

in the central banks of Muslim countries.

Prime Minister Mahathir hoped that by 2003,

at least a dozen of the 57 countries in the

Organisation of Islamic Conference would

join the system. For several reasons, the

attempt never came to fruition and which

included Washington’s opposition to the plan,

to the extent that the White House convinced

the IMF to prohibit any member state from

pegging its currency to gold.”

“With Islamic finance growing at the speed

of light, and the dollar losing its shine, the

Gold Dinar standard may soon become a real

possibility. “Once established, it will work as

a potent magnet,” wrote the Italian Journalist

Loretta Napoleoni. “With an Islamic gold

dinar‚” she quotes Jude Wanniski, President

Ronald Reagan’s economic advisor, “the

Islamic world would have the best money in

the world. The US would be forced again to

introduce fixed exchange rates with the Euro

and the Yuan/Yen bloc would join as well.The

best money becomes a magnet for inter-

national finance, because exporters and

importers of every country in the world can

save many hundreds of billions of Dollars a

year they now spend hedging against currency

losses in the global trade.”

“The Islamic model”, writes Umar Ibrahim

Vadillo,“uses physical commodities as money.

The Gold Dinar and the Silver Dirham are

known as the Shari’ah currency.“ The Dinar

and the Dirham are, according to Vadillo,

fundamental in preserving a stable currency.

“It does not suffer inflation because it cannot

be substituted by credit money, since credit

money has no validity in Islamic Law.”

This is of wider importance when it concerns

the zone of investment. “Sharia-compliant

investments”, says e-dinars’ CEO Dr Habib

Dahinden,“must be based on real rather than

fiat money. Most commodities, with the

exception of bullion and oil do not own one

essential attribute of real money: they are

not universal. Since oil is rather difficult to

store for an average person and the only

precious metals available in sufficient

quantities to serve as money are gold and

silver, the choice is self-evident.”

Text By Mohammed Dockrat & S. Wilms

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

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With Usura1

With usura hath no man a house of good

stone (...)

with usura, sin against nature,

is thy bread ever more of stale rags

is thy bread dry as paper,

with no mountain wheat,

no strong flour (...)“

(Ezra Pound, Canto XLV)

“If a man isn’t willing to take some risk

for his opinions, either his opinions are

no good or he’s no good.” (Ezra Pound

1945 upon his arrest by American soldiers)

There can be no doubt that the economy,

especially the financial order, is in global crisis;

agreement about this fact is also global. But

there is a sharp disjunction – and this too

seems globally prevalent – between the

thinking and reporting related to acute

economic and financial issues, and the fields

of art and culture.

Looking at the arts section of any Western

newspaper and you could conclude that the

arts were really of tertiary importance. With

a very few exceptions, there are few signs

within of either crisis or critical reflection.

You might well ask whether the topic of

money, the financial order, currencies and

financial justice is, or ever has been, a subject

for literature at all. Before answering pre-

maturely, we should remember that there are

indeed relevant literary sources relating to

this theme, but that they have long been

marginalised.

In Western Europe especially, any critique

of currency has been, for historically under-

standable but now long-outdated reasons,

neutralised by the disgrace of historical anti-

Semitism. Yet, the recent earth-shaking

events demand a re-thinking of the means

of exchange that we intend to use for our

transactions. When it comes to searching for

genuine, sustainable alternatives, then our

thinking cannot become ideologically

blinkered.

Among the forgotten figures who fielded a

critique of currencies was the greatest

American poet of the 20th century, Ezra

In the world of literature and arts there is

normally little if no interest given to monetary

and financial questions. One of the few, notable

exceptions was the greatest American poet of

the 20th century, Ezra Pound. His serious critique

of the financial system should also be taken into

account by todays’ Muslims.

FORGOTTEN, BUT STILL RELEVANTESSAY: EZRA POUND AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Pound. Encyclopaedic entries about him tend

to be ambivalent:“Pound is among the most

influential American authors of the 20th

century. He lived from 1922 to 1945 in

Rapallo, sympathised with Italian fascism,

and was consigned to a psychiatric hospital

in Washington until 1958 on account of his

anti-American propaganda broadcasts. Pound

wrote prolific prose and poetry [...]. His

principal work, the epic cycle of poems

entitled The Cantos (from 1915), contrasts a

devalued, commercial, capitalist world with

a humanist utopia.”

When Italy was conquered by Allied forces

in 1945, the American poet gave himself up

to Italian partisans who handed him over to

regular US soldiers. They interned him under

inhumane conditions for a long time in a

cage designed for people condemned to

death. There he wrote the Pisan Cantos, for

which he received, much to the consternation

of the US Government, the Bollingen Prize

in 1949. In 1946 Ezra Pound was indicted for

high treason and only escaped execution

because an expert deemed him mentally ill.

As a result he spent 12 years in a state mental

institution in Washington D.C.

Ezra Pound, for whose release authors such

as Hemingway campaigned, made no secret

of his now historically disproven views.

Pound professed to live life “in its totality of

highs and lows”. His monetary views were

derived neither from fascist ideologies nor

from the anti-Semitism of the 20th century, but

rather found their origins in the early 1920s,

or earlier; indeed, 400 years earlier when

even the great Michelangelo had complained

of the destructive influence of usury on the

realisation of his art.

Pound wrote of his Italian era: “I am not

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Biographical notes on Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (born 30 October

1885 in Hailey, Idaho; died November 1972

in Venice) was an American poet of the

modernist movement.

His magnum opus was The Cantos. He also

founded the short-lived but influential

Vorticism, and together with Wyndham Lewis

produced the radical journal Blast.

Pound studied comparative literature and

Romance languages and literature at the

University of Pennsylvania and at Hamilton

College in the state of New York between

1900 and 1905.

In 1908 Pound set sail for Europe and arrived

in Venice, where he published his first

collection of poems, A Lume Spento. From

1909 to 1920 he lived with intermissions in

London, where he associated with the most

influential English-language writers of the

time, including James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford

and Wyndham Lewis.

During World War I Pound worked as a private

secretary in Ireland to William Butler Yeats,

whom he admired greatly. In 1914 he married

the artist Dorothy Shakespeare.

He lived in Paris from 1920 to 1924, during

which time he became acquainted with the

American violinist Olga Rudge, with whom

he and his wife were to live up until his

death.

In 1922, he edited T. S. Eliot’s poem The

Waste Land, which was, alongside Pound’s

own Cantos, the most important lyrical work

of modernism in the English language.

Pound turned his back on Paris in 1924 and

established himself in Rapallo, Italy, where

he soon became a supporter of Mussolini.

Pound remained in Italy when the Second

World War broke out, and began anti-

American broadcasts on Radio Rome,

motivated by his aversion for American and

international capitalism, which he con-

sidered responsible for the outbreak of the

War.

In 1945, in the wake of Italy’s invasion by

American troops, Pound was arrested (some

reports stated that he handed himself over),

and was held inhumanely in Pisa in a cage

specially constructed for those condemned

to death.

It was during this time that he wrote the

most famous section of his Cantos, the Pisan

Cantos, for which he was awarded the

Bollingen Prize in 1949. He was indicted for

high treason on 26 July 1946 in the USA,

together with Frederick W. Kaltenbach, Robert

Best, Jane Anderson, Douglas Chandler,

Edward Leo Delaney, Constance Drexel, and

Max Otto Koischwitz. Pound only escaped

judgment and a possible death penalty

because an expert psychiatrist declared him

mentally ill. He spent the next twelve years

in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a state mental

institution in Washington, D.C.

He was released in 1958 following concert-

ed intervention by his supporters. He then

returned to Italy, living first in Brunnenburg

above Merano (South Tyrol), then later in

Venice.

In 1967, Pier Paolo Pasolini became closely

involved in a documentary produced by RAI

and entitled Un'ora con Ezra Pound, in which

the director and author expressed his admi-

ration for Pound and read his poetry in Italian

translation.

writing Italian propaganda. I am writing for

humanity, which is being eaten away by

usury.” In his Addendum for C, he refutes an

anti-Semitic critique of money. “The evil is

usury [...] beyond race and against race [...],”

he wrote in 1941, thereby overriding the

erroneous idea that doing business with and

by means of usury is something connected

with a group of people who can be ethnically

or culturally defined.

Pound’s rejection of the modern financial

system was furthermore a result of his invol-

vement with the classical legacies of China

and the Occident, both of which knew only

too well the dangers of unfettered repro-

duction of capital, – “usura” – in the poet’s

words – and rightly sought to forbid it.2

The American poet also mentioned Muslim

history in his writings on money and mone-

tary justice:3

Malik & Edward struck coins-with-a-sword,

“Emir el Moumenin”

six and 1/2 to one, or the sword

of the Prophet,

Silver being in the hands of the people

According to his biographer Eva Hesse, his

interest in the issue of just currencies began

during his childhood, as the son of a gov-

ernment coinage assayer. “In that context it

is easy to conceive of how much money meant

to him, or that is to say, the thing upon which

money was then based, which was gold,”

writes Hesse in her biography.4

Pound believed that the financial system was

the key question of our time. Aside from his

poetical works, he wrote about usury and the

belief that representative democracy had

become influenced by the bankers. They, he

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GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

Ezra Pound together with Olga Rugde.

said, had succeeded in making governments

pay interest to private banks on their own

money. He had been preceded in this per-

ception by others, notably the Mayor of New

York, John Hylan. Ezra Pound was of the view

that economic freedom was a precondition

for the freedom of a country. In 1932, he

gathered together his reflections on the

techniques and politics of finance in his book,

The ABC of Economics. As someone who

revered the Founding Fathers – the likes of

Jefferson and Paine – it unsettled him that

the government in 1913 had relinquished its

control on the USA’s creation of money.

Instead it had to borrow money from the

Federal Reserve and burden the public with

taxes – in Pound’s eyes a clear violation of

the Founding Fathers’ Constitution. He also

opposed the resolution to shift the authori-

ty to declare war from Congress to the

President.

Taking from the work of Major C.H. Douglas,

with whom he became acquainted in 1918,

Pound developed the insight that the capi-

talist credit system, which he fought under

its older name of ‘usura’, was the greatest evil

of the modern industrial society. Later he also

espoused the economic theories of the

anarchist Silvio Gesell, who had been Finance

Minister to the Second Bavarian Soviet

Republic of 1919.5

It is one of the ironies of history that the

greatest American poet of the 20th century had

to pay for his views with grinding incar-

ceration in a military prison and then a mental

institution, whereas the now-respected

German author and dramatist Bertolt Brecht

never had to answer during his lifetime for

his denial of the Bolshevik and Stalinist crimes.

And although Pound still has a steady flock

of adherents, his critique of the world of

human species) dictates that we look for

alternatives. It borders on hypocrisy to dif-

ferentiate between “good” and “bad” capi-

talism, and this has been rightly criticised.

Contrary to the mainstream debate being

carried on in Western media, the problem is

not the “greedy fat cats”, it is the way we

transact our economy.

Footnotes:

1 Note by Ezra Pound:“Usury:A charge forthe use of purchasing power, levied with-out regard to production; often withoutregard to the possibilities of production.”2 As is found in the thinking of Aristotle,the Fathers of the Christian Church, andGoethe.3 From Canto XCVII4 Ezra Pound Lesebuch, Eva Hesse5 ibid.

Text By Sulaiman Wilms

30

finance has not yet been brought into the

current debate – whereas the works of Brecht

are performed at the opening of banks and

bank-sponsored cultural events.

Following the events and changes at the

opening of this century, namely the War on

Terror, we are now living through the second

global and historical watershed. It is obvious

that the dramatic collapse of the investment

and mortgage banks (and all the other

bankruptcies) will have far more reaching

effects on our world than attacks on

skyscrapers. These bankruptcies are the sign

of a tectonic shift. At the same time, much

of the world’s population is struggling with

food prices that have risen by an average of

45 per cent over 12 months. Aid organi-

sations are complaining of the difficulty of

finding suitable markets in which to buy up

food.

In times like this, human reason (if not the

sheer instinct to assure the survival of the

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

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32 33

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Daniel Finke and Thomas Koenig, professors

of politics at the University of Mannheim,

500 km south of Berlin, have found numer-

ous similarities between U.S. “homeland

security” and European laws since 2001.“We

do not want to attack all EU homeland

security policies, but we have found there is

a law-making trend across Europe that

reduces civil liberties in exchange for more

collective security,” Koenig told IPS. Finke and

Koenig studied Austria, Britain, Denmark,

Germany and Sweden.

Finke and Koenig say the European trend of

trading off civil freedoms against homeland

security goes against the rights of democratic

institutions such as parliaments.“Parliaments

are forced to ratify all government decisions

in this matter without questioning, and

without the right to discuss and eventually

reject elements of the laws,” said Koenig.

This means, he added, that governments have

been turning off the democratic system of

check and balances. “On the question of

homeland security, we are facing the

dismantling of traditional democratic

controls.”

In a new book Der Terrorist als Gesetzgeber

- Wie man mit Angst Politik Macht (The

Lawmaker as Terrorist, or How Politics

Foments Fear), Heribert Prantl, a former

district attorney in Munich, and now leading

editorial commentator at the Sueddeutsche

Zeitung newspaper, says governments all

over the industrialised world have “sacrificed

civil rights at the altar of homeland security

and the so-called war against terror.

“Inspired by the notion of preventing terror,

which pervades U.S. foreign policy under

George W. Bush, the new anti-terror laws

consider every one of us a potential

terrorist,” told Prantl.“Until 2001, it was the

other way around: if you did not give a reason

to be a suspect, you were left in peace. This

was called the rule of law. Now laws are

taking away our freedoms.”

The French watchdog Reporters Sans

Frontieres (RSF), said in a report last month

that EU countries have been curtailing the

rights of journalists to report freely on political

issues.The report says the U.S. is now behind

African countries such as Mali, Ghana and

Namibia in the world ranking of countries on

respecting freedom of information. Some

European countries have been systematically

harassing journalists, it says. “France has for

the past two years held the European record

for police and court interventions linked to the

confidentiality of journalists’ sources, with

five searches, two preliminary indictments

and four summonses.”

The report condemned particularly the arrest

of investigative journalist Guillaume Dasquié

by the state intelligence agency Directorate

for Territorial Surveillance (DST), and of Bruno

Thomas, a reporter for the motoring weekly

Auto Plus. Dasquié was detained by the DST

in December 2007 after he published an

intelligence report on Osama bin Laden and

Al-Qaeda in July in the Le Monde daily.

Dasquié was released after two days of

questioning at the DST headquarters in Paris.

Thomas was detained in July 2007, and is

still under judicial investigation, after he

published a report on a new model by French

automobile maker Renault that is not yet on

the market. Auto Plus editor-in-chief Laurent

Chiapello said the matter was “blown out of

proportion”, and that the journalist was

“simply doing his job, that is; finding new

information to better inform the reader.”

These arrests were “accompanied by raids

on their homes and offices…[showing] that

the confidentiality of sources is not always

adequately protected in the ‘land of human

rights’,” the RSF report adds. It says similar

practices affecting the confidentiality of

Outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush has been

unpopular in Europe, but his policies in fighting

the ‘war on terror’ have found many takers. The

new European laws reducing civil rights range

from introducing biometric control devices, such

as computerised passports and the digital

registration of fingerprints, to surveillance and

storage of all telephone and Internet traffic and

transaction data, including bank operations.

FOLLOWING THE LEADTHE EUROPEANS CRITICISE BUSH, BUT COPY HIM

GLOBALIAGLOBALIA || Issue 04 Issue 04 || December 2008December 2008

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sources have been recently introduced in

other European countries, such as Spain, Italy,

and Germany. The French government’s mo-

ves were followed by an announcement in

May that a new law to protect the confiden-

tiality of sources and judicial protection of

journalists will be passed early next year.

In Germany, 17 journalists working for leading

newspapers in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and

Hamburg were prosecuted last year for

“involvement in disclosing state secrets.”The

lawsuits were filed in August 2007 after the

leaking of confidential material from a

parliamentary commission investigating the

role of the state secret services in the ‘war

on terror’. The German national journalists’

association Deutscher Journalisten Verband

says 180 lawsuits alleging ‘complicity in

betraying state secrets’ have been brought

against reporters since 1986. By the end of

2007, all the investigations were dropped.

Freedom of Internet activists are meanwhile

opposing the growing government control of

online communication. They particularly

criticise EU directive 2006/24/EC passed in

March 2006 that provides for “the retention

of data generated or processed in connection

with the provision of publicly available

electronic communications services or of

public communications networks.”

The EU directive compels all telecommuni-

cations providers in the EU to retain for a

period of between six months and two years

all data necessary “to trace and identify the

source of a communication ... the destina-

tion of a communication, the communi-

cation device [and] ... the location of mobile

communication equipment.”

“The EU telecommunications data retention

directive allows for the whole European

population to be observed, without any initial

suspicion,” says Ralf Bendrath, civil rights

activist in Germany. “Who I call or write to,

whether I use the Internet or not, my location,

all this data is nobody’s business, least of all

the government’s.” Bendrath said that the

recent cases of citizens’ fiscal, bank and other

personal data being lost in Britain, and the

illegal commercialisation of the data bank of

the German telecommunication provider

Deutsche Telekom “show how easily the data

retention can lead to criminal abuses.”

Several electronic storage devices containing

fiscal and other data of several million

citizens have been lost or stolen in Britain

since 2006. In one case, the addresses, birth

dates, national insurance numbers and bank

account details of every child benefit

claimant in Britain went missing when two

compact discs were sent by unregistered

post in October 2007.

In Germany, Deutsche Telekom is involved in

several cases of misuse of electronic data

banks. In one case, in 2006, the personal

data of 17 million clients of the company’s

cellular phone service was stolen and offered

to other companies. The case was revealed

by German media only in October 2008.

Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann

called this “an infuriating episode”, and

announced the dismissal of four middle-rank-

ing executives.

In a similar case, personal data of some 30

million Deutsche Telekom clients was made

available on the Internet. In yet another case,

during 2005 and 2006 the company spied on

more than 60 members of its own union and

on journalists, trying to establish information

leaks within the company. (IPS)

Text By Julio Godoy

A policemen checks the papers of a Muslim man in London.

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35

Text Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi

The first Empire with world hegemony was

the British Empire. The British Empire began

when Disraeli persuaded Queen Victoria to

claim India as Imperatrix. She was declared

Empress in 1877.The Empire lasted precisely

70 years.

It came to an ignominious end under Viceroy

Lord Mountbatten, whose wife, daughter of

the notorious banker Sir Ernest Cassel, during

the partition settlement carried on an

adulterous affair with the Hindu leader Nehru.

The disastrous and illegal partition cost the

lives of millions of Muslims. The populace

was never consulted by ballot or referendum.

It was 1947.

The second Empire with world hegemony was

the American Empire. The American Empire

began following the nuclear devastation of

Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi's analyses are among the

most important statements in the Islamic World, rela-

ting to the problems of our time. In numerous, success-

ful publications, the author links a comprehensive

knowledge of European philosophy and history, with

the timeless dimensions of Qur'anic revelation.

THE SIEGE OF BOMBAYCAPITALISM BREATHS THROUGH TERRORISM

Hiroshima and Nagasaki - which ended World

War Two.The assumption of power was foun-

ded on three events. One: the settlement of

the U.N.O. in New York. Two: The establish-

ment of Israel through the instrument of the

U.N.O. Three: The Bretton Woods Agreement

which defined the dollar-based capitalism

which collapsed in 2007 when the Bear Sterns

Hedge Fund declared a bankruptcy which

heralded the 2008 absolute failure of the

Bretton Woods dual power-system of bank-

ing and democracy.The Empire lasted only 50

years. It began when the war-time leader Ge-

neral Eisenhower was elected President and

took office in 1952. It came to an end when,

ignoring Eisenhower’s famous warning of the

military-industrial complex, Congress gave

authority to the invasion if Iraq. The ‘free-

world’ project was over. It was 2002.

The myth of al-Qaeda and therealities of terrorThe political construct that posits a secret-

cell system of a militant Islam that is in

Image: AP Photo/David Guttenblatt

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

ASIA

Schmitt-ian terms, ‘The Enemy’ suits lots of

people from President to Pope. Of course,

with the help of TV media, and the new

academic breed of ‘Experts’ – it is convincing

to the iPod masses. Intellectually, it does not

play.

Firstly – its leadership. Bin Laden is scarcely

convincing. As a son of a Saudi billionaire

family, as a former C.I.A. operative, as

someone who bought his way into Afghan

society – he fails to take on the mantle of

Islamic leadership.

As head of a secret society which drives

adolescent youths to suicide and stays hidden

out of danger in the mountains he can be at

least recognised as a perfect copy of the

Shi’a Ismaili leader who fought Salahud-din,

the Old Man of the Mountain with his gang

of corrupted youths, the assassins (or

Hashishiyin).

As dead, which every tea-house in Peshawar

knows, he is very interesting politically. It is

the US leadership which ‘needs him’ alive. His

second-in-command only talks Marxist anti-

US polemics. Never an ayat of Qur’an. Never

a Salat-an-Nabei. Never a judgement of Fiqh.

In short ignorant of Islam.

Secondly – Its bizarre targets. If the World

Trade Centre is a target because it represents

world-market capitalism – as such it can be

defined as an enemy stronghold, but, but,

but! If you destroy it – you strengthen world

capitalism, plus the insurance system of

capitalism will more than double its value.

Strengthen, because, as Ernst Jünger has

demonstrated, destruction of capitalist

entities by ‘The Enemy’ is necessary for its

own survival. Why the Marriot Hotel in

Islamabad? Why the Taj Hotel in Bombay?

Why trains in London and Madrid? No

strategy, if such a militant approach could

offer success, could bring Islamic success any

closer, no strategy such as the terrorists have

elected to perpetrate.

Thirdly - who are they? There is a world-wide

elite in the Muslim-world of Ulama’, scholars

and social activists. We know each other

across schools and movements, rejoicing in

the variety and energy of our local approa-

ches. Nobody, neither modernist nor tradi-

tionalist, had ever heard of those secretly

appointed assassins drawn from the under-

class of Arabs and Asians, ending with semi-

idiots like the infamous and absurd shoe-

bomber!

The realities of terror and their exponents do

however point to zones of extreme injustice,

oppression and poverty.There is a point when

the sons of Adam turn against their degra-

dation. When they strike it is, unsurprisingly,

violent.

The four zones of inhuman and unaccounted

for savagery and oppression are:

1. The Uighur nation and the evil Chinese

occupation.

2. Afghanistan and its wars of occupation.

3. The Indian sub-continent and its endemic

persecution of Muslims.

4. Palestine and its persecution by Israel.

Now the root of disorder in 1 and 4 goes

back to the political reality from which they

came.The Uighur was a linked province to the

Osmanli Dawlet. Palestine was a linked and

protected province of that same Osmanli

Dawlet. 2 and 3 are the unified provinces of

the Mughal Dawlet. The last legal frame of

India was dominated by the Mughal centres

of a mighty civilisation based in Delhi, Lahore,

Shrinigar, Agra and Lucknow.

Since the exploitation of discontent – not to

remove the cause but to keep it down- is the

known policy of capitalism, deeper questions

must be asked. To banish the conspiracy-

theory of Al-Qaeda and its assassins we must

ask the questions of real-politique.

Who stands to gain?1. China.A ‘colonial’ conflict in East Turkestan

and Tibet is an inexpensive but brilliant

diversion of the foreign attention from the

full-scale commercial and cultural invasion

The inhuman situation of the Uighur Muslims is yet been unaccounted for.

36 37

ASIA

by China (the top three hotels of Cape Town

no longer sell Indian tea at teatime, but china

tea, timers, cups and pots!)

2. Darfur and Congo are now part of a military

take-over with paid surrogate armies.

3. Palestine.Terrorism assures that the massive

subsidy of the U.S. without which the Israeli

State cannot survive, continues, a one-party

(coalition) state since its inception!

4. Afghanistan. The last bastion of bank-

rupt U.S. global policy, it is needed as the

southern base on Russian Asia’s network

of oil and gas. It is under NATO command

to avoid any accusation of torture and killing

pointing to the U.S. NATO forces are above

all state laws.

5. India/Pak/Bangladesch. The potential

awakening of sub-continental wealth, firstly

in its brilliant people, secondly in its

communities, thirdly in its industries.

Bollywood menaces Hollywood! If the U.S. is

bankrupt, India is massively rich – when it

breaks free of the dying dollar hegemony.

The Bombay incident is a last futile attempt

to halt Indian domination of the U.S. and its

markets. It also assures that an Indo-Pak

conflict – along with a continued matriarchy

in Bangladesh – will allow a few years more

before the completion of the Mexican take-

over of a failed U.S.A.

The constructive Islamic response to the

horror of the Bombay siege should be the

foundation of a pan-Indian Muslim union –

uniting all Muslims of the sub – continent to

take an oath of loyalty to fellow Muslims

and a vow to refuse to fight fellow Muslims

across the three countries.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

ASIA

“It never ceases to amaze how the West’s

perception is almost as selective as that of a

totalitarian state.”

THE FORGOTTEN CONFLICTFREEDOM IS DYING OUT IN KASHMIR

I have found a handful of places in the world

which live up to all the praise heaped on

them, that justify the swarms of visitors and

postcards, and deserve their own iconification.

Descriptions and images teeming in my vision,

and having devised reasons in advance to

soften the inevitable disappointment, I arrived

at such places and was utterly enchanted

from the first moment, as if no one had ever

seen such a miracle before me – indeed as if

I were the discoverer, despite the chatter of

the ubiquitous tourist-droves, or the posters

of dictators reminding one of the unfriendly

present.

Venice was like that for me, as was the Taj

Mahal, the sculptures of Bernini, and every

visit to Shah Square in Isfahan – and Kashmir.

I must have heard it described a hundred

times as ‘Paradise on Earth’; in classical

Persian poetry, in old travel diaries, and in

almost a third of the articles in my press

folder. But, the fact is, it really is paradise, with

its rich green meadows, gigantic broad-leaved

trees, multicoloured lakes, fairytale gardens,

a garland of white glaciers, graceful people

and the beauty of its colourfully dressed

women.

Yes, the paradise of revelations, as if God had

not promised the righteous something

heavenly but a place, already prepared, five

thousand feet high, north of India, east of

Persia, west of China, south of Russia – a

place to inspire as many empires imaginable.

But of course, in global politics, inspiration

usually leads to war.

Since the 14th century, Kashmir has had foreign

rulers who have conquered it, plundered it,

and even sold it off. Following the withdrawal

of the British in 1947, most of the country,

despite its Muslim majority, fell to India, while

Indian army marching in the streets of the capital Srinagar.

39

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38

its west went to Pakistan and a strip in the

north-east, went to China. At the United

Nations, India promised a plebiscite in which

the Kashmiris themselves would decide on

their fate. That never happened, and instead

there have been three wars with Pakistan.

Delhi did grant the province far-reaching

autonomy, but in 1989, after a series of

obviously rigged regional elections, an armed

rebellion broke out, which has since cost as

many as one hundred thousand people their

lives – and that in a region with a population

of five million.

The Indian army is said to be stationing about

600,000 soldiers in the province, most of

them in the Kashmir valley, which is no larger

than England’s North Yorkshire. Nowhere in

the world is there anywhere near so heavy

an armed presence as in Kashmir. Soldiers

populate all the towns, all the villages, both

main and secondary rural roads, the main

streets, the alleyways, even tracks through

the fields – no, even the fields themselves.To

the Indians it’s a war against terrorism.To the

population, it’s an occupation.

When I travelled around Kashmir last autumn,

the rebellion seemed to have exhausted itself.

“Fed up” was the expression I heard most,

fed up with the night searches, the identity

checks, the roadblocks, the arrests, the rapes

and the abductions – all of which, of the -

relevant human rights organisations have

documented – fed up most of all with the

despotism of these foreign soldiers, who,

machine-guns loaded, seem to watch even the

chicken coups.The Kashmiris still carry in their

hearts the call for Azadi, or freedom, yet

immeasurably more urgent is the appeal for

peace. It did not surprise me, therefore, when

the Indian government announced it had

overcome the militant resistance.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

ASIA

Muslim students protesting for the independence of Kashmir.

Now, out of nothing and without political

leaders having done much to bring it about,

a protest movement has arisen, which is as

great as that of 1989. If it remains peaceful,

notwithstanding the Muslim extremists,

Pakistani agents and Indian provocateurs,

then Kashmir will still stand a chance. A few

hundred militants do not present much of a

challenge to the world’s numerically largest

occupying force, but non-violent mass

movements certainly do. No nation knows

that better than India.

The protest was triggered by the granting of

a 100-acre piece of land to an Indian pilgrims’

organisation last June. In 1989, around 20,000

Hindus used to make the pilgrimage each

year to the Caves of Amarnath, but the

number has since risen to 400,000, which, in

the eyes of the Hindu nationalists, justifies

their claim to Kashmir. Right or wrong, the

Muslims saw the land transfer as the start of

a settlement policy like Palestine’s, aimed to

cast the Hindu presence in stone.

Within days the whole valley was in tumult.

Strikes and demonstrations forced the

authorities to revoke the land transfer. This

enraged the Hindu nationalists in Jammu so

much, that they blocked the only road

connecting the region to Kashmir, whereupon

a massive Kashmiri protest march moved

towards the Pakistani border to demand the

opening of the road to Muzaffarabad. When

the Indian army opened fire, four people died,

including separatist leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz.

People flooded the streets at the funeral and

the days thereafter, 200,000 people each day,

according to the authorities.A joke, said eye-

witnesses. More people have died, 42 since

the beginning of the latest unrest. The

authorities have now imposed a strict curfew.

Why do we hear so little about this uprising,

about the shots fired into the crowds, about

a people’s demands for freedom? Reports

pop up here and there, usually when scattered

groups succeed in a rare attack.

The only in-depth reporting is in Britain. It

never ceases to amaze how the West’s per-

ception is almost as selective as that of a

totalitarian state. Russia is back in the

West’s bad books, so too, therefore, are the

radicals, all of the political groupings in

Kashmir had signalled their approval and

declared the armed conflict over. Vajpayee’s

successor, Singh, also expressed similar aims:

the borders were not to be lifted, but made

irrelevant. But since 2004, nothing has hap-

pened; there have been no more negotiations

and no peace conferences.With the new Indo-

American alliance, the external pressure on

India to accept a compromise has dissipa-

ted. Non-violent protest has become the

Kashmiris’ only remaining means of exer-

cising pressure from within.

When most of the separatist groups laid down

their weapons, the tourists – or the Indian

ones at least – began returning to the house-

boats on the Dal Lake. Were lasting peace to

come to the Valley, mass tourism would soon

follow. And Kashmir’s magic would not

disappoint. (First published with permission

in Die Süddeutscher Zeitung on 02.09.08)

41

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40

Abkhazian separatists. How wonderful, I think

to myself, that law can acquire global validity,

and how sobering to realise how quick we

are to divide the world into good and bad.

Iran has been deemed even worse than it

was, since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,

and its atomic programme is seen to be

threatening world peace.

India, on the other hand, having become

“good” since September 11, is permitted to

violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

– with the express sanction of an American

agreement. And in Kashmir, India is doing

About the Author

Navid Kermani is a writer and orientalist

from Cologne, whose most recent

publication was the novel Kurzmitteilung

(Ammann Verlag). He is currently residing

in Rome on a scholarship from Villa

Massimo. He is a member of the German

government’s ‘Conference on Islam’.Text By Navid Kermani

nothing but defending itself against Islamic

terrorists.

Political blocks filter reality in this way,

obviously. But it is because the free public

accepts this filtering that freedom is dying out

in regions like Kashmir. Complicated the

conflict may be, and the consequences may

be devastating for every minority, should the

majority be allowed to determine the destiny

of the multi-religious federal state. And yet

the foundations of a possible peace have

stood for years: autonomy with open borders

to the Pakistani area, regional self-adminis-

tration in the three provinces, and withdrawal

of the army.

It was that which India’s Prime Minister

Vajpayee and Pakistan’s President Musharraf

proposed in the nineties in response to pres-

sure from the Clinton administration, which

had declared Kashmir the most dangerous

conflict in the world because of India and

Pakistan’s atomic weapons.Apart from a few

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

AFRICA

Text By Rhomeez Hendricks

The expectations of the 1994 elections in South

Africa, aroused the idea that this moment

heralded a new begining. Not only was the country

rid of its past, but is was to embark on a journey

towards freedom, wealth and riches. A decade

after this momentous event, shanty towns were

transformed into shack cities and poverty gripped

the majority of South Africans.

A FAIR SHARE IN THE WEALTHON THE FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Naomi Klein in her masterpiece The Shock

Doctrine writes: “In January 1990, Nelson

Mandela, while in prison wrote a note to

some of his supporters who gathered outside

regarding a question as to whether he had

become weak and tired after being locked up

for twenty seven years in his long battle for

economic transformation of the South African

Apartheid state?”

His answer was simple: “The nationalization

of the mines, banks and monopoly industries

is the policy of the ANC, and the change or

modification of our views in this regard is

inconceivable. Black economic empowerment

is a goal we fully support and encourage, but

in our situation, state control of certain sectors

of the economy is unavoidable”.

That belief had formed the core doctrine of

the ANC and was enshrined in a document

known as The Freedom Charter.

What the ANC wanted for the citizens of

South Africa was a share in the wealth of a

minority who had amassed enormous sums

in the richest country in Africa, containing,

among other treasures, the largest goldfield

in the world. The first defiant demand of the

Freedom Charter reads: “The People Shall

Govern!” (Naomi Klein; The Shock Doctrine)

The fact that the world capital markets are

forty times larger than real trade is indicative

of the source of power in our society. Thabo

Mbeki does not control the money, and while

appointing Tito Mboweni as Governor of the

Reserve Bank, he did not have the power to

42 43

AFRICA

choose him. The private owners of the South

African Reserve Bank did.

What is of concern here is power, the power

to, amongst other things; allow a country’s

leaders to realize their vision of peace and

prosperity. The dismal failure that charac-

terizes each and every politicians tenure in

office, here in South Africa, demonstrates

either utter incompetence, or an inability to

do anything constructive, or both.

The Neo-liberal agenda has as its goal; ‘small-

government’, the state ‘open for business’,

privatization and loose capital controls. Neo-

liberal globalization was unfortunately

threatened by the policies outlined in the

ANC Freedom Charter and thus had to be

revised before things could move ahead. State

ownership of the means of production,

minerals and strategic commodities would

not only result in the denial of ownership to

international investors, but also the denial of

the ability of international cartels to fix prices

on key commodities.

Gold is the key to understanding the failure

of democracy. It is not that South Africa failed

democracy – Thabo Mbeki was after all the

capitalist’s best friend – but rather demo-

cracy that has failed South Africa.

The transfer of ownership of wealth and land

lies at the heart of any transfer of power.The

state, while claiming to represent the needs

and interests of the masses, has failed to

take ownership and redistribution of these

strategic commodities, without which it is

highly unlikely whether the levels of

education and health envisioned by each

incumbent could ever be achieved. On the

other hand, historically democratic states

have failed to maintain the welfare of its

citizens, defined by the so-called national

interest; instead it takes into account, and

realizes the interests of the dominant capital

groups at the heart of the political-economy.

This is where democracy has been a tremen-

dous success, and if the current stock market

is taken as a yardstick, then this political

system has a small group of winners, and

many losers.

Thabo Mbeki embraced neo-liberalism

without a whiff of shame. Indeed, in 1996 he

told a group of businessmen in London,“Just

call me a Thatcherite”. Thatcher and Reagan

are famous for breaking with the welfare-

state and instituting Neo-liberal reforms on

a large scale within their respective coun-

tries. General Pinochet did the same.

Leaving the ownership of the gold fields in

the same hands as those who held them

during Apartheid, Mbeki sought to realize

his dream of a prosperous South Africa by

creating favourable conditions for inter-

national investors, which included taking on

the Apartheid regime debt load so as to

Machinery used in the production of Gold, the great wealth ressource of South Africa.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

AFRICA

Image: Yaseer Booley (2008)

44 45

AFRICA

appease the IMF and World Bank, without

which loans could not be secured, such as the

$46 million loan in 1997 for industrial

competitiveness and job creation.

Nationalizing the mineral wealth would cause

the ANC government to be labelled ‘leftist’,

anti-business, and South Africa as being an

unstable investment destination. Capital flight

would have ensued and this country could

have descended into a similar situation as

Zimbabwe is in today – the result of anti-

capital political decisions.

There is reliable evidence that the state of the

nation is worse for most people today than

it was during Apartheid. One must remember

that the Apartheid regime was democratic –

exclusive but democratic. By comparison,

today we have an inclusive political culture

yet the poor are poorer and the rich are richer.

Democracy has not remotely achieved the

fiscal objectives outlined in the Freedom

Charter.

“In the early 1990’s. talks emerged between

the ANC and the then National Party. To its

credit, the ANC did negotiate a peaceful

handover but did not manage to prevent

South Africa's apartheid-era rulers from

wreaking havoc on their way out. The

negotiations focused on two aspects: one

was political, the other economic. The atten-

tion, naturally, focused on the high-profile

political summits between Nelson Mandela

and F. W. de Klerk, leader of the National

Party.” (Naomi Klein; The Shock Doctrine)

The infamous economy-focused meetings

between the old ANC elite and the corporate

establishment prior to 1994 – and after, are

testimony to the real source of power. Here

the interests of big business were nego-

tiated – most notoriously those of the

Oppenheimers. The outcomes of these

meetings were that the ANC could have the

political power but the gold and diamonds

would remain in the hands of the individu-

als that controlled them before.

One of the most revealing aspects of the

economic transition, was the ownership of the

Reserve Bank of South Africa. Arguably the

most powerful institution in the country, its

fate was explained by Durban businessman

Vishnu Padaychee, who was asked to draft

a document for the negotiating team on the

on the pro’s and con’s of having an

autonomous central bank, one with total

autonomy from the elected government.

Padayachee could not believe what he was

hearing. He and his team drafted and

submitted the document with the clear policy

of not allowing the Reserve Bank to be

autonomous. He was later told by the

negotiating team, “We had to give that one

up”.

Not only would the Reserve Bank be run as

an autonomous entity within the South

African state, its independence enshrined in

the SA constitution, but it would be headed

by the same man who ran it under Apartheid,

Chris Stals. Another Apartheid era figure,

finance minister Derek Keyes, also retained

his position in the new administration. The

New York Times praised Keyes as “the

country’s ranking apostle of low-spending,

business-friendly government”.

Padayachee lamented that with the loss of the

Reserve Bank, “everything would be lost in

terms of economic transformation”. The

Freedom Charter pledges’ to redistribute land;

became highly constrained, with a new clause

in the constitution protecting all private

property. Job creation was constrained by the

signing on to the General Agreement on Trade

and Tariffs, precursor to the World Trade

Organization, which made the subsidization

of auto plant and textile factories illegal. Free

Aids drugs violated the intellectual property

rights commitment under the WTO. Money

that could potentially be used to rebuild

schools and medical facilities and develop

affordable housing was diverted to repay

Apartheid Era debt. Even services like water

and electricity have been privatized, regularly

resulting in cut-offs as the poor cannot afford

the cost.

To impose currency controls to guard against

speculation and value fluctuations would

violate the conditions attached to an 850

million US-dollar IMF deal signed just before

the 1994 elections.This IMF deal also includes

“wage restraint” in order to allow for a

“flexible labour pool”.

William Gumede, author of the exposé Thabo

Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the

ANC, has said that the reason why the

grassroots populace allowed these develop-

ments to take place was that “everyone was

watching the political negotiations, and if

people felt it wasn’t going well there would

be mass protest. But when the economic

negotiators would report back, people

thought it was technical; no one was

interested. We missed it! We missed the

whole story”.

He explained that South Africa appeared to

be on the brink of a civil war during this time

and that all focus was on the unfolding

political situation and that most people

naively assumed that no matter what

compromises had to be made to get into

power, they could be unmade once the ANC

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

AFRICA

was firmly in charge. “We were going to be

the government we could fix it later”, he

said.

The ANC initially tried to fulfil its pledges, it

did build more than 100 000 homes in the

first two years and millions were hooked up

with electricity and water. But after 10 years

of democracy, under Neo-liberal duress and

bankruptcy, privatization of government

services ensued, resulting in millions of people

cut off from newly connected water and

electricity because they could not pay.

According to a June 2003 edition of the

Sunday Independent, up to 40 per cent of the

new phone lines were no longer in service.

According to a 2006 study, life expectancy in

South Africa had dropped by 13 years.

As mentioned earlier, under the leadership of

Mbeki, the ANC pursued a policy of attracting

Foreign Direct Investment, which would create

new wealth, the benefits of which would

‘trickle down to the poor’, as the saying goes.

The ANC had to make sure that the country

was attractive to foreign investors. This

proved difficult as the State had to first be

subjected to, what William Gumede called,

the “electronic herd” of global capital.

Following the release of Mandela, the SA

stock market collapsed, and the Rand drop-

ped by 10 per cent. A few weeks later, De

Beers moved its headquarters to Switzerland.

This “electronic herd” was a call-and-response

shock dialogue between the ANC leadership

and the financial markets.When an ANC offi-

cial dared to utter something that hinted at

the Freedom Charter becoming policy, the

market responded with a shock, sending the

Rand into free fall. Gumede writes in his book

that shortly after his release from prison,

Mandela spoke out in favour of nationa-

lization at a private lunch with leading busi-

nessmen the “All-Gold index plunged 5%”.

Mandela acknowledged this reality at the

ANC national conference in 1997 when he

said, “The very mobility of capital and the

globalization of capital and other markets,

make it impossible for countries, for instance,

to decide national economic policy without

regard to the likely response of these

markets”.Thabo Mbeki understood this game

and, from the early days, gave assurances to

the corporate elite as to ANC policy. Gumede

writes that “shortly before the 1994 elections,

the ANC submitted their economic program

47

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46

to Oppenheimer for approval and made

several key revisions to address his concerns,

as well as those of other top industrialists”.

In 1996, Mbeki unveiled his new economic

plan for the country, it called for more -

privatisation, cutbacks to government spen-

ding, labour ‘flexibility’, freer trade and

looser controls on money flows. According

to economist Stephen Gelb, who helped draft

the plan, its overriding aim “was to signal

to potential investors the government’s

commitment to the prevailing (Neo-liberal)

orthodoxy”.

In the first years of democracy, the South

African government serviced the Apartheid

Era debt to the tune of $4.5 billion annually.

Gumede notes that between 1997 and 2004

the government sold off 8 state-owned farms

to raise just under $4 billion and that half

that money went to servicing the inherited

debt. He writes that not only did the ANC

renege on “the nationalization of mines,

banks and monopoly industry” but they

actually sold off state assets to pay the debt

of the previous regime.

This county has seen an influx of FDI and is

relatively competitive, yet this has not resulted

in the masses of poor being lifted out of the

squalor in which they live.According to South

African government statistics, the poorest 50

per cent of South Africans have seen their

income drop by 20 per cent. Since 1994, the

year the ANC took power, the number of

people living on less than 1 US-dollar a day

has doubled, from 2 million to 4 million in

2006. Between 1991 and 2002, the un-

employment rate for black South Africans

more than doubled, from 23 per cent to 48

per cent. The ANC government has built 1.8

million homes, but in the meantime 2 million

people have lost their homes.

Close to 1 million people were evicted from

farms in the first decade of democracy. Such

evictions have meant that the number of

shack dwellers has grown by 50 per cent. In

2006, more than one in four South Africans

lived in shacks located in informal shanty-

towns, many without running water or

electricity.

Talk delivered at the 11th International Fiqh

Conference Cape Town, South Africa.

Bibliography:

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

William Gumede: Thabo Mbeki and the battle

for the soul of the ANC

No opposition to the Neo-liberalist ideology. Nelson Mandela and the former chief of the Worldbank, Paul Wolfowitz.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

EUROPE

European cities are – like in many other parts of

the world – subjected to a massive loss of social

cohesion and a growing gap between poorer and

more affluent communities. As the German city

of Duisburg demonstrates, this is a good oppor-

tunity for the Muslims of Europe to step forward

and show their positive potential to the broader

public. They just have to take the initiative.

THE BEGINNINGS OF A CHANGEPOTENTIAL OF THE MUSLIMS FOR INDUSTRIAL CITIES

Germany’s largest mosque was opened

recently in Duisburg, an old industrial city in

the west of Germany, formerly best known for

its steel. The mosque belongs to DITIB, an

organisation connected to Turkey’s Ministry

of Religion. It is not situated in the city centre

or in a central, visible place, but rather to be

found in the outlying suburb of Marxloh, an

blue collar district with a high proportion of

Muslim immigrants. The new mosque in

Duisburg-Marxloh has drawn widespread

admiration, not on account of its size but

because its construction, which unlike many

other mosque projects, was relatively free of

conflict.

What effects could such a large mosque have

on the image of Muslims in the society, and

what are the potentially positive contribu-

tions that can come from the Muslim-major-

ity districts of European cities, often referred

to – wrongly – as ghettos? European cities

vary however.

Take France’s banlieues for example.They are

not really anything like Germany’s immigrant

suburbs. What can be said though is that

cities are becoming noticeably more segre-

gated along ethnic, social and economic lines.

There are also more and more areas in which

immigrants, especially Muslims, not only

constitute a statistical majority, but also play

a growing role in providing an economic and

social infrastructure from which the non-

Muslim population can also benefit.

The concentration of immigrant and, or

Muslims has long been the subject of heat-

ed debate. Some sociologists argued that

segregation of this kind can have positive as

well as negative effects.The social networks

it encourages can provide immigrants with

security, identity and self-confidence, they

say, that can help them get used to the new

society. Common needs can also be ad-

dressed mutually. What is generally agreed

on, however, is that this should not become

static.

There has been a counter-tendency – in

Germany it was especially pronounced in the

early 1990s – in which residents of immigrant

areas who had become more affluent moved

away into districts populated in the majority

by indigenous people. Even so, why is it that

so many other immigrants remain in their

ethnic colonies, which to outsiders look so

unappealing, even when they could afford to

live in other areas? Often it is precisely those

ethnic infrastructures and social networks

that have developed which assure them a

better standard of living. Not that the

infrastructure should necessarily be called

“Islamic”; rather perhaps “ethnic/Muslim”,

be it Turkish as in Germany, North African as

in France and Belgium, or Pakistani as in the

United Kingdom.

In districts struggling under an ageing

populace, social decline and the drifting-away

of the old-established population, it can

sometimes seem that the immigrants them-

selves, most of whom are Muslim, are what

keep the otherwise dying districts alive. But

the problem with ethnic concentration is that

they can become set in their modest ways,

and so become impervious to social growth

and contact with other ethnic groups.

In this context, it means that Muslims of a

particular ethnicity keep to themselves

because of their cultural infrastructure, and

have too little contact with the majority of

society and other ethnic groups. A

consequence of this is that the majority –

non-muslim – population then often comes

to view Islam in Germany as a mainly oriental,

cultural affair which has nothing to do with

them. Another consequence is that many

Muslim communities remain ethnically

divided. Only over the past ten years have

tendencies emerged among younger

generations, showing a greater openness

towards majority peoples and Muslims of

other ethnic origin.

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4848

In Germany, the services offered by the

Muslim population are generally well

received by the locals. This has long been

the case with restaurants and food stores

but nowadays, many people also call on

Muslim doctors, mechanics and building com-

panies, to name but a few examples.

However, when it comes to the mosques and

the Muslims’ charitable services in general,

things still tend to look sparse, despite the

fact that mosques can play an important

social role. “The communities [mosque

communities] function as a link, not only

between religious and ethnic groups, but also

between citizens and administration, so they

contribute towards the running of the society

as a whole,” wrote Gerdien Jonker and

Andreas Kapphan in a study of mosques in

Berlin in 1999. This accounts for why

countries like Sweden and the Netherlands

support some mosques financially and the

building up of local infrastructure.

A tendency does exist for mosques to assume

more of a church-like role; in Germany this

can be said of some of the large Turkish

organisations. They may offer services such

as language courses, sports clubs and so on,

aimed especially at members of their own

associations, but they fall well short of the

classical function of the Osmanli ‘Külliye’,

which included a soup kitchen, healthcare

and similar social welfare services directed at

the general populace including non-Muslims.

Nor have economic services emerged such as

the setting-up of open, free markets.

Clearly it has not yet been realised that these

kinds of facilities can be useful to the public

in general if they are properly established

and properly presented. Having said that,

mosque associations have become more open

to the outside world, especially since the

1990s. There are ‘open days’ and contacts

have been established with other social insti-

tutions, and some mosques run initiatives to

combat drugs and criminality.

Looking at the United Kingdom, the signs

are that minorities will become majorities in

many cities over the next ten to twenty years

– and similar changes can be seen in other

European countries. In Britain, however,

unlike France or Germany, social and ethnic

diversity and self-organisation was officially

recognised and promoted, with little pressure

to integrate, which is why ethnic segregation

and the independent existence of groups is

more pronounced there than elsewhere.

Some years ago, the state began to realise

that this policy was creating more segre-

gation than was desirable, and they launched

a new initiative called “community cohe-

sion”, a bottom-up approach in which the

different segments of the populace establish

contact in order to get to know another

better. It aims to strengthen a sense of

togetherness and create equal opportunities

for all, while continuing to acknowledge

diversity.

Architect and town planner Mahmud

Manning, has written a dissertation about

the city of Bradford, one of the cities with the

highest proportion of ethnic minorities in

Britain. Bradford is often considered Britain’s

test case for any issues relating to the Muslim

minority.

“Friday prayers are always full to

overflowing, high street trade is vibrant,

The former workers’ quarter Duisburg-Marxloh is in dire need of new ideas.

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

EUROPE

different light, not just a negative one any

more; the mosque has upgraded Marxloh’s

image.” Ceylan also likes the fact that the

mosque combines different functions.As well

as the prayer room there are “seminar rooms,

a bistro, a kitchen and a meeting place where

events can be held.” The mosque, he says, is

already collaborating with other local play-

ers and the local authorities, and has applied

for funding for a range of activities.

Ceylan cites the ethnic economy as another

of Marxloh’s plus-points. One industry which

is flourishing is wedding clothing, for which

customers come from all over Germany and

even the Netherlands and Belgium.Although

Marxloh used to be a workers’ district it

slumped to become a zone of high unem-

ploymment (around 20 per cent), especially

among the youth, which is definitely a major

problem. But, Ceylan claims, the immigrant

population – and especially the Muslims –

represent considerable social capital.“Immi-

grants have the space here to express them-

selves culturally and socially in a way other

areas of the city do not allow.”The problems

of districts like Marxloh, he says, are caused

not by the presence of immigrants, but by

factors like high unemployment levels and a

poorer quality of schooling.

In this part of town, around 60 per cent of

the population come from an immigrant

background. Inhabitants of Turkish origin

command most of the infrastructure, which

in turn attracts Turkish residents from other

parts of the city.“Immigrant entrepreneurs are

often very willing to take risks but have

insufficient business sense, which is why there

is a high level of fluctuation among

enterprises.” In addition to the typical,

traditional ethnic businesses there are an

increasing number of Muslim lawyers, doctors

and other academically qualified profession-

als, who in turn create other jobs and

represent a real economic factor, reports Dr

Rauf Ceylan. Turkish people now own many

shops and businesses in the centre of Duisburg

as well, even if you cannot tell from the

outside, and they provide jobs for members

of the majority population. Many first-

generation immigrants choose Marxloh

consciously, and some have purchased prop-

erty, which means that many of the second

generation also remain there. There are of

course social climbers who move away from

the area.“Then again, there are also members

of the indigenous German population who

choose to live in Marxloh because they favour

a multicultural lifestyle – students and

academics, for instance.”There are no visible

conflicts in living together, he says, day-to-day

living is harmonious and there are no un-

crossable borders between the ethnic groups.

Marxloh has an institutional Round Table

which citizens can participate in.

“Migration always means social, cultural but

also economic renewal,” says the social

scientist. “Immigrants have not only helped

to halt the process of decay in these districts,

they have breathed new life into them. And

since more than 35 per cent of the people of

Duisburg are from an immigrant background,

this will at some point apply to the city as a

whole.” The importance of the mosque, says

Ceylan, has not been appreciated by German

politicians, who often stigmatise mosques as

objects of scandal. But in reality they are

social centres offering a range of activities

which have brought forth a young and largely

well-educated generation of people. The

historical division of Turkish Muslims into

different groupings, and in turn their

segregation from non-Turkish Muslims, which

Ceylan and others criticise along with all

dynamic and a refreshing counter-point to

‘official’ city mall shopping centres. An

overlooked asset by local government.As city

centres have imploded, only shored up by

regeneration injections – Leeds, Manchester,

Newcastle – the Muslim population finds

itself in an interesting position. Take them

out of Bradford and the city collapses,” claims

Mahmud Manning.

Case study: Marxloh, DuisburgIn the weeks since its opening, many non-

Muslims, individuals and groups, have visited

the new mosque to see it for themselves and

find out more; there is considerable interest.

In 2006, Duisburg-based social scientist Dr

Rauf Ceylan published an acclaimed paper on

‘ethnic colonies’ using a similar district as an

example. He considers the new mosque to be

well placed, because, he says, mosques have

to be built in places where Muslims live, they

have to be near and easy to get to. “The

building of the mosque has had many good

effects, even before it was finished,” believes

Ceylan.“The area is now cast in a completely

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ethnic division amongst the Muslims of

Germany, is expected to disappear gradually

as this new generation develops.

According to Rauf Ceylan, conditions in the

ethnic districts of German cities are nothing

like those of France’s banlieues. The stan-

dard of living in the German areas is much

better, the problems less pressing.“We don’t

have ghettos in Germany. An American

journalist who visited Marxloh with me was

astonished when I told him people call this

part of Duisburg a ghetto. He said that if he

were to live in Duisburg he would live there,

because it was less boring than other parts

of town, more colourful and lively.” Poverty

may be considerable, but you do not see

homeless Turks because their families take

them in.“This social capital is very important

and is often undervalued. People help each

other. That helps to alleviate and absorb

poverty,” says the sociologist.

“The Iftar Tents that we know from Islamic

tradition should be opened up to everyone

again, rather than becoming meeting points

for cronies as they are now,” suggests Dr

Rauf Ceylan. Other things, such as a soup

kitchen and free homework tutoring, also

available to non-Muslims, could be part of a

service offered to the wider community, with

the funds coming from Zakat and charitable

donations.

The collapse of urban culture and social cohe-

sion, in Europe, brings with it many oppor-

tunities for Muslim minorities. Indeed there

are already many ways in which they can

contribute positively to society. Yet this will

require a change in consciousness, something

which is only just beginning to make itself felt.

Text By Yasin Alder

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

THOUGHT

Political theorists have been discussing the

foundations of politics ever since Plato. For

centuries on end, the idea of rule defined purely

in human terms was inconceivable. Humans strive

and plan, but are also always the victims or

beneficiaries of unforeseeable Higher Forces.

THE OLIGARCHIC TENDENCYFROM POLITEA TO THE TIME OF THE BEDOUIN

“Well, I said, and in oligarchical States

do you not find paupers?

Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper

who is not a ruler.”

(Plato, Politea, 552d)

Political concepts are not only flexible, they

are subject to changing times.While in Roman

exile, the Greek thinker Polybios (200-120

BC) developed the famous theory of

Anacyclosis on the cyclical nature of govern-

ment. Examining monarchy, aristocracy and

democracy, Polybios concluded that every

type of government at some point collapses.

But while modes of government come and go

and are subject to a necessary process of

inner change, the political questions behind

the great organisational forms have remained

the same since the time of the great Greek

philosophers.

Political theorists have been discussing the

foundations of politics ever since Plato (428-

348 BC): the relationship to power, the

techniques of exercising power, and the taut

relationship between politics and econom-

ics. And, of course, thinkers have always

reflected on the effects of what has been

called “fate” or “fortune” on human efforts

to establish an order. For centuries on end,

the idea of a rule defined purely in human

52 53

THOUGHT

terms was inconceivable. Humans strive and

plan, but are also always the victims or

beneficiaries of unforeseeable Higher Forces.

Old fundamental questions about just rule

always re-emerge during times of crisis. Every

age has its own challenges.Today, more than

two thousand years after Plato, those

challenges once again revolve primarily

around the relationship between politics and

the economy. During the recent American

elections, the independence of politicians was

once again called into question. What does

it mean for democracy when corporations of

ever-increasing power finance parties and

their candidates as well as control media

companies?

Humanity is currently experiencing the worst

financial crisis since the beginning of the last

century. A kind of “economic state of emer-

gency”, it is one in which the true balance of

power is revealed. In the shortest of times,

gigantic amounts of money have been raised

to rescue collapsing banks the world over.

The political problem is especially pronounced

in America. People working on Wall Street for

financial, insurance and property corporations,

along with those companies’ political action

committees, invested millions of dollars in

the campaigns of Senators Obama and

McCain. It is therefore not particularly

surprising that both candidates supported

the campaign to rescue Wall Street.

Since 2002, Wall Street has donated more

than 1.1 billion dollars to Congressional

candidates. Nine out of the ten biggest

recipients of this Wall Street generosity – each

of whom received an average of 1.5 million

– are members of financial supervisory and

tax committees.The consequences for political

freedom, and the effects on the broader

community, are devastating. Even though

some of the big banks could not survive

without tax funding, they remain in private

ownership. It is impossible to overlook the

new oligarchic structures emerging under

current political conditions.

Since the American elections, the Fed has

been lending money in secret and outside of

any political control, far in excess of the rescue

packages publicised for financial institutions,

and other companies in difficulty. In one week

in November, according to the Washington

Post, $507 billion went to banks, $50 billion

to investment companies, $70 billion to invest-

ment funds and $266 billion to companies

holding short-term loans.

In his renowned Politea – a title translated

somewhat uncomfortably as ‘The Republic’ –

Plato defines oligarchy as “A government

resting on a valuation of property, in which

the rich have power and the poor man is

deprived of it.” (Politea 550d) To Plato, the

power of money and wealth contains a logical

threat which in the long term is destructive:

“And in proportion as riches and rich men are

honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous

are dishonoured.” (551a).

The consequent spiritual detrition is as

dynamic as it is irreversible: “And so at last,

instead of loving contention and glory, men

become lovers of trade and money; they

honour and look up to the rich man, and

make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor

man.”

Plato proceeds to sketch what we now realise,

in light of today’s financial crisis, is the

timeless threat: that the oligarchs and their

structures will utilise their growing influence

to re-structure laws and modes of governance

to serve their own purposes. Regardless of

their background; religious or not; the

oligarchs will undermine traditional law to

their own advantage.

Money and the acquisition of money will in

future determine the “oligarchic” constitution

of the individual. What Plato was especially

afraid of was that the political unity of the

community would be broken.What we would

now call a parallel society would necessarily

emerge:“The inevitable division: such a State

is not one, but two States, the one of poor,

the other of rich men; and they are living on

the same spot and always conspiring against

one another.” (551d).

In the wake of the madness of modern

ideologies, the 20th century has undoubtedly

seen a tectonic shift in power from the

political to the economic sphere. Modern

constitutions incorporate well-known

mechanisms to prevent ideologues from

coming to power – the notorious coup d’état

– while at the same time ignoring the

possibility of a silent “Coup de Banque”.

Capital grows faster and faster, becomes

globally networked, and dominates national

political parties as well as public opinion.

The political actors of the post-modern state

are politicians, or more accurately party-

politicians, who, within the process of

globalisation, fight in vain against the global

fortification of oligarchic structures. The

foundational political question between

economic and political power is clear: who is

actually governing whom?

In his classic 1911 work on political parties,

Robert Michels demonstrated what he called

the “iron law of oligarchy”. Michels showed

GLOBALIA | Issue 04 | December 2008

THOUGHT

how every organisation inevitably brings

forth a leadership without exercising

effective, long-term control over it. Today,

almost 100 years later, which technical

debates abound, which the majority of the

population cannot possibly understand, this

phenomenon has become only more

pronounced. The need for full-time

functionaries, the extent to which the party

leadership knows more than others, and the

inexorable specialisation of the political

process – are all solidifying the party

apparatus.

How can we defend ourselves against these

tendencies? The great Muslim historian Ibn

Khaldun saw only one way of stopping

political nihilism. He did not believe in linear

models of progress, but instead, in the natural

ascent and decline of each and every political

order.The quality and the unity of every order,

said Khaldun, depends solely on its capacity

for transcendence.

“Only by Allah’s help in establishing His deen

(or way of life),” he wrote in his famous

Muqaddimah, “do individual desires come

together in agreement to press their claims,

and hearts become united […] The secret of

this is that when hearts succumb to false

desires and are inclined towards the world,

mutual envy and widespread differences arise.

But when they are turned towards the truth

and reject the world and whatever is false,

and advance toward Allah, they become one

in their outlook. Envy disappears. Mutual co-

operation and support flourish.” (The

Muqaddimah, 319-20).

In modern political discourse, especially in the

West, Ibn Khaldun is seen first and foremost

as a romantic figure or perhaps the founder

of sociology. The Scottish author Ian Dallas

54 55

THOUGHT

contests that view, as well as the dicho-

tomisation of “medieval” and “modern” in

general. In his masterpiece The Time of the

Bedouin, he brilliantly links Ibn Khaldun to

Ernst Jünger, and the end of European philo-

sophy from the perspective of first Muslim

community in Madinah. In Dr Dallas’ work,

European history devolves on a transfer of

power; the foundational political form,

monarchy, replaced by structurally networked,

oligarchic elites.

Neither does Ian Dallas believe in the linear

progression of political models. The French

Revolution – with which, after all, the Modern

Era begins – he sees marks the birth of

democracy but also state terror, both two

sides of the same coin.According to Ian Dallas,

Revolution has Terror built into it, and

“Terrorism is not and cannot be perceived as

the destructive force of an evil other. It is not

even a Janus-head of one monster. It is the

quintessential core of the dying entity (the

bourgeois epoch).” (ToB p. 273)

New elites appear in the form of sects and

dominate the state as the political ur-model,

where monarchy is abolished, along with its

inner unity of political decision and military

responsibility. Dr Dallas demonstrates that

a shift of power took place which far from

empowering the populace as professed,

empowered instead what Hilaire Belloc calls

the “Money Power”; the finance-commo-

dities elite. The diffuse forces of politics,

economics and the Military-Industrial

Complex may serve a whole range of

puposes, just not the objectives of the old

nations.

The limiting of political sovereignty by the

power of financial technique made the

German philosopher Martin Heidegger

sigh, “Only a God can save us.” Heidegger

Platos’ collected works (Geman edition). The Time of the Bedouin by Dr Ian Dallas.

saw no political solution, advocating

instead Gelassenheit, an inner distancing

from the power of technology. But Ian

Dallas points to Ibn Khaldun, a political

thinker he considers groundbreaking: “It

requires a young intellect to grasp Ibn

Khaldun – not his ideas, but his mode of

thinking.” (ToB p. 278)

As with the thinking of Plato, Dr Dallas does

not consider man to be a detached observer,

rather an integral part of the political model.

If man wishes to win back his freedom, he

must change himself and re-discover his

meaning as part of a tremendous creational

process.

Dr Dallas’ Bedouin is not dissimilar to Ernst

Jünger’s Waldgänger. Neither anarchist nor

revolutionary, he is however a crosser of

boundaries who seeks and upholds his own

freedom. The Bedouin understands that his

highest possibility lies not in individualism

but in actions performed together with others.

Ibn Khaldun calls this transformative energy

“Asabiyya”. Ian Dallas writes: “The true

Asabiyya as understood by Ibn Khaldun is of

higher spiritual brotherhood, which is always,

in its great phase, invincible.” (ToB, p. 278)

Dallas explains that to Ibn Khaldun,Asabiyya

has a declared aim which is not only of

political character but also a visibly economic

one: “Ibn Khaldun marks the point at which

Asabiyya installs Monarchy as being that

point when the King adopts a natural currency

based on gold and silver.” (ToB p. 290).

Consequently, it is only a Divinely inspired

monarchy which is in a position to stem the

oligarchic tendency and the erosion of law,

and to give back to man his political

sovereignty.

Text By Abu Bakr Rieger