Globalia Magazine 8th Edition

GLOBALIAMagazineQuarterly | Issue 08 | August 2010EUR 4, USD 5.5, GBP 3.5, AED 20, MYR 20, ZAR 44

A new focus on the worldCover story: A global trend. The worldmoves to alternative currencies.

Africa: On the Western Sahara.When will the solution arrive?

Culture: The shores of Azania. Impressionsfrom a journey to the Swahili coast.

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Wealthy, poor Afghanistan. Massive reserves of natural resources discovered, page 16.

EDITORIALBy Abu Bakr Rieger.

COVER STORYA global trend. The world moves to alternative currencies.

Implementing the dinar and dirham. Role model: a casestudy in Indonesia.

ECONOMYWealthy, poor Afghanistan. Massive reservesof natural resources discovered.

Detrimental to the economy. Iraq: on the American exportof democracy.

Global“The runaway general”. Leading commandersacked for insubordination.

Interview“Liberal” versus “radical”. An interview with French authorOliver Roy.

AfricaReturn of colonial powers? China-EU rivalryin Africa sharpens.

On the Western Sahara. When will the solution arrive?

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Ecology: the Muslims and the heir to the throne, page 45.

CONCEPT AND EDITORIAL

AsiaThere is no ‘Islamic Bomb’. An analysis of Pakistan’sstrategic nuclear assets.

EuropeSystematic opposition? Germany: the officialinteraction with Muslims.

Ecology“Guidance from the Qur’an”. Ecology: the Muslims and theheir to the throne.

Money growth: an ecological distaster.

NGOBeyond immigration. Skopje: cooperation betweenEuropean Muslims.

SocietyThe politics of fear. Globalisation: the middle class in crisis.

Winners in the crisis.

CultureThe shores of Azania. Impressions from a journey to theSwahili coast.

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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 08 | August 2010

EDITORIAL

EDITORIALBY ABU BAKR RIEGER

Dear Globalia readers,

It is the question of the century, and it

is not a difficult one to ask: are the

Golden Years soon to be upon us again?

In this edition we will be looking at the

cataclysmic ‘financial crisis’ from various

angles. Muslims in Asia are especially

involved in models for a solution to the

situation. Malaysia’s former President

Dr. Mahathir recognised the financial

system’s innate st ructura l problems

way back in the Asian monetary crisis of

the 1990s.

The facts are now clear. The burden of debt

under which Europe’s nations are labouring

is gigantic, and the long-term economic

future of what were once the world’s richest

countries is now uncertain. Behind the

scenes, the new global players are busy

preparing for the future.

I was talking recently to a German property

broker who sells agricultural and forestry

estates. I asked him how business was going,

whether he was satisfied with the year so far.

The man smiled and responded drily, “I’ve

never sold so many properties and forests in

my life. If only I had more to sell.”

In other words, well-heeled Germans are

moving away from the hedge funds and the

old casino-capitalism and investing instead

in tangible assets. But why?

There is no doubt that more and more people

all over the world, rich and poor, are trying

to secure their welfare with tangible wealth.

But whole nations too are reconsidering their

gold stocks, especially those fortunate enough

not to have national debts.

Saudi Arabia, for example, has more than

twice as much gold stashed away as pre-

viously thought, according to World Gold

Council figures. According to them the

Saudi Arabian Central Bank (Sama) holds

gold reserves of 322.9 tonnes – more

than double the previously published

figure of 143 tonnes. Saudi Arabia is also

the world’s fourth largest owner of

foreign currency reserves.

4 5

EDITORIAL

Even the European Parliament itself now

considers democracy under threat in

Europe and issued an interesting appeal

for help just a few days ago. European

parliamentarians are being overwhelmed

by the power of lobbyists. “The disequi-

librium between the power of this lobby

and the lack of any counter-expertise is to

us a danger to democracy,” states a

parliamentarians’ circular helplessly. This

makes an absurdity of the primacy of

politics.

Explaining how the pressure on politicians

works, SPD Member of Parliament Udo

Bullmann tells how the banks intimidate

them with horror scenarios describing the

consequences of more stringent banking

regulations. “There is no neutral body that

checks banks’ figures. But there is a mass of

money available for lobbyists to talk trash to

no end,” said the politician in the Financial

Times.

We have come full circle. Sulaiman Wilms

reports in this edition on the role of fear in

modern politics. Fear of crisis, fear of social

relegation – and a fomented fear of Islam.

Fear is the common denominator which has

to hold modern societies together. Pessimism

reigns, together with the general view that

there is no alternative to the dominant

financial system.

Fear and a lack of alternatives – is this the

beginning of a new totalitarianism in Europe?

We hope not. Globalia, at least, will keep

discussing alternatives.

The reasons for this kind of silent monetary

policy are obvious. Endless endebtment

logically has to end in collapse. In France,

England and Spain, the first government

austerity packages are already threatening to

cause social unrest – but packages which

would reduce new borrowing by a mere

fraction.The dynamic of the problem remains

unstopped. Simple mathematics demonstra-

tes its insolubility.

Asset consultant Martin Mack said in an inter-

view with Das Handelsblatt: “Our financial

systems are now receiving emergency

injections of cheap money in the double-

figure billions. But what figures will we be

faced with tomorrow?”

People are famously inventive when the going

gets tough. And of course, people could opt

for a growing number of new means of

exchange in the face of looming monetary

collapse. But gold has a long tradition, and

has always kept its purchasing power through

the ages. Mack knows a good example: “At

the beginning of the 1920s, an ounce of gold

cost around 20 dollars, which would also buy

you a good men’s suit. Today you can still

get a good men’s suit for an ounce of gold,

but for 20 dollars you might only just get

the pocket handkerchief to go with it.”

Gold has another advantage as the anchor

of a rational economy. The paper money

system currently in use, which is covered

purely by people’s trust in it, can, as we now

know, be expanded simply by printing,

with the result that people now fear

inflation everywhere.

An expansive, boundless monetary policy is

of course impossible with gold. But the

ownership of gold can be banned by law, as

has happened in the past. Power over paper

money does of course equate with political

power.


COVER STORY

The question naturally arises as to what drives

the trend towards alternative currencies. The

answer is simple: the recent financial crisis (which

is certainly not over as the media like us to

believe) has brought the world closer to a post-

globalisation era which will be marked by

uncontrollable sovereign debt and, as a conse-

quence, a reversal of policy, away from globali-

sation towards regionalisation.

A GLOBAL TRENDTHE WORLD MOVES TO ALTERNATIVE CURRENCIES

The trend towards alternative currencies,

originally started on a ‘community’ level have

increasingly turned into local, state-spon-

sored, payment systems gaining broad global

appeal and acceptance.

The oldest and best known of these is the

“WIR” payment system, established in

Switzerland in 1934 in response to the severe

monetary shortages during the Great

Depression. A Wikipedia entry states:

“The WIR Bank, formerly known as the Swiss

Economic Circle or WIR, is an independent,

complementary currency system in Switzer-

land that serves small and medium-sized

businesses. It exists only as a bookkeeping

system to facilitate transactions. WIR was

founded in 1934 by the businessmen Werner

Zimmermann and Paul Enz as a result of

currency shortages after the stock market

crash of 1929. Both Zimmermann and Enz

had been influenced by German libertarian

economist Silvio Gesell. ‘WIR’ is both an

abbreviation of Wirtschaftsring and the word

for ‘we’ in German, reminding participants

that the economic circle is also a community.

According to the cooperative’s statutes, ‘Its

purpose is to encourage participating

members to put their buying power at each

other’s disposal and keep it circulating

within their ranks, thereby providing members

with additional sales volume. Although WIR

started with only 16 members, today it has

grown to include 62,000 – among whom is

traded approximately 1.65 billion Swiss francs

annually (as of 2004). The WIR bank is

a not-for-profit bank. It serves the interest of

the clients, not the bank itself. It is a very

stable system, not prone to failure as the

current banking system is. It remains fully

operational even in times of general economic

crisis. In this sense,WIR may have contributed

to the remarkable stability of the Swiss

economy, as it dampens downturns in the

business cycle.”

While the WIR complementary currency

system in Switzerland and other more recent

community-based payment systems such as

the Chiemgauer in Southern Germany remain

purely paper systems, we observe a growing

trend towards bi-metallic currency systems.

With our two companies e-dinar FZ LLC in

Dubai and Emirates Gold Europe GmbH in

Switzerland we are directly involved in the

production and coinage for some of the best

known of these complementary bi-metallic

currency systems: namely the Kelantan Dinar

and Dirham and the Ilmtaler Silber Thaler.

6 7

COVER STORY

The state of Kelantan (Malaysia) has

been in the national and international press

for their efforts to distribute the gold

dinar through their state-owned pawn-

brokers. Since 2007, when they first started

distribution, they have sold some 10,000

gold dinars to the public.

During the last one and a half years, we have

worked closely with the government of

Kelantan to issue a new bi-metallic series of

the Kelantan gold dinar and silver dirham

with the state emblem on the face of the new

medallions. We were finally been awarded

that contract in March 2010 and received the

funds for the first batch which went into

production during April 2010.

This new series of the dinar and dirham will

be broader in denominations and will

comprise both silver and gold pieces

rather than just gold pieces as in the past:

Kelantan dinar denominations1/2, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10 (one dinar = 4.25grams of 22 ct gold)

Kelantan dirham denominations1, 5, 10, 20 (one dirham = 3 grams of.999 silver)

Kelantan’s past efforts were exclusively

focused on the gold dinar. As we know

however from history, silver coins have played

a more significant role in everyday life than

gold coins for the simple fact that gold

coins tend to be too valuable for everyday

purchases such as bread or groceries.

Having understood this, the state govern-

ment of Kelantan has now decided to issue

a bi-metallic series comprising both the gold

dinar and the silver dirham in a wide range

of denominations.

The new Kelantan series is already being

widely advertised; when leaving or entering

Kelantan airport, one cannot miss the large

billboards advertising the new medallions

with the state emblem on their face. The

purpose and aim of the Kelantan coins is to

pay zakat (the Islamic wealth tax) in hard

assets which have intrinsic value and not, as

is done today, in promissory notes which,

according to Islamic Law, are unlawful means

of zakat payment.

in February 2010, we were approached by a

German group who were planning to issue

an alternative community currency purely

based on silver medallions – the Ilmtaler

series. Face motives include historic figures

from the German renaissance, particularly

from the area of Erfurt and Weimar

(Ilmtaler denominations: 1/10, 1/4, 1/2 and 1

ounce silver pieces – .999 silver)

A related group had previously issued one of

the better-known paper-based alternative

currencies in Germany – the Rheingold. Over

the years, they came to realize that sound

money (i.e. gold and silver) is far superior

to paper receipts. It was for this reason that

they wanted to issue an alternative silver

‘currency’ in denominations comparable to the

silver dirham.

In early 2010, we submitted a competitive

offer for the production of the coins including

the artwork, die production and coinage. In

April 2010, we were awarded the contract and

are now in the stage of die production. Their

first order comprised of more than 40,000

silver medallions and we anticipate similar

sized orders every three to four months.

If however a single large country such as

Mexico coverted its paper pesos into silver

pesos, the current total of silver in storage

would not be sufficient to satisfy demand

(Mexico in fact has a long-standing project

to do just that). It is important to note that

in the not too distant past – actually only 30

years ago – the coins of several currencies,

including the Swiss franc were still made out

of silver. Only in 1980, when the Hunt

brothers drove silver to 50+ USD an ounce

and the silver content of these coins began

to exceed their nominal value, was the Swiss

government forced to replace its silver coins

with cheap nickel alternatives.

Should silver coinage become popular

again, the world would quickly use up its

depleted silver storage and run out of

available metal. Inevitably, this would push

the price of silver bullion sky high.

The question naturally arises as to what drives

the trend towards alternative currencies.The

answer is simple: the recent financial crisis

(which is certainly not over as the media would

like us to believe) has brought the world closer

to a post-globalisation era which will be

marked by uncontrollable sovereign debt and,

as a consequence, a reversal of policy, away

from globalisation towards regionalisation.

Why is the financial crisis not over? Because

governments have tried to treat the symptoms

by injecting massive amounts of paper money

into a structurally flawed financial system;

failing to address the root cause of the crisis

which is the parallel market of out-of-control

derivative products, amounting to no less

than 15 times the world GDP or roughly 600

trillion USD. It was a tiny fraction of this

parallel market (i.e. derivatives based on

subprime mortgages) which caused the

financial collapse in the first place.Yet policy

makers continue to close their eyes to the


ECONOMY

real problem hoping that somehow every-

thing will magically turn around. A danger-

ous illusion since the next crisis is just below

the surface and waiting to erupt; the differ-

ence being that next time around, the world

will have run out of options.

Modern economies could not survive another

financial meltdown of the kind we have just

faced for the simple fact that our govern-

ments have run out of options to buy more

time. The next financial crisis will result in

massive sovereign defaults, social unrest and

revolts leading to the eventual collapse of

democratic governance. For the people, the

outcome could at its worst become compa-

rable to the German situation at the end

of World War II.

The signs for the advent of a new post-

globalisation era are visible all around us.

First, the massively increased sovereign debt

levels which are quickly separating the bad

from the good and, secondly, the increasing

formation of regional power centers.

Let us first talk about debt. Governments all

over the world have tried to buy their way

out of the financial crisis, incurring debt of alar-

ming proportions.While economic conditions

in developed countries have not really

improved since the start of the crisis, the size

of government debt has increased drama-

tically. Before the crisis sovereign debt was

already staggering, today it is beyond repair.

Everyone is concerned about the debt crisis

in the PIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Greece

and Spain), but few dare to even think what

might happen if the US (where government

debt will soon be reaching 100 per cent of

GDP) or Japan (which has the highest

sovereign debt to GDP ratio worldwide)

default. While a sovereign default of the

PIGS countries would certainly be traumatic

for their citizens, Europe and the rest of the

world could survive such an event. If the US

however defaults on its sovereign debt, which

is definitely in the cards (a downgrade of US

sovereign debt is today openly discussed),

the economic world as we know it today

would cease to exist. Why? Because the US

dollar would in the event be devalued to close

to zero, thereby destroying more than half of

all monetary value in existence.

The BRIC countries on the other hand,

although they also have increased their debt

ceilings to combat the financial crisis, have

formidable foreign reserves and sovereign

wealth funds which insulate them to a signi-

ficant extend from the risk of sovereign

default.

Let us now turn to the issue of regionali-

sation. The disproportionate rate of sover-

eign debt levels and foreign currency reserves

has increased the rift between the well-to-do

countries in Asia, the Subcontinent and South

America (“the good”) and the not so well-

to-do countries in Europe and the US (“the

bad”). This is a fundamental shift of power

away from the developed countries to a new

economic power axis extending from China

through India, the Middle East, Africa and

South America - the so-called BRIC countries.

The results of this shift in economic power are

increased regionalisation and a reversal of

economic focus away from export at all costs

towards internal development and consump-

1tion (we can observe this new trend most

clearly in China and India).

What brought this shift in economic power

about? The answer is obvious: it has to do

with the ratio of sovereign debt to foreign

reserves and savings.While the BRIC countries

have accumulated high levels of foreign

reserves due to their singular focus on ‘export

at all costs’ and have managed their debt

fairly well, the developed countries continue

to spend beyond their means, amass un-

manageable debt levels while at the same

time facing decreasing levels of savings and

sovereign reserves.

In short, developed countries have for too long

lived too far beyond their means. As every-

one of us knows from experience, such a

situation will inevitably end in disaster.

One of the signs of regionalisation is the

widespread adoption of barter and alternative

currency systems in Europe,Asia and the US.

People feel increasingly betrayed by their

governments, have lost their faith in the

banking system and the financial elite and see

their only saving grace in resorting to their

own initiatives. Alternative currency systems

flourish in Germany, Asia and the US, while

barter systems grow like mushrooms in

Eastern Europe. While these initiatives are

admirable (and certainly on the right track),

while wishing them success, I would like to

caution that the only true and lasting alter-

native to paper-based banking is gold and

silver – the ultimate currency.

Such a world currency will have to be and

must be based on hard assets, namely gold

and silver. Gold and silver have served

us well since the beginning of civilisation

and will certainly serve us well until

the end of civilisation.

The author is CEO of e-dinar FZ LLC and

Emirates Gold Europe GmbH.

Text By Dr. Zeno Dahinden


COVER STORY

Educating people as part of the programme: Umar Ibrahim Vadillo (front) and Pak Zaim (middle) are explaining the bi-metallic currency.

10 11

COVER STORY

History is alive with records showing that every

time a currency like the Indonesian rupiah has

been devalued, there is a massive transfer of

wealth. Indonesians have been reduced to humi-

liating poverty. In the past decade, the man

who has been calling the people of Indonesia

forward to a future of economic strength in

Indonesia, with ever growing response from

the people, is the founder of the ‘Wakala Induk

Nusantara’, Pak Zaim Saidi.

IMPLEMENTING THE DINAR AND DIRHAMROLE MODEL: A CASE STUDY IN INDONESIA

country in order to create an international

demand for the rupiah, restrict the powers of

the Central Bank etc, and the list goes on.The

government of Indonesia cannot solve the

problem of the rupiah; the problem of inflation

(which is more accurately an increase in the

money supply and not merely in prices) but

can only regulate it. This is all mathematics

while the solution to the problem of the rupiah

lies well outside such torturous calculations

emanating from air-conditioned bourgeois

office buildings. It is, on the contrary, to turn

away from all of that.

The mess that modern economic theory has

created in the 3,000, vast and rich inhabited

islands of Indonesia provides a stimulus to

seek a solution to the problem, and that

lies in a return to the original economic model

of the Nusantara Sultanate that people

practised for centuries before the introduction

of paper as currency in colonial times.

In the past decade, the man who has been

calling the people of Indonesia not merely

back to conventional economic practice but

forward to a future of economic strength in

Indonesia, with ever growing response from

the people, is the founder of the ‘Wakala

Induk Nusantara’, Pak Zaim Saidi.

Having established the Wakala Induk

Nusantara in 2008, Saidi inaugurated the use

of the gold dinar and silver dirham as currency

alongside the paper rupiah. He had already

established the first wakala of Indonesia in

the year 2003 and had been a proponent of

the function and role of the wakala and the

coins. This he based entirely on the history and

culture of Indonesia and the economic model

of the Nusantara Sultanate.

As the dinar and dirham are commodities per

Within ten years of the Bretton Woods accord,

the Indonesian rupiah stood at 415 to 1 US

dollar, in late 1986, 1000 to 1 and today it

stands at approximately 9000 to 1. What

happened in between was Indonesia’s blind

following of capitalism; an unquestioning

adherence to its dogmatic dictates. The

rupiah has been deliberately devalued time

and again for reasons never clearly stated.

History is alive with records showing that

every time a currency like the rupiah is

devalued, there is a massive transfer of

wealth from the hands of ordinary people to

the hands of those who control the

resources and the real wealth of the country;

a sleight of hand that amounts to theft,

always unknown and justified in ultra-tech-

nical language.

The people of Indonesia have been reduced

to humiliating poverty and destitution, yet

though on the whole they despise the

imposed currency – because the rupiah has

only been losing its purchasing power ever

since first issued – they are still unaware that

the problem of their economic condition lies

in the very paper money they despise.

In order to move the decimal point three

digits to the left, to make the exchange rate

at least 9 to 1 US dollar let alone make it

equal, the Central Bank has to reduce the

money supply in the country – including every

kind of central and private bank deposits

apart from the small portion of worthless

paper and coins in circulation – by a thousand

times; then create a new demand for the

rupiah.

This would mean a preposterous increase in

interest rates and taxation which would in

turn result in a dramatic reduction of the

average income with a rise in poverty and

destitution as a consequence. It would also

mean nationalising the resources of the


COVER STORY

se, firstly they are free from inflation and

secondly they can be used as a just means of

pricing. Pak Zaim often illustrates this by

saying that the price of a chicken 1400 years

ago in Madinah was 1 dirham and today, if

measured in dirhams, remains the same.

The Wakala Induk Nusantara, also known as

the Master Wakala, is responsible for minting

the coins – in several denominations as will

be shown later – with a direct relationship

with the Royal Mint of Indonesia (Loga Mulia),

and then sells them through the network of

wakalas functioning under it.

There are currently about 75 wakalas which

in turn sell the coins to the people who

ultimately choose to utilise them in a number

of ways as well as keeping them as collector’s

items, a choice however which does still

benefit the owner because gold and silver

serve as the best store of value.

The wakala is, in short, a private institution

that facilitates the exchange of paper money

into gold and silver coins. Very importantly,

it is not a business enterprise. It is profit-free.

The Master Wakala deals with the mint, the

wakalas deal with the Master Wakala and the

people deal with the wakalas.This is the basic

operational mode that has been established.

The coins – denominations and useThe basic denominations of both the gold

coin and the silver coin are 1 dinar and 1

dirham respectively.The dinar is 22 carat gold

(91.7 per cent purity), 23 mm in diameter

and is 4.25 grams in weight. The dirham is

99.99 per cent pure silver, 25 mm in diame-

ter and 2.975 grams in weight.The dinar has

been minted in two other denominations –

1/2 dinar and 2 dinars. The dirham is in three

other denominations – 2, 1/2 and 1/6 (the last

• As zakat payment according to theshari’ah; under which sub-heading arerulings by the imams of the differentmadhahib that zakat may not be paid inpaper money.

• As savings and value protection.

• As sadaqah.

• As dowry.

the coins have been minted according to the

culture and traditions of Indonesia and the

economic practice of the people of the

Nusantara Sultanate and since their use is

based on their being a partial payment system

alongside the paper rupiah, they are not in

any way opposed to state currency, which,

though imposed, will naturally, when used in

parallel with the dinar and the dirham

(themselves minted by the Royal Mint of

Indonesia), have its worthlessness revealed

over time. There is no reason why the coins

should not be used.

Pak Sufyan, a scholar of Islamic coinage and

the Islamic model of economics, quite clearly

mentioned in an interview with a Dutch

journalist that he is not in anyway opposing

the banking establishment but that he merely

wants the freedom to choose his medium of

exchange which, if saved, would also preserve

the value of his wealth. The Dutch journalist

included her study of Pak Zaim’s work in

Indonesia and her interview with both Pak

Zaim and Pak Sufyan in her internationally

acclaimed documentary on capitalism [Time

for Change, Bregtje van der Haak, VPRO

Backlight 2010].

Finally, the wakalas also allow the coins to

be redeemed with paper money but with a

reduction of 4 per cent of the price that not

only covers the minting and handling costs

but serves to deter such an action.

Pak Zaim’s tireless efforts to educate the

public on such matters of daily importance

as monetary economics and his actual work

on the ground in minting and distributing the

coins over the last eight years has now

resulted in the circulation of approximately

50,000 coins throughout Indonesia. At first

look, traders generally express mistrust and

of which is called the daniq). The daniq has

been minted very recently and may be

considered the most important coin for basic

and daily market transactions. Some signifi-

cant aspects of the recent launch of the daniq

will be discussed later.

The exchange value of the coins follows the

market price at the time of transaction. The

wakala keeps track of the daily fluctuations

in the exchange rate with the Master Wakala

– since the prices of gold and silver, in terms

of paper money, fluctuate daily. The minting

and distribution costs, which amount to about

4 per cent in total, are then added onto the

price of the coins.

In a terse brochure published by the Wakala

Induk Nusantara entitled, “Use Dinar and

Dirham – Daily Transactions, Hand to Hand,”

the various uses of the coins are seen as

follows:

The brochure states one of the strongest argu-

ments for the use of the coins as currency thus,

“Besides the obligation to use them to pay

zakat, etc, by using them your wealth will not

be affected by inflation. The value of all

paper-based currencies is always dropping,

but the values of the dirham and the dinar

always increase. Their values appreciate

by 20-25 per cent annually.”

Pak Zaim Saidi argues succinctly that since

12 13

COVER STORY

suspicion but on inspecting the small

certificate from the Royal Mint of Indonesia

that accompanies every coin in a plastic

cover, they accept them at once as payment,

often astonished that each silver dirham is

worth many times more than the ten thousand

rupiah note. This is because the only silver-

coloured coin they see every day is the 500

rupiah, which has no purchasing power at all

on its own.

Zakat and MarketsThe most significant element of Pak Zaim’s

Amirate of Indonesia is the collection of Zakat

and the organisation of markets to encourage

entrepreneurship and trading links amongst

Muslims that will break the barriers of

monopolies, oligopolies and the giant private

corporations of production in Indonesia.

Zakat is the fallen pillar of Islam. This is

because, unlike sadaqah, Zakat is taken –

clearly mentioned in the Quran (9:103) –

taken by an Amir who is then responsible for

its immediate distribution to eight categories

of people mentioned in another verse of the

Quran, a distribution which, according to

some scholars, has to be done before sunset

or, according to others, within three days.

Neither can Zakat be collected in paper money

but rather in real wealth, and in the case of

savings or businesses, it has to be collected

in dinars and dirhams.

Pak Zaim has taken on this task of collecting

Zakat via the coins that he has been minting

and then distributing them in the regular

markets he organises. He has set up the ‘Baitul

Mal Nusantara’ so that Zakat is collected and

distributed by zakat collectors, particularly in

markets.

This is because when the coins are distributed

to the poor, needy and those eligible to

receive them, the next question arises, ‘How

can they be utilised?’ Since Zakat is distributed

in parallel with the organisation of markets,

those receiving the money may immediately

spend it according to their needs. To date

seven Market Day Festivals have been orga-

nised based on the Islamic model of the free

market in the major cities of Indonesia.

Traders are not charged rent for a space in

the market, with anyone being able to trade

anything there and with those coming to the

market being given the freedom to use the

coins together with the rupiah. People have

freely exchanged their paper money for the

coins and have spent them in the markets with

pleasure.The Mayor of Depok has taken part

in two such markets which stimulated an

increasing confidence in the coins.

It is important to mention here that Pak

Sufyan, who lives in Cilincing, has achieved

tremendous success in convincing the traders

of his particular district to accept the dinar

and the dirham as a medium of exchange. A

pasar malam or night market operates every

evening in Cilincing, which has attracted the

attention of the mainstream media of Indo-

nesia as well as several international journa-

lists. Near to Cilincing, traders in a series of

shops beside a fishing village have begun

accepting the coins as currency as well.

Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, the Spanish Muslim

who pioneered the whole movement of the

dinar and the dirham and is the key to its

reintroduction in Asia, in 1992 in Spain


COVER STORY

minted the first gold dinar since the collapse

of the Ottoman Islamic Dawlah.

Vadillo once remarked in a lecture at the

International Islamic University of Malaysia

(IIUM) that there are only two steps to the

establishment of the dinar and the dirham as

currency: their minting and distribution, and

their being used. In Indonesia, with the

problem of the minting and the distribution

solved, the spread of their use now begins.

It is important to mention here that the

organisation of markets for the use of the

dinar and the dirham is the antidote to the

current capitalist procedure of establishing

shopping malls and giant supermarkets that

involve huge corporations supplying them

with commodities as well as requiring massive

investment, a procedure which has destroyed

entrepreneurship and raised too many barriers

for the man in the street to be able to engage

in trade. As such, the only possibility for the

trader is a bank loan, which contains, if

admitted, the very seeds of the destruction

of that business.

On the other hand, Pak Zaim’s efforts have

enabled any man in the street to be able to

trade. If someone desires to trade but has no

capital to start with, the person may get an

interest-free loan for the purpose from the

Wakala Induk Nusantara in dinars and dir-

hams.This is called ‘qirad’ or a profit-sharing

investment in trade. Many people have

successfully started trading through such

loans and have also begun repaying the loan.

Pak Zaim has recently begun another major

operation for the distribution of dirhams

through a non-commercial channel. He has

called it Garnissun Bangsa. It is an acronym

taken from parts of an Indonesian phrase

14 15

COVER STORY

that means, Nationwide Movement for

Dirham Spending and Sadaqah for National

Resilience.

It is a campaign for economic strength, to

encourage people to use dirhams in all

transactions and give dirhams as charity.

Besides the numerous activities organised

under Garnissun Bangsa, such as the business

loans, Pak Zaim has started the Million

Dirhams Give Away Campaign. It is to urge

people of means to give to people without

means doing so in Dirhams, which will help

in the distribution of the coins.

People may give via the mosque or any

charity organisation or straight to families

and individuals. When a million dirhams

enter into the economy, they start making a

difference because, as mentioned above, the

coins preserve purchasing power and are a

good store of value and therefore immune

from inflation.

The Daniq and the Nisfu Dirham On 18 April 2010, the daniq and the nisfu

dirham (half dirham) were officially launched

at the seventh Market Day Festival organised

by Amir Zaim. It was a historic event as the

daniq has never been minted as a coin in

Muslim history; it has only been used as

’odd-shaped clippings’ taken from existing

silver coins of the respective time.The weight

and value of the daniq has therefore been

determined now.

The festival was attended by a number of

significant government officials and leaders

of large organisations including the Mayor of

Depok, Bapak Dr Ir Nurmahmudi Isma’il, and

the Chief of Police, Kiyai Sanwari Ahmad.

Zakat was also distributed the previous

afternoon and that very morning. Both the

people who came to the market and the

officials received the launch of the two new

denominations of the coins appreciatively.

The nisfu dirham and especially the daniq,

solve the problem of using the dirham

in very basic transactions. Now for an angkot

(minibus) ride, which costs exactly one daniq,

the people may freely use the coins without

any need to expect any rupiah as change.

Secondly, for small transactions like a cup of

tea or coffee, even if paid with a dirham,

change may be given in a nisfu dirham and

daniqs.

This will help distribute the coins more widely

around Nusantara. In short, though the use

of the coins still functions together with the

use of the rupiah, the introduction of the

daniq and the nisfu dirham has potentially

freed Indonesians from dependence on the

rupiah. Moreover, now anyone can exchange

almost any amount of rupiahs for dirhams and

over time they in turn may be exchanged

for dinars. This may be the catalyst for the

people’s completely severing their links

with Bank Indonesia. Pak Zaim continues to

educate the public about the dinar and the

dirham as solutions to the problems created

by the fictions of both the electronic rupiah

and the paper rupiah. He has given numerous

television interviews, authored several books

on the subject and organised many seminars

and markets to expand the work. Ilusi

Demokrasi and Kembali ke Dinar are two of

his most important books. He has also trans-

lated Umar Ibrahim Vadillo’s book Heidegger

for Muslims from English into Bahasa

Indonesian.

His website www.wakalanusantara.com is

constantly updated with news of events and

developments with regard to his work. The

prices of the coins are also updated twice

daily according to world gold and silver prices

to avoid any loss due to daily fluctuations.

The very strength of the political estab-

lishment in the world today, including

Indonesia, lies in banking and imposed

currencies. Be it a secular, Islamic, capitalist

or communist state, regardless of the name,

the modern state has three foundational

elements: a constitution, a national debt and

an imposed currency.

The economic strength of those in power is

due to the latter two – the national debt

and the imposed currency. For this reason,

no state recognises gold and silver or any

other commodity as money.Therein lies both

their strength and their weakness since it is

in no way against the law to mint coins and

use them as a ‘barter currency’. The people

of Indonesia know them to be money. But

the government refuses to acknowledge

them and only recognises them as ‘barter

currency’ or means for a partial payment

system in buying and selling. In Indonesia there

is a model for any serious person in any part

of the world who has realised the fraudulence

of paper money, it having no intrinsic value

and consequently losing its purchasing power

irreversibly, and thus its incapacity to function

as a reliable medium of exchange.

As the US dollar falls, all currencies pegged

to it therefore fall with it. A close study of

the working monetary model of the

Indonesian Amirate is essential to avoid the

massive transfer of wealth from the poor

and ordinary people to the super wealthy

that always occurs every time the value of

paper-based money falls.

Text By Hasbullah Shafy’i


ECONOMY

It has been almost three decades since the

politically motivated war between Argentina and

Great Britain over the desolate Falkland Islands,

where it was well known that there were large,

undiscovered reserves of oil and gas. This gives

the present Afghan conflict a painful irony as a

similar message has been making the rounds

within the international community. According

to American geologists and the Pentagon, there

are large and diverse natural resources buried

under Afghan soil. According to the International

Monetary Fund, the war-torn country is one of

the poorest nations in the world. In 2008, the

country’s income stood at $425 per capita.

WEALTHY, POOR AFGHANISTANMASSIVE RESERVES OF NATURAL RESOURCES DISCOVERED

“This is perhaps the best news Afghanistan

has had in recent years”, said Waheed Omar,

spokesman for weak Afghan President, Hamid

Kharzai, in Kabul after the publication of

the astounding geological report. He was

careful to stress that it was conducted on

behalf of the government. It is hoped that in

the long-term, this discovery will unite the

Afghan people.

According to Soviet geologists, the prepara-

tory work that contributed to the discovery

was carried out during the occupation in the

1980’s. After the Soviet withdrawal, Afghan

experts firstly hid the maps and data and

then returned them to the official document

archives after the fall of the Taliban in

2001. American geologists arrived in 2004

and made the records the basis of their own

research.

It was not until 2009 that a Pentagon bureau

on economic development was informed of

the discovery, that mining experts carried out

checks, and that finally U.S. Defence Secretary

Robert Gates and Afghan President Karzai

were briefed. It has been estimated that there

are natural resources worth just over a trillion

U.S. dollars.

Enormous reservesAccording to a senior U.S. government official

quoted in the “New York Times”, stockpiles

include large reserves of iron, copper, cobalt

and gold. The Times report was essentially

based on a Pentagon report. The mineral

reserves are enough to turn Afghanistan into

a “world-leading mining centre”, with mining

becoming the backbone of the Afghan

economy, according to Jalil Jumriany, adviser

to the Afghan ministry for mining. Notably,

Afghanistan was described in the Pentagon

report as the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”, the

Afghan Minister for Mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, during a press conference in Kabul.

Imag

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PPh

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Mus

adeq

Sad

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16 17

ECONOMY


ECONOMY

key metal component in the production of

computers and mobile phones.

Remarkable timingThere may be legal doubts as to whether the

delays in the disclosure of the reputedly,

enormous reserves of natural resources were

purely down to technical delays. After all,

President Obama has recently been forced to

oust his leading commander in Afghanistan

in the midst of ever-increasing admissions of

western failure in the Hindu Kush. Some

analysts have expressed the view that

headlines regarding the alleged discovery of

natural resources serve to counter the growing

public opinion as to the futility of continued

involvement.

“What better way to remind people about the

country’s potential bright future – and by

people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the

Pakistanis, and the Americans – than by

publicising or re-publicising valid (but

already public) information about the region’s

potential wealth?” wrote Marc Ambinder,

political editor of the magazine “The

Atlantic”, in his blog.

Blake Hounshell, chief editor of “Foreign

Policy” recalls that the U.S. Geological Survey

(UGS) published an online report in 2007 on

mineral resources [excluding gas and oil] in

Afghanistan. It said, “Afghanistan has signi-

ficant amounts of undiscovered non-fuel

mineral resources.”The World Bank prepared

that, with their report on the extensive

economic potential of the Afghan mining

industry going back to 2004.

Natural resources andcounterinsurgencyThe optimistic Afghan and U.S. voices are

questionable. Increase in wealth is not the

only outcome to be expected from mining.

In Afghanistan, the various militant factions

now have – alongside the opium industry –

another crucial incentive to continue their

armed struggle.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, many

of the alleged natural resources are in

Taliban controlled areas [Ghazni, Kandahar

and Zabul], who could potentially free them

from a reliance on revenue generated by

opium, which essentially represents their only

source of income, that and the collection of

protection money.

Also, neighbouring countries such as resource-

hungry China – and their direct competitor

India – have an increased incentive to both

directly and indirectly interfere in Afghan

internal affairs.According to information from

think-tank “Stratfor”, the Chinese company

China Metallurgical Group Corporation, has

already committed 3 billion U.S. dollars in

advance and agreed to pay a further 400

million thereafter for the mining rights to

secure the copper deposits from Aynak in

Logar province. Last year verification drillings

were carried out and a temporary base is

now being prepared. A railway line, power

plant and copper smelter are in the pipeline.

In the months since the implementation of

counterinsurgency measures, which according

to experts are increasingly based on those

carried out by the French in Algeria, the losses

of U.S. and NATO troops have risen sharply.

A symbol of the de facto failure was the result

of the “battle” around Merja in Helmand

Province.A second planned campaign in and

around the key city of Kandahar has been

postponed for months.

“In that respect, the appearance of the Times

story looked to many observers like part of

an effort to strengthen the case for giving the

counterinsurgency effort more time,” agreed

political commentator, Jim Lobe.

Hostile geopoliticsThe geopolitical situation in Afghanistan and

relations with its neighbours – in addition to

technical, military and political issues – is

likely to be the biggest challenges needed

to be taken into consideration. How are

countless tons of valuable ore from a

country without access to the sea to be

transported to the region’s major ports?

It is the opposite problem to that with which

the NATO commanders are presently occu-

pied. They have spent years striving to find

secure supply routes into Afghanistan.

Pakistan would be an option, but the border

crossing points have proven to be dangerous.

In addition, Pakistani transportation is tradi-

tionally considered by western observers to

be in the hands of a corrupt group of brokers

– the so-called “transport mafia”.

Iran, located to the southwest would represent

a different route. But simmering unrest

currently plagues the southeastern regions.

Furthermore, it seems clear that faced with

new sanctions against Iran and the earlier

refusal to approve pipeline projects through

Iran, NATO and the US have no real interest

in this option.

A third option would be to transport the

Afghan ore through Central Asia and Russia.

But this, according to NATO, is a lengthy and

expensive journey – two and a half times as

long and as costly as going through Pakistan.

Experts dampen optimismOfficial US experts have already warned

infrastructure, awkward logistics, security

threats, and corrupt negotiations.”

The planners of “Stratfor” came to a para-

mount conclusion on the potential develop-

ment of Afghanistan’s natural resources:

“Over the next few years there will be little

meaningful impact on the ground in

Afghanistan in terms of investing in and

developing the country’s minerals. The key

question at this point is how Washington

will play this mineral-wealth story to serve

its interests in the region, especially as the

United States struggles to break a stalemate

in southwestern Afghanistan and force the

Taliban to the negotiating table.”

that extracting Afghan natural resources will

not be simple and that it could take years to

convert the recently discovered minerals into

actual revenue. “It’s not a quick win,” said

Jack Medlin from the U.S. Geological Survey

at a briefing at the Pentagon.

Representatives of the Pentagon and the U.S.

State Department acknowledged that there

was a general sense of optimism, in spite of

the fact that efforts to extract the raw minerals

were being hampered by remote locations,

weak infrastructure, a lack of powerful

equipment and a strong military resistance.

“Turning the potential of Afghanistan’s

mineral wealth into actual revenue will take

years”, said State Department spokesman

P.J. Crowley.“As you know, mineral extraction

faces numerous but not insurmountable

challenges.”

The extraction and transportation of the

coveted ore is a logistical challenge, even

with developed railway and road networks.

Even if Afghanistan had these means of

transportation, it would remain questionable

whether the mining of natural resources

would be economically viable.

Experiences with investments in Afghanistan,

such as the aforementioned Aynak copper

deposits show, according to “Stratfor”, that

typically slow development, is being further

hampered “by problems relating to poor

18 19

ECONOMY

Text By Sulaiman Wilms

China’s focus on Afghanistan’s resources: inaugaration of the Aynak copper project.


ECONOMY

20 21

ECONOMY

Before the US began to export its democracy

to Iraq, the country was one of Russia’s main

trade and economic partners in the Middle

East. At that time the attractiveness of the

Iraqi market for Russia was expressed by the

country’s high paying capacity, guaranteed

by its having the world’s second highest oil

reserves, and good export prospects.

On the one hand, under Saddam Hussein the

members of the Baath party occupied the key

ruling positions in all spheres of life of the

Iraqi society and it was a common practice

for them to distribute part of the oil

export profits amongst each other. Such

practice is known as the muhassa system

(“proportional distribution”) but from the

perspective of the Western economic model

it was the way to stagnation.

On the other hand it ensured a certain degree

of stability in Iraq where people had become

used to this system. As Evgeny Primakov, an

expert on Iraq, says, “Iraq is specifically

different. The economic development of the

country as a whole is ensured by the evolution

of traditional economic practices and not by

the planting of Western democracy.”

Before the much vaunted democratisation

began in Iraq, the representatives of the US

did a lot of talking about big oil deposits in

the country saying that hydrocarbons would

ensure the development of the Iraqi economy

and lead it towards modernisation. Did it

happen? At the end of 2009, the Iraqi govern-

ment tendered for the development of its ten

oil fields. Many foreign companies bid for

their development and, as expected, most of

the winners were international consortiums

including two Russian companies – Lukoil

and Gazpromneft. However when it came to

the distribution of the contracts aimed at

the quick economic restoration of Iraq, not

everything was transparent.

According to a Mr. Al Khafaji, an Iraqi citizen

who worked with the US State Department

before the war, the companies which received

contracts arranged six subcontracts with

At the beginning of US intervention in Iraq there

was talk that democratisation would lead to

prosperity. In practice it turned out to be wrong.

In 2005, when the constitution of Iraq was

approved, Iraq was proclaimed a democratic

state. From the results of the elections (2005 and

2010) new governments were formed, but, to put

it mildly, the development of the Iraqi economy

leaves much to be desired.

DETRIMENTAL TO THE ECONOMYIRAQ: ON THE AMERICAN EXPORT OF DEMOCRACY

other firms, with each of those firms receiving

its share. But in many cases some of those

firms started working under the contract.

For example, the private US company, Custer

Battles received contracts for 100 million US-

dollars over 13 months, signed subcontracts

and then produced fake documents with

“swollen” costs.The picture gets even worse

if, as according to experts’ estimates, we add

the fact that by now Iraq has lost 90 billion

US-dollar through illegal exports of oil and

oil products.

Besides that, annually, the country wastes

about 600 million cubic meters of gas and of

the 1,041 oil wells existing, only 441 are

being exploited. The country uses less than

half its export potential estimated at 4.2

million barrels.

Over the last seven years of the Iraqi demo-

cracy, not a single oil processing plant has

been built in the country despite proposals

from foreign companies. According to infor-

mation from the control department of the

US Congress, of the 2 million barrels of oil

produced in Iraq daily, 100 – 300,000 barrels

remain unregistered which amounts to

between 5 million and 15 million US-dollars

in monetary terms.

Comparing the economic state of Iraq under

Saddam Hussein to the situation now, we can

conclude that the export of US democracy

turned out to be detrimental to the Iraqi

economy.Western democratic models do not

work in the Arabic world. (Source:RIA Novosti)

The author is a Strategic Culture Foundationinvestments expert on the energy sector in theMiddle East and Africa.

Text By Eldar Kasayev

GLOBALIA | Issue 07 | January 2010

GLOBAL

22

President Obama came pretty close to having

a MacArthur moment and, following in the

footsteps of President Truman, swiftly dealt

with it. General McChrystal and his top aides

had disparaged civilian leaders, including

President Obama, in their conversations with

a freelance journalist, reported in an explosive

article captioned “The Runaway General” by

Rolling Stone magazine.

Taking shots at the president, according to the

article, McChrystal described his first meeting

with him as “disappointing”, saying that the

president came in “unprepared” when, shortly

after taking office, President Obama met

with senior military officers at the Pentagon.

A source familiar with the meeting said

McChrystal’s assessment of Obama was that

of a president who was “uncomfortable and

intimidated” in the presence of military top

brass.

According to McChrystal’s staff officer, the

magazine reports, their second encounter

four months later did not make a mark on

McChrystal either. This was when he met the

president briefly in the Oval office after being

selected for the job in Afghanistan. McChrystal

called this a photo-op and was said to have

been disappointed that the commander-in-

chief, quote, “didn’t seem very engaged.”

The article also contains a number of

disparaging remarks made by McChrystal and

his aides about vice-president Joe Biden,

national security advisor Jim Jones, special

envoy Richard Holbrooke and the US ambas-

sador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry.

The general’s aides were clearly dismissive of

the civilian misreading of the war, with the

general himself ridiculing the vice president

Biden in a one-liner when he asked:“Are you

asking about Vice President Biden?” then

adding,“Who’s that?”McChrystal held a grudge

against Biden ever since he had opposed the

surge that McChrystal had proposed in

support of a new counter-insurgency strategy

to rescue the failing war and to which Obama

had agreed over Biden’s objections.

President Obama lost no time in removing General

Stanley McChrystal from his command of US and

NATO forces in Afghanistan, appointing General

David Petraeus in his place. He moved quickly to

restore the unity of his administration’s war

effort by reiterating the chain of command

and reminding the military of the supremacy of

civilian authority.

“THE RUNAWAY GENERAL”LEADING COMMANDER SACKED FOR INSUBORDINATION

23

GLOBAL


GLOBAL

The article quotes McChrystal as calling

Richard Holbrooke a “wounded animal”

because he “keeps hearing rumours that he’s

going to be fired.” His aides derided Jim Jones

by calling him a “clown”.

The White House was furious, as was Obama.

This unbecoming conduct amounted to

insubordination by no less than a general

officer holding a very important command.

This called for a severe reprimand and

dismissal.The general was summoned, given

a hearing by the president and commander-

in-chief and, in a show of grace, asked to

resign.

There were concerns in Washington that

McChrystal’s departure in the middle of a

war could cause a major set back to its

execution and the timelines that Obama had

prescribed for the military in Afghanistan.

Some argued that after a presidential

scolding he should be allowed to return to

his post and finish the job.

But Obama had other concerns.The general’s

conduct had brought out into the open three

fault lines that now needed to be addressed

urgently.

Firstly, the friction between a civil and military

leadership over the conduct of the war with

the fundamental question as to who is in

control of a war effort that is de facto going

nowhere. This is despite Robert Gates being

in charge of the Pentagon, having been

retained from the Bush administration for the

very purpose of ensuring continuity of smooth

operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Secondly, the Pentagon has been blaming the

administration for not understanding the war

with the government retorting that the

Pentagon did not appreciate political realities.

Out of sync with each other, they have conti-

nued to operate within their own spheres.

The military high command however having

initially agreed to the timelines set by Obama

when he gave them additional troops and

the funds to turn things around in Afghanistan

last autumn, not truly accepting them.

They argue that counter-insurgency operations

can not be realistically limited to a given

length of time. The political leadership has

accused the Pentagon of indirect insubor-

dination with the Pentagon responding by

saying that the administration is focused

more on withdrawal and less on winning

the war.

And thirdly, McChrystal was habitually

crossing a venerated line in openly criticizing

the civilian chain of command and manipu-

lating the leadership, which sent the wrong

signal down the line. Obama had had to give

him a dressing down during his visit to

Copenhagen last year after McChrystal had

criticized Vice President Biden in a speech in

London for advocating a scaled-down war

effort, in conflict with McChrystal’s own

strategy of increasing troop strength.

Earlier last autumn, McChrystal was suspected

of having leaked his Afghanistan strategy

document to the media arguing for an

additional 40,000 troops even before

President Obama could evaluate it and make

a judgment; calculated to put the president

in a box and make him concede to his

demands. An angry White House made muted

accusations of insubordination.

Being thus emboldened, believing himself

indispensable and enjoying the support of

McChrystal’s unfinished legacy: the unsuccessful campaign around the town of Marja.

Eikenberry and Richard Holbrooke.

The fallout over the McChrystal scandal will

affect Pakistan too; where the civilian and

military leadership has chosen to quietly

watch the drama unfold. McChrystal often

visited Pakistan in an effort to win support

for the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and deve-

loped close ties with military commanders,

starting with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s

army chief, with whom he held frequent

meetings. Effective cooperation and intelli-

gence sharing exists between the two sides.

There remains an uncertainty, however, as to

whether this cordial relationship will be

maintained by the new US and NATO

commander General Petraeus.Although he is

no stranger to this war and to the region,

having overseen both the war and General

McChrystal and fully familiar with the realities

on the ground, remaining in close contact

with Pakistan’s military commanders.

General Petraeus nevertheless remains an

unknown entity as a person physically

handling the operations. Pakistan will also

be closely watching the nature of his relation-

ships with other groups in Afghanistan,

particularly those that work to destabilize

Pakistan and the region.

A strong working relationship with Islamabad

is and should decisively remain a central part

of the US war strategy, not only because of

the sensitive common borders and the fact

that Pashtuns straddle both sides of the border

but also because the events in Afghanistan

directly impact Pakistan.That Pakistan is in a

position to play an important role in promo-

ting peace goes without saying.

24 25

GLOBAL

the Pentagon, particularly Robert Gates,

McChrystal committed the grave indiscretion

of publicly ridiculing the civilian authority to

whom he reported. But this time he forced

the president’s hand too far.

Fears that General McChrystal’s abrupt

departure from the theatre of war would

cause serious disruption are, in fact, unfoun-

ded. It is not uncommon for commanders to

be changed during the course of a war.

Pending the Senate approval of General

Petraeus for the new job, a British general

who was next in seniority had already taken

over to ensure there were no missed heart-

beats in the chain of command.

The entire military leadership, including

General Rodriguez, the US and NATO second-

in-command, continues to oversee day-to-

day operations as before. Subordinate com-

manders will also continue to follow the

strategy and orders that are already in place.

General Petraeus was in fact the architect of

the war strategy presented to President

Obama by McChrystal and approved for

implementation in Afghanistan, a strategy

that Petraeus had already put in place in

Iraq and where McChrystal also served. For

Petraeus, highly regarded for his performance

in Iraq, this war and the strategy are nothing

new.

In taking this decision, President Obama

ignored the plea made by President Karzai

who cautioned Obama against McChrystal’s

removal, expressing fears that it would derail

the war. For Karzai, McChrystal was also

important as he got the full backing of the

general, who also served as his channel of

communication with Washington. Karzai is

not on speaking terms with ambassador Text By Shahid R. Siddiq Stanley McChrystal

GLOBALIA | Issue 08 | August 20Issue 08 | August 201100

INTERVIEW

“The debate in Europe has shifted in the last 25

years (effectively a whole generation) from

immigration to the visible symbols of Islam, which

has created a paradox: even people who were

opposed to immigration now acknowledge that

the second and third generation of migrants

are here to stay and that Islam has rooted itself

within Europe. So now the debate is about the

status of Islam.”

“LIBERAL” VERSUS “RADICAL”AN INTERVIEW WITH FRENCH AUTHOR OLIVIER ROY

The debate about Islam in the West, principally

in Western Europe, has been developed along

ideological lines. Hitherto, it quite often came

to a rare – given the former political dialectic

of “left” and “right” in the European

landscape – fusion of anti-Muslim and anti-

Islamic rhetoric.

But too often, religions and their practices

have been confused with ideologies and their

proponents. These days, it is mostly the

”talking heads” or “pundits” of mainstream

TV or the press who dominate the ”discourse”.

within Europe. So now the debate is about

the status of Islam. And here we have a

strange phenomenon: while anti-immi-

gration feeling is mainly associated with the

conservative right, anti-Islamic sentiment is

to be found on both the left and the right,

but for two very different reasons.

For the right, Europe is Christian and Islam

should be treated as a tolerated, albeit inferior,

religion.There is (unfortunately) no way to ban

it (because of the principle of “freedom of

religion”, inscribed in our constitutions,

international treaties and UN charters), but

there are means to limit its visibility without

necessarily going against the principle of

freedom of religion (for instance the European

Court of Human Rights did not condemn the

banning of the scarf in French schools).

For the left, the issue is more generally

secularism, women’s rights and fundamen-

talism: it opposes the veil, not so much

because it is Islamic, but rather because it

seems to contradict women’s rights. Hence

the debate on Islam disguises a far more

complicated issue: what is a European identity,

and what is the role of religions in Europe;

and of course, on these two issues the left and

the right take very different positions. But we

are witnessing the rise of new populist

movements (like Geert Wilder’s In Holland)

mixing both approaches, basically siding with

the right but using leftist arguments.

Question: In your book, you say that

fundamentalists like Al-Qaida have

nothing to do with the tradition of Islam.

But for the people of Europe, they appear

very traditional.Are Al-Qaida and similar

organisations and movements a modern

phenomenon? How do you explain this

matter?

Independent experts and authors like the

French author Olivier Roy are helping to paint

a different picture. For Roy, extremist groups

like Al-Qaida (AQ) have more in common with

the political-terrorist movements of the

European past than with Islam.

Question: In Switzerland, a majority voted

for a ban on minarets; in France and in

Belgium, the Islamic headscarf is under

serious debate; in Italy the crucifix is

coming under fire. And also here, in

Germany, the debate surrounding Mus-

lims is often hysterical.Why do Europeans

fear religious symbols or ”foreign” reli-

gions so much?

Olivier Roy: The debate in Europe has shift-

ed in the last 25 years (effectively a whole

generation) from one of immigration to the

visible symbols of Islam, which has created

a paradox: even people who were opposed

to immigration acknowledge now that the

second and third generation of migrants are

here to stay and that Islam has rooted itself

26 27

INTERVIEW

Olivier Roy: The kind of terrorism perpetrat-

ed by AQ is unknown in Muslim history, as

well as in “Christian” history. So in any case

it is a recent phenomenon. If we consider

some of its main characteristics: suicide

attacks, execution of hostages, targeting civil-

ians; these are all tactics that have been put

into practice recently by other organisations

before AQ: The Tamil Tigers used suicide

attacks, the Italian extreme right (Bologna

bombings in August 1980), the Italian Red

brigades: if you look at the video of the exe-

cution of foreign hostages by AQ in Iraq, it

follows precisely the “staging” of the exe-

cution of Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades

(banner and logo of the organisation, hostage

hand-cuffed and blindfolded, a group of “mil-

itants” staging a mock trial, the pronounce-

ment of a “sentence” followed by the exe-

cution).

By its modus operandi; its form of organi-

sation, its targets (US imperialism), and

recruitment (young western educated

Muslims or converts to Islam), it is obvious

that AQ is not the expression of a traditional

Islam (even fundamentalist) but of a recasting

of Islam under the cloak of western revolu-

tionary ideology.

Question: Are there similar Christian

organisations? Can we find a similar

development in Christianity?

Olivier Roy: It depends what you call

“Christian” (and that is the same issue for

Islam) and whether violence is motivated

by faith or by political ideology? I argue that

in both cases the motivation is driven far

more by ideology (even claiming a religious

legitimacy) than by faith. There has certainly

been “white” western terrorism (the Okla-

homa bombing in 1995, for example). But in

fact, there is no real parallel: the present

struggle looks more like asymmetric warfare,

with Islamic radicals having no air force or

aircraft carriers.

A radical Christian crusader who wants to

fight Muslims does not need to enter into a

terrorist organisation: he can just enlist into

the US air force and become a fighter-

bomber pilot. It is well documented in the US

media that the Colorado Springs US Air force

Academy is a hotbed of Christian evan-

gelicalism (at the expense, by the way, of

Jewish or atheist cadets, note: Air Force

Removes Chaplain From Post: Officer Decried

Evangelicals’ Influence, By T.R. Reid,

Washington Post Friday, May 13, 2005)

Question: How do you explain the success

of such radical movements or ideologies?

Are poverty and exclusion really the

reasons for it?

Olivier Roy: No, all the research shows that

there is no correlation between poverty and

radicalisation: there are far more Saudis than

Bangladeshis (in fact almost no Bangladeshis)

among the radicals. I think that the present

struggle is a continuation of the old fault-line

of anti-imperialist, third-worldist movements

against the West and specifically the USA.

Bin Laden says little about religion, but

mentions Che Guevara, colonialism, climate

change etc. It is also clearly a generational

movement: AQ is a “youth” movement of

young people who have split with their

families, their social milieus and are not even

interested in the family’s country of origin.

There are an astonishing number of converts

within AQ, which is now acknowledged

but not taken into account. The converts are

rebels without a cause who would have

joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) or the Red

Brigades of thirty years ago, but have now

joined the most successful movement on the

anti-imperialist market.We are still witnessing

the continuity of a mostly western, revolutio-

nary millenarianism that has turned away

from the concept of establishing a new and

just society. The new movements are pro-

foundly sceptical about building a good

society, hence their suicidal dimension (also

to be found with the RAF).

Question: Today, some Europeans main-

tain that European culture is essentially

a Christian culture, and hence that

everything Islamic is problematic and

alien for Europe.What do you think of this

position?

Olivier Roy: They say that at the same time

as the Popes (Benedict and John Paul) have

said that Europe is rejecting and ignoring its

Christian roots: the debate on sexual freedom,

abortion, gay rights is not setting in opposi-

tion Europeans and the Muslims, but secula-

rists on one hand (there are some Muslim

secularists) and conservative believers on the

other hand (whether they be Muslim, Catholic

or orthodox Jews). In fact Europe is highly

divided on the topic of its own culture,

between secularists who consider that the

Enlightenment (alongside Human rights, free-

dom, democracy) to be the real birth certifi-

cate of Europe, and the “Christian cultural-

ists” who consider that the Enligthment also

led to communism, atheism and even Nazism.

Question: Is there a real risk of

Islamophobia in Europe?

Olivier Roy: The problem is how we define

Islamophobia: is it simply another term for

racism, and specifically racism against

consider religions as “mere religions”,

whatever they say about themselves.

The issue is not what Islam says or what the

Pope says, but under which conditions a faith

community can freely exercise its rights.

Governments should contribute to the de-lin-

king between religion and culture, but at the

same time reject the multi-culturalist app-

roach of religion in favour of a neutral and

strict freedom of religion within the frame-

work of existing laws.

Question: In the media we often have

the dialectic of “liberal” vs. “radical”

Islam. Is there a “liberal” or “radical”

Islam? If we look at the five pillars of

Islam, is it possible to do the prayer

”liberally” or “radically”? Is this termino-

logy actually applicable on this matter?

Olivier Roy: No, I think the mistake is to

consider that in order to be a good citizen, a

believer has to choose a “liberal” theology.

The debate on the “reformation” of Islam is

irrelevant. People who advocate a Muslim

Luther never read Luther: he was not a liberal

and quite anti-Semitic incidentally.

The ”formatting” of Muslims into a Western

environment has nothing to do with theology.

It is done by the individual practices and

endeavours of the Muslims themselves by

attempting to try to reconcile their practices

within a western environment, in which they

find tools to do that (rethinking norms in

terms of values, for instance). In the long

run these changes will certainly translate

into a theological rethinking, but it does not

make sense to associate modernity with

theological liberalism: to think like that

means either distorting history or relying on

wishful thinking.

people with a Muslim name, whatever their

real degree of belonging to a faith community

may be, or is it the rejection of a religion?

There are anti-racist militants who cannot

stand the veil (as is the case with feminists),

while there are racist people who do not

oppose the veil (because they already think

that these people are too different from us

anyway). The issue is complex because we

haven’t tried to disentangle two issues:

ethnicity and religion.

Of course in Europe most Muslims have a

foreign ethnic background, but the distinction

between ethnicity and religion is increasing:

there are converts both ways; there are atheist

“Arabs” and “Turks”, and more and more

Muslims want to be acknowledged as

believers belonging to a faith community, but

not necessarily as members of a different

cultural community; we need to distinguish

between “ethnic communities” on the one

hand and “faith communities” on the other,

because both require a different approach,

and since “ethnicity” is less and less mean-

ingful in terms of culture, it is becoming more

and more linked with skin colour.

Question: During an interview, you said,

for example, that the biggest campaign

against Darwin in Europe was being

conducted by a Turkish Muslim using

translations of books written by evange-

lical Americans, with a consequent con-

vergence of values and norms, and even

the manner in which those religious

groups translate their convictions into

political action and intervention. How

can the political world find a way to deal

with this “drifting, deculturalized and

globalized religion”?

Olivier Roy: I think that today, the ”successful”

religions are the global and deculturalised

religions (evangelicalism, salafism, cults, etc)

not the traditional churches (the Catholic

Church, in particular). This trend is dominant

now. It does not make sense to fight

against it, particularly in countries where

constitutions prevent the State from inter-

fering with beliefs. On the contrary I think we

should accentuate the separation of church

and state by implementing full equality

between religions, but not on a basis of

“multi-culturalism”; rather we should


INTERVIEW

A new phenomon: Terror was unknown in Islamic history.


AFRICA

In times of an obvious shift of economical and

political influence from the Western hemisphere

to the East of Asia, Africa has become to the

staging-ground of a new competition. In order

to counter Chinese influence, France’s president

Sarkozy invited African leaders to an African-

French summit in the town of Nice. Bejing has

– in terms of hotly debated political issues –

proven itself as less demanding to the African

governments then its Western counterparts. So

it is less than sure they will return into the

political fold of its former colonial masters.

RETURN OF COLONIAL POWERS?CHINA-EU RIVALRY IN AFRICA SHARPENS

If China needed another prompt that the

European powers have finally woken up to

the fact they were losing the competition for

the Africa pie, it came with France’s bid to

recapture lost ground in May this year. French

President Nicolas Sarkozy presided over the

25th Africa-France summit in Nice where for

the first time he tacitly acknowledged the

success of China’s expansion in Africa by

calling on French businesses to emulate it.

Without mentioning China by name, Sarkozy

declared it was time for Europe to use

infrastructure investment along with

development aid and fight to increase its

influence in Africa once again. “Africa is our

future... the African continent is asserting

itself more and more as a major player in

international life,” said Sarkozy. “We cannot

govern a 21st century world with a 20th

century institution.”

The two-day summit, which ended June 1,

underscored Europe’s new drive to step up

its investment in Africa and imitate China’s

successful formula of undertaking infra-

structure projects and supporting private

investment to win hearts and minds.To make

his message heard Sarkozy had invited

executives of some of France’s leading

companies:Areva, the country’s nuclear giant,

oil giant Total, France Telecom, Veolia, the

world’s largest water supply company and

others.

“This summit is meant to bring policy and

reality closer and facilitate French businesses

to expand in Africa,” says Anna Stahl,

researcher with the Institute for European

Studies of Vrije Universiteit in Brussels.

“European Union (EU) businesses have been

reluctant to engage in Africa and Chinese

companies that enjoy the backing of the

The new ‘Big Brother’? African children waving Chinese flags.

Chinese mining companies in Zambia and

other African countries that have been found

to use obsolete and highly-polluting equip-

ment that has been banned inside China by

the country’s new stringent environmental

policies.

Calls were heard too about the need to rethink

China’s quest to control energy assets in Africa

that is fuelling anti-Chinese perceptions.

China’s re-examination of its practices in

Africa comes at a time when the EU is

wrestling to clarify its own position towards

China’s expansion on the continent.

Two years ago the EU approached Beijing

with a trilateral initiative on Africa, suggesting

China and the EU should work on a partner-

ship basis that involved Africa as an equal

partner. But the response from Beijing has

been lukewarm.“They don’t see the trilateral

initiative as their own,” says Stahl. “They

worry that agreeing to it could be interpreted

by the Africans as if China and the EU are

negotiating over their heads.” (IPS)

“China’s behaviour in Africa plays by the rules

set by western powers themselves,” said an

article in the Chinese edition of Global Times.

“While no western government can speak

out publicly against China’s investment in

the continent they have mobilised the media

and various non-governmental organisations

to find faults with China.”

‘The 21st Century China-Africa Investment

and Cooperation Forum’, held in Beijing on

May 28, revealed China was shifting gears to

engage more players in its dealings with

African countries, courting relations with

commercial associations and social groups

beyond the immediate ruling elites.

“The Chinese media needs to ‘go out’ too

and explain to African people what China’s

development model is all about,” Xie Boyang,

vice-chairman of the China-Africa Business

Council, was quoted as saying at the forum.

Xie claimed the absence of Chinese media in

Africa meant that its investment there was

being misrepresented by western media as

“the return of colonialism”. But some of the

participants in the forum also spoke about the

30

AFRICA

31

state have had the advantage. Now France

wants to lend support to its companies and

redress the situation.” While EU policy

towards Africa has always featured an econo-

mic aspect, the model of preferential trade

combined with aid was dominant, according

to Stahl. “Now the discourse has become

more pragmatic,” she says.

The change is dictated by the staggering

figures of China’s expansion in Africa.A recent

report in China’s ‘21st Century Business

Herald’ newspaper said China’s direct

investment in Africa has increased more than

ten-fold, jumping from a modest 80 million

US dollars in 2003 to 1.36 billion dollars in

2009. At the 2009 Forum on China-Africa

Cooperation (FOCAC) held in the resort town

of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, Beijing com-

mitted to 10 billion dollars in low-cost loans

and an additional one billion dollars in loans

to support the growth of small and medium

African enterprises.

At about the same time that President Sarkozy

was meeting African leaders in Nice, China

was holding its own seminar on how to

counter negative perceptions about its rise in

Africa. Recent official media reports have

been full of headlines like “the West envies

China’s sway in Africa” (the Global Times)

and “China and the West spar over diplomatic

ethics in Africa” (Xinhua news agency’s

website).

Chinese companies have encountered upsets

in several African countries where they have

invested to gain valuable assets – being

accused of turning a blind eye to corruption

and violating local laws. All this has fuelled

a climate of suspicion in China that the West

is waging a covert war to frustrate China’s

expansion in Africa.

Text By Antoaneta Becker

Now a usual sight: Chinese business in the streets of Khartoum, Sudan.


AFRICA

The question of the status of the Western Sahara

is seldom heard in the Western media, or at least

not since the 1980s. But in Morocco, which since

1975’s legendary ‘Green March’ has considered

the Western Sahara part of its own country, all

the issues relating to that disputed territory are

as current as they ever have been. Indeed they

are explosive geopolitical issues. And yet political

progress remains extremely sluggish. Many ex-

perts agree that the most promising prospect for

solving the Western Sahara question remains the

Autonomy Plan proposed by Morocco in 2007.

ON THE WESTERN SAHARAWHEN WILL THE SOLUTION ARRIVE?

To understand the conflict it is necessary to

look back a little. The area known today as

the Western Sahara was appropriated by

Spain in the course of Morocco’s colonial

occupation.The Western Sahara is extremely

sparsely populated, with an estimated

500,000 people living there.Traditionally these

have been nomadic tribes of mixed Berber and

Arab descent, known as the Hassani, to which

are added a large number of settlers from the

Moroccan heartland. The Western Sahara is

largely desertified.The most important natural

resource is phosphate, while others such as

oil and uranium are thought to exist.

Since the decolonialisation of Morocco, the

status of the Western Sahara has been the

subject of constant dispute. Negotiations with

Spain on how the area would be returned

began in 1965, with the UN supporting

Morocco. What was at issue was the future

status of the region. A trend soon emerged,

apparently instigated by Spain and later

Algeria, amounting to equating self-deter-

mination with independence – in other words,

a movement towards the independence of

the Western Sahara. The Moroccans, on the

other hand, stuck by the position that what

was at stake was a territorial, legal conflict

between them and Spain, not a matter of

self-determination.

The Spanish position was based on the claim

that the Western Sahara before Spanish

occupation was kind of no-man’s land, a terra

nullius, while Morocco and also Mauretania

33

AFRICA

32

made legal claims to the country – claims

which in Morocco’s case were basically

recognised by the UN.

In 1975, following a unilateral attempt by

Spain to hold a referendum, Morocco

mobilised everything in its power against

what it called the “Spanish-Algerian project

of a puppet state”. Morocco cited the position

of the International Court that it held a

legitimate legal claim to the area, and called

on Spain to enter new negotiations.

The ‘Green March’, which was announced on

16 October 1975 and involved the peaceful

occupation of the area by Moroccan civilians,

was designed to force these negotiations into

play; and negotiations indeed began – but

failed. There then followed a legendary

phase of conflict over the country. On 6

November 1975, the ‘Green March’ began

with around 350,000 volunteers, an event

still deeply ingrained in the collective memory

of the Moroccan populace.

The conflict threatened to escalate. Algeria

began to arm the Polisario movement, sta-

tioned some of its own troops in parts of the

Western Sahara, and created what was known

as the SADR, a kind of Polisario government-

in-exile, in the border town of Tindouf.

Morocco managed to keep the Polisario at bay

militarily throughout the 1980s, partially by

the construction of massive protective walls

along the cease-fire line to prevent the

Polisario from penetrating. Armed conflict

dragged on from 1975 to 1991. But in political

terms the situation is still today one of dead-

lock, with a large number of Sahrawis still

living in refugee camps around Tindouf.

Since the end of the armed conflict, every

effort to hold a referendum on independence

has failed through disagreement as to the

way voters would be identified.

British author Toby Shelley has criticised the

UN Security Council’s overall lack of

determination to find a solution to the

problem. Nevertheless, Shelley believes that

many presently want stability in the region

(especially the USA), which could be one

reason why the matter has begun to move

again lately.

Morocco proposed its autonomy solution in

April 2007, which was presented to the UN

Security Council. The UN then requested the

parties involved to enter into direct,

unconditional negotiation.Also in April 2007,

the UN Security Council passed Resolution

1754, which called on Morocco and the

Polisario to negotiate; this was extended to

October 2007 by the UN peace mission

MINURSO.As a result, a total of four meetings

between the two sides were held under

United Nations patronage at Manhasset near

New York, but results were not forthcoming.

Furthermore, the mission of the UN General

Secretary’s Personal Envoy, Peter van Walsum,

ended on 21 August 2008, with a successor

yet to be named.

The UN mission was most recently extended

up until 30 April 2010. Morocco has proposed

far-reaching autonomy while preserving

Moroccan sovereignty, while the Polisario

insist on a completely independent state and

accuse the UN mediator of being partisan to

Morocco.While the situation remains difficult,

the Moroccan Autonomy Plan still seems the

best solution to the conflict.

Abdel Hamid El Ouali, a professor at

Casablanca University’s Faculty of Law, in

his highly recommended book ‘Saharan

GLOBALIA | Edition 01 | December 2007

AFRICA

Conflict. Towards territorial autonomy as a

right to democratic self-determination’ has

produced a convincing portrayal of the way

the conflict developed and the great oppor-

tunity represented by the 2007 Moroccan

Autonomy Plan. El Ouali basically sees three

reasons why the Autonomy Plan was received

positively, including by the UN.

Firstly, he says, there is a general paradigm-

shift away from concepts of total state inde-

pendence for regions with ethnic minorities

within existing states, since states formed

that way often cause instability, not only

internally but also in respect to other

countries, with them usually struggling or

failing to sustain their independent existence.

More realistic and preferable, he says – and

he includes the case of the Western Sahara

in this – is territorial autonomy as opposed

to independence or complete integration into

the Moroccan state.

Secondly, he continues, independence has

always been the wrong approach to the

Western Sahara, since Morocco does indeed

have legitimate legal claims to the territory.

And thirdly, the highly developed Moroccan

Autonomy Plan was, he claims, very convin-

cing for a variety of reasons. El Ouali speaks

of “the end of the paradigm that self-

determination means independence.”

However, the so-called freedom-movement

Polisario, which is supported by Algeria and

headquartered in the Algerian town of

Tindouf, still clings to the goal of complete

independence. The Polisario was sceptical

about Morocco’s autonomy offer from the

outset, since it did not include a referendum

on the possibility of independence. What is

needed now is a new vision. El Ouali even sug-

gests the development of a more cooperative,

regionalised Maghrib similar to the European

Union, a kind of ‘Maghrib of Regions’.

Abdel Hamid El Ouali represents the view

that the Moroccan autonomy offer goes even

further than the Lund Recommendations

regarding the regulating of autonomy pub-

lished by the OSCE in 1998, and other appli-

cable standards, and that an Autonomous

Region of the Sahara would enjoy powers

that even the most advanced autonomous

regions do not have, like Greenland, the Faroe

Islands, the Aland Islands and Catalonia.

According to the Moroccan plan, the popula-

tion of what would become known as the

Autonomous Region of the Sahara would

govern themselves on democratic principles,

with legislative, executive, and legal bodies.

The powers of the autonomous region would

lie principally in the following areas: local

administration of the region, local police

forces and jurisdictions; in the economic

sector overseeing the fields of economic

development, regional planning, promotion

of investment, trade, industry, tourism and

agriculture; the region’s budgetary and tax

affairs; infrastructure (such as water, hydraulic

plants, electricity, public services and trans-

port; in the social sector things like housing

construction, education, health, work, sports,

social welfare and social security; the environ-

ment sector; and cultural life on issues such

as the promotion of the Saharan cultural

heritage of the Hassani.

The above represent altogether a larger scope

than that proposed by the OSCE’s Lund

recommendations, which, for instance, did

not encompass jurisdiction or taxes. The

Muhammad VI, King of Morocco, during his first visit in the Western Sahara.

Image: AP Images

35

AFRICA

34

exclusive jurisdiction of the Moroccan state

would however remain in the following areas:

symbols of sovereignty, in particular the flag,

national anthem and currency; symbols of

the King’s constitutional and religious

authority as Commander of the Faithful and

guarantor of freedom of worship as well as

individual and collective freedoms together

with foreign relations and the juridical order

of the Kingdom.

And yet even in its foreign relations, the

autonomous region would be included in

issues that affect it directly. Moreover, the

Sahara would even be given the possibility,

with the approval of the government, of

entering into cooperation with foreign regions

in order to further international exchange

and collaboration. Any powers not clearly

defined would be regulated according to the

‘subsidiary principle’ – in other words, with

preference for the autonomous region over

central government, something in which the

Autonomy Plan once again exceeds the Lund

recommendations. The Sahara would also

have its own financial sources from regional

taxes, income from the exploitation of natural

resources, funds from internal settlements,

and income from regional productive invest-

ments. It is these fiscal aspects that reveal the

true extent of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan.

A parliament, a government and jurisdictional

bodies are envisaged for the Autonomous

Sahara. The parliament would consist of

members from the various Sahrawi tribes as

well as members from the regional popula-

tion as a whole, and an appropriate represen-

tation of women on the parliament would

also be ensured. So the body would be chosen

by means of free, democratic elections while

taking into account the differentiated tribal

mosaic of the Region. The executive would

lie with a Head of Government, who would

represent the Moroccan state in the region

and would be answerable to the King. He

would form the region’s cabinet and nominate

the ministers, and would be responsible for

answering questions from the regional

parliament and populace.

The Head of Government would be elected

by the local parliament. His relationship to the

central government and King would be of a

somewhat symbolic nature and would aim to

demonstrate the unity of the Moroccan state;

but his influence on the actual work of the

autonomous government would be minimal.

The Autonomous Sahara would also have its

own courts to rule on disputes relating to

autonomous government decisions – again

something that goes beyond the Lund recom-

mendations. The laws, ordinances and court

rulings issued by the Autonomous Sahara

would have to comply with the region’s

autonomy statutes and the Moroccan

constitution. And finally, the population of

the Sahara would be represented in Morocco’s

parliament and other institutions, and take

part in national elections.

Abdel Hamid El Ouali sees the new Moroccan

understanding of self-determination, as

expressed in the Autonomy Plan, as post-

modern, while considering the Algerian

approach as backward and outdated since

aimed solely at state independence,

something which, as explained, often leads

to instability and is contrary to the general

trend towards globalisation.

According to El Ouali, there are now doubts

as to whether Algeria is interested in any sort

of solution at all, it perhaps preferring to keep

the conflict open as a lever to be used against

Morocco at opportune moments.Algeria, says

El Ouali, should rather show more under-

standing for the maintenance of stability in

the region, in the interests of its own internal

identity issues and ethnic regionalism.

He claims that the Moroccan Autonomy Plan

is an effective way of taking regional identities

into account without encouraging the

separatist tendencies that would be

destructive to the region.“That is the greatest

danger to threaten Maghribi territoriality,

with ethno-nationalism having become a

distraction to and an outlet for the serious

problems affecting modern societies, aiming

not for the take-over of power, but for the

disintegration of the state with a view to

creating new state entities. The country that

seems best armed to face this eventuality is

Morocco,” El Ouali sums up.

This is so, he says, firstly because of Morocco’s

strong national cohesion in spite of the diver-

sity of its population, and secondly because

of advances in its democratisation, which

have amounted to more codetermination for

local and cultural communities. Finally there

is the culture of consensus, developed over

centuries in Morocco. Strong national integra-

tion is important for the strength of a state,

and essential if the region is not to slide into

ethnic chaos. El Ouali also calls for an end to

the conflict between Morocco and Algeria,

and for closer cooperation between the

Maghribi nations. One possible approach to

that would be a five-year moratorium on a

solution to the Sahara question, aiming at

identifying a common policy for regionali-

sation within an Arab/Maghrib Union.This in

turn could lead to the stabilisation of the

whole region and its diverse ethnicities.

Text By Yasin Alder


ASIA

When India went nuclear soon after playing a

crucial role in dismembering Pakistan in 1971 and

after having enjoyed an overwhelming conven-

tional military superiority, Pakistan was left with

no other choice but to develop a nuclear deterrent

to ward off future Indian threats. The US invasion

of Afghanistan provided another opening for the

Indo-Israeli nexus to target Pakistan’s strategic

assets. This time the strategy used was to present

it as unstable and incapable of defending itself

against extremist religious insurgents, creating

the spectre of both Islamabad and its nuclear

assets falling into enemy hands.

THERE IS NO ‘ISLAMIC BOMB’AN ANALYSIS OF PAKISTAN’S STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ASSETS

The Indian detonation of a nuclear device in

1974 drew only a customary “show of

concern” from the Western powers. But

Pakistan’s nuclear programme, initiated in

response to the Indian acquisition of

nuclear weapons, evoked immediate and

“serious concern” from the same quarters.

Ever since, Pakistan has been under immense

pressure to scrap its programme while the

Indians remain relatively uncensored.

That the Western attitude was discriminatory

can be seen by the religious colouring it gave

to Pakistan’s bomb in the calling it an ‘Islamic

bomb’. One has never heard of the Israeli

bomb being called a ‘Jewish Bomb’, the Indian

bomb a ‘Hindu Bomb’, the American and

British bomb a ‘Christian Bomb’ or the Soviet

bomb a ‘Communist’ [or an Atheist] Bomb’.

The West simply used Pakistan’s bomb to

make Islam synonymous with aggression and

make its nuclear programme a legitimate

target, knowing full well that it merely served

a defensive purpose and was not even

remotely associated with Islam.

With India going nuclear soon after playing

a crucial role in the dismemberment of

Pakistan in 1971 and after having enjoyed

an overwhelming conventional military

superiority over Pakistan to the ratio of 4:1,

a resource-strapped Pakistan was left with

no other choice but to develop a nuclear

deterrent to ward off future Indian threats.

Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto vowed to

make a nuclear bomb.

Soon however, both he and the nuclear

programme were to become non-grata. Amid

intense pressure, sanctions and vilification

campaigns, Henry Kissinger personally

delivered to a defiant Bhutto the American

threat: “Give up your nuclear programme or

else we will make a horrible example of you.”

Indeed a horrible example was made of

Bhutto for his defiance. But he had enabled

Pakistan to become the 7th nuclear power in

36 37

ASIA

Text By Shahid R. Siddiqi

the world. This served Pakistan well. India

was kept at bay despite temptations for

military adventurism. Although there has

never been real peace in South Asia, at least

there has been no war since 1971.

Ignoring its security perspective, Pakistan’s

Western ‘friends’ refused to admit the country

to their exclusive nuclear club, though expe-

diency led them to ignore its ‘crime’ when it

suited their purposes. However, prompted by

identical geo-strategic interests in their

respective regions and seeing Pakistan as an

obstacle to their designs, Israel and India

missed no opportunity to malign or subvert

Pakistan’s programme.

Israel’s apprehension of Pakistan’s military

prowess is rooted in the weight Pakistan

indirectly provides to Arab states with whom

Israel has remained in a state of conflict.

Conscious that several Arab states look up

to Pakistan for military support in the event

of threat to their security from Israel, it is

unsettling for Israel to see a nuclear-armed

Pakistan.

Israel neither can overlook the fact that

Pakistan’s military is a match to its own.The

PAF pilots surprised Israeli Air Force, when

flying mostly Russian aircraft they shot down

several relatively superior Israeli aircraft in

air combat in the 1973 Arab-Israel war,

shattering the invincibility myth of Israeli

pilots who believed themselves to be far

superior in skill and technology.The Pakistanis

happened to be assigned to the Jordanian,

Syrian and Iraqi air forces on training missions

when the war broke out and, unknown to the

Israelis then, they undertook combat missions

incognito.

After successfully destroying the Iraqi nuclear

reactor in 1981, Israelis planned a similar

attack on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities at

Kahuta in collusion with India. Using satellite

pictures and intelligence information, Israel

reportedly built a full-scale mock-up of the

Kahuta facility in the Negev Desert where


ASIA

pilots of F-16 and F-15 squadrons practiced

mock attacks.

According to ‘The Asian Age’, London

journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-

Clark stated in their book ‘Deception:

Pakistan, the US and the Global Weapons

Conspiracy’, that the Israeli Air Force was to

launch an air attack on Kahuta in the mid

1980s from Jamnagar airfield in Gujarat

(India). The book claims, “In March 1984,

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed off the

Israeli-led operation bringing India, Pakistan

and Israel to within a hair’s breadth of

nuclear conflagration.”

Another report claims that Israel also

planned an air strike directly out of Israel.

After mid-way and mid-air refueling, Israeli

warplanes were to shoot down a commercial

airline flight over the Indian Ocean that

would arrive into Islamabad in the early

morning, then by flying in a tight formation

to appear as one large aircraft on radar

screens to prevent detection, and using the

downed airliner’s call sign to enter

Islamabad air space, intended to knock out

Kahuta and fly out to Jammu to refuel and

exit.

According to reliable reports this mission

was actually launched one night. But the

Israelis were in for a big surprise. They

discovered that the Pakistan Air Force had

already sounded the alert and had taken to

the skies in anticipation of this attack. The

mission had to be hurriedly aborted.

Pakistan reminded the Israelis that Pakistan

was no Iraq and that the PAF was not the Iraqi

Air Force. Pakistan is reported to have

conveyed that an attack on Kahuta would

force Pakistan to lay waste to Dimona, Israel’s

nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert. India

was also warned that Islamabad would

attack Trombay if Kahuta facilities were hit.

The above quoted book also claims that,

“Prime Minister Indira Gandhi eventually

aborted the operation despite protests from

military planners in New Delhi and

Jerusalem.”

McNair’s paper No 41, published by the USAF

Air University (“India Thwarts Israeli Destruc-

tion of Pakistan’s “Islamic Bomb”), confirmed

this plan. It said,“Israeli interest in destroying

Pakistan’s Kahuta reactor to scuttle the

“Islamic bomb” was blocked by India’s

refusal to grant landing and refuelling

rights to Israeli warplanes in 1982.”

Clearly India wanted to see Kahuta gone but

did not want to face retaliation at the hands

of the PAF. Israel, for its part wanted this to

be a joint Indo-Israeli strike to avoid being

held solely responsible.

The Reagan administration also hesitated to

support the plan because Pakistan’s dis-

traction at that juncture would have hurt

American interests in Afghanistan, at a time

when Pakistan was steering the Afghan

resistance against the Soviets.

Although plans to hit Kahuta were shelved,

the diatribe against Pakistan’s nuclear pro-

gramme continued unabated. Israel used its

control over the American political establish-

ment and western media to create hysteria.

India too worked extensively to promote

paranoia, branding Pakistan’s programme as

unsafe, insecure and a threat to peace.

The fact is otherwise. It is technically sounder,

safer and more secure than that of India and

has ensured absence of war in the region.

The US invasion of Afghanistan provided

another opening for the Indo-Israeli nexus to

target Pakistan’s strategic assets.This time the

strategy was to present Pakistan as an

unstable state, incapable of defending itself

against extremist religious insurgents, creating

the spectre of Islamabad and its nuclear

assets falling into their hands. Suggestions

are being floated that Pakistan, being at risk

of succumbing to extremists should have

its nuclear assets disabled, seized or forcibly

taken out by the US. Alternatively, an inter-

national agency should take them over for

safe-keeping.

Pakistan has determinedly thwarted the

terrorist threat and foiled this grand

conspiracy. The terrorists have either been

eliminated or are on the run. Pakistan has

made it clear that it would act decisively

against any attempt from any quarter to harm

its nuclear assets. But if the game is taken to

another level, the consequences will be

disastrous for the region.

The Indo-Israeli nexus is losing initiative, but

as long as the American umbrella is available

Afghanistan will remain a playground for

mischief mongers. It is now up to the US to

walk its talk and prove its claim that it wants

to see a secure and stable Pakistan. It must

pull the plug on conspiracies to destabilize

Pakistan.

Shahid Siddiqi served in the Pakistan Air Force

and later held senior positions in the corporate

sector in Pakistan, USA and South Africa. He

also worked as a journalist and had a long

association with radio and television. He is

now a freelance columnist and writes on

political and geopolitical issues.

38 39

ASIA


EUROPE

Text By Abu Bakr Rieger

Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s leading socialist politician, visiting a Muslim Community.

It always pays to revisit the declared fringes and

examine the true situation of the minorities

there. Germany is witnessing the re-emergence

of a new racism, one which seeks to deny

Muslims the description of being “German” – not

least those born in Germany.

SYSTEMATIC OPPOSITION?GERMANY: THE OFFICIAL INTERACTION WITH MUSLIMS

Is Germany systematically opposed to

Islam? Of course Germany is a consti-

tutional state under the rule of law, or

Rechtsstaat as the Germans call it, with

a functional system for the protection

of minorities, with a free press and all

the concomitant possibilities for the free

formation of opinion.

And yet to understand the true state of a

society it always pays to revisit its declared

fringes and examine the true situation of

the minorities. Since Germany is very partial

to lecturing the rest of the world on human

rights and the protection of minorities,

there should in principal be no objection to

a bit of critical self-reflection.

The Muslims living in Germany are perhaps

its most important minority. Many of these

citizens now have German citizenship, or were

even born in Germany. Furthermore there is

also a considerable number of German

converts to Islam, but ever since the 11th of

September 2001, the Muslims in Germany

have been the subject of serious controversy.

Considered objectively, Muslims in Germany

carry very little political weight in the

capital Berlin and from the Muslim perspective

the current governing party, the CDU/CSU,

has little to recommend it.

The issues that motivate those disturbed by

this significant minority could not be more

different, ranging from a general animosity

towards religion by radical secularists, all the

way to a genuine concern in some sectors of

government that millions of Muslims could

some day form a kind of parallel society.

And, sad to say, Germany is also witnessing

40 41

EUROPE

the re-emergence of a new racism, which

seeks to deny these Muslims the description

of being “German”, even those born in

Germany. One should bear in mind that

the subject of Ausländerfeindlichkeit, or

xenophobia, widely discussed prior to

11.09.01, has now mysteriously disappeared

from the public discourse.

The way these new citizens are dealt with is

of course determined to a large extent by

political parties, media, the intelligence

services, and the spectrum of NGOs. An

poignant question on how minorities are dealt

with in practical terms is to ask whether

institutions and societal forces possess the

minimum level of fairness and neutrality.

This is crucial since the interplay between

these societal forces can potentially bring

about a kind of systemic approach which

effectively dismantles a nation’s very

protection of its minorities – even if it is not

what was originally intended.

Political PartiesConsidered objectively, Muslims in Germany

carry very little political weight in Berlin. As

mentioned, from the Muslim point of view

there are reservations, especially with the

current governing party, the CDU/CSU.

Practising Muslims have hardly ever been

promoted within the structures of other

parties either, nor have any prominent

Muslims so far been able to secure relevant

seats in parliament. On a local and national

level, the conservative party also profiles itself

against “Muslim” Turkey gaining the EU

membership. In this respect critics acknow-

ledge that the CDU, itself undergoing an

identity crisis, is attempting to reclaim its own

conservative profile by adopting a rhetoric

against Islam. On the other hand, Wolfgang

Schäuble, the former CDU Minister of Home

Affairs, did organise the Islam Conference, a

consultative body aimed at improving

relations between the government and

Muslims.

MediaOf course the mass media has a key effect in

shaping public opinion about a minority. The

generality of Muslims inside Germany are

regularly associated with extreme misfits

(‘honour’-killers, terrorists), and sometimes

with bizarre criminal acts.These associations

have a devastating public impact. The

contradictory term “Islamic” terrorism has

been effectively established by majority

media, and has never been corrected by the

publication of surveys that prove that

terrorism today has the greatest impact of all

on the Muslims themselves.

Furthermore, the mass media offers a broad

and regular forum for vehement and some-

times polemical critics of Islam, whereas

Muslim or pro-Islamic authors nowhere gain

anywhere near the same regular access to

mass media. In the mass media, the clear

balance of power between majority and

minority enables the domination of terms

and definitions, made through the evaluation

of the the nature of beliefs as either ”modern”

or “conservative” or applying the problem-

atic differentiation between Muslims and

Islamists, and forming politically powerful

terms such as “Islamism”.

The VerfassungsschutzLike other citizens in Germany, Muslims also

fear attacks and support the investigation of

such intentions. As well as having national

intelligence authorities, Germany also has a

security branch for each federal state. The

security apparatus which deals with the

“Islamist” threat has grown enormously over

recent years.The so-called Verfassungsschutz

offices, which define themselves as protecting

the constitution, liken Islamism to left and

right-wing ideologies. In doing this the

authorities barely differentiate between

modernist, traditional or orthodox Islamic

positions, although they do recognise such

differentiating aspects when assessing

Judaism or Christianity, expressing few

objections to their orthodoxy or fundamen-

talism and subjecting them to scant public

scrutiny.

The “broad” and “controversial” term

‘Islamism’ is differentiated in terms of how

willing certain groups are to resort, if at all,

to violence, and yet committed Muslims who

do not see themselves as Islamists find

themselves easily falling into dossiers that

overlap with mass murderers and criminals.

Publications of these details amount to a de

facto expulsion of Muslim communities and

individuals from the relevant sectors of

public life in Germany. Of course, Muslims

are also disadvantaged in Germany from

other angles, encapsulated in the following

problematic topics.:

The Terrorism DebateOf course, the discovery of terrorist plans by

Muslim extremists has caused quite a

sensation in Germany. It is regularly suggested

that the “Islamist scene”, defined publicly in

the vaguest of terms, could descend at any

time into terrorism and extremism. The state

of Lower Saxony has been criticised for

monitoring mosques about which no

suspicions exist, something they declare to be

a precautionary measure against potential

terrorists. Civil liberty campaigners are now

worried that the population will gradually

become accustomed to a process leading up

to a permanent state of emergency. Dozens

43

EUROPE


of warnings of possible attacks also influenced

the latest parliamentary elections. In fact,

undercover informers operating on behalf of

Western security services have been involved

in numerous terrorist conspiracies. What is

contentious in this respect is not the logical

necessity to investigate conspiracies using

undercover agents, it is the extent to which

advanced conspiracies are only possible given

the actions of undercover elements.

The Logic of ImmigrationMany active and widely promoted critics of

Islam in Germany insist that Islam is foreign

and backward-looking, and negate the

possibility that Muslim positions might

develop and adapt in accordance with the

changes of a technologically defined world.

German Muslims, especially those Germans

who have entered Islam, are described in

public discourse not only as “confused

misfits” or discredited as “radicals”, they are

more and more frequently made responsible

for a series of grievances in the Islamic world

as a whole. In this way, the idea that

most Muslims are merely guests in Germany

is reinforced in public. Sometimes it is even

claimed that German Muslims ought not to

be accommodated until minorities are given

similar rights in all Islamic countries.

The public confusion between culture and

Islam is almost systematically propagated,

despite the fact that a large number of

Europeans are themselves Muslims. Simi-

larly, the fate of Muslims who have been

murdered in Europe or the existence of

significant Muslim societies on the

continent, are barely mentioned and

sometimes even denied. One well-known

German sociologist was recently attacked

as an anti-Semite because he compared

stereotypes of Germany’s current public

debate with the anti-Semitism of the 19th

century.

Organisational SovereigntyOf course, government parties possess an

organisational sovereignty legitimised by

elections. However, when it comes to the way

Muslims are dealt with in Germany, this right

of the majority has certain difficult aspects.

Muslims and their organisations have had to

date barely any say in the composition of

important consultative gatherings such as

the Islam Conference. In the training of Imams,

teaching posts have been awarded to Muslims

who are proven outsiders, so that the minority

is effectively represented by a minority within

the minority. Many important German

organisational bodies such as Rundfunkrat

(Broadcasting Council), one of whose tasks

is to ensure that minority rights are protected

in the media, contain no Muslim represen-

tatives at all.

DialecticPerhaps the most alarming intellectual

phenomenon to impact on the way Muslims

are accommodated in Germany is the active

polarisation of the Muslim community.

Muslims are by nature obliged to avoid

extremes and not to gather on extreme

positions. Today in Germany, idealised

concepts of “especially good” and ”especially

bad” Muslims are widely promoted. “Bad”

Muslims are what justify the burgeoning

security apparatus and the latent mistrust of

all Muslims, while “good” Muslims, beyond

all suspicion, are required to make constant

statements exposing their quasi-secular

position. Under the pressure of extremism,

more and more ordinary Muslims are avoiding

the public eye. There is a danger that in

Germany, in the long term, public debate, as

well as academia, will only accept those who

42

actively relativise that claim to truth which

defines every religion.We must not underes-

timate the danger of a majority society

creating an Islam which it finds “pleasant”.

The public debate has led not only to a

growing level of discrimination in everyday

life, but also to a de facto professional ban

on Muslim woman who wear a headscarf.

There are also growing fears that the German

public could be stirred up to a new kind of

friend-or-foe way of thinking about the

Muslim minority in the country.

There are many reasons to defend our nation

against indiscriminate attacks – a nation

which we, like all other citizens, acknowledge.

But there are also good reasons to criticise

loudly the way Germany treats its Muslim

minority before an unintentional systemic

approach mutates into a full-blown system.


ECOLOGY

Under ideal circumstances, profound existential

challenges bring people together – whatever their

backgrounds. And there can be few crises to

match the ecological one, with all its implications,

that fit that description so aptly, since we are all

affected by it whatever our personal convictions.

More and more people, including pioneering

thinkers in the field of ecology, are recognising

the perhaps life-saving potential of right action

by Muslims in this regard.

“GUIDANCE FROM THE QUR’AN”ECOLOGY: THE MUSLIMS AND THE HEIR TO THE THRONE

were destroying the coral reefs. But when

the guidance came from the Qur’an, there

was a notable change in behaviour. Or in

Indonesia and in Malaysia, where former

poachers are being deterred in the same way

from destroying the last remaining tigers,”

said the future British monarch, who in recent

years has made substantial contributions to

ecological thinking in his country.

The royal heirand the ecological questionPrince Charles, whose quest for alternatives

to ecological annihilation has made him

critical of modernist ideologies and their

destructive consequences, has quite naturally

examined Islam in his search for answers.

HRH Prince Charles is the heir to the British

throne and therefore potentially the future

king of Great Britain.

English Muslim veteran activist Fazlun Khalid

is the founder of the internationally acclaimed

Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environ-

mental Sciences (IFEES). In recent years he has

made a name for himself as a pioneering

Muslim thinker in the field of environmental

protection, giving talks at prestigious events

all around the world.

Fazlun Khalid is a primary contact for

international institutions and professional

NGOs when it comes to a Muslim response

to ecological challenges. His core thesis is

that there is a relationship between the

ecological crisis and a globally unsustainable

monetary architecture.

Success in Zanzibar“The impulse for our Zanzibar project was the

fact that the fisherman there were dyna-

miting the coral reefs because they were

not getting enough fish. As a result the

44 45

ECOLOGY

“These are all very real problems and

they are facts – all of them, the obvious

results of the comprehensive industria-

lisation of life. But what is less obvious

is the attitude and general outlook which

perpetuate this dangerously destructive

approach. It is an approach that acts

contrary to the teachings of each and

every one of the world’s sacred traditions,

including Islam.”

(HRH, Prince Charles of Wales)

Recently the heir to the British throne gave

a keynote speech on ‘the relationship

between Islam and the environment’ at the

Sheldonian Theatre in the famous British

university city of Oxford. In this talk, the son

of the reigning monarch mentioned a specific

Muslim eco-project run by the Islamic

Foundation for Ecology and Environmental

Sciences (IFEES) on the island of Zanzibar

east of the African coast.

Its organisers are also busy in other Muslim

countries raising awareness of ecological

issues among Muslim populations.The project

on Zanzibar, which has received world-wide

acclaim, was the first ever in which environ-

mental ethics derived from the Qur’an were

used.

The Zanzibari fishermen stopped dynamiting

coral reefs soon after they participated in the

first workshop on Islam and Conservation in

1998. Before that they had been decimating

fish and coral stocks by using dynamite to

secure their means of living.

“Working in Muslim countries, the World

Wildlife Fund has found that trying to convey

the importance of conservation is much easier

if it is transmitted by religious leaders whose

reference is Qur’anic teaching. In Zanzibar,

they had had little success trying to reduce

spear-fishing and the use of dragnets, which


ECOLOGY

Rising global wealth spells disaster for the

planet, with environmental impacts growing

roughly 80 percent with a doubling of income,

so reports the first comprehensive study of

consumption. It adds to the mountain of evi-

dence that the gospel of economic growth

must be urgently transformed into the new

gospel of resource-efficient green economies,

a U.N. panel of experts panel concluded in

Berlin.

What are the biggest planetary criminals?

Fossil fuel use and agriculture, the study found.

Ironically, these are also the two most heavily

subsidised sectors, noted Ernst von Weizsaecker

of Norwegian University of Science and Tech-

nology, and co-chair of the International Panel

for Sustainable Resource Management. “In

the case of CO2, a doubling of wealth typically

increases environmental pressure 60 to 80 per

cent, sometimes more in emerging economies,”

von Weizsaecker said in an interview.

Rising affluence has also triggered a shift in

diets towards meat and dairy products so that

livestock now consumes much of the world’s

crops and indirectly consumes 70 per cent of

the fresh water and produce contributes to

much of the fertiliser pollution, von Weizsaecker

said from Brussels.The report “Environmental

Impacts of Consumption and Production:

Priority Products and Materials”, was released

by the European Commission in Brussels.

The study also found that rich countries are

now “exporting” most or a large part or most

of their true environmental impacts to deve-

Money growth: anecological disaster

loped countries by through the import ofing

goods and food from those countries. In a

spiral of destructive co-dependency, China’s

rising CO2 emissions and deforestation in

Malaysia are in part a direct result of North

American and European consumption of the

goods made there.“International trade clearly

shows rich countries are outsourcing their

impacts,” von Weizsaecker said.

At the household level, it is the goods and

services consumed, not the fossil fuel used for

cars or homes, that accounts for most the bulk

of the environmental impacts. This is despite

energy and material efficiency gains over the

past two decades. Efficiency, which has

improved on a per dollar expenditure basis, but

people are consuming more, which drowns

out any efficiency gains, said panel expert

Sangwon Suh of the University of California,

Santa Barbara.“Policy makers cannot just look

at direct emissions, they need to look at the

full life cycle of their consumption patterns

and incorporate those their impacts into their

decision making,” said Suh.

“Setting priorities would seem prudent and

sensible in order to fast track a low-carbon,

resource-efficient green economy,” said Achim

Steiner, UNEP’s executive director, which

hosted the panel. “Decoupling growth from

environmental degradation is the number one

challenge facing governments,” Steiner said in

a statement. However, this decoupling is not

happening, the report shows. And it will not

happen in the future without strong policy

interventions, said von Weizsaecker.

Politicians and economists have to abandon

their obsession with economic growth as the

solution to all problems, wrote Clive Hamilton

in his book “Requiem for a Species”. Growth

has become a powerful symbol of modernity

even though it is neither, says Hamilton, a

writer and academic at the Australian National

University. If someone is murdered, about one

million dollars to the GDP of rich countries

when costs of police, courts, and prisons are

factored in, according to his research.“Murder

is good for the economy. So is environmental

destruction,” he writes. (By Stephen Leahy)

46 47

ECOLOGY

breeding grounds of the fish were being

destroyed. Other NGOs like Care International,

which is an American organisation, could not

stop the fisherman from dynamiting the coral

reefs. They called us to organise a workshop

and training materials based on the Qur’an.

We did this workshop and it proved an

immediate success. What the mainstream

NGOs could not do over years we achieved

in 24 hours. Within one day they stopped

dynamiting the coral reefs,” he says in a

summary of the IFEES project in Zanzibar. “If

was for the simple reason that the people

realised that we are Allah’s khalifa; with the

given responsibility to look after His nature

– from which we benefit. Therefore they

stopped.”

“We have to learn this lesson. Unfortunately,

the modern situation is that we have a model

of the capitalistic nation-state whose primary

objective is to increase the living-standard

of its people.” The people want more and

more, and the only way to do it is by exploiting

the earth. “This cannot go on because the

resources are finite.”

Ecology and the Muslim worldSadly, and in spite of all the debates

throughout the Muslim world, little attention

is paid to ecology. “In ‘the Islamic paradigm

of submission’ and in the example of the

Prophetic model,” says Fazlun Khalid, “there

are none of these environmental problems.”

According to the Muslim eco-activist, Islam

is very intensively conservationist but does not

speak the ecological language because it

does not need to.

“We need to realise that the environmental

and ecological language mainly emerged in

this civilisation in the last century as a reaction

to what human beings were doing.”

“The root of environmental issues is the

financial issue,” says Fazlun Khalid.“The point

I am getting at here is a very important one.

Money can be created today – as it has been

created for the past 200 years – in an infinite

way. It can be created out of nothing. Then

this created money is addressed to the

earth which is finite. This arithmetic is lop-

sided; it doesn’t make sense. If you continue

to create money in an infinite way and then

apply it to resources which Allah has created

as being finite then the only scenario to be

expected in the long-term is environmental

destruction.”

Beyond the fetish of ‘growth’In his view, the real solution does not lie in

the implementation of ‘green megaprojects’,

but rather in a fundamental change of aware-

ness at a grass-roots level; “To train the

‘ulama, to change the school curricula and to

change attitudes.” But Khalid also has some

advice for contemporary consumers.

Even if the fundamental solution to ecological

problems lies in the renunciation of the

ideology of growth – and ‘sustainability’ –

every one of us can do many little things to

help in our everyday lives. This includes, as

shown by our Prophet, the saving of water,

and also our own reduction of the amount of

CO2 emissions we are responsible for.

Side by side?“If Muslims have the answer, they have to give

it to other people. That can only begin from

a practical demonstration of what they think

is right. If it works, other people will take it

on.” This is the bottom line according to the

Muslim eco-veteran. The combining of

Islamic principles in our dealings with the

creation, with the function of man within

that as Allah’s representative [khalifa], not

only opens up new ways of solving ecolo-

gical issues, it also allows the joining of

elements otherwise considered alien to

one another.

Numerous times over the past decades, Prince

Charles has spoken to support both Muslims

and Islam. In 1993, speaking at Oxford

University, he said, “Our judgment of Islam

has been grossly distorted by taking the

extremes as the norm.The truth is, of course,

different and always more complex. My own

understanding is that extremes, like the

cutting off of hands, are rarely practiced.The

guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law,

taken straight from the Qur’an, should be

those of equity and compassion. Islam can

teach us today a way of understanding and

living in the world which Christianity itself is

poorer for having lost.”

In a speech at the Foreign Office Conference

Centre on 13 December 1996 he referred to

Islam to help young Britons develop a

healthier view of the world. “There is much

we can learn from the Islamic world-

v iew in this respect. Everywhere in the

world people want to learn English. But

in the West, in turn, we need to be

taught by Islamic teachers how to learn

with our hearts, as well as our heads.”

“The upholding and support Prince Charles

continues to give to Islam and the Muslims

protects the status of British Muslim citizens.

When he does become king of Britain, today’s

British Muslims will be in a similar political

and spiritual position to the Muslims who

made the first migration (Hijra) to Abyssinia,”

says Muhammad Zulfiqar Awan, Director and

Lead Lecturer at Offa Consultants, London.



NGO

in Europe is on the rise, the majority of

European Muslims having been born in

Europe and speaking European languages.

EMU is a European foundation which main-

tains an organisational and communications

office in Strasbourg, Europe’s second capital

after Brussels. Like all EMU meetings, the

Skopje event from 28 to 30 May included a

social aspect alongside discussions on content

and organisation. On the evening of 28 May,

the EMU and its Macedonian partner-

organisation El-Halal invited more than 120

guests to the Bridge Hotel, where people

became acquainted in a relaxed and con-

vivial atmosphere.

The EMU’s Honorary President, Professor

Nevzat Yalcintas, gave an opening address

entitled “The Significance of the Balkans for

the European Muslims” to kick off the event

on the Friday evening. Yalcintas discussed

the historical continuity of Islam in South-

East Europe and recollected the highs and

lows of Islamic history in the Balkans.

Every year the European Muslim Union (EMU)

organises gatherings of European Muslims. This

year’s was in Skopje, and the organisers hailed

it as an important step towards the coordination

of Muslim activities in Europe. The EMU considers

itself especially connected with the region.

BEYOND IMMIGRATIONSKOPJE: COOPERATION BETWEEN EUROPEAN MUSLIMS

Panel during the annual gathering of the European Muslim Union in Skopje, Macedonia.

The backdrop for this annual gathering of

European Muslims could not have been better.

Skopje, the historical capital of Macedonia,

boasts not only magnificent architectural

treasures from the Osmanli period, but also

and more importantly a large, vibrant Islamic

community. For a period of three days, dozens

of representatives of different Muslim commu-

nities visited the old city.

Under a banner of “Beyond Immigration”

Muslims from all over Europe discussed

mutual objectives on the invitation of the

European Muslim Union (EMU). “Because,”

explained EMU President Abu Bakr Rieger in

the event’s invitation,“we are not foreigners,

we are European citizens and have always

been part of Europe.” And this situation is a

dynamic one too, since the number of Muslims

48

NGO

49

townscape today. The EMU Foundation is

especially concerned with the role of mosques

in European countries and is committed to

facilitating excellence in management,

services, accounting, education and social

programmes in the mosques of Europe, thus

addressing not only the Muslim community

but also the surrounding society.

All of the talks touched on how Muslims

could respond to the challenges of our times

on the basis of Islam. Sunday’s numerous

workgroups were about implementation in

activities such as joint media projects, the

organisation of Islamic markets, and youth

exchanges. Representatives of NGOs and

other associations also presented their work

in their home countries.“The EMU is not just

about theoretical foundations,” explained its

General Secretary Malik Sezgin, “it is about

identifying and defining practical common-

alities and activities that Muslims can under-

take together.”

In the closing address the assembly then

re-stated the closeness of the EMU and the

Balkan Muslims, and expressed the vision of

close future collaboration with the men and

women of the region. In the medium term the

organisation intends to establish a regional

office there in order to coordinate the

activities of the various member organisations

on location, and to give the European youth

an opportunity to discover authentic places

of Islam in Europe.

“The Skopje conference,” summed up co-or-

ganiser Abdulhasib Castineira, “was an

important milestone in the path towards

better and more effective cooperation

between the Muslims of Europe.”

His observations on recent history included

the Balkan Wars and the terrible crimes

perpetrated against European Muslims in the

region.

On Saturday morning the Ambassador of

the Turkish Republic in Skopje, H.E. Hakan

Okcal, gave a speech of welcome. Okcal

voiced his approval of cooperation between

European Muslims, and reminded delegates

about the city’s important role in the Islamic

world. The Balkans are still connected to

Turkey through innumerable economic and

social projects, he said, adding that “Turkey

remains strongly committed to a positive and

peaceful future in the region.”

EMU President Abu Bakr Rieger then presen-

ted the main theme of the conference. “The

European Muslims do not have an identity

crisis and are themselves a proof that there

is no contradiction in being both European

and Muslim,” he said. “Islam is not in itself

a culture, but rather filters existing cultures

and produces new, positive cultural relations

and connections. The Muslims who speak

European languages today represent a cons-

tantly growing potential from Kazan to

Granada,” Rieger added.

Other talks on the same day discussed the

difficulty the Western mind has in its percep-

tion of Islam, the new role of mosques in

Europe, and the Muslim response to the

current financial crisis.The collection of zakat

naturally connects the Muslims to the

fundamental economic issues of our age.

The President of El-Hilal, Benjahudin Shehabi,

who helped organise the conference, illustra-

ted in his lecture the basic components of

Islamic architecture that remain alive today

in Skopje. Mosque and market – the two

pillars of Islamic civilisation – still shape the

Text By Malik Özkan

Part of the European identity: young, Pomak Muslims in a Bulgarian mosque.


SOCIETY

Sometimes it can be helpful to transfer words

from one language – and their conceptual

meanings – to another cultural zone. But

what does it mean to me, as a German, that

one of the best-known words to come from

our language in recent times is Germany’s

notorious Angst? In the wider European and

Anglo-Saxon contexts, the term is used not

to describe a specific fear, rather a more dif-

fuse, vague sort of anxiety.

There is good reason to examine the anxiety

of the Germans; their country is after all a

microcosm of Western society. Long-standing

downward pressure on the once crisis-proof

middle class, the new phenomenon of the

Prekariat (precarious proletariat) among the

well-off, and a steadily widening income gap

have stoked fears around the global financial

system and, more broadly, around globalisa-

tion itself.

A people as barometerIt is not just an individual problem or the

pointless worry of the over-pampered

consumer classes, it is an existential

phenomenon that can display all the traits

of a clinical case. Sociologists are concerned

that widespread anxiety stemming from the

crisis and its repercussions might present a

very real danger to Europe’s social and

political fabric.

On 7 June the German public opinion

research association GFK – the fourth largest

of its kind in the world – published a study

entitled “Challenges for Europe 2010”.

According to the study, Germans are the most

worried of all Europeans.“The biggest worry

for Germans in 2010 remains unemployment.

That is how it’s been for the last 20 years.”

With a 5 per cent fall in GDP in 2009 the

German economy experienced its sharpest

A spectre is haunting the Western world – the

spectre of crisis. And the European Union’s soft

underbelly – Greece and Spain, Portugal and Italy

– is nervous. Greece and Spain were saved at the

last minute. According to some commentators,

Europe’s single currency, once celebrated as a

milestone, may now face demise. This crisis breeds

fear, easily abused for political ends – with poten-

tially dangerous side-effects. At the centre of

this fear are the middle classes, with Germany a

clear case in point.

THE POLITICS OF FEARGLOBALISATION: THE MIDDLE CLASS IN CRISIS

contraction since the inception of the Federal

Republic.

“Overall, Germans are worrying more than

ever. What is striking this year is that the

number of worries that are identified has

practically exploded. I mean, I can’t remember

us ever experiencing a jump like this, at least

not in the past 20 years. Most recently it was

2.8 worries, and now it’s 3.2 on average.

That’s a massive jump,” adds Raimund

Wildner,Vice President of the GFK, commen-

ting on the study’s results.

A new fearThese new fears should not be mistaken for

the acute worries that face the poor and

jobless in their daily struggle for subsistence.

Rather there is a dread, one that permeates

even into the political class. It affects precisely

those classes that were regarded as the

backbone of the political system in Western

Europe.

Now, into the third millennium, the unrest is

not coming from the poverty belt of otherwise

affluent Western Europe, where for decades,

anaesthesia from consumption and TV have

long isolated people from any real social life.

According to German journalist Markus

Sievers, it manifests instead, “on the front

lawns of the well-off neighbourhoods.”

The workplace that was guaranteed, the

shot at the highly remunerated position, the

house and the pension – all this threatens

to get sucked into the whirlpool of crisis –

whether in reality or in fancy. The middle

classes who, according to Sievers, up until

1989 were able to count on their share of

economic growth, are becoming fewer and

are increasingly denied access to the nation’s

wealth.

50 51

SOCIETY


SOCIETY

What do sociologists say?Holger Lengfeld and Jochen Hirschle from the

Hagen Institute for Sociology conducted a

survey to investigate ‘Middle-class fear of

social climb-down’. Since the inception of the

Federal Republic, the German middle classes

were considered the cornerstone of society,

protected from economic instability, indus-

trial change and failings in the education

system. But the crisis afflicting this truly

“state-supporting” class has, since the early

years of the new millennium, featured

regularly in German mass media reporting

and has now become an object of study

among academics.

According to sociologists, the German middle

classes that had profited from economic

growth have not been able to maintain their

positions long-term – whether through real

recession or just the fear of one – a pheno-

menon previously unknown in Germany. The

researchers discovered a ‘spill-over effect’ in

which the experience of loss in the lower

middle classes is felt as a fear of possible

social relegation: hence the coining of

’precariat’. “Whoever believes their own

livelihood to be fundamentally threatened

experiences Abstiegsangst,” – fear of social

relegation – says the study.

It is important to establish that this is not just

individual or mass psychosis. By 2006, the

proportion of middle income earners had

shrunk to just 54 percent of the overall

population, and the edges of the income

spectrum have widened accordingly. By

2006, 14 percent of those who were consid-

ered middle class in 2002 no longer enjoyed

middle income.

On top of that and of particular relevance in

Germany’s case, income and purchasing

power have declined in real terms.That means

that even with the same income, many

individuals and families have less means to

meet their daily needs.

Then there is the fear of losing one’s social

and professional position. Some of the middle

class, according to Hirschle and Lengfeld,

transfer the poverty they witness in the classes

below them onto themselves. Despite the fact

that they are not actually affected, say the

researchers, anxiety about their own material

future washes off on the more qualified

middle classes,“although this insecurity does

not actually reflect any objective deteriora-

tion in their own situation.”

Globalisation is the cause, anxietyis the diseaseAccording to a survey conducted in 1998 and

corroborated in May 2004 by the prestigious

Robert Koch Institute, 14 percent of those

surveyed between the ages of 18 and 65

suffered from a “clinically relevant anxiety

disorder”. After depression, anxiety is the

second most common psychological disorder

treated by general practitioners in Germany.

Many see the phenomenon of globalisation

as the major cause of widespread anxiety

disorders in the industrialised world. In France,

people have been talking for some time about

a new, massive, millennial anxiety wave.

Global pressure across borders is a significant

feature of most anxiety symptoms.According

to the website of Germany’s Economy and

Employment Ministry, “fear of being among

the losers creates insecurity and makes many

sceptical of the globalisation process.”

A comparative study by the German Marshall

Fund in Germany, France, the USA and Great

Britain, showed that the Germans and the

French are for the most part very negative

or fairly negative about globalisation, while

only 29 and 35 percent of people are wor-

ried about it in the USA and Great Britain

respectively.

After the French and Belgians, the Germans

are the next most critical of globalisation.

They consider it profoundly fraudulent and

believe it to be a condition of constraint,

which politics and economics are powerless

to overcome.

A comparison between continental Europe

and the Anglo-Saxon world - in which neo-

liberalism is more entrenched and the income

disparity much greater - reveals that stress

levels are much higher in the latter. A survey

performed by the WHO in English-speaking

societies between 2001 and 2003 showed

that a third of those questioned had suffered

from stress at some point.

Even if Germany was once ranked at the lower

end in this respect, eight years of unfettered

neo-liberal policy and declining real income

is sure to have pushed the numbers up. Since

1998, psychological disorders have risen by

almost 40 percent and are now ranked fourth

amongst diagnosis groups. As part of its

‘Living in Germany’ series, the well-known

weekly Die Zeit states that the very fear of

illness is making Germans ill. On average 19

percent of people are afraid of illness in

Germany, compared with 11 percent in other

countries.

Dangerous consequences?Michael Grabka of the German Institute for

Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin believes

that middle-class woes are not purely

imaginary.According to his theory, the middle

is crumbling. If income groups were previously

52 53

SOCIETY

While a considerable section of the West’s

middle classes – not to mention the steadily

growing Prekariat – are trembling at the

prospects of the ongoing financial crisis, others

have clearly profited.Their assets have suffered

no significant losses, despite the many

bankruptcies and collapses across the board.

Notwithstanding the crisis and general loss of

income, earnings for Germany’s well-off rose

during 2009, the crisis year, according to a

study by the German Institute for Economy

(DIW). In 2008, 19 per cent of the population

belonged to this category. “The income gap

between low and high earners has opened up

wide,” says the study. The wealthier are, “not

just increasing in number, but also on average

getting richer.” In parallel, the poor are “not

just increasing in number, but are getting

steadily poorer.”

The German experience reflects the global

trend.According to a survey by the consulting

firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), global

assets in 2009 were valued the same as in

2007 – the year before the outbreak of the

crisis. In total the dizzying sum of 111.5 trillion

US dollars were under management, meaning

that the losses of around 10 percent suffered

in 2008 have been made up for. With 37.1

trillion US dollars in administered wealth,

Europe remains the “richest region in the

world”. The volume of assets has risen by 8

per cent. The highest growth was achieved in

the Asia-Pacific region (not including Japan),

where the figure of 22 percent is almost double

the global average.

Winners inthe crisis

The most important factors keeping the

financial bubble growing are stated as “the

attraction of the financial market” and ”higher

savings”. Particularly in Europe and Asia-

Pacific, higher savings rates had an effect on

growth. According to the consultancy firm,

global assets are set to rise by 6 percent a year

up to 2014.A global power-shift reveals itself

in the expectation that global growth will be

twice as high in East Asia than in the rest of

the world, a trend which becomes even clearer

when we look at it country by country: in

Singapore the number of millionaire house-

holds rose by 35 percent, followed by Malaysia

(33 percent) and China (31 percent).

Where and exactly how these extra earnings

come about – except on the nameless, abstract

“markets’ – remains obscure. Alongside con-

tinued speculation on the essential commodity

futures exchange, profiteers surely benefit also

from Western government debt.The greater the

national debt in Western nations, the greater

creditors’ profits become. Some time ago the

German sociologist Hans Jürgen Krysmanski

spoke about the silence on the matter: “The

identity of the creditors of debtor states is

hardly ever talked about.The Republic has one

trillion euros of debt. Next year’s budget puts

aside 40.4 billion for interest payments alone,

the second largest spending item of the Federal

government list after welfare (147 billion

Euros). So who are the creditors who, year

after year, receive a guaranteed 40 billion in

interest from that safest of debtors, the state?

It is only to a small extent the banks them-

selves, whose primary function is to act as

facilitators. In reality, the interest ends up lin-

ing the pockets of wealthy individuals: the

rich. This is one of the safest ways to redistri-

bute wealth and accumulate super-wealth. It

existed – along with the Fuggers, the Welsers,

etc – at the beginning of capitalism, it has

crept through its history, and it will probably

exist at the end of capitalism in its current

incarnation.”


SOCIETY

layered like an onion they now resemble

something more like an hourglass.The bottom

layer is growing and – ironically given the

crisis – so too is the upper layer. “We can

see that in the mid 1980s and 1990s the

middle class was relatively stable, making up

just over 60 percent of the total population,”

said Grabka on the nationally broadcast

Deutschlandradio.

Since the new millennium we have witnessed

a clear shrinkage of the middle class, “by

around five million people – in other words,

from 49 down to 44 million.” Equally alarming

is the fact that it is now practically impossible

for the poor to make it up to the middle.

Today it is truer than ever that, “once on the

bottom rung, always on the bottom rung.”

According to Grabka’s assessment, the

gradual disappearance of the nuclear family

is speeding up the shrinkage of the middle

class. “The fewer conventional households

there are, the smaller the middle class

becomes, as young people, single parents and

divorcees struggle to move upward or simply

maintain their social position.”

Does middle-class shrinkage present a danger

to the political model of the societies

involved? As well as providing the backbone

of the economic order, the German middle

classes also represent the ‘middle way’,

holding the ground between extremes.

“Democracy needs the median,” they carry

the weight, says political scientist Frank

Becker.

Willhelm Heitmeyer, the well-known conflict

researcher, would probably agree. His

conclusion is clear: as anxiety about social

decline among the middle classes increases,

so too does discrimination against those

considered different. Most striking, according

to Heitmeyer, is an increase in hostility to

foreigners among the middle classes. But this

hostility is no longer limited to traditional

right-wing racism; it has gradually acquired

a certain middle-class acceptability, especially

since 11 September 2001, in the more con-

temporary guise of Islamophobia. Heitmeyer

talks of a specific type of xenophobia, one

based on competition – in other words,

”competition for scarce resources, etc.”

With the financial crisis, society’s much-

vaunted values have begun to lose their social

credibility, according to Heitmeyer. Some time

ago Heitmeyer’s team published their findings

in a document entitled German Conditions.

The researchers interpret the data as a type

of ‘democracy-fatigue’ and expect a surge in

prejudice against weak groups. The financial

crisis has unleashed wholesale fear in society,

they say. Of those questioned, 92 percent fear

that the future will bring more loss of position,

and 94 percent expect more poverty.

Nevertheless, Decker sees no direct threat to

the current order, “so long as the elites keep

a firm hold on their democratic outlook.” But

it is the political class themselves that are

most prone to populism - “when strategies

of symbol-politics start to take hold […]

all the way to all-out populism.” The trend is

clearly visible, as politicians such as

Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi amply

demonstrate.

Both politicians – compromised absolutely

by corruption scandals and the influence of

their nation’s wealthy classes – have long

been running campaigns that can only be

described as just that: symbol-politics. An

example of this is the French initiative to ban

the full body covering worn by a tiny minority

of Muslim women. Although the problem

A reality in times of crisis: Germany is witnessing the return of public soup kitchens.

54 55

SOCIETY

has no actual social reality, it takes up a dis-

proportionate amount of public debate.

The Swiss social historian Jakob Tanner

similarly warns: “There are no innocent

concerns when it comes to the state of society.

There are always powers that will bundle

fears together, concentrate their intensity and

turn them to political imperatives.”

The dangerous middleFear and the politics it drives have long been

part of social debate in the West. This is

evident in the torrent of legislative measures

that have been pushed through across

Western Europe and in the USA under the

auspices of the ‘War on Terror’. In Germany

and elsewhere, it isn’t just the real danger that

counts, but most crucially the perceived one

as well, one which appears to justify the kind

of infringements in civil society that have not

been seen here since 1945.

But is it really the political extremes (not to

mention ‘Islamic terror’) that threaten the

very foundations of Western democracy? In

his analysis of the armed rampage of a

student in the small German town of

Winnenden, the political commentator Jürgen

Elsässer goes much further than any of the

aforementioned social researchers. On 11

March 2009, fifteen people were shot by a

rampaging youngster at a school in this

tranquil community in Germany’s south-west,

after which the 17-year-old attacker ended

his own life.

For Elsässer, the “killing fields of Winnenden”

are an example of the inner decay of the

middle class. “All these trigger-happy indi-

viduals are products of the USA and Western

Europe, from the metropolises of late-

capitalism. This society is breeding killers at

its core. This society means the Western one

and at its core means not on the edges,”

wrote Elsässer in the Islamische Zeitung after

the killings, adding that it is about time

security experts focused on the new dangers

rather than invoking those of the past. “The

frustrated young men from the middle

classes who would have followed Adolf

[Hitler] in the 30s are hardly susceptible to

fascism nowadays, they’re much more likely

to be nihilists. It is no longer hate of ‘the

other’ that drives them, but hate of everyone.”

Elsässer doesn’t rest with this gloomy outlook,

he sees real ways of confronting the break-

down of the middle, and he sees them in a

section of society that has not yet been

addressed in that way.“How can it be preven-

ted? Community and family are essential.

[…] the best prevention against the dehuma-

nisation of our youth is to be human with one

another. It seems to me that we Germans

could learn a lot from our Muslim fellow

citizens with respect to rescuing our youth.

Family unity, love of children, respect for par-

ents and grandparents are all integral parts

of their culture, and are much more cherished

than by Christians, let alone atheists.”

The trail of blood through the schools, he

says, shows that it is not collectivism and

control that lead to mass murder, rather isola-

tion and disinhibition. The new barbarism

does not emanate from ideological, racial or

religious mass delusion as in days gone by,

but rather from serial killers devoid of ideology

who, stranded in the desert of consumerism,

have lost their minds.


Violence in the middle classes: a German SWAT team while operating during a killing spree.


CULTURE

Walking through the streets of old Mombasa

is not an exercise in romanticism.The narrow

alleyways have not absorbed the throngs of

new humanity easily and I have one hand

entrenched in my pocket, over my wallet, in

a less than subtle gesture of alertness.

Concrete buildings with an improvised air

tower over the great stone houses that once

stood in their full splendour, and which now

shyly give way to a boisterous modernity.

But there is a certain grace to the whole affair.

Through the heat and congestion, there

exudes an age-old ease that even the Somali

merchants who clog the narrow arteries of

the town with their miscellaneous wares

cannot repress. The women walk with the

movement of a cool breeze. The old men sit

pensively observing their surrounds and a

pack of children kick a tennis ball down an

alley and give chase with the shrill clamour

of youth. I find the door that I am looking for

and walk towards it, greeting along the way

an ancient man who smiles warmly back at

me. My hand now moves beside me, no longer

perched in my pocket, as I walk with the calm

cadence of the town.

The ‘old town’ of Mombasa is the ancient

nucleus around which the present teeming

settlement has grown. As with other ancient

coastal towns, there is a marked cosmo-

politan character of both the people and the

culture. The people are of a golden hue, the

inheritors of African, Arab and Indian genes

and there remains a constant alchemy

between these golden people and those who

fall in love with the place. This is one of the

main reasons why Swahili culture and its

people have survived even though the times

hurtle forward.

Along the East African coast lie other famous

coastal settlements that gave birth both

collectively and antagonistically to this

civilisation, such as the islands of Zanzibar and

Lamu; part of what was known in antiquity

as Azania. In fact, the birth and strength of

The Muslim Swahili civilisation of the East

African coast and its islands is both long-lasting

and dynamic. One of its main features has been

to keep its identity by constantly adapting

itself to the given political circumstances. In

Mombasa’s old town one gets a glimpse into this

fascinating mix of African, Arab and Indian mix

– all under the umbrella of Islam.

THE SHORES OF AZANIAIMPRESSIONS FROM A JOURNEY TO THE SWAHILI COAST

56 57

CULTURE

Swahili culture lies in two paradoxes: it is

assimalitive while being distinct and the great

city-states that it gave birth to were both

fiercely independent and competitive with

one another and yet ultimately bound by a

common political interdependence.

“Two days’ sail beyond there lies the very last

market-town of the continent of Azania [East

Africa], which is called Raphta; which takes

its name from the sewn boats already men-

tioned; in which there is ivory in great

quantity, and tortoise-shell. Along this coast

live men of piratical habits, very tall, and

under separate chiefs for each place. The

Mapharitic chief governs it under some

ancient right that subjects it to the sover-

eignty of the state that has become the first

in Arabia. And the people of Muza now hold

it under his authority, and send thither many

large ships; using Arab captains and agents,

who are familiar with the natives and inter-

marry with them, and who know the whole

coast and the language...” 1 (From the Greek

guide for sailors Periplous Thalássos

Eruthraoas, the first century AD.)

The first antecedents that allowed for the

story of the Swahili lie in the Bantu Migra-

tions. Some of the tribes that exploded out

of the Congo at the time established villages

along the fertile eastern coast of Africa,

eventually adopting the independent

identity of Mijikenda. From here, access to the

Indian Ocean and the interior of Africa, as well

as the fertile soils of the coast, provided the

setting for a rich interaction between the

Africa hinterland and the already mythical

trade routes of the Indian Ocean.

As the volume of trade increased, so did the

influence of the foreign traders who even-

tually brought with them Islam and it was in


CULTURE

this context that the villages grew into towns

and from towns into city-states. Islam was the

‘filter’ that allowed for the hybridisation of

Mijikenda culture and the influence of the

Arab, Indian, Persian and Chinese civilisations,

leaving behind those practices that came into

conflict with the Shariah while embracing

those that did not. It would be in the twelfth

century when the first mention of these areas

as being ‘Swahili’ was first made.

It was this flourishing coast that Vasco de

Gama, the ambitious Portuguese explorer en

route to India, would encounter and see in it

a vital territory in which to establish Portu-

guese influence in the Indian Ocean and its

trade routes. On landing in Mombasa in 1498,

he received a hostile reception. Owing to the

competition between the Swahili city-states,

Mombasa’s rival, Malindi, welcomed him

warmly and in the process sowed the seeds

of an alliance that would eventually allow the

Portuguese to wrest power from Arabia over

the Swahili coast, and Mombasa in particular,

a century later. The Portuguese first returned

to Mombasa in 1500, plundering the city.

After three such attacks against the Sultan

of Mombasa, they finally succeeded in

establishing their control over the city in 1593

thanks to their support from the Sultan of

Malindi.

Portugal’s influence on the Swahili coast

survived the constant provocations by Omani

Arabs until 1698, and after a century of

confrontation the city had earned the name

Kisiwa Cha Mvita, ‘The Island of War’. From

that time until the advent of British power in

the region, it was the Omani Sultans who

ruled the Swahili coast through the appoint-

ment of governors who administered in their

name (although eventually, the Mazr’ui clan

would break from Oman with British support).

After recapturing Mombasa, the Omanis

established their power base on the island of

Zanzibar in order to bolster the coast against

foreign threats. The only occasion that the

Portuguese managed to regain their lost

territory was during the brief period between

1728 and 1729, after which they were once

again supplanted by Oman.

Footbridges in the airAnd yet life continued throughout these

constant political changes with the city-states

flourishing along the coast, giving rise to a

deeply politically-nuanced Swahili culture.

The succession of rulers and shifts in political

alliances did not affect the Swahili identity

but rather built on it. The Swahili language

itself is a good indication of the nature of this

and while it has taken from Arabic, Portuguese

and Indian, it has retained a predominantly

Bantu form linguistically2.

It was the form of governance, compatible

with that of the original Mijikenda of the

region and the ancient political orientation

towards the Arabian Peninsular that allowed

A living tradition: celebrating the Mawlid on the shores of the island of Lamu.

Footnotes:

1 Taken from: Ostler Nicholas, Empires of theWord: A Language History of the World.London: Harper Perennial, 2006.pg1022 ibid

Bibliography:

All background information is taken froman interview with Mr. Kassim M. Omar,Director, The Research Institute of SwahiliStudies of Eastern Africa on the 15th ofJanuary, 2010; Mombasa, Kenya.

58 59

CULTURE

for these great city-states to maintain their

cultural and, to a large extent, domestic,

political independence from the overt -

influences of their political overlords whose

interests were mainly focussed on the control

of the trade.The use of the Liwali or governors

allied to Oman or Portugal allowed for these

external political powers to exert sufficient

control over the region without overtly

manipulating the social and political dynamics

of the region.

Life in Mombasa in particular centred primarily

on the family and its extensions that

constituted larger clans. Even the archi-

tecture revolved around clan dynamics.

Houses were built according to the families

who lived in them and footbridges linking

one household to the other allowed the

women of the families, who were highly

protected members, to visit one another

without having to dirty their feet on the

bustling streets below. On a broader pers-

pective, the families that made up the city

shared cultural practices that reinforced their

sense of political interdependence.

“A man from Paté [a city on the Swahili Coast]

was lamenting that some of the cultural

practices he knew as a child had been

completely forgotten. He then gave me the

example of the sacrifice that included the

whole community; each family being involved

in the process. They would come together

and one family would donate the cow, others

would involve themselves in the other details

of the procession which would go around the

whole city boundary, offering supplications at

each city gate.” (Kassim M. Omar)

Such a custom served two purposes.The first

was to strengthen the community’s sense of

‘brotherhood’ and the second was a subtle

yet potent manner in which to re-state the

bounds of the community’s political boun-

daries. Such was the nature of the Swahili

culture up until the coming of the British,

first in 1824 to support the Mazr’ui clans

break with Oman as a British Protectorate and

then finally to incorporate the city and much

of the Swahili Coast into its East Africa

Association in 1887.

The Crown and its TrappingsAs they proceeded to do when they attained

the Indian sub-continent, the British began to

solidify and filter the once fluid cultural and

socio-political aspects of the Swahili culture

as a means to cement their hold on the coast.

Practices that would come into conflict with

their aim to incorporate the once fiercely

independent city-states into a larger econo-

mic and political block with its political centre

in Nairobi, as opposed to Oman, were

suppressed – the politically symbolic sacrifice

being an example.

The fluid social strata of the Wanguama (the

nobility) and the Watwana (free men) were

solidified through the use of economic discri-

mination and the census. But it would be the

abolition of the slave trade on which the

caravans into the interior and the agriculture

along the coast depended that would deal the

heaviest blow to the economic and political

strength of the city-states along the Swahili

Coast. Without the trade that had been the

lifeblood of the Swahili Civilisation since

antiquity, the Swahili culture slowly had to do

what it had done for almost a millennium

and adapt yet again to its surroundings.

However, this adaptation was unprece-

dented in that it was no longer a natural

hybridisation of cultures coming into contact

primarily through trade but the direct and

conscious enforcement of foreign values and

views using the cultural elements available,

all the while eroding the political indepen-

dence that gave rise to such a cosmopolitan

culture.

Swahili culture, however altered by British

policy and influence, did adapt and still

survives. The remnants of the ancient bonds

that held together the Swahili Coast of Kenya

in the past once again came to the fore during

the election violence of 2008 that engulfed

the entire country except for its coastal areas.

The anarchy of the interior forced the people

of the coast to lean on their historical socio-

political form, however diluted, in order to

avert the chaos; and it worked. The commu-

nity came together and formed itself into a

naturally governed island in a sea of anarchy.

It is this ability to adapt and at the same time

retain its very core that has allowed Swahili

culture to survive and it ensures that it

remains a blueprint of civilisation as long as

it holds on to that core that has its founda-

tion firmly rooted on Islam and trade.

Text By Parvez Asad Sheikh

Globalia Magazine 8th Edition

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