Islamic finance set to take centre stage as global recession deepens

Hajira Talbot

As the Western world faces the worrying prospect of job losses and recession following the global financial crisis this year, Middle Eastern countries look relatively untouched, with economists predicting that although the Middle Eastern economy’s growth may slow, it will outperform the rest of the world and is expected to retain a strong outlook despite falling crude oil prices.

Why is this, you may ask? Credit rating companies have said that countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have high fiscal surpluses as well as large foreign reserves.

They also have Islamic banking, a financial system which looks set to achieve global endorsement and widespread acceptance in the wake of the global economic turmoil that shook the world in September this year.

Islamic finance revolves around ethical and socially responsible investment and a ban on giving or receiving interest. Critics of the system, however, have argued that the fundamental principle of charging interest cannot be avoided and that interest is merely “hidden and re-labelled” in Islamic banking. Despite this criticism and arguments over the finer points of what exactly Shari’ah-compliance entails, countries such as Malaysia and Switzerland have emerged alongside Middle Eastern countries as major hubs for Shari’ah-compliant finance.

In Britain, conventional banks teeter precariously on the verge of collapse as jobs are shed and workloads merged, but the country’s burgeoning Islamic finance sector is reporting revenue growth between 5 ½ and 14%. Not a single Shari’ah-based institution has failed since the financial crisis, and Islamic finance experts believe this is so because they fund from their own deposits rather than borrow from wholesale markets.

Even the United States looks set to learn valuable lessons from the Islamic financial model, with treasury deputy secretary Robert Kimmitt confirming last month that Shari’ah-compliant finance was firmly on the US’s agenda. The US Treasury department has since held a tutorial for policymakers called “Islamic Finance 101”

Islamic banking assets are estimated at around $500 billion, with economists predicting steady growth of up to 15%, paving the way for these assets to top $1 trillion by 2010. Muslim scholars and economists have been punting Islamic finance as a potential saviour for beleaguered and recession-hit economies, meaning markets the world over are now becoming more eager to swallow concerns about promoting “Islamic principles” and grab a piece of the pie.

Straw: no place in the british legal system for Shari’ah law

By Hajira Talbot

Published in the Muslim News, 28th November 2008

The laws of England and Wales cannot accommodate an alternate legal system based on Sharia principles, according to the Rt. Hon. Jack Straw, MP, the Lord High Chancellor and Secretary for Justice, at the October 28 public dialogue held at the House of Commons.

Straw, appearing as a panelist on behalf of the Labour government, seemed to be in firm agreement on the point along with his Conservative counterpart, Edward Garnier, the Shadow Minister for Justice.  The dialogue, a regular event organised jointly by Editor and Publisher of the Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Communities and Local Government, Sadiq Khan, MP, attracted around 120 young Muslims from diverse backgrounds keen to question the government on the policies which are close to their hearts.

“On this specific issue… it is the case in Egypt, it is also the case in India as in quite a number of multi-religious countries… that laid down in their secular law is provision for religious courts to deal with matters of personal law, usually inheritance and marriage. That is one way of resolving these matters, but I don’t have to agree with that way for this country and I share Edward [Garnier]’s clear view about that,” said Straw.

“Under the Arbitration Act of 1996… there is a perfectly sound statutory base for arbitration including on personal matters, which is what the Sharia courts would do, to be enforced by the English courts if they are consistent with English law, and that’s fine. But I agree with Edward, on matters of children or women’s equality, I’m sorry, I’m adamant about this, our national law must apply.”

The Rt. Hon. Simon Hughes, MP, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons and Liberal Democrat party President, said he shared the views of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sparked a media frenzy in February by stating he felt adopting certain aspects of Sharia law into the English legal system was “unavoidable”.

“I shared the view that somebody should have given him slightly better PR advice – I felt very sorry for the guy,” joked Hughes. “It has always been the case that there are case resolution mechanisms in faith groups and faith communities – the Jewish community has had them for a long time.”

“I’ve always said there is a place for Jewish and Sharia and other laws but for example you could not have a process recognised by the authorities that was discriminatory against women because it would be against public policy for that to happen.”

The Rt. Hon Edward Garnier, Shadow Minister for Justice, refuted a statement from a participant in the dialogue that the British government displayed resentment against the idea of incorporating aspects of Sharia law into the present legal system, saying “the State, represented by this Parliament, cannot have informal systems of law when social policy and public well-being is affected by it.”

“The State is concerned that the collateral damage of a family breakdown is catered for in a way which is humane, which is civilised, which is uniform and which does not permit abuse of disproportionate consequence.”

“We have one system of law in this country and if those of you who want to insist that Sharia law should become an equal system of law recognised by the courts, well, subject to greater clarification of what you mean, I’m afraid I disagree,” insisted Garnier.

This seemingly unequivocal show of solidarity in rejecting Sharia principles as a humane, civilised or equitable means of dispute resolution may be a bitter pill for many British Muslims to swallow.

Justice Minister Bridget Prentice recently stated that rulings passed by Sharia arbitrators could be “rubber stamped” by the courts, a move which some Muslim arbitrators have argued will hamper speedy dispute resolutions for parties seeking urgent relief.

Abuse of terrorism laws

Among other justice-related topics covered at the dialogue, which was notable for its lack of differences of opinion between the three political party representatives, Liberal Democrat leader Simon Hughes took a hard line against the government’s anti-terror legislation, accusing the Labour government of eroding Britain’s civil liberties on a continuous basis.

Chairperson Fatim Kurji also shone the spotlight on instances where Muslims in Britain have been held under the terrorism detention laws but charged with other offences. She asked the panelists if the detention legislation was being abused by police as a mechanism to buy them more time before charging suspects, mentioning the most recent example of 3October with the firebombing at the residence of the publisher of a controversial new book on Ayesha, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad.

“The individuals were arrested under the terrorism act, but later charged with normal criminal offences. Do you accept that the terrorism legislation is being misused by the police?” asked Kurji.

Jack Straw responded by explaining that under the legislation the police could detain terrorism suspects for up to 28 days, but that a senior judge had to agree to the detention first. Straw also pointed out that recent amendments to the Act included post-charge questioning, which he said he was hopeful would “make things easier”.

Edward Garnier supplied the audience with another example of misuse of terror legislation: “Do you remember Abu Hamza, who was tried at the Central Criminal Court about two years ago? I think he was charged under 12 or 11 counts and they were all under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, despite the fact that the government was telling us that they needed lots of new terrorist laws.”

He went on to say that although Jack Straw was correct in saying that terrorism was the biggest difficulty faced within the justice system at present, “it doesn’t mean to say that we have to do everything or anything simply because the word terrorism appears from time to time.”

Hughes stated that the 28-day detention anti-terror legislation was “regularly abused” and “completely wrong”, saying that arguing over whether to detain terror suspects for 14, 28 or 42 days was completely arbitrary.

“The feeblest argument of all is the Home Secretary coming to the House of Commons… saying ‘the police asked for more time’. I have never known the police to ask for less or fewer powers, ever. Of course they always ask, but it’s not the job of government to do what the police say. It’s the job of Parliament to do what Parliament thinks is right to balance the police view and the view of the citizen and we have failed, sadly, to do that,” Hughes said.

“This is one of the reasons why some of us believe we need a written Constitution as well as the Human Rights Act and a written Bill of Rights, and I hope that will give protection to people of all different faiths than sadly the Labour government has done by getting rid of our liberties on almost a yearly basis.”

Edward Garnier dismissed Hughes’ remarks as “lily-livered”, claiming there were a lot of “unattractive” people who wished to do “disinviting” things to the country.

The Lord High Chancellor also pooh-poohed the Liberal Democrat leader’s strong comments, saying terrorism was in a “different category” from other crimes. Straw explained, “maintaining civil liberties through some of the difficulties we’ve had is very important and I frankly don’t accept what Simon said in his rather extravagant way, we’re not really taking away people’s liberties, what we’ve tried to do is respond to not just the threat but the reality of terrorism, which has taken away the largest number of human lives, including Muslim lives, Hindu lives, Christian lives, people of no faith – it’s indiscriminate.”
Lack of minority judges

The dialogue also touched on the desperate lack of diversity within the legal profession as a whole and more specifically within the judiciary. Straw said the proportion of non-whites in the legal system was “frankly lamentable” and stated that the government was actively investigating the stumbling blocks which prevented ethnic minorities from entering the judiciary. “It is appropriate for us to intervene to provide opportunities for under-represented communities, of which the Muslim community happens to be a part,” said Straw. He however cautioned that the BVC (Bar Vocational Course) was very hard and a lot of people routinely fell by the wayside. Straw also stressed that he did not believe the lack of diversity was caused by institutional racism, but rather because of other barriers which existed within the framework of the system.

In response to a question posed by a member of the public, Straw dismissed loans for students from ethnic minorities as a solution, and noted that the problem was not getting people to the starting point through qualifications. He pointed out that law schools were turning out more legally qualified people than there were places for in the legal profession, but admitted that a system of mentoring was “critical” for newly-qualified barristers.

Simon Hughes raised the point that it was vital for government to tackle the issue of funding the post-graduation stages of pupilage and the BVC. “I  think there is a good public case for getting together the Inns of Court and government, and talking to the Bar authorities and saying at that stage there should be a representative funding, and I would not be against saying 50% should be women… and we will be reflective (of ethnic minorities).”

Legal Aid cutbacks

Turning their attention to the recent sharp cuts in legal aid funding, the panel was reminded by chair, Barrister Fatim Kurji, that a proportionately large number of Muslim lawyers operated legal aid practices and asked Jack Straw to explain the rationale behind the cuts.

“If we look at this matter in context, the increase in publicly funded but privately employed lawyers has gone up threefold in the past 25 years. We have seen faster growth in publicly funded legal services than any other area of public services, faster than healthcare, education or social services, and this is quite extraordinary,” explained Straw.

“Legal aid, both civil and criminal, in England & Wales costs £2 billion, and the growth has been astonishing. The amount we spend on legal aid in England & Wales per head is the highest in the world. The result is, although the amount being spent on legal aid is not being cut, it is also not being increased.”
In the wake of recent complex and high-cost legal cases such as those involving terrorism, Straw insisted the public should be getting better value for money by removing incentives for lawyers to “milk cases” for longer than necessary.

The Shadow Minster of Justice responded by saying that the government had created its own problems by passing a large amount of legislation in the past ten years, thereby increasing the powers of individuals and groups to go to court to litigate their concerns. “At the same time the government has cut the amount of money available to get representation to do that.”

Simon Hughes also weighed in with some critical remarks on the subject, suggesting the government should have piloted the changes and sought consensus from the legal profession before implementing the change.

“There should have been much more awareness on the impact it would have on BME lawyers.”

“There are many more single-handed firms which are ethnic minority firms. They therefore are finding it much more difficult to survive,” said the Liberal Democrat leader. “So the answer is, it has had an adverse impact, that was predictable, and the whole of this some of us saw coming.”

“I have very competent, very good, very well-experienced lawyers from my own constituency in Southwark who were really troubled and remain really troubled, and nothing that’s happened has persuaded me that the government has made the new system a better system.”

umanned drone warplane wipes out british terror suspect in pakistan

The MQ-1 Predator, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle used in cross-border execution operations

Hajira Talbot

News reports of yesterday’s strike on a Pakistani village in North Waziristan have revealed one of the five victims of the attack to be British citizen Rashid Rauf.  Rauf had been accused by the US government of “masterminding” a foiled terror attack on airlines flying between Heathrow airport and various North American locations in 2006.

Rauf left his home in Birmingham for Pakistan in 2002 after the death of his uncle. He was detained by Pakistani authorities over the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot (because he was believed to put some of the alleged conspirators in touch with a bloke from al-Qaeda – this makes him a mastermind???)  In December 2006 a judge declared terrorism charges against him “unfounded” and he was re-charged with forgery and carrying explosives. An attempt to extradite Rashid to the UK failed, and Rauf escaped while being transported back to prison from a court hearing.

Does this justify the US government sending an unmanned Predator drone over from Afghanistan into Pakistani territory to snuff this problematic man’s life out – because they didn’t have enough evidence to prove the names they were smearing him with. Imagine what life would be like if you or your children could be exterminated officially at the push of a US military button because you were suspected of being a mastermind of something happening on the other side of the world. I’d be pissed.

The tribesmen of Waziristan, as traditional and stubborn (or “extremist”) as they may be, have no way of protesting their innocence, no way of stating their case – except to fight back guerilla-style. The cycle of needless violence continues.

Tory MP Patrick Mercer has questioned whether the British government had prior knowledge of the attack that led to what he called “the execution of a British subject”, saying it raised some serious questions about Britain’s collaboration with the US on murky issues such as targeted executions and extraordinary rendition.

Hopes that Barack Obama would put an end to the wanton disregard of human rights in George Bush’s war on terror were dashed when Obama recently stated that he would step up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, regardless of borders. This means the reign of push-button extermination is set to continue and increase.

Counter-terrorism expert and Obama advisor, Bruce Riedel, has openly crowed at the execution, saying Rauf “epitomises the Pakistan-UK connection that al-Qaeda is trying to exploit to attack Britain and the United States”. Why did he “epitomise” it? Why was he so dangerous if the courts couldn’t find a shred of evidence to support claims that he was a terrorist?

Maybe he was. I’m not emphatically saying he wasn’t a man intent on killing civilians to make a political point (I try to refrain from labelling people “terrorists” wantonly, unlike the rest of the media and government officials). It’s just that the Western world loves to play self-righteous when people die in “uncivilised” and “un-Christian” countries. There are so many casualties, so many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians murdered at the hands of oppressors in Muslim countries (Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, now Pakistan). But no-one remembers them here in this modern, insular, civilised world I live in. Who’s going to speak for the dead? If you speak up, you probably get killed by a Hellfire missile (good name, don’t you think?) fired from an unmanned drone.

Time to decide whether the BNP’s existence is legal or not

Hajira Talbot

As the furore over the leaked BNP membership list gathers momentum, the question I ask myself is this: if it is so “against public interest” for public figures to be members of the BNP, why not ban the organisation entirely? If their values are so contrary to what is acceptable to ordinary Britons, why are they given the opportunity to win seats in local council elections or even in the Commons and give them the potential to influence decision-making in Britain?

For those who have not been paying attention to British politics, the British National Party is a far-right political organisation, the membership of which is open only to white people. The party’s manifesto states it is committed to “stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948”. The BBC has estimated that around 58 BNP representatives have been elected as local councillors. Although the historically anti-Semitic BNP do not regard Sikhs, Hindus or Jews as culturally or ethnically British, it is their distaste for the Muslim population of Britain that has recently been most vociferous.

A full list of BNP members, numbering some 12 000, was leaked onto the internet on Sunday 16^th November. The list revealed a number of respected public figures, including a radio DJ, teachers, doctors, military personnel and police officers. One police officer, who was on active duty, has been put under official investigation and the radio DJ, Rod Lucas, has been fired with immediate effect.

The Association of Police Officers has banned members of the police from belonging to the radical party, as it believes that having BNP members in the force would “damage race relations”.

Therefore it seems that although this democratic country allows parties like this to exist and conduct campaigns based on racial and religious intolerance, respected figures in society are not allowed to join the party, which leaves us in the interesting position of the racists building up a public image as the aggrieved and wrongly-maligned underdogs who are being unfairly discriminated against! And the worst part is, if people feel sorry for them and vote for them, they will inevitably become a huge, uncontrollable monster created by the public and the media.

My thoughts: if the general public doesn’t appreciate what the BNP stands for, the party should be banned altogether and the government should stop playing stupid politically-correct games before they regret it.

Baby P – another reason to implement child licenses

Hajira Talbot

Horrifying details emerging on the death of Baby P in August this year have provoked political finger pointing in the House of Commons and calls for a new inquiry which could cost the taxpayer as much as the previous £4.6 million inquiry into eight-year-old Victoria Climbié’s abuse and subsequent death. The fact that a 17-month-old baby was sadistically tortured his entire short little life but yet was visited 60 times by social workers, was sent to hospital on account of his injuries at least twice and was examined by a consultant pediatrician 48 hours before he died in his blood-spattered cot, is enough to make me homicidal. The child’s mother was even arrested for assaulting the child but yet the defenceless baby was still not removed to a place of safety.

It is a sad fact of modern life in the so-called “civilised world” that the people who are able to look after children properly are too self-absorbed and narcissistic to find the time to procreate, preferring instead the company of dogs and cats – they can’t talk back – to the responsibilities of parenthood. Which means that a large percentage of the people left having children here in the UK are the kind of people who are professional “benefit-executives” and see their children as cash cows to bring the good old child tax credits rolling on in.

In this first-world country, the emphasis is always on the needs, desires and whims of the individual. Children have no respect for their elders, the elderly are carted off to live in old-age homes so they don’t inconvenience their children and scare their grandchildren, married couples have affairs, mothers are depressed, children have ADHD and teachers are not allowed to do anything for fear they hurt children’s or parent’s feelings.

There is no emphasis on the family, no role models who aren’t self-absorbed, no respect and certainly no values. I may sound like an old fart, (I’m not – I’m 27 years old) and I think the UK has lost both the plot and the blueprint for the ideal supportive and caring family.

When it comes to public “services”, it seems that the people employed by the government are there for appearance’s sake only, which may explain why children are being left to suffer and die in abusive homes. We have paid taxes so the government could spend nearly £5 million on a think-tank investigating mechanisms to prevent authorities from turning a blind eye to child abuse – just so another child could die pitifully in front of everybody.

You know, the only advice I can offer to people who abuse children is this: if you are depressed, or have mental illness relating to you yourself being abused as a child and for some reason feel you can’t stop it, do the world a favour and throw yourself off a bridge.

I personally believe that with the world as over-populated as it is, people should think twice before adding to the inhabitants of this earth. The Dogs Trust runs a campaign which states “a dog is for life, not just for Christmas”. Why can’t we have a Babies Trust that reminds people of their responsibilities to their kids? Plenty of sexually active young girls think that having a baby would be “cool” or “cute” and spend the next five years suffering from post-natal depression and not knowing what to do with the blob that leaks randomly from every imaginable orifice and screams all the time.

And before you ask, I am a mother. I have a wonderful six-year-old daughter who is my reason for living. My journey as a parent has covered divorce, single-parenthood, sacrifice, dire poverty, frustration and many, many tears. It has also brought me unimaginable happiness, pride, tenderness, unselfishness and a rudimentary understanding of the way the universe works, but it’s not for the faint-hearted and some parents don’t ever get to see the upside.

My last word: contraception, people. Contraception.

SuperBrown’s brilliant plan to save the British economy

By Hajira Talbot

Despite my best efforts to stay away from the field of blogging, here I am again scratching my head at the scene laid out in front of me. A year ago I was helping the onset of my alopecia by trying to find logic in South African politics and today here I am in the UK wondering why I bothered to move.

At least South African politicians, infuriatingly senseless as the lot of them may be, are at least a colourful bunch. They have a new political party with no name which is headed by a guy called Terror, who might just be the next big thing, unless he is discredited by being discovered to have been an apartheid spy sometime in the ‘60s. This happens more often than you might think.

Nevertheless, given the so-called credit crunch (who on earth came up with that? It sounds like a breakfast cereal) things are not looking so rosy for Old Blighty, with the sterling dropping to its lowest level in five years. Who will rescue us, I hear you ask? SuperBrown! Yes, Gordon Brown has said today that in order to ‘shore up the economy’ and save the country, the ‘responsible’ thing to do would be to borrow more (Guardian). The world’s economy has been run by a bunch of shady characters who have given credit which never actually existed in cold hard assets, be they gold or otherwise, and the worst part is that we have known this for YEARS and no-one ever seemed to get in a tizz about it until a few weeks ago. Now we have economists flapping ineffectually around like chickens without heads, screaming ‘the end is nigh!’ incessantly, and SuperBrown’s solution is? Why borrow more money of course. It’s the responsible thing to do.

It may be a good idea to point out to the less astute of you that I’m no economist. I’m a human being. I suppose we shall all have a jolly good laugh about all this one day. And then get on with eating our earthworm and cockroach gruel.