Sultan and Shaitan
By Israel Shamir Sultan is good, just his
viziers are evil, - this thought comforted many an unhappy subject
through human history. Unhappy as we are, we comforted ourselves
with vain hopes of positive American intervention in Palestine,
enforcing the myth of the US as a severe but honest ruler. As the
Deir Yassin Day became Deir Yassin-a-Day, the hopes did not abate.
“A real test of the Bush presidency”, wrote Robert Fisk in the
Independent. “No time to waste”, seconded Helena Cobban of the
Christian Science Monitor. But the visit of the US Secretary of
State provided no respite for the Palestinians, not even a lull in
Israeli onslaught.
Brilliant Norman Finkelstein reminded us:
“The problem with the Bush administration, we are repeatedly told,
is that it has been insufficiently engaged with the Middle East, a
diplomatic void Colin Powell's mission is supposed to fill. But who
gave the green light for Israel to commit the massacres? Who
supplied the F-16s and Apache helicopters to Israel? Who vetoed the
Security Council resolutions calling for international monitors to
supervise the reduction of violence? And who just blocked the
proposal of the United Nation's top human rights official, Mary
Robinson, to merely send a fact-finding team to the Palestinian
territories? Consider this scenario. A and B stand accused of
murder. The evidence shows that A provided B with the murder weapon,
A gave B the "all-clear" signal, and A prevented onlookers from
answering the victim's screams. Would the verdict be that A was
insufficiently engaged or that A was every bit as guilty as B of
murder?”
He is right. It is time to stop daydreaming about
the good sultan. If a mental block forbids you to doubt his good
intentions, you may think he is a captive of evil eunuchs, as so
many rulers were. From regret and sorrow, we should move into
action. After all, the US policies in the Middle East aren’t weather
that everybody complains about, but does nothing about it. But can
we do something about it, if demonstrations and protests are of no
avail?
The answer is yes, and it is not a Jihad, neither a
Crusade. Robert Jensen[i] of Texas University wrote, “I helped
kill a Palestinian today. If you pay taxes to the U.S. government,
so did you”. He implied that the US taxpayers’ money go into
rearming Israel and killing Palestinians. Let Jensen be comforted.
The US taxpayer is innocent. The reality is worse: the slaughter is
paid for by us, by five billion people on earth living outside of
the US.
Every day we transfer five billion dollars to the US,
in order to keep this great country’s leaders in the style they are
accustomed to, and also to kill as many Palestinians as they find
fit. A buck a day, from each of us, Europeans and Africans, Chinese
and Japanese, Russians and Arabs. These mind-boggling numbers were
published by the British weekly, the Economist. We do it, as since
1972, the US assumed the right to print as many dollars as they
like, while we subscribed to the fiction that the greenback, a small
sheet of paper, is an equivalent of our labour and of worldly
goods.
As a matter of fact, the US dollar has no cover. It is
a cheque written by a bankrupt wastrel, good to be framed and put on
the wall. Provided they issue as many dollars as they need, it is
not amazing there is one superpower and all the rest are in debt. It
is not a secret: brave Fidel Castro tells it at every conference,
thus assuring endless hostility of the US.
The US financial
wizards, Greenspan et al, play with us an old trick of confidence,
called a ‘pyramid’. Such games were played in many countries,
notably in Albania and Russia, by local tricksters. Usually they end
with a catastrophic crash. The Judeo-American con-game differs by
its size. It is global. Otherwise, it the same pyramid. 90 per cent
of all financial transactions are speculative transactions, writes
Noam Chomsky. The pyramid is supported by a massive propaganda
brainwash to encourage consumption and expansion. Ordinary people of
the US and its allies get no fun out of it: in England, child
poverty grew threefold since Margaret Thatcher came to power. In the
US, there are millions of homeless children. Americans, Brits,
Germans are deeply indebted, as the countries of the Third
World.
The US dollar succeeded to replace gold, because it
offered an attractive fixed interest rate. The interest rate has
become a honey trap for the mankind; it has caused the burden of
debt, impoverished states and persons, created the ugly aberration
of globalization. Not in vain, Sam Bronfman the Bootlegger, the
founder of the powerful Bronfman dynasty and father of the World
Jewish Congress chairman, when asked what the most important human
invention is, replied without hesitation: ‘interest
rate’.[ii]
That was the second Fall of Man. Adam was tempted
by the apple, we got tempted by the fixed-rate interest on dollar,
the modern equivalent of old-fashioned usury. In the old days, the
‘anti-Semitic’ Church condemned usury as the exclusively Jewish
occupation, but now it is free for all. Everybody is a partner, in
the words of Heller’s Catch-22 character, Milo Minderbinder. Yet,
there is a catch, Catch-22. You can not take your winnings and go
away to enjoy them. You have to stay in the game.
The US
dollar is not ‘money’ anymore; it is a license, like a Microsoft
license, or a patent by a pharmaceutical company. Whenever the US
rulers decide, they can freeze the assets of a rebel country. Iran
had its assets frozen, Libya, Iraq; surely Saudis will suffer the
same fate the moment they will object to American policies. Here is
a good riddle for Bilbo Baggins: what is overpriced, unsafe, green
and greatly desired by fools?
II In the last days of the
war in South East Asia, I travelled by a slow junk boat down Mekong
River, in the company of fellow-journalists, adventurers, local
peasants, pigs and chickens. The boat was frequently stopped,
searched and taxed by warring parties, but it made an unhurried
progress from the old royal capital of Luang Prabang towards
Vientiane. In a sleepy village of twenty huts and three elephants,
where we stayed overnight, I wandered into a Chinese shop. In front
of me, a dark and dour Pathet Lao guerrilla in rubber tyre Ho Chi
Minh sandals and AK assault rifle on his back completed his modest
shopping and paid for it with some funny money. I recognized its
colourful pattern: it was Pathet Lao currency. As the soldier went
away, I took out a few Pathet Lao bills I got as a change on the
boat and asked the shopkeeper for a pack of cigarettes. The Chinese
did not move. “But I have seen you accept this money”, I protested.
He replied with wise words worthy of Lao-Tzu, “Only from people with
gun”.
The US dollar is still accepted by the world community
out of fear, and that is why the US military budget grows every
year. That is why the hermit kingdom of North Korea, Iran and Iraq
became The Axis of Evil: they do not accept dollar. But fear is a
bad adviser. The collapse of the pyramid is imminent. The meltdown
began in August 2001, as the Economist advised its readers on
25.08.01, and, unless the timely intervention of persons unknown on
11.09.01, the US dollar would be now of value to numismatists only.
But the World War III can only delay the completion of the
process.
Sheer prudence and enlightened self-interest have
caused the wise rulers to move out of the dollar sphere. European
countries launched Euro, the Japanese Yen rose sharply. But their
attempt to substitute paper by paper while keeping interest rate is
necessarily flawed. In a revolutionary proposal, Dr Mahathir, the
Prime Minister of prosperous Malaysia, proposes to return to gold
and silver, more specifically to the idea of golden ‘Islamic’ Dinar
as a zero-interest rate reserve currency for the world. His great
idea to undo the dollar and loans’ double hold deserves to be
compared with the reform of Solon, the legendary Sage of Athens, who
cancelled debts, defeated Oligarchy, returned land and freedom to
people. If implemented, it would put an end to the suffering of
Palestinians and to suffering of the Third World in general. The US
dollar would fall as fast as in 1929, and with it, the US support
for Israel and your debts.
It should not be seen as an attack
on America. The ordinary Americans would regain their homes from the
banks’ clutches, as mortgages would disappear. The burden of debt
would fall off the back of people. True, George Soros and Mark Rich
would have to apply to welfare office, together with many ardent
supporters of Israel. But it is hardly a misfortune: they would be
too busy to make mischief as they would have to earn their
living.
That is the answer to the question, how can we help
Palestinians. Ask the leaders of your countries to do the right and
prudent step of moving their funds and capitals out the US banks and
out of the US dollar. It would be more efficient than Jihad and
Crusade, more humane and final than suicide bombing.
I liked
the idea of Dr Mahathir. The golden Dinar would usher us into a new
world, the world of zero rate interest, the world without usury,
would help to reconcile society. Marx would enjoy the irony of
history, that the Jewish onslaught in Palestine can be stopped only
by rejecting partnership in dollar-denominated
usury.
III
Religious considerations can not be removed
from our practical decisions. The ‘Islamic’ Dinar would complete the
system of performance-connected banking. It is called nowadays
‘Islamic banking’, but it was practiced by very catholic Venice for
centuries before the advent of usury. On this point, as on many
others, Dar al-Islam and Christendom do not differ. The Church
banned fixed interest, until John Calvin’s fateful folly, and the
great religious reformer, Prophet Muhammad, reinforced the
prohibition[iii].
The Jewish Law forbade Jews to charge
interest for their "brothers" (other Jews), but required to charge
‘strangers’ (non-Jews). St Ambrose understood the implications of
this approach, when he wrote: “From him demand usury, whom you
desire to harm. From him exact usury, whom it would not be a crime
to kill. Where there is a right of war, there also is a right of
usury”[iv]. That is why peace will come to Palestine when the Jews
will accept the maxim of Thomas Aquinas, “there are no strangers”,
and consider the Palestinians as their dear brothers. Or, in words
of Hosea, Say of your brothers: my people, and of your sisters: my
loved
one[v].
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[i]
Houston Chronicle, http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1351792
[ii] Haaretz, 20.11.98,
Musaf p.36
[iii] sura 2, 275-280
[iv] The quote
supplied by David Pidcock.
[v] Hosea 2:1 |