From the shocking reports of Saudi Arabia deporting Uyghur Muslims back to China to be persecuted, to seeing bearded Muslim men of Chechen militia led by Ramzan Kadyrov fighting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, the question returns: why are the leaders of the Muslim World silent and inactive in the face of Muslim persecution?
“Some have made Washington their Kaaba, while others have turned towards Moscow,” was a remark made by Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, a 20th century Islamic thinker during the start of the cold-war about leaders of the Muslim world (Kaaba located in the holy city of Mecca is the direction in which all Muslims turn towards while worshipping). The cold-war has strictly speaking ended. However, the attitudes of the leaders of the Muslim world have remained the same. One could argue that Beijing has become a new Kaaba for many of these leaders.
Global Economic Order vs decolonisation
Many experts have pointed out that the reason behind this kind of slavery is neo-colonialism and the safeguarding of the global economic order run by the dollar. This could be understood by the example of Nigeria:
“In 1974, Nigeria was the third largest oil producing nation in the world. Today, Nigeria does not own its own oil reserves which is still one of the largest oil producing nation in the world, but BP, SHELL and EXXON(oil companies) own all the rights of oil in Nigeria, they take the oil out of it and sell it back to the Nigerian government,” notes American Muslim scholar Shaykh Khalid Yasin. He held the IMF and the World bank responsible for Nigeria’s plight.
Addressing a lecture in 2012, he said that the imperialistic powers made the ‘dollar’ prevalent as a source of value and eliminated the gold, “because when gold becomes the standard, countries that who have gold become possessors of wealth.”
However, Shaykh Khalid added “they tricked the world and they took the currency and made it the wealth. And so they took the wealth, ‘paper dollars’ and then they bought the gold from those countries with paper.”
“So they took the gold and they own it. Now all the gold is in Fort Knox(which according to US Treasury information possesses approximately 147.3 million ounces or 4581.5 tonnes of gold), and some other places and they gave those people currency,” the American scholar alleged. He added that then after they gave them the currency they depreciated the currency through wars. Then the imperialistic powers tell the developing countries “now you borrow more currency at 20%” and “so now they own the country,” Yasin claimed.
Furthermore, he added that continuing to make developing countries market for consumption.. “so the Muslims become consumer societies who don’t produce anything.” The imperial powers have drowned the developing countries with compound interest through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Shaykh Khalid stated.
Why are leaders of the Muslim world silent?
Some leaders of the Muslim world in the past did try to stand up to this kind of global totalitarianism but were met with severe consequences. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Shah Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Mohammed Morsi of Egypt and most recently Imran Khan in Pakistan, ever since the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924, Muslim leaders who refused to prostrate to global totalitarianism have met with overnight government overthrows, civil wars, military invasions and much more. It can be concluded that the instead of suffering these severe consequences, leaders of the Muslim prefer siding with imperial powers, despite it being detrimental for their own populations.
An example of this kind of neo-colonialism can be understood from the ousting and assassination of former Libyan President, Muammar Gaddafi.
According to media reports, by 2011, Libya had achieved economic independence, with its own water, food, oil money and its own state-owned bank. It was under Gaddafi that Libya went from one of the poorest countries in Africa to the richest.
According to Ellen Brown, American author, attorney, advocate of public banking reform and the founder and president of the Public Banking Institute, education and medical treatment were free; having a home was considered a human right; and Libyans participated in an original system of local democracy.
The country also boasted the world’s largest irrigation system, the Great Man-made River project, which brought water from the desert to the cities and coastal areas.
How Libya sunk post Gaddafi:
However, unfortunately, that was before US-NATO forces bombed the irrigation system and destroyed a rising African country, she stated. Leaked emails of 2016 US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton revealed the agenda behind the Libyan invasion.
The main reason was to stop Gaddafi from creating an independent hard currency in Africa which could allow Africa to shake off the last heavy chains of colonial exploitation. Similar patter has been repeated with even non-Muslim developing countries like Vietnam.
Islamic scholars and economists have claimed that the only reason why Muslim countries specifically, are so brutally targeted by the defenders of IMF and World Bank, is because Islam provides an alternative global economic order which is more efficient and just than the capitalist system. It has been claimed widely that suppressing the emergence of a perfect Islamic economy has been the reason for the west’s offensive against Muslim countries.
What’s stopping Muslim countries from rebelling?
Threats of devastating economic sanctions, government overthrows, assassinations or even full scale invasion at the hands of the US-NATO bullies is what’s stopping these countries from non compliance. As developing countries are facing economic and political challenges, it is natural for them to prioritize the self-interests of their countries over that of oppressed people around the world.
