A Few Questions
for Dr Mahathir
By
Mohammad Asghar
Via e-mail
During the course of a visit to
Bangladesh recently, Dr. Mahathir, former Prime
Minister of Malaysia, created a stir when he said:
“I’ve asked Arabs to sell oil in other
currencies. If we don’t use US dollars,
the currency will become useless.” Explaining
why he wants Muslims not to trade with America
in dollars, Dr. Mahathir argued: “If the
oil and other raw materials possessed by Muslim
countries are sold in currencies other than dollars,
the dollar would devalue. If the US is poor, it
cannot dominate the world.”
Dr. Mahathir’s call to Muslim countries
to trade with the United States in a currency
other than the dollar smacks of a deep-rooted
hatred he holds in his heart for the US. Such
a stance could expose the Ummah to retaliatory
measures by the non-Muslim countries. Also, faced
with an offensive against its national interests,
there is every possibility that the US would retaliate
economically against the offending nation or nations,
thereby throwing the entire world into a financial
crisis of unimaginable magnitudes.
I am sure Dr. Mahathir must has also given due
thought to related effects that such a step is
going to have on Muslim countries. I briefly enumerate
a few:
1. If the American economy becomes weak due to
the embargo put against it by the Muslim countries,
which nation is going to import the large quantity
of electronics Malaysia produces? Will Dr Mahathir’s
country be able to sustain its own economy if,
for example, Japan, showing solidarity with the
United States, stops importing its manufactured
goods and agricultural products?
2. If America stops giving billions of dollars
in aid to Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, to name
a few, what is going to happen to the economies
of the Muslim countries?
3. If the United States retaliates against the
oil-producing Muslim countries with an embargo
of its own that denies them access, among others,
to such items as oil rigs and their spare parts,
what would happen to the oil industries of these
countries? Is Dr Mahathir not aware of what happened
to Libya and Iraq when America subjected them
to an embargo of its own?
4. If the Muslim oil producing countries heeded
to Dr. Mahathir’s appeal and stopped exporting
their oil to America, how would they manage their
economies without finding another country that
is willing to absorb the quantity that America
has been buying, before the embargo, from them?
Can the Muslim oil-producing countries cut down
their production and still be able to meet their
national needs?
5. If America and its allies succeeded in finding
an alternative source for their energy needs in
a few years’ time and decided collectively
not to import any crude oil from the Islamic states,
what is likely to happen to the economies of the
oil-exporting Muslim countries? Would they be
able to sustain their economic growth without
having enough oil revenues?
A cursory look at the affairs of the poor Muslim
countries will reveal the fact that what they
have been looking for long is not a confrontation
with the United States and its allies; rather,
all of them wish to better their economic conditions
with the help from them as well as from the wealthy
Islamic nations. Dr. Mahathir never appeared to
have laid much emphasis on this aspect of the
Muslims’ desire, as a result of which, he
himself not only avoided doing anything positive
for his brethren in faith, when he was heading
his country’s government, but he continues
to do so even now by not urging his country’s
present Prime Minister to come to the aid of the
financially disadvantaged Muslims of the world.
Instead of asking the people of Bangladesh to
trade with the United States in a currency other
than the dollar, Dr. Mahathir should prevail on
his country’s government as well as on other
governments of rich Muslim countries, to absorb
as many Bangladeshi workers as possible. This
act of theirs will go a long way in alleviating
the financial difficulties not only of the Bangladesh
government but also of the common people. He should
also urge all rich Muslim countries that instead
of keeping their surplus funds in the vaults of
the Western banks, they should invest them in
the poor Muslim countries, thereby helping them
to stage a recovery and breaking away from poverty.
Such a gesture by rich Muslim nations will show
that they truly believe in the concept, spirit
and practices of Islamic Ummaism, founded and
preached by the Prophet of Islam; their continuous
failure to come to the aid of their poor brethren
would, on the other hand, prove that they are
willing to disobey even the command of their beloved
Prophet, when their greed and lust for wealth
dictate them to do so.
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