Thursday, July 22, 2010

Region of Malaysia Plans Gold-Backed Currency

Although it is not widely understood Muslims have always respected gold. Indeed, even Louis Farrakhan, when he was actively spoke highly about gold. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Muslim religious leaders in part of Malaysia are calling for a gold-backed currency.

The Guardian's Nazry Bahrawi reports:
Yet this is the ideal world envisaged by some of Malaysia's activists championing the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham as a new form of legal tender to replace paper money – a utopia that could see the light of day as early as the middle of next month.

This is when one such group, Muamalah Council, plans to implement the dinar system in Malaysia's northern state of Kelantan. If information on its website is to be believed, the council has the blessing of the state's Islamist government, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (Pas), to kickstart the dinar in three moves.

First, the state will pay a quarter of its public servants' salaries using the dinar. Second, all state companies will accept dinar payments. Lastly, some 600 commercial enterprises will also embrace this currency.

Inspired by selective religious sources and backed by historical precedents within the annals of Islamic history, the gold dinar system is touted by certain fiercely proud Muslims as the Islamic answer to thwart capitalism's woes.

The idea was first mooted by Malaysia's former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He argued that the coins would never hang their possessor out to dry in the same way that paper money had. As precious metals with intrinsic value, gold and silver are more resistant to market fluctuations and devaluation compared to the US dollar – an argument he took to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference as a tool to battle western hegemony.
Of course, a gold-backed currency doesn't thwart capitalism, but it sure does cause a problem for inflation loving global elitists. It's a hedge against elitist destruction of a currency, and I'm sure learned Muslims and American goldbugs would both agree on that. This idea that the Muslims are adopting gold to fight capitalism is, I suspect, more the idea of the Guardian writer, Bahrwrai, than it is the view of the Muslims.

After promoting the absurd notion that Muslims see gold as a way to fight capitalism, Bahwrai really goes off the edge and calls a gold-backed dinar, "exploitation."
It is only providing one more avenue for exploitation. For this reason alone, it will not have my buy-in.
It's really hard to take Bahwrai seriously in his attack on the gold-backed dollar, since most major currencies such as the dollar and the pound have lost 98% of their value overtime, while at the same time gold has dramatically increased in price.

Either Bahwrai is seriously misinformed about these facts or he is another plant of the elitists. In either case, it's best to ignore him and find out how to get some of the new dinars, and become a serious exploiter yourself.

4 comments:

  1. "Muslim religious leaders in part of Malaysia are calling for a god-backed currency."

    Haha.

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  2. The article states gold-backed money is: "..the Islamic answer to thwart capitalism's woes." Not capitalism. This makes sense if the woes are inflation.

    Bahrawi's concern about "exploitation" however is a puzzle.

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  3. I think Bahrawi's concern about "explotation" refers to gold mining in the African regions where "blood diamonds" are found.

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  4. See you guys later, I've grown my beard out and I am moving to Malaysia. I've had enough of this clean-shaven fiat currency nonsense here in America.

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