Currently most world trade is settled using major currencies. The Malaysian Prime Minister views matters in a fairly simplistic way. Islam could not have chosen a better moment to offer an alternative currency. Now the dollar is under pressure and the scales are falling from the eyes of those who put total faith in the paper IOUs of governments. If the conspiracy theorists are to be believed immense efforts have been made during the 90s by US banks and other institutions to detach gold from the global financial system and spin it off as a barbaric relic. All these countries still retain the concept of gold as a store of value as evidenced by Indian wedding rites, purchases of gold by Thai farmers after good harvests and the number of shops selling bullion in Dubai.Īmerica finds it hard to comprehend the resentment in these countries against the sheer power it wields in the world and this is exemplified in the dollar. The idea may be in its infancy at the moment, but as Mao Tse Tung said, “A long journey starts with a single step.” The great appeal, not only in Asia but in the Middle East as well, is that it would offer Islamic countries a means of by- passing western currencies by using gold to settle bilateral trade.
Nor Mohamed Yakcop, the economic adviser to Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, announced the plan to an international conference in the last few days and the intention is to introduce it half way through next year. Moreover Asia was developing as an economic power house in its own right until the financial crisis of 1997/8 and many leaders in these countries believe that they were destabilised by an overly strong dollar. The plan will be rubbished by members of the Bush administration who were brought up from birth to believe in the power of the almighty dollar, but the White House should reflect on the fact that there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and very few of them share America’s view of the dollar.
Just before the Organisation of Islamic Conference which is due to take place in Kuala Lumpur in October 2003 a number of Muslim countries, led by Malaysia, propose to introduce an electronic unit of value called a gold dinar to settle bilateral trade among themselves.
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