The New Nation - Internet Edition

Maqbool Mahmood Farhat (Writes from London)

In 1980 C.Gordon Tether, a prolific columnist, wrote about the plight of poor people in the Third World in an article titled If the world belongs to every one in the Financial Times of London. We think it fit to print salient points of this to bring about the current thinking of the reformists about global economic reforms.

'Mr Maurice Strang, a high official of the United Nations certainly put the cat among the pigeons when he told fellow Canadians during a recent visit to Ottawa that the time had come to start questioning the 'sovereign rights' of countries to the resources that happen to be located within their borders.

'What he was proposing was that the developing debate on 'the sacred concepts of private property' should now be extended to consider the proposition that 'The world belongs to every one', that is to say, neither nation nor individuals are entitled to lay claim to a disproportionately large share of its riches.

There have been suggestions in oil consuming countries in recent months that a situation wherein the oil sheikhdoms of the Middle East with their miniature populations command a large slice of the world's fuel supplies is intolerable, so intolerable that some kind of international trustee system should be setup, compulsorily, if it cannot be arranged on a voluntary basis, to develop these reserves 'in the interests of the world as a whole.'

Mr Strang's tour de force was concerned with pointing out that what is good for the Arabs might well be held to be equally good for those other countries that geography has treated in particularly indulgent fashion in the resourcessense. And he went on to indicate that Canada with vast oil-coal and uranium reserves but less than one percent of the world's population might well be 'One of the first countries to be challenged if it adopted a policy of narrow and defensive nationalism.' By way of justification, he pointed out that Values were changing and that just as the 'Once sacred concept of private property had been eroded by the concept of benefiting the greatest numbers' so was the sovereign right of a country to its resources is now being seriously questioned.

'Needless to say, the idea is not going to go down at all well with those who happen to be among the 'Haves' rather than the 'Have nots'. There is obviously room for debate as to how far outsiders can be said to have a legitimate claim to property or other assets created by a man's or a nation's own efforts. Naturally, it is not so easy to defend individual or national claims to sovereignty over an unduly large share of 'what came naturally', the land, the sea, the energy and other resources located in the bowels of the earth.

'Paying Tribute: Is it, for example right that because the Creator chose to locate the great bulk of the world's more accessible oil in the desert areas of the Persian Gulf, the impoverished millions of the poor countries should now behaving to devote a significant part of their grossly inadequate spending power to pay for the fuel they need'? Again is it fair that because prices of the finished products have multiplied in the affluent West in recent years, the comparatively poor countries have to part with their meagre incomes to buy these products at exorbitant prices?

'Ecologists have been arguing for some time that, if we want to ensure that the onward march of affluence does not soon put our civilisation in peril, we shall have to evolve global policies for the use of scant resources including land.

'Only in this way, they maintain, and with considerable justification, can we make sure that we get both balanced utilization and adequate conservation of the resources that are indispensable to the survival, let alone the prosperity of the world's rapidly increasing population.

'What the UN Chief is contending is that there is also a need, in some senses more urgent one, for a parallel crusade. Its objective would be to bring about amore equitable sharing out of the ownership of all natural resources at both national and international levels not only as an act of social justice but also to make the world a more efficient and happier place to live in.'

Over the past few years there has been a wind of change in economic thinking moving towards the type shown in the above article. Many people in affluent countries, who are now socially-conscious enough to think about the fate of the poorco untries, feel instinctively guilty about the extravagance, conspicuous consumpt ion and waste of scarce natural resources in the Western world. The West's affluence, after all, is bought with the sweat and sufferings of the world's exploited poor. In the words of ex British Prime Minister Edward Heath, 'it is the unacceptable ugly face of naked capitalism'. The global capitalist system, whether in oil producing countries or the oil consuming West, is harming the conditions of the Third World's poor.

This sentiment is also extended to the issue of Third World debt. Recently Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer British Government echoed the same feelings that the world must attend to the needs of the poor. In 2002, he and the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Horst Koehler, announced that a law should be passed that would allow countries drowning in debt to declare bankruptcy, after which creditor countries would be forced to negotiate more lenient repayment terms. However, this proposal was fiercely opposed by large banks in the US and other wealthy countries that loan money to developing nations. This is because any fiscal-monetary reforms by the United Nations Development Programme would threaten the vital interests of multinationals based in the advanced capitalist world.

One must ask the question now of whether there is any plausible alternative system that would completely remove or at least significantly reduce the poverty we see today. The answer is YES, Islam provides an unambiguous Quranic commandment: 'Lo! Allah enjoins Justice and Indemnification (Al-Adl wal-Ihsan)(Al-Quran Sura 16, verse 90). Translated onto economic plane, while Al-Adl(justice) requires a delicate and just balance amongst the production, consumption and distribution relationship in the economy, Al-Ihsan (indemnification) enjoins a special concern for the economically downtrodden in the society. Hence, the basic objective of the Islamic economic philosophy is the eradication of absolute poverty, feudalism, illiteracy, gross inequalities of income and wealth, widespread unemployment and disease.

The most important element of wealth is landed property, which is not only the source of inequity, but also social tensions and moral degeneration in society.

It is therefore essential for a society to take strong steps to regulate this institution in a manner, which conforms to the Quranic concept of Trusteeship rather than that of ownership as advocated above by the UN's high official Maurice Strang. The concept of Trusteeship, or collective ownership, is fully elucidated in the Holy Quran.

Mr Ghulam Ahmad Parwez (1903-1985), founder of Tolu-e-Islam Movement, Lahore, Pakistan and a renowned Islamic scholar, commentator and revolutionary reformer, authored almost forty-five voluminous books on various aspect of Islam. He in particular wrote extensively on the subject of economic theory from the Quranic Perspective. His voluminous work Nizaam-e-Rububiyyat (System of the Development and provision of Universal Sustenance) is a masterpiece on Islamic Economics. He wrote many essays on the subject, which were printed in pamphlets. One of his Urdu pamphlets, Quran Ka Mo'ashi Nizaam (Economic System of Quran) has been rendered beautifully and faithfully into English by Miss Saleena Karim, BSc (Hon), daughter of Mr Fazal Karim, a well known poet and writer of Nottingham. We hope it will answer fully the question of how to bring justice and equality in the disparaging world, and make it a paradise on earth.

Translated by: Saleena Karim, Nottingham, UK