Sharing something from the weekend...
Sunday morning 10th November I went to Putrajaya for a function.
It is called the Internatioanl Islamic Forum Putrajaya and I was going for the 2nd session of forum titled "Global Economics and Monetary Crisis - What needs to be done?"
Apparently it was held inside the belly of a 'zeppelin'.
I came in late, when the 2nd last speaker Ellen Brown, president of Public Banking Institute of the USA was about to start, via teleconferencing.
Seated in front, from left is David Musa Pidcock, founder and leader of the Islamic Party of Britain, Amirul Haji Mohamad, host of tv programme Islamic Finance Today, Prof. Dr. Patrick, professor of economics at Azabu University, Japan and Prof. Dato' Dr. Aziuddin Ahmad, board member of Yayasan Putra Business School. All were speakers except Amirul who was the moderator. Everyone had impressive credentials. But I was particularly impressed with Dr. Aziuddin's as it says he holds a PhD in Reactor Physics and Masters in Nuclear Reactor Science & Engineering from University of London.
After Ellen Brown has finished speaking about the merits of setting up public banking owned by the state or responsible members of the public as opposed to greedy capitalists and private individuals, the last speaker Dr. Patrick Collins took stage.
Frankly I was surprised about his brutally honest take on the current world banking system and its financial instruments. I know for some time now that the system is a big fraud but to hear someone talking about it in a international economics forum? Boy, that did made my day.
His slides were very straight to the point practically calling the bankers as gangsters. Oh, he opened his speech with the fact he graduated in Economics from Cambridge University without anyone ever telling him that the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are both privately owned.
Now, I didn't take pictures of every slide.
But what is available should suffice to tell that the system needs changing.
As this is an Islamic economics forum the main idea is we should disentangle ourselves from a riba' or interest based system which is very oppresive. The question is how...
Collins advocated something called the Grondona System...
The whole economics matter was further discussed in a Q&A session.
Yours truly also fielded a number of questions along with opinions. While a number of solutions are available, I believe the actual problem lies in the willpower to implement and the speakers concur. Mr. Pidcock even goes to the extent of saying it is the cowardice of the politicians as legislators which is the stumbling block. When yours truly suggested perhaps we need a benevolent dictator, a strong charismatic person of royal stature to stamp his foot down to make things happen he added the real unifying factor would be the Mahdi. Enough.
