Saturday 12 May 2012

10 Key Factors Of The Failure Of The The Muslim World In Modern Age

The Muslim world with its vast resources manages to maintain a recurrent interest from economists,thinkers and policy makers.The Muslim world since the end of the Ottoman Empire has had its borders drawn and redrawn after numerous coups and foreign involvement.

 The Muslim world includes the Arabian Peninsula,Turkey,North Africa,Pakistan, Bangladesh and the south eastern countries of Malaysia and Indonesia.Here 10 Key Factors Of The Failure Of The  The Muslim World In Modern Age.
1.Development economics is a branch of economics,which deals with how simple forms of organization can transfer to complex forms of organisation and production.Development is seen as the ability to increase production without any consideration applied to its distribution. Economists do make a distinction between growth and development–growth is seen as more of the same goods and services whilst development is the structural and technological infrastructure behind the production.In terms of GDP,the measurement used to calculate the value of total production of goods and services,the Muslim world is second only to China with growth rates of 7% in some countries.These are growth rates most European countries would be proud of however reading between the figures reveals many problems.
2. If we define development as the building of the necessary infrastructure to fulfil the basic needs of the people such as food, clothing shelter,security and education,here the Muslim worlds comes in at he bottom of the list.Wealth in the Muslim world suffers from huge miss distribution,the Middle East relies heavily upon oil revenue’s therefore it is affected greatly by changes in oil prices.Very little oil revenue actually trickles down to the population but rather ends up in US bank accounts.Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud of the Saudi monarchy is valued at over $20 billion with half of his wealth invested in the US.In the Arab world one in five Arabs still live on less than $2 a day.And,over the past 20 years,growth in income per head,at an annual rate of 0.5%,was lower than anywhere else in the world except sub-Saharan Africa.In Pakistan 40% of land is in the hands of 23 families. Government investment in infrastructure and public services is minimal considering the large population of the Muslim world.Its autocratic rulers,whether presidents or kings, give up their authority only when they die,its elections are at a best a farce,half of the Muslim world is treated as lesser legal and economic beings,and more than half the young, burdened by joblessness and stifled by the use of Islam by the few want to get out of their country as soon as they can.
3. The role IMF and World Bank in countries such as Pakistan,Turkey,Indonesia,Bangladesh and Egypt has directly aided some of the underlying economic problems.The general solution provided by such institutions is the engaging of trade to climb out of poverty and for development.In reality there are a number of obstacles placed by the developed nations that ensure developing nations will never reach a level where they can compete.What this actually means is that Western goods should be imported rather than allow imports from poorer countries.The theory is that only via trade will nations pull themselves out of poverty.Whilst encouraging the third world to lower their market barriers such as tariffs and quotas on various goods,the Western nations do not do the same for their markets.Western economies have not been developed by such subscribed policy,as outlined by Dr Ha Joon Chang in his book“Kicking away the ladder.”The recent failure of the Doha round of talks in Geneva has clearly shown the unwillingness by Europe and the US to lower its trade barriers whilst at the same time lobbying India and China to remove their barriers.
4. This situation in the Muslim world stems from the colonial era and is summed up best by David Fromkin,Professor and expert on Economic History at the University of Chicago “Massive amounts of the wealth of the old Ottoman Empire were now claimed by the victors.But one must remember that the Islamic empire had tried for centuries to conquer Christian Europe and the power brokers deciding the fate of those defeated people were naturally determined that these countries should never be able to organize and threaten Western interests again. With centuries of mercantilist experience, Britain and France created small,unstable states whose rulers needed their support to stay in power.The development and trade of these states were controlled and they were meant never again to be a threat to the West. These external powers then made contracts with their puppets to buy Arab resources cheaply, making the feudal elite enormously wealthy while leaving most citizens in poverty”
5. From this short exposition it can be seen the Muslim world suffers from a number of economic woes and this has been the case since WW1. However a distinction must be made between the symptoms and the actual causes.
6. Due to the Muslim world not implementing rules from an ideology,they have been unable to unify the populace,with many policies being time specific and usually motivated by the political climate at the time.The unfortunate result of this is that a whole host of contradictory policies are applied within a nation.This point cannot be stressed enough, unless you convince the populace with consistent coherent policies you will never have them work for such a vision.An example of this is what Hitler achieved with the German economy.Germany was humiliated after WW1 with repatriation payments,Russia was occupying parts of East Germany,40% of the population unemployed and inflation at 230% a month. Hitler began a programme of utilising nationalism to mobilise the masses which led to the degrading scenario they were in being considered as requiring change.He began a 5 year programme where he would develop a self-sufficient economy,which would be expansionist so it could gain all the raw material needed to put Germany on the map again.He fixed the prices of essential goods to ensure the population was fed,Germans were prepared to give up making profits to ensure they actually received basic necessities.Hitler then sold his vision to German industrial heavyweights showing them how they could profit from his vision and stabilise the country.The result of this was that Volkswagan,Siemens and other big players produced the required heavy machinery, which created jobs,which meant the population actually after a decade had disposable income. During WW2 one of the reasons the allies found it difficult to deal with German military was the fact they had multiple production plants which contributed to the war effort,when one was bombed production moved to another plant.
7. Although in no way do I subscribe to Hitler’s end objectives however the model he used of vision,receiving the backing of industry champions and leading the nation in one unified direction is something the Muslim rulers can learn from.This most certainly means they need to remove the influence of western interference,weather this is the army in Pakistan,Turkey or Egypt or politicians and political parties in Syria,Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
8. As Islam is the only common denominator between everyone in the Muslim world,as it is the deen they have all adopted,extreme actions like Hitler’s are not needed.Islam has a glorious history in the region and propelled the Muslims from the deserts of Arabia to the far reaches of the earth.This would be the place to begin deriving economic policies for the Muslim world.These policies would be accepted by all Muslims as they are from Islam and would actually bring confidence in the Islamic rules once people see they can work.It would also be the best way to carry dawah to the world.
9. Practically this means a set of policies which deal with trade,ownership,companies, public finance,investment,currency and poverty elimination would need to all be derived from the same foundations which would ensure no contradictions occur in economic policies.All foreign policies from Socialism,the Capitalist free markets,Nasserism,Kemalism and any other ‘ism’should be rejected.Islam has a number rules for the policies mentioned and this will Inshallah form the subjects in future articles.
An example to show the success of the Islamic model is the economic policies of the Abbasids who become leaders of the Muslims in 750:-
“After the defences of the city(Baghdad)were complete attention turned to how the Abbasids would feed not just Baghdad but the whole empire considering its enormous population.The development of agriculture under the Abbasids was a phenomenon,the scarcity of water had converted the barren Arab lands into a vast desert,which had never yielded any substantial agricultural produce.The scattered population always imported supply of food grains to supplement the dates and the little corn grown in their own lands.The Abbasids dealt with this by first controlling the flows of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.The Irrigation system in the land was greatly improved by digging a number of new canals,the largest flowed between the Tigris and Euphrates.This led to navigation routes opening to India and the Persian Gulf. The Abbasids reconstructed the existing canals, lakes,and reservoirs,which were first built under Hajjaj Bin Yusuf in 702.After this the swamps around Baghdad were drained,freeing the city of malaria.Muslim engineers perfected the waterwheel and constructed elaborate underground water channels called qanats. Requiring a high degree of engineering skill, qanats were built some fifty feet underground with a very slight inclination over long distances to tap underground water and were provided with manholes so that they could be cleaned and repaired.The result of this was the Abbasids set in motion an agricultural revolution,which stimulated development in other parts of the economy.”

10. Muslim nations have no clear conception and connection with any matter or issue.Normally they are quarelling with each other.So non Muslim nations take the advantages on development.
Reference:-

1.international-issues
2.muslims should reach unity
3.rohama.org
4.newsmax

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