News Right Now: Colonial Loans and Currency Wars

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Welcome to News Right Now - Colonial Loans and Currency Wars

Pakistan, a nuclear armed Muslim country with the 6th largest army in the world finds itself in a precaious position. It is pinched between America’s quagmire in Afghanistan on one side, and is facing an increasingly aggressive and bodacious India on the other. To make matters worse, on the domestic front, it has to devalue its currency to keep international creditors like the International Monetary Fund happy.

Effectively, the IMF wants Pakistan to debase its currency so that it sells products like textiles to foreign countries; using the foreign currency to pay back the IMF loans. This means for Pakistan’s 4.1 billion dollar textile export industry will effectively be selling its goods cheaper, while paying more in loan repayments to the IMF. It doesn’t take an economic genius to see that this is a recipe for disaster.

Countries across the globe, from China, to India, to Turkey, to the United States, are cutting interest rates, making it easier to print money, making it less valuable. Caught in the cross-hairs of a global trade war, Pakistan is burdened with the task of selling its goods at cheaper prices to countries with weakening currencies, while still having to effectively pay back the IMF - leaving less funds to be used for the well-being of the people of Pakistan. The Muslims of Pakistan are left out to dry while their currency is also devalued, which increases the price of goods, making it harder and harder for the average citizen to make ends meet.

It’s a sad state of affairs, especially since Pakistan recently elected a Prime Minister that says he champions Islam and said he would follow the “Madinah model”. But rather than deliver real solutions, he has conflated the emotions of the Ummah by flaunting Islam to push policies that lead that nation to economic disaster. Were he to shun the IMF and their interest based loans, work to base the currency on gold and silver, pursue an aggressive industrialization plan with a focus on heavy industry and technology, and focused on collecting and disbursing revenues of the state the way Islam stipulates, he would have innoculated the Muslims of Pakistan from the venom of the colonial countries that prey upon them.

Jazakum Allahu khairan for joining us. Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.