The New Religion of Globalised Greed Part 3: Making a Killing on the Stock Market

Written by Karima Hamdan

There is a certain type of politeness that is deeply ingrained in our British psyche. In fact, labelling it as "politeness" is being polite in itself. One could more accurately say "linguistically duplicitous", or "factually profligate", or "lacking in verisimilitude" or, indeed, "lying". It is most often heard in eulogies and obituaries when we hear and read phrases like "he was the life and soul of the party" when we actually mean he was a wine-soaked drunk or "not the marrying type", which is code for homosexual. "She was generous with her affections" would translate into "she was a promiscuous Jezebel" and "she didn't suffer fools gladly" in reality would mean a curmudgeonly old grouch who would make Victor Meldrew seem like a ray of sunshine.

The general public are the sombre-faced mourners clutching their hymn sheets at the funeral of European monetary stability and, as the Requiem mass is recited (In the midst of life we are in debt); and the Beatitudes (from the Sermon on the Monetary Union) are read (Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the deficit), we hear eulogised platitudes, glossing over the stark reality of the situation. They range from the trite ("Greek haircuts") to the banal ("credit enhancements"), to the impenetrable ("bank deleveraging") and, despite these efforts, it looks as though this bailout will be buried long before anyone has a chance to toast its memory at the Wake.

We are currently witnessing Greece slowly choking to death. As its citizenry riots and protests on the streets and its parliament vacillates ineffectually, we are treated to insulting stereotypes of Greeks being a nation of ne'er-do-wells, content to sit under a tree on a sun-drenched island overlooking the sapphire-blue Aegean Sea, whilst the rest of us in rainy, cold northern Europe shoulder the burden of Greece's fiscal responsibilities.

As always, the reality is a bit more complicated than the pre-digested caricature regurgitated up by the media for our consumption.

For instance, there has been precious little in the press about the role of financial mega-institution Goldman Sachs in the manufacturing of Greece's current predicament. It has become clear that Goldman Sachs structured a highly questionable transaction with the Greek government, allowing it to borrow billions to prop up a failing economy but keep this hidden from public view as it was labelled a currency deal rather than a loan. This deliberate obfuscation allowed Greece to be accepted into the Eurozone despite its economy being in no fit state to join the single currency. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs trousered $300million in fees to set up the transaction and, in a move that lives up to its label as a blood-crazed vampire squid, it then bet against Greece's collateralised debt obligations. In other words, it lent Greece the money to let it spiral into financial ruin in return for assets such as future landing fees from Greece's airports and future profits from the Greek national lottery, all neatly packaged up into dodgy derivatives.

For Goldman Sachs, this is a win-win situation because if these derivatives proved toxic (i.e. Greece couldn't pay its debts), Goldman would get a pay off from the credit default swaps it had arranged, not to mention lucrative commissions that the bank collects regardless of how the deal works out. It is little wonder that Goldman Sachs was once again circling Greece with yet another dodgy deal in November 2009 based on the future earnings of Greece's health care system. This time it was batted back by Greece's newly-elected Labour government. That however is cold comfort to the Greek people, who have to pay for their government's idiocy with Goldman Sachs by swallowing the Brussels-directed swingeing cuts to public services, pensions and wages, and the liquidation of government assets at rock-bottom prices.

Ruining a sovereign nation's fiscal future is not the only string in Goldman Sach's bow. It was instrumental in the lobbying that went on to deregulate the futures markets by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission in 1999. Whilst that may sound innocuous enough, it was this law - The Commodity Futures Modernization Act - that led to the rapid growth of speculation on food staples that has been responsible for such diverse events as the current tortilla crisis in Mexico, which has seen corn prices skyrocket causing untold misery to Mexico's poor, and the 2006 world food crisis, which saw 200 million people sink into malnutrition and starvation. There is even credible evidence which suggests that the Arab Spring was triggered by high food prices coupled with unemployment.

Much has been made this week of the birth of the 7 billionth person on the planet. One thing that struck me was that despite the predominance of delightfully tiny newborns, the reportage ranged from the cautiously neutral to the downright negative. One was left with the distinct impression that these little humans, blinking sleepily at the camera, were an unwanted extravagance on a planet that was already full to bursting: an environmental catastrophe ready and waiting to melt an ice cap or kill a polar bear, just as soon as they learned to crawl. One telling fact was that if all the people on the planet were to live in one mega-city with the population density of Paris, then we could all fit into an area the size of France. At least one recent study has debunked the whole overpopulation myth. When seen in the context of the globalised religion of greed, it becomes clear that the problem with the world is not a woman in Sub-Saharan Africa giving birth to her fifth or sixth child but rather the utterly remorseless greed and gimlet-eyed self-interest of a relative handful of bankers, businessmen and politicians who have ceased wanting their share of the pie and have become fixated on the whole pie as well as the pies of future generations.

As highlighted in last week's JumahPulse, the very nature of how governments and large financial institutions interact gives rise to highly intertwined relationships. Indeed, if I wanted to draw attention away from such an obvious and profound affront to democracy, a key device would be the need for a scapegoat on which the whole duplicitous, twisted, convoluted mess could be blamed: a tall order given the breadth and depth of the crisis. If a scapegoat could not be found, then the next best thing would be some sort of highly distinctive minority group, with just the right combination of marginalisation, grievance and otherness so as to trigger a moral panic. After all, it worked so well during the Weimar Republic in post World War I Germany.

Before I am accused of some advanced form of paranoia, let me defend myself by pointing out that large numbers of political and economic commentators have cited the example of the Weimar Republic when discussing the Eurozone crisis.

For those who think the Weimar Republic is perhaps some sort of trendy clothing retailer selling retro-inspired jeans to middle-class hipsters, or some new chain of identikit coffee shops occupying high street sites that used to be post offices, let me enlighten you. The Weimar Republic was the republic that replaced Imperial Germany after World War I. It was characterised by hyperinflation: a rapid erosion of the value of the currency characterised by rocketing prices. Photographs of a person lugging a wheelbarrow full of German marks in order to buy an ounce of gold are famous. As Hitler rose in the German national consciousness as a vocal opposition leader, the Weimar Republic attempted to stabilise its economy and, for a time, looked as though it may succeed. Unfortunately, the 1929 stock-market crash on Wall Street put paid to any such hopes, leading to the Great Depression, as opposed to the Great Recovery. The US banks that had financed the German economy called in their loans and the economy nosedived out of control, with mass unemployment. One can see how the Weimar Republic could be used as a worst case scenario for cash-strapped Europe struggling under her huge debt, with a stagnant economy, burgeoning unemployment and rising inflation, all topped with a number of banks that may well withdraw the funding that is currently supporting the straining girders of the Eurozone economy. When commentators mention the Weimar Republic, they usually end the discussion with its collapse. What happened after its collapse is of particular importance to Muslims, especially those who live in Europe.

During the years of the Weimar Republic, the Nazi party was a very vocal opposition that gave simplistic but popular solutions to Germany's woes and provided a handy scapegoat on whom all of the Republic's ills could be blamed: die Juden (the Jews). It is interesting to note the time-frame over which the Nazis implemented their extreme anti-Semitism. Everyone knows that the first gas chamber was used in 1941, but what is less well known is that it was only 20 years earlier, in the 1920s, when Nazis first started using the print media to vilify and spread lies and hatred about the Jews. They labelled them as a threat to Europe. They ridiculed their dress and lifestyle. They accused them of being unpatriotic and in particular not supporting the army. They often published salacious accounts of sexual assaults of German women and girls by Jewish men. They characterised them as being a fifth column. They slandered their rabbis, often depicting them hurting children. They were particularly active in their fierce condemnations of the kosher method of slaughter.

Is any of this sounding familiar?

When one reads about the outrageous acts committed by private financial institutions - whether it is the Koch Brothers attempting to wield undue influence over our elected officials or Goldman Sachs gambling with food prices and consequently causing people to starve - one wonders why there is no mass outrage. Of course there is some outrage (the Occupy movement is a case in point) but as for widespread, visceral, swivel-eyed outrage spreading though the general population, if that sort of outrage is sought, then one usually has to look no further than Islam and Muslims. Whether it is Sharia law, or the niqab, or Islamic schools, or insulting cartoons, or our alleged birthrates or birth defects, Muslims tend to be the ones at the epicentre of (usually rather illogical) mass hysterical outrage.

It seems like a classic case of "distraction burglary", a type of crime that sees the unwitting householder have his attention diverted by the criminal whilst another of the gang quietly helps himself to the householder's property. Whilst the general public bristles with offence at the latest "bad Muslim" story, it is being efficiently stripped of its public services, pensions, job security and ultimately its standard of living. And none of it is being done by a niqabi.

At the start of this series, I proposed that this infotainment-laden world has merged into a sentient, globalised being, controlled by corporations, innervated by the media and powered by masses of cells, who are entirely instrumental to this being’s survival whilst at the same time entirely subservient to it. I also said that this behemoth follows a religion and that religion is greed.

It could be said that this is nothing new as greed dates back to time immemorial. This is partially correct. Yes, greed is one of the oldest tricks in the book of our old enemy Shaytaan, and indeed our beloved Messenger (SAW)said:

Anas bin Malik (ra) narrated: The Messenger of Allah (SAW) said, "If the son of Adam had a valley full of gold, he would like to have two, for nothing fills his mouth except dust. And Allah forgives him who repents to Him."
(Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 76, Number 447)

The difference now is that the inherent greed of humanity has always been counterbalanced by faith in God, a faith that both promises rewards to those who bear great burdens and are patient, and punishment to those bent on their own individual satisfaction at the expense of their fellow men.

The 21st century's literally "hell-bent" individualism has eroded this orthodoxy, disturbing the delicate cantilever of people's desires. Traditionally, a person only wanted what would be acceptable by his own conscience, but this has been replaced by a wildly-oscillating maelstrom of ideas, concerns and expectations that fluctuates with which celebrity is championing which cause, what is the current must-have charity wristband to pontificate about around the office watercooler and which is the latest newly-deceased luminary whose death causes an "unprecedented outpouring of public grief". Until, of course, the next unprecedented outpouring of public grief.

This wafer-thin spiritualism is like an oil slick: a mile wide but an inch deep. It neither helps nor controls those who endorse it. Despite the protestations of notable atheists like Richard Dawkins that the lack of religion transforms an individual from a mindless automaton afraid of fairy tales into a dynamic, informed humanist - oozing empathy from every pore of his body - just glad to be doing his bit for the species before his existence is extinguished into an eternal nothingness punctuated by the occasional meme left behind for posterity (if you're lucky), the evidence of the summer riots against the backdrop of corporate greed contradicts this. What both the bankers and the rioters worked out separately is that if this world is our only existence, then it is utterly illogical to rein in your desires. The distant threat of being caught and punished, whether by a toothless corporate watchdog or a wheezing unfit police officer weighed down by 15kg of riot gear, is no deterrent. This is the unspoken message from both the top and the bottom of society.

When examining this series of JumahPulses which detail the globalised rape of Somalia, the circles of intrigue surrounding government and big business and the global machinations of just one large bank (Goldman Sachs), it is easy to fall prey to a sense of hopelessness. The "elites" seem to have a confederacy of connivance tightly knitted together and it makes one want to reach for the tinfoil hat, change into a comfy turquoise tracksuit and start reading lurid websites about the Illuminati.

This, however, is not the purpose of these articles. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by this tangled web of deceit and intrigue, the believer should instead understand it and from that make more sense of the world around him. When the believer reads some exaggerated account of some tiny aspect of Islam that seems to be causing a wildly disproportionate response, he should understand that the enmity directed against Islam at almost every turn is part of a strategy aimed at distracting people from the true enemies of society whilst concurrently demoralizing and demonising Muslims.

The logic behind the current anti-Muslim media campaign is two-fold. Primarily, it provides the requisite cover for successful "distraction burglary", but it also reflects the profound fear and unease the Neoconservative lobby and, by extension, its various "backers", feel when confronted with Islam. While the intent of this campaign is to suppress and incapacitate Muslims, upon reflection, it is profoundly inspiring, and rather flattering. What is it about us that demands the expenditure of millions of dollars, the organization of think tanks and alliances, and the mobilization of thugs and polemicists? Upon reflection this brings to mind the statement of the believers in the Quran:

"Those to whom it was said: 'Verily, the people have gathered against you, so fear them'. But it had the (paradoxical) result of increasing their faith. They replied: 'Allah is sufficient for us (against them) and the best disposer of affairs."
(Al Imran 3:173)

One should also see the pattern in the events unfolding around us and how they appear to mimic previous events in history. Europe has an unsavory history of turning on religious minorities at times of economic hardship: whether in the form of anti-Jewish pogroms in medieval Europe or the industrialised, media-backed slaughter of the Jews after the fiscal disaster that was the Weimar Republic. European Jews, when confronted by this growing wave of hatred against them, responded in one of two ways. One was to hold on more tightly to the tenets of their religion (this was ridiculed as being backward and insular at the time); the other was to "modernise" Judaism in order to conform it to the society at large. This also needs to be reflected on by Muslims who appear to be diverging in exactly the same way, as we have mentioned in other places.

It is noteworthy that this series of JumahPulses about greed has concluded in the midst of the Hajj season. The once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Makkah by every able Muslim seeks to cure the heart of the disease of self-interest and greed. We can see it in the sa'ee - the passage seven times between the two hills of As-Safa and Al-Marwah, in the footsteps of that most impressive of women, Haajar (the mother of Ismail), who shines like a beacon down the millenia to us as a guide to Muslims everywhere on what it is to have trust and faith in Allah. We can see it in the Jamaraat - the stoning of the Shaytaan which demonstrates our repudiation of the devil and all he stands for just as Ibrahim (upon whom be peace) defied the Shaytaan three times on his way to fulfil the will of Allah and sacrifice that which he loved most.

And we can witness it on the mighty Day of Arafat, where the Muslims of the world beg Allah for forgiveness and greater spiritual strength, fully conscious that, despite all the secret covens, plots and conspiracies the world has to offer, what they are fighting for is fleeting at best:

"Whatever you have (of worldly possessions) will (one day) come to an end, (But) whatever is with Allah will remain forever."
(Sura Nahl)

And whenever we feel our hearts turning when confronted by the excess of this world, we should ponder upon these words of the Almighty:

"Know (and understand well) that, verily, the life of this world is (but) play, amusement, adornment, mutual boasting (vying with one another in material possession and worldly pomp) and mutual rivalry in accumulating wealth and children. In the Hereafter is a dreadful punishment (for the rebellious ones) and (for the people of Faith) will be forgiveness and pleasure from Allah."
(Sura Hadeed)

And finally we should search in our own hearts for any manifestations of this globalised religion of greed as we reflect on this hadith:

Ka'b Bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates that Rasulullah (SAW) said:
"Two hungry wolves let loose in a flock of sheep do not cause so much damage to the flock as the love of wealth and vanity causes to one's Deen." (Tirmizi, Darimi)

UmmahPulse would like to wish everyone Eid Mubarak, and we pray that at this time of remembering the sacrifice of Ibrahim (AS), that Allah gives us the faith and strength to sacrifice in His way and not be from amongst those driven by the greed of this world.