(gm) Several decades of schizophrenic Middle East policy lie behind us. Our political class championed the values of the West by calling for human rights and democracy, the Americans made sure that the Arab despots maintained order and our economic class made "business as usual". So up until today the states of the Near East either resemble cheap petrol stations where we satisfy our energy needs or prisons in which millions of "angry" young men are held in check.

Now the commissioner dictators are falling like dominos in the Arab world and the world is holding its breath in anticipation of what this new freedom will mean for it. In reality it is not so much to do with democracy but rather western prosperity�s 'deal of the century': "You give us oil and raw materials, you get inflationary paper money currencies". The contract between supplier and consumers has brought massive wealth to a small elite on both sides while unfortunately vast masses in the Arab world have found themselves totally neglected for decades.

The question in the long term will be who will lead this class of people who have now risen up in spontaneous revolt. Iran will line up its caste of scholars, ideologues of all colours will want to concoct their own recipe and the political class - as is evident all over the world - will try to hide their impotence in face of the power of the global economy.

Muslims who reflect upon the financial crisis and the actual situation in an Islamic framework must doubtless now hit upon the 'Islamic Dinar'. The Dinar is a weight, not a promise, and transmits a simple message. At the beginning of this century a money system with real values stands for the restraining of the paper money system and at the same time for the freedom of fair trade.

The "Dinar Movement" gathers together the power of the Muslims - not at ideological level but rather at an economic level. Without doubt it is the Islamic law of economy which holds the solutions so feared today by both dictators and oligarchs alike. This alternative - to be found within the regulatory factors of Islamic thinking - might also be a feasible solution for the West, for otherwise new ideologies threaten to take hold which will determine the fate of the Arabs on the basis of enmity.

http://www.globaliamagazine.com/index.cgi?id=1141