Here’s how not to restore the integrity and authority of the state:
And with the social, economic and political conditions remaining pretty much the same, it is only a matter of time before they are exploited again.
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Keep your veils, but give us your dinars, riyals and dirhams:
Another tax reform, currently under review by the constitutional council, could allow Islamic “sukuk” bonds to be issued in France and the opening of Islamic retail banking services to French Muslims in 2010.
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Perhaps following the advice of Rowan Williams, HSBC’s chairman says banks should apologise to everyone in the world:
The entire banking industry “owes the real world an apology”, the chairman of HSBC has said.
Stephen Green told BBC World Business Report that a change in culture was needed to improve the public’s perception of bankers.
Williams is right when he was reported to have warned that the “gap between rich and poor would lead to an increasingly “dysfunctional” society”, but I think he needs to go a step beyond simply capping this or that bonus and consider the structures and relationships which generate such a gap (I am sure Williams, a highly intelligent man, if not very media aware, is smart enough to realise this).
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Transparency International’s corruption index for 2008 (the darker the colour, the more corrupt the country is judged to be):
See the full report at Transparency International.And what was the least corrupt Muslim country? You might be surprised: it’s the State of Qatar:
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A man dressed in some of the most expensive garms money can buy is lecturing some of the poorest people on the planet about the dangers of materialism:
Pope Benedict has warned that a form of colonialism continues to blight Africa.
Opening a three-week synod of African bishops, he said political colonialism was over.
But he said the developed world continued to export materialism – which he called “toxic spiritual rubbish” – to the continent.
Benedict XVI is also planning a visit to the UK in the new year, including a stop in Northern Ireland which has upset a few people:
And they have revealed they will be working with Protestants right across the UK in a bid to co-ordinate opposition to any visit by Pope Benedict XVI.
Mr McCrea had posted his view that a papal visit would “face the vent of Protestant opposition” in a strongly worded statement on his website recently.
Andrew Brown is right to note that the visit of the Pope will be another nail in the coffin of the Church of England, an institution which was always largely a political vehicle. Its time as an arm of the state is now over (the country no longer faces invasion by Catholic empires) and is on the way to being disestablished, especially as the Anglican Right grows stronger.
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Some evidence on how the financial crisis affects the world’s poor:
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Talking of markets, consumers, and religious rites and festivals:
According to a recent study by the Solis agency, which specializes in ‘ethnic marketing’, the halal market (in France) is valued at close to 4 billion euro for 2009, and is estimated to grow at annual rate of 15%. According to Solis, 93% of North Africans and 55% of sub-Saharan Africans buy halal products.
In Italy, a hotel now caters especially for guests who are fasting.
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Ramadan shopping boom in London’s West End:
A record Ramadan shopping spree has boosted sales in the West End this summer.
Sales of perfume – a traditional gift at the end of the Muslim festival – over the past four weeks are up 60 per cent at Selfridges compared with last year thanks to a surge in the number of wealthy Middle Eastern visitors.
Nearly 150,000 are thought to have visited London in the past month to escape the scorching heat of home.
Shop assistants at the Oxford Street department store said the beauty hall has been as busy as at Christmas, with extra emergency stock and gift wrap called in.
London is used to seeing an influx of shoppers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in July and August, but this year they are coming in greater numbers and spending more because the weak pound has made it better value to buy goods in Britain than in Paris or Milan.
I’ve been told some of the shops have changed widened their aisles to accommodate the large families (plus maids) that visit some of the well known places in Oxford Street and Regents Street.
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Ramadan belt-tightening:
Companies are scaling back the events, called iftar receptions, seen as important opportunities to network with business partners against the backdrop of some of the city’s most luxurious hotels.
Demand for Ramadan tents — the typical setting for iftars — is showing signs of decline, while hotels are recording lower corporate bookings as companies aim to conserve cash amid a property and economic slump in the emirate.
I can’t see much of a scaling back in Abu Dhabi though…
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Peter Singer says the Devil really does wear Prada:
They’re here, they are selling stuff at incredible prices, thousands of dollars for a dress or a handbag or whatever it might be. And at the same time, of course, we are living in a world in which there are about a billion people who are struggling to survive on less than one U.S. dollar per day. With some more aid from the developed world, untold deaths could be prevented.
So obviously that raises an ethical issue. I mean, there are people who have the money to buy from these stores and who don’t seem to see any moral problem about doing that. But what I want to ask is: Shouldn’t they see some sort of moral problem about that? Isn’t there a question about what we should be spending our money on?
And that’s why the existence of stores like these raises a lot of serious ethical issues that I hope people will think about a little bit. All of us, even if we are not the type to shop at Gucci or Louis Vuitton, have some spare cash. All of us in the developed countries, in the affluent world, spend money on luxuries and frivolities that are really not things that we need. So the question is one that affects you as much as it affects someone who shops in these types of stores. What should I be spending my money on and what does that say about me, about my priorities, and about what I might take to be important?
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Gangs from North Africa, the Balkans and the Caucasus have been blamed for muggings and assaults of tourists from the Gulf states who are seen as rich pickings:
(Via Islam in Europe.)
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Another ‘dark side of Dubai’ article, this time in The Washington Post. This one, however, has a small twist; it includes a former French spy turned businessman who escaped Dubai in a rubber dinghy dressed in an abaya.
Jaubert then set out to sea in the dinghy to the boat his friend had positioned just outside the UAE’s territorial waters, and they sailed toward India. After eight days at sea, the pair arrived in Mumbai — an account corroborated by his traveling companion. With a new passport issued by the French consulate, Jaubert flew to join his wife in Florida, where he is writing a book he has titled “Escape From Dubai.”
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Recession? What recession?
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This is from people living an ‘Islamic lifestyle’ in the Gulf Black Gold coast: a request has been sent around a mailing list by a couple asking if people would like to take their Filipina made ‘for free’ while they are out of the UAE on leave for a couple of weeks.
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Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs and “the Wall Street Bubble mafia”.
(Via Ali Eteraz.)
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This is the party which was formed to “represent the interests and needs of the urban proletariat”:
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2007-08 income distribution in the UK:
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The evidence for why economic inequality isn’t good for people and their societies.
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Over one lunch time recently I saw an edition of HARDTalk with two corporate ‘whistleblowers’, Sherron Watkins (formelry of Enron) and Paul Moore (formerly of HBOS).
Watkins argued for a change in American attitudes towards wealth, and even suggested society as a whole needed to (re?)learn about ’shame’ in order to prevent the sort of corporate greed that has led to the current problems. She cites Japan as an example, although I don’t know how good an example that is.
I expect conservatives would be sympathetic to this viewpoint.
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Chris Dillow links to some research (pdf) which tries to explain how slavery impacted upon the economic development of some African countries.
Dillow also notes:
Any individual who thinks their wealth is the result of their own effort is just an idiot.
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Nigeria’s curse: oil.
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America’s new oil millionaires.