Indonesia's decoupling move

I just wanted to share this little piece of potentially very positive news from Indonesia that signals a decoupling move by the largest Muslim majority country in the world from the western dominated economic political hegemonic system. Indonesia is cutting from Visa and Mastercard and plans to develop their own payment system. Now the details are yet to be disclosed, but I really hope that they can develop a system that can be regionalized. It's important to note the reasoning behind this move. Jakobi said that Indonesia has to be prepared for the potentiality of being subjected to sanctions just like Russia and China, and they have to be prepared to be able to function independently were that to happen.

Now remember that Visa and Mastercard suspended their operations in Russia voluntarily, not in order to comply with sanctions. And in fact, this is how most of the isolation of Russia has been achieved since the start of the Ukraine war, by Western private sector power choosing to punish Russia beyond the scope of what is required by the sanctions. I pointed this out at the beginning of the conflict last year that what we're seeing is Western companies demonstrating their ability to wage economic war independent of what governments do. Indonesia appears to have understood that reliance upon the neutrality and goodwill of Western business is perilous, and we need to develop our own homegrown alternatives to their services. Doing so not only insulates our countries from the coercive power of western big business, but it will also reduce the amount of money flowing out of the global South into the global North when by all rights, the flow of that money should be moving in the other direction.

Inshallah, this is a very positive step. I hope it can succeed, and I hope it can expand, throughout this region and beyond.