Their OCGFC and Ours

You can look at the OCGFC as They happen to be in a position of being exclusively due to their economic power. Not for any moral reason, not for any not because they have a real interest or stake in your community and so on. Not for a good reason, they're not the kind of people that you would like to have in the but it's a reality. They have that kind of power and influence, so therefore, they're from the decision makers. I mean, I understand the the mindset of fighting the OCGFC, because it means, basically what he what he's saying is restraining them from completely dominating our society.

So it's put in the in this adversarial type of a language because we know that they are predatory. So it's it's like a fight. But okay, a fight is nothing but a negotiation. Like war and diplomacy are the same thing. They're just two methods to try to achieve the same thing.

These these are all different approaches to the same end, which is trying to not be dominated.

To stop the expansion of big conglomerates and instead grow domestic businesses to a larger scale.

Okay.

How is it possible for a government to do so when it's already in the clutches of the OCJS?

Okay. Well, okay. The the the last part of that statement assumes that the governments are all in the clutches of the OCGFC. And they're not. Not all of them are.

And some of them, the richest governments that we have in the Muslim world are not. They have their own OCGFC, and they are their own OCGFC. Like Saudi, like The Emirate, like Qatar, like Malaysia, to a certain extent. The the countries country in the Muslim world that have the largest sovereign wealth funds, that have the most money to capital to invest and to use to project their power, economic power. First of all, those are sovereign wealth funds, meaning those are the state, those belong to the state, those aren't private.

The OCGFC can't touch those, that's completely under state management. And then in places like, I mean in most of the, in many parts of the Muslim world, I won't say most, but in many parts of the Muslim world, the largest and most important and the most profitable industries are state industries. They're not privatized. Aramco, for example, and and all of the major throughout most of the sector, like, don't I don't know enough about Saudi Arabia in terms of their diversification of their economy. But like in the in The UAE, the telecommunications, real estate, you know, property, obviously oil, the ports, these are all state.

These are in the hands of the state. These are the sheikhs. They they ultimately, the owners and controllers of capital in the Arab world are also the rulers. So they are not captured by western OCGFC. They have some independence, they have autonomy, they have sovereignty with regards to their own They have sovereignty in terms of their control over their over their money, over their industries.

It's not across the board, but but usually the most important sectors like like in Malaysia, what's it called? The Petronas. That's a state company. That's not that's not private. I mean there are there are are shares that are, you know, people can buy shares, but the largest shareholder is the state.

As far as I know. And that's the case in many many Muslim countries. Many countries in the global South that even aren't in Muslim countries. So, it's not that everywhere has been captured. In the when I talk about the OCGFC completely capturing governments, I'm mostly talking about the West.

And this is one of the reasons why they're trying to manage the transition to the Global South, because they haven't been able to achieve in the Global South, in in in many parts of the global South. Anyway, what I would consider to be the most important countries in the Global South, Russia, let's say Russia is not global South, but you know what I mean, in terms of not western European, Russia, China, the Arab world, The Gulf specifically, the richest ones, and like in Malaysia and Indonesia and so on. They haven't been able to actually capture the governments, and you're not going to. The the western OCGFC can't take power from Putin. They can't take power from the communist party in China.

They can't take power from MBS. They can't take power from MBZ. They can't take power from Qatar, from the government of Qatar. You know, they you can't do that. In in his question, said, if a government has has already been fallen into the clutches, yes, it is very difficult.

It is very difficult. Not impossible, but it is difficult.

Like Egypt.

Like Egypt. Like Pakistan.

But Egypt has a way out.

Yeah. And this is and and and and and yeah. They have they they they have a way out in terms of basically falling under the sovereignty of someone else rather than the West, which is better for them ultimately.

Like the next part of the question, obviously, they will not allow such measures, so we've already addressed that.

Okay. But but this this is the thing. That you you have domestic OCGFC in every country. They have their own. They have a choice to either collaborate with western OCGFC, basically colonial colonizing OCGFC, or to try to compete.

It's in their interest, the local ones, the domestic OCGFC, it's in their interest if they have a government that will go along with them to implement more or less protectionist measures that will benefit them and disadvantage foreign investors, foreign companies, foreign multinationals who wanna come in like say Tesla that wants to come in and have an advantage over your own domestic electric vehicles. Electric electric vehicle manufacturers. Why would your government do that? Your government shouldn't do that. Your government should support local industry, local factories, local car makers, electric vehicle car makers, and so on.

And it's in the interest of the domestic OCGFC, the domestic industrialists, the domestic rich, the domestic elites and so on, to protect their interests and to help and to have a government that will help to support their business and the growth of their business. That's in their interest. If if, you know historically if they haven't had, if that hasn't been an option, and the only option available is collaboration and capitulation with western power, with western OCGFC, then they do that. But if they have the option, like I've said before, nobody wants to be a slave. Everybody If you're talking about the rich in any society, you're already talking about people who have more or less, to one degree or another, dedicated their lives to their own wealth, to their own financial and economic ambition.

Why would you think that they would not be interested in continuing to pursue that, and expanding their power, and expanding their economic prosperity, and reaching higher and higher levels of power and influence in their society. Why would they accept if they don't have to, to be sidelined, or to be, you know, second best because of western foreign multinationals and investors? It's in their interest. So if you have if you have a government that's willing to do that, I mean like like an example, I was talking about the other day, Ecuador. They had they had this Rafael Correa, who was a leftist, was an anti neoliberal, was anti IMF, and the economy in Ecuador grew.

GDP grew. And all and all metrics, whether all socioeconomic metrics, Ecuador improved under his reign, under his administration. And like like I've talked about before, usually when you have protectionist type of policies, it's better for your economy. It's better for domestic business. But that's that's assuming that you have some kind of domestic business that can that can operate.

They can, you know, you you if you close yourself off before you have any domestic industry, then yeah, it's a very difficult situation. But if you have already some degree of industrialization or at least the capacity for industrialization, or you have like for example, Indonesia, like for example Chile, like for example, the Sahel and and and Africa generally, that's just a treasure trove of raw raw minerals, raw natural resources. You're in a position to demand industrialization. You're You're in a position to demand.

Yeah. Negotiate.

Yeah. Yeah. Negotiation. Yeah. This is this is about negotiation.

Yeah. Where this is what Indonesia is doing with nickel and what Chile is planning to do with lithium. You're in a position to negotiate. You know, he said it's it's very difficult to do. Yes, is.

Yeah. That doesn't that that's not doesn't mean you can't do it, and doesn't mean you shouldn't. But it's it's difficult, but that's to not do it ends up making your life more difficult.

Correct. And capitulation, I mean

Yeah.

As as the you know.

Yeah. We've we've seen the results of not doing it, and that is far more difficult than fighting it. History moves in stages, and once you've moved to a certain stage, you don't go back again. And I feel like we've had something of a watershed moment with regards to this. That people people have and and that's also comes down to our own responsibility to to reemphasize, and to reiterate, and to repeat, and to articulate this message that what that that to a great extent, the opposition to the Zionist genocide in Gaza has been manifest through private sector activism, Or public activism towards the directed at the private sector.

That has largely been the the the direction of activism. Yeah. The boycotts, you know, BDS movement, boycotts, Starbucks, McDonald's, what have you, all of these things. And and we have to make sure that people understand what they themselves have been doing. To understand that the the direction of activism has changed.

Yeah. And it should prominently be changed in this direction.

The cultural shift.

Cultural shift.

Once The democratization of power.

Right. And once the paradigm shift has happened, you don't go back to the old paradigm. Now, I mean if you're talking about like general apathy, general distraction and all of that, these are just human conditions that we have to deal with.

You just have to be much.

And even to a certain extent, some of that in our part of the world anyway, among Muslims, whether it's our part of the world or not, our our part of the ideological world, say, where Muslims in the diaspora are included in that. We already know a solution to that, which is just to become more religious, to become more serious about Islam. So even just through Dawah and through people trying to improve themselves as Muslims, they will tend to become more serious, and they will tend to be less frivolous about their lives. You know, you you will you will tend to not binge watch Netflix shows, and and and and waste your time with with, you know, meaningless and I was going to say meaningless distractions, but but distractions that are put in front of you for social engineering purposes. You know, that you will take your life more seriously, the more seriously you become as a Muslim.

So even someone who's making Dawah, who's not political at all, if you're making Dawah and and helping to make the Muslims more serious in their deen, you're also doing, to one degree or another, some sort of political work. Because Muslims are will you will help to make Muslims more serious and more mature and and less susceptible to the propaganda and the brainwashing and the diversion and the distraction that the West uses to try to maintain and consolidate their power and control and squash any opposition or dissent.

So the oppression of the the oppression and slavery is made to look with of course, modern and progressive. So even if a population of of the segment understands this, the vast majority will not, in which case, mobilization will be extremely difficult.

Again, the word difficult doesn't I don't find it deterring. Yeah. The difficulty of being active versus the difficulty of being passive. And I think that the difficulty that comes from being passive is far more. If you if you don't try to do something about it Yeah.

Then the the the situation that will happen if you're passive is much more difficult than what you'll face by by actively opposing it.

Although we see western materialism agreed as the basis of these corporations And but that is how they became so powerful. Greed. So how can a Muslim business community, which is not guided by greed and materialism, nor is it aspires so as to be motivated as the early Muslim generations. How can today's Muslim business community be motivated collectively to fight this revolt on greed?

They didn't become powerful because of greed. They became powerful because of deregulation, Basically, they because okay, a business is more or less about greed. You're trying to make money, that's it, you know. To say greed is maybe a Because of deregulation, because you you removed any and all restraints. Yeah.

Any and all responsibility between a company and the community that it operates in. Yes. You removed all sort of what you could call a social contract between the private sector and the population and the community. You removed all those things. You erased any contract, any sense of responsibility or accountability.

Then normal business ambition and pursuit of prosperity became greed, became unrestrained greed.

This is facilitated by governments who agree to deregulate.

Yeah. Well, I mean

When they act as an interface between the OCGFC, the IMF, World Bank

The the thing is and and this is why to a certain extent in our countries this is not a problem. Because precisely because in many of our countries we are not so called democratic. In in in the West, in America, you have this so called democratic government, means it can be bought off. That's what democratic means in the West, in America specifically. It means that the government can be bought off.

It means that politicians are bought and paid for. So they'll get what they want, whoever has the money, and obviously any business, whether it's a gigantic conglomerate, you know, mega mammoth corporation or not, a business owner has more money than just the guy who works for him. So the guy who owns the business will always be able to have more say in politics than the one who works for the guy who owns the business. That's democracy. We don't have that problem in most of our countries, or in many of our countries.

And this is this is the thing that a lot of Muslims in the West won't wanna hear it, because you you drank the Kool Aid about democracy. So where you think that's the solution and and that should be popular represent representation and so on. Popular representation means representation of the rich, that's what it means. That's what it means where you are and that's what it would mean where we are if we let it happen. But as it as it stands, we have the in our communities and you have them in yours.

But yours are, as I said, it's exclusively based on wealth. At least in our countries, the wealth is is there, is a factor, but there's also traditional structures of authority that are based on heritage and tradition, and custom, and so on. And ties of kinship, and ties of connection with the community, and you have to maintain those, you know. It matters. It matters, it absolutely matters.

And if you don't know that, then you've never been to the parts of the world that you're criticizing, and you don't know anything about the parts of the world that you're criticizing, and you only know the only thing that you know about the parts of the world that you're criticizing, and I'm talking specifically about the Arab world, and more specifically about The Gulf. The only thing that you know about those countries, you learned it from the people in the West, who themselves are just as ignorant as you are, and just as hostile as you are. And why they're and you need to ask yourself why are they so hostile? It's because your ability to control those people is limited. That's what makes you hostile.

Anyone that you can Any system that that that that the West can penetrate and control is a good system in their eyes. And if the system can't be penetrated and controlled, then that's an authoritarian dictatorship that should be overthrown. Yeah. And we need democracy. Democracy means western control.

In the in the in outside of the outside of the western world, in the Muslim world, in the Arab world and so on. Democracy means western control, western domination. So if you're advocating for that, while you're sitting in the West, then you're just advocating colonization. That's all you're advocating. The difference between legitimate seeking of profit and greed, is some kind of restraint that is either imposed by the person themselves because of their own morality, or it's imposed by the government, Or it's imposed by the the by the community, by the population, by the society, which which doesn't approve.

For example, of say, putting a bunch of small businesses out of business, a bunch of small shops and what not out of business in order for there to be a Walmart. The community can decide whether or not that happens. We can decide. Whether or not, maybe can't decide whether or not it happens, but we can decide whether or not it is successful. In other words, we can reverse it.

Like say a Walmart comes in and squashes 20 small mom and pop shops. Okay. Don't go to Walmart. Don't let them profit. Don't let them win.

Don't let them succeed. If you if you if you're not able to block it from happening, then at least you can block it from succeeding. And then that in and of itself, once you block it from succeeding, other businesses will learn from that experience, and they will know that we have to do things a different way in this community, in this society, in this country, in this state, whatever. But if you can put, I mean like originally, I've talked about this many times, originally in The US, corporations had there was there were conditions that were placed on incorporation. That you could be incorporated for a certain limited amount of time, and then when that amount of time, I think it was ten years, when that ten years elapsed, there would be a review and an evaluation of what impact your corporation had on the society and on the community, whether or not it was a positive impact, and you had to you you had to prove that you had had a positive impact.

How long ago was this?

A very long time ago. All of that was removed because of democracy. All of that was removed because of democracy. Yeah. All of that's deregulated.

All of that's cancelled. And what they couldn't cancel by democracy, again meaning policy by bidding, basically, bidding on what the policy will be. They did the court made law, which is Judges don't come from the working class. Okay? When's the last time you saw a judge from the working class?

So, judges will make policy in favor of corporations every time. So that's how happened in US. Because of their so called democratic system, they were able the entire state, the entire apparatus of government has been captured by corporations. That's not the case everywhere in the world.