Iran and the challenges of the post-election crisis

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Under the glare of the international community, will the Islamic Republic defy its enemies’ predictions or succumb to internal and external pressures?
My brief experience in Iran, talking to people was that they were largely at one with the President.  After hearing Ahmadi-Nijad speak, I wanted a supportive sticker for my briefcase.  There were some in a window on Dr Fatemi Street, so I asked if I could buy one.  They had none to spare but were inescapably hospitable, giving me a drink, then a meal and then a tour of their picture gallery, refusing any payment.   I then happened on an Ahmadi-Nijad campaign HQ.  They gave me an arm-full of posters to put up, they suggested, in the Hotel.  The Laleh Hotel refused, saying "it is against the rules during an election": So no government vote-rigging there. I then headed off to the Bazaar to buy some presents and asked a security guard if it was ok to put up posters?  He said Yes.  So I stuck them up.  Only once did I encounter opposition from Mousavi supporters.  The point of all this is that by impression, there was more support for Ahmadi-Nijad than Mousavi.
An incident suggesting that the Mousavi camp was orchestrated where the Ahmadi-Nijad camp was, if anything, somewhat subdued, was a march by the Mousavi supporters in Aksr Square, as I walked back from the Metro. I saw no marches by Ahmadi-Nijad supporters and the Mousavi people brooked no opposition.  This was admittedly some ten days before the election.   
I was privileged to address the multi-national conference at the Institute for the Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works.   I sympathised with his thrust to save Palestine from Zionist aggression and annihilation and took the opportunity to apologise for the UK’s part in giving another peoples’ homeland away to a band of rather ungrateful, anti-social immigrants.
The state tv Press-tv and IRIB gave us interviews.  But we were forbidden to mention the electoral candidates names or campaign for them. This is hardly the directive of a dictatorial regime bent on promoting itself above all competition.   I concentrated instead on the Imam’s call to unite the Muslim world, both to raise the potential for justice for Palestine and to encourage the formulation of universal codes of conduct from Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and even the non-Theocratic world such as Confucianism.
We left Iran in peace but a crescendo of street violence soon followed.
I want to explore the charge that the UK, Israel and the USA were instrumental in that violent confrontation.
On the 9th June the Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband was interviewed by the BBC Today about the demonstrations.  The interviewer asked: “What can we do to help the demonstrators?”   I found this an astounding example of wanton interference in a sovereign state.  For the BBC to reveal its hand so blatantly indicated that this was nothing new.  This is the kind of meddling that gets the BBC banned from a country and thus fails to serve its licence-fee payers.
On the following day Henry Kissinger, was asked on the same programme about regime change in Iran.  He said: “We don’t do regime change anymore.  It tends to backfire.”  The interviewer replied: “No, I suppose you have learnt your lesson in many instances?” “Yes” he said  “So we now get others to do it for us”.  So there we have it.
Who would they use?  Mossad?  The Taliban?  The Mujahideen?
I re-examined a book called ’US Policy & the Iranian Opposition’ by the Iran Policy Committee in Washington.  It argues vehemently for removing the Mujahideen-e Khalq and 24 other opposition groups from the US’s ‘Terrorist Organisation’ list.  Lord Archer of Sandwell, who gave me the book, has a parallel committee in the UK and he agrees with them.  The book specifically argues that:
‘permitting these groups to emerge in the market-place of ideas of Tehran would give the US considerable leverage over the regime’ (p39). 
Under the title of the ‘Benefits of de-listing the MeK’ it argues that one is to:
‘Invigorate activists opposed to the regime who need a signal that they have support from the international community in their desire to change their destiny’ (p93).
One author of the book, former US Ambassador James Akins, was privy to Kissinger’s Plan of 1975 to prepare to annihilate large sections of the population in the oil-rich states if they rose up to defend their assets against US domination.
It seems fairly obvious from this that the US does harbour a very belligerent body of people who want to interfere in the leadership of Iran and have the power to do so.
The MeK has now been de-listed in the US and the UK.  The book tells us how their strength includes tanks, anti-aircraft guns, missiles and small arms.    They have been involved, according to Iranian sources, in many acts of terrorism, murder and sabotage against Iranian interests, including the downing of an aircraft carrying 10 or more top Army personnel.
A further incident is that in mid-June an Israeli hacker named Koster destroyed the websites of the IRIB, the Ayatollah and President Ahmadi-Nijad.  He boasts about doing this using a tool which he set to infect and constantly re-boot their websites, from ‘PageReboot.com’, rendering them useless.
I therefore believe the US, UK and Israel are covertly undermining the Iranian government, inciting violent opposition to Iran’s honest attempts to organise a proper, western-style ‘democratic’ election. Though our democracy is a cruel illusion, as Timothy Garton Ash points out in the Guardian today.
Why do they not want President Ahmadi-Nijad?   The main objection, voiced by media and parroted by everyone who knows no better, from government ministers down to the average person, is that Ahmadi-Nijad wants to ‘wipe Israel off the map’.   This, as we know, is a malicious misrepresentation of what he said and ignores the context.   He actually said he “foresaw the Zionist entity one day being wiped from the pages of history”.  This could be: Not only because it has misbehaved so criminally and for so long in murdering persecuting and suffocating Palestinians, having wiped Palestine off the map, but also because even the genuine Jewish community is so embarrassed by this re-visitation of a holocaust on innocent people that it may want to wipe this episode from their history.
So what is Iran’s likely future?  The following are some general scenarios:
Peace: Iran’s stand for justice in the Holy Land wins global support including from the USA as the world realizes this tragedy is amongst the ugliest blots on human history.  Israeli War Crimes condemned by the UN and prosecuted in several states.
War: Israel ignores global sanctions and attacks Iran’s nuclear, military, airforce, naval, power station and other vital infrastructure sites.  A few Iranian missiles hit Israel. Israel escalates air-strikes on civilians. Suicide bombers blow up Israeli targets.
Status Quo continues: Iran limps along under sanctions with help from China and Venezuela as the EU and Russia cut ties. Israeli repression of Palestinians and occupation incursions persist.  Israeli lobby dictates Obama foreign policy to perpetuate war in surrounding countries; Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan.
Consider also two less likely scenarios:
Global Harmony:  International Code of Conduct devised from religious and secular sources agreed at UN General Assembly leads to new spirit of cooperation, redistribution of wealth; de-bunking of banking fraud and usury; sharing of ocean resources; criminalization of war and threats of war.  Democratization of UN, World Bank, IMF and other global institutions.  Victory for the common person.
Armageddon: Israel and US launch nuclear attack on Iran and Pakistan. Russia, China and India hit back.  US launches nuclear strikes on Chinese, Indian and Pakistani military complexes.  Escalates to global nuclear war. World economy collapses.  Much of humanity, ecology and heritage destroyed.  Survivors suffer slow death by irradiation and starvation. No winners.
Conclusion:  Taking all the scenarios together, the chances of the ‘Peace’ Scenario happening might be small, between 15 and 20%.  The ‘War’ Scenario might sadly have a greater, say 20-25% chance.  The SQ scenario probably has the highest chance of say, 40-45%.  The ‘Harmony’ scenario probably only has a very small chance of 10% or less in the next decade but may increase with mankind’s maturity. The ‘Armageddon’ scenario probably has a slightly higher chance, of say 10-15%.  But even with its low chance it is worth working for ‘Harmony’ and against ‘Armageddon’.  This means peace with Iran, condemnation of Israeli hawks, saving the Palestinians and other oppressed people, building more democratic global institutions, applying the rule of law and inculcating ethical codes of moral conduct, in trade, finance, politics, policing and so on.
Iran can defy its enemies’ predictions by resisting external dictats, given help but may have to yield to some internal pressures.

 

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Revd Frank Gelli: Iran: the beginning of the end?
When in Tehran I was interviewed by Iran Daily, an English language paper there. ‘Apart from Iran, what do you think is the major impact of Ayatollah Khomeini on the world at large?’ they asked me. My answer was short and simple: ‘The Imam’s revolution has inspired Muslims everywhere.’
That is what I believe. And that conviction provides the context of the way I will look at the question ‘Iran: the beginning of the end?’ The end of what? That is what I want to consider.
Who was the father of the Iranian revolution, Imam Khomeini? The Western popular imagination – in the case of Britain, one influenced by lowest, probably the most debased gutter press in the world – has generally portrayed Khomeini according to the crude stereotypes of the religious fanatic, the mad mullah. Even the less crude sections of Western public opinion – going from Guardian to Daily Telegraph readers, no great difference on this particular subject – have tended to view him as a sort of throwback to the Middle Ages – the European Middle Ages, of course – another gross stereotype. In fact, Khomeini was nothing of the kind. He certainly was a powerful charismatic personality, who knew how to mobilise and inspire his people. But the Imam was first and foremost a top a’alim, a scholar, a theologian, a man of high learning, a jurist and a philosopher. His literary output was vast and substantial. It may seem a minor item but I was impressed in learning in his youth he had written a book on the thought of Ibn Arabi. Yes, the great fountainhead of Sufi mysticism. Ibn Arabi, a Sunni thinker who was strongly detested by Ibn Taimyyia, a fellow Sunni, the intellectual forerunner of the Wahabis. Ibn Taimyyia did indeed devote a whole treatise to attacking Ash Shaykh Al Akbar. Instead Khomeini penned an insightful, sympathetic account. He praised that great mystic, and indeed even quoted him in a letter he wrote to the Soviet leader Gorbachov.
It is important to keep this in mind when discussing Khomeini, if you want to really to try and understand what he was trying to do. Not that Khomeini’s thought was restricted to mysticism as a private, personal experience. Quite the contrary. Take Khomeini’s understanding of Islam. There is a story how in the early 60’s under the Shah, he had spoken out against the regime. The head of Iran’s feared secret police, Savak, visited him to try to persuade him to lay off political involvement. He used a peculiar argument: ‘Politics is mendacities, lies, deception, dirt, badness. Why do you, a man of God, want to have anything to do with it? Leave politics to us.’ But Khomeini replied: All of Islam is politics.’ Indeed, in another context he noted how ‘the Qur’an contains a hundred times more verses concerned with social problems than on ritual or spiritual matters. And in the Islamic tradition the majority of texts deal not with prayer and the like but with economics, law, politics, the state, society.’ So, Khomeini’s vision of Islam, and consequently of the revolution that he would guide, was directly in contradiction to the modern, Western paradigm. That religion is a private affair between you and God. That has nothing whatever to do with society, the economy, banking, law, the state. A paradigm not just liberal or progressive but also shared by the totalitarian revolution of the Right and of the Left. ‘As far as the State is concerned, religion is a private affair’ Lenin wrote.  (He meant of course that the Communist state would control religion, keep it on a tight leash, while extinguishing it with atheistic propaganda.) And there is a joke about Mussolini and the Pope. They made a deal. When an Italian boy was born, he was to be baptised. Then, as he grew up, Mussolini would enrol him into the fascist youth. Later he would send him into the Army to fight wars. Then he would get married, in church, and produce lots of children to fight more wars for the regime. When he died, either in battle or of old age, Mussolini would then hand the Italian guy over to the Pope. It was a fair arrangement. Separation of church and state indeed.
This peculiar Western mindset, which confines religion to a harmless Sunday morning, or Friday afternoon, ghetto, is currently dominant, all-pervasive and nastily intolerant of disagreements. You see it operative in innumerable ways. The press, the media will bend over backwards to avoid making any references to the religious element and traditions in society, public life, in conflicts or indeed public life. How many meetings, lectures, seminars, conferences have I attended since 9/11, when studiously every single speaker would studiously ignore the religious factor? It is quite a type of perverse blindness and stupidity to fail to acknowledge that there are cultures in which religion is important, in any way in which it is not to modern Western man. There cultures in which intrinsically bound up with politics. Where religion directly influences political and social choices. Even Church leaders in the West do fight shy of acknowledging the historical and juridical role of religion in the life of Britain. The Church of England is by law established in this country. The monarch is supreme governor of the Anglican Church. 26 bishops sit by right in the House of Lords. Not that it means much today, but does anyone ever mention that? And does anyone ever seek to spell out what that may or should mean for the life of the nation?
It is arrogance to measure other cultures by Western secular standards. It goes hand in hand with the notion, dear above all to our Western liberal elites, that secular Western institutions constitute the height of human achievement, the highest form of civilisation, the summum bonum, the highest good, which all other people and nations ought to bow to, follow and imitate. There have been of course plenty of imitators in the Muslim world. Turkey is the most glaring example. Kemal Ataturk’s regime abolished the caliphate and secularised the state. Dervishes were hanged. ‘A man who prays is coward’ Ataturk once asserted. It reveals how he felt about even the most basic form of religious expression.
There is a picture of Imam Khomeini in the short time he was in exile in Turkey. His head is bare because wearing a turban was illegal in Ataturk’s Turkey. The late Shah’s regime followed in the footsteps of his father, Reza Shah, who started a similar secularising process in Iran.
Other Muslim nations around the world, notably in North Africa, under French influence, have also acquiesced, more or less, to the Western paradigm, although the mass of their people, unlike in Europe, still retain a strong attachment to religious practice.
No, Khomeini’s vision for Iran was not like that. Reality was not divided into two separate, watertight compartments, religion and the state. Reality was a unity, a divine unity. And it had to be organised as such. In that, I believe, he was orientating himself towards the history and religious teachings of Islam. Towards transcendence. The Iranian revolution was therefore an entirely different affair from the other movements given that name in Muslim countries during the last century. The previous ones were really following Western examples or models. They were more often than not cases of inqilab, an Arabic word usually meaning a coup d’etat, a golpe or a putsch. Inspired by Western ideas, like nationalism and socialism, like in the case of Egypt. In Iran the transformation was truly radical. The revolution overthrew the whole system of government, a system based on Western paradigm. In its place, an Islamic state was set up. It was the most resounding, crashing defeat that modern Western political ideas have suffered in the last century. You see, communism, in spite of being so feared by the bourgeoisie, was a movement that grew out of Europe’s history. So were fascism and national socialism. They had of course some followers amongst Iranians, at the time of the revolt. But insofar as Khomeini was the moving force and guide of the revolution, his programme owed nothing to the West. In that sense, it was the first modern genuinely Islamic revolution.
Bernard Lewis, the scholar and Orientalist, has written that ‘the neoconservative radicalism of Khomeini and his followers spring from the conviction that the experiment in modernisation – both in deed and thought – has failed and that the only salvation for Muslims is to return to the divine origins of their faith.’ He made it clear that this rejection of modernisation or modernism or ‘modernity’ – did not mean rejecting the technical and scientific achievements of the West. I agree. When Khomeini was exiled in France, he kept in touch with, and directed his followers with speeches which he dictated into a tape recorder and which were afterwards put on tape and distributed widely throughout Iran. He certainly did not dream of refusing to use the tape recorder because it was a Western invention. So the revolt against Western modernisnation was not one against modernity in the sense of development or progress in the technological sense. You and I know how Islamic thought and tradition have always embraced and indeed often paved the way to scientific advances. The Imam knew that. If you visit Tehran today you will see a thoroughly modern, developped city. The revolt was against the Western paradigm – what writer Ernest Gellner called the ‘syndrome of progressive thought’ – according to which religion and spiritual values are felt to be alien and dangerous and so they are deeply feared and hence excluded from public life. It was a radical, thoroughgoing rejection of certain modern Western values and institutions, of a secular nature, in the name of Islamic values and institutions, such as the rule of the jurists.
Let me now return to the question I posed at the beginning: the beginning of the end. The beginning of the end of what? What is it that we have been witnessing since the results of Iranian elections were announced? The protests, the public demonstrations, the disorders? What do they signify? Are we witnessing an internal debate and struggle within the system set up by Khomeini or are we witnessing a much more radical phenomenon? I was reading yesterday an interesting analysis in Le Monde, according to which some authoritative scholars from Qom are also questioning the attitudes of Khameini and Ahmadinejad. They would represent a kind of Third Way. They would do that not from anti-Khomeini standpoint, I don’t think. On the other hand, is it possible we are seeing the beginning of a counter-revolution? A reaction against, a rejection of, the beginning of the end of the Khomeni’s heritage? A rebellion against transcendence in the name of its contraries, immanence, laicism and secularity? Is Western modernism, or modernity – in the sense I have given to it – resurgent? Is it hitting back? Will the West once again vanquishes the East?
Time alone will tell. But it would be good if we could throw some light on these questions tonight.
Rodney Shakespeare: Two very high level and thoughtful speeches from James and Frank. A brief point from history because you have to have this background. 1953 a democratic situation, an elected prime minister who wants to nationalise oil and along comes a CIA goon called Franklin Roosevelt, sounds like one of the muppets. He was a very nasty character helped by MI6 and you get a type of internal coup which puts this thing under Savak those ghastly torturers.
And in 1979 you get, however you look at it,  a democratic explosion. And immediately in the next eight years the West embarks on a policy to get Iran crushed. This is done in various ways. Essentially it was support for Saddam Hussein. The chemicals for the poisonous gasses came from France and Germany. Goodness knows what came from this country and from the USA.
Therefore I get extremely angry when  there are still sanctions and you get a hypocritical lecturing coming from President Obama who dares to talk about Iran unclenching its fist. From 1953 all the aggression has been totally one-sided.  The situation at this moment is in no way remotely even handed and behind this hypocritical ‘Iran must unclench its fist’ when for a start we have got all the sanctions on Iran, behind all that there is a threat of an attack by a paranoid  rabid attack dog called Israel – with the Americans saying o well if Israel  does it it will have nothing to do with us. It will be the action of one sovereign state. That is the basic background towards the situation and it is absolutely disgraceful.
There has actually been one bit of honour and it is by Madeline Albright in the year 2000. She was then Secretary of State. And what she actually said, which was quite remarkable for a top American politician was, :” O dear we did make a mistake in 1953”. And she hinted that they had a mistake in their treatment of Iran in 1979 during the war of 1980 to 1988.
But that is the only sign that you have  from the USA of understanding how angry people are with the way the West behaves. And it is sheer hypocrisy. All this talk about democracy – the probably want to put a form of democracy in there which would be a very right-wing form of democracy. Don’t have any misunderstanding about that.
So impressions. One impression, a quick one  was clean shirts. All the men have clean shirts. They are pressed and cleaned and washed. Quite extraordinary.
But the most profound impression upon me was the way the revolution is working through in aspiration and effort. The revolution was both nationalistic and religious. But it was also a people finding their way  in the modern world and wanting to succeed. And for a start Tehran is full of cars and modern motorways. It is full of some extraordinary examples of modern architecture – like the Iranian broadcasting headquarters.
They  are succeeding in medicine, agricultural developments, and aeronautical engineering. The most amazing thing for me was a concert of Iranian music. And I thought traditional instruments, traditional music, perhaps everybody dresses up in traditional costumes. I thought it would be rather charming. The patronising view – I am a tourist.  Well we were absolutely astounded by what we saw and heard. At the back was a choir of and an orchestra of 90. The first piece was a relatively quiet piece with echoes of the tunes of music coming from the 1979 revolution. It was a piece evoking the idea of the ascent to heaven of the soul of Imam Khomeini. Very gentle, very evocative, very nicely done. But the later pieces were much more outward going with good melody and well structured. The sort of thing if you put it on at the Queen Elizabeth halls in the south bank would be a success as being superior to the modern classical music you get today.
That is your modern Iran. Everywhere you look you see it is aspiring and achieving in a very modern way.  The music was Iranian in its concepts but at the same time you were saying goodness me, they are taking alead there.
We went cross country. We  took a plane to Mashad and I had never trodden on so many Persian carpets in all my life. It was absolutely astounding. Apart from the concert the thing that really impressed me was the interior of the shrine of Imam Khomeini. We had a specially organised progress which we were allowed to make towards the tomb. Over on the left 2,000  chadoured women were sitting quietly. There were basiji volunteers and all around were soldiers and plenty of civilians.
We realised that it was a progress going through the shrine every day of the week. of high emotion and of renewal of faith in the revolution. And I would say, and I don’t speak Farsi, I didn’t  have the expertise of some members of the group, but it was in the shrines that the consciousness of the emotional power of the revolution is felt.  . It was there when we went back to the shrine. There are centre bits in the shrines and then there are great squares and we heard Ayatollah Khameini doing the great political speech of the year.
There again you were looking at hundreds of thousands of people and you were very conscious that the Iranian revolution as the ayatollah said, is  both religious and nationalist and the two things run in harmony. I was seeing a modern confident country.
Another impression: trees. There is plenty of desert in Iran. Everywhere we seemed to go they seemed to be planting  trees. I can’t tell you if they were actually going to grow into bushes but you would see thousands and thousands of these trees. It is now a national policy. That is another impression of Iran.
The  country is modern and it is confident. We should  not look at it through our own spectacles. It is compared with other countries in the Middle East and that part of the world way way ahead it democratic development. I would get back to the hotel and people would ask me view on the debate between President Ahmedinjad and Kharoubi or whatever. I don’t speak a word of Farsi. I was not going to intervene. But there was a great desire to get hold of someone and talk about it.
And although people carp and grumble you must remember that democracy in any country is always different and it  is organised to achieve one undemocratic purpose and that is very often to connect with control and ownership of the economic assets. But without going into that Iran is a modern, Islamic, democratic government. Compared to with Saudi ARabia.
Frank and James mentioned the questions they were asked. I was asked on one occasion to compare Shia Iran with the Sunnis. So I held to very quickly find my thoughts on Shia Islam and I had to use, as Frank was doing, quotations and references coming from I found out about Imam Khomeini. One of the characteristics of his speeches is his use of the word independence, which without any doubt he defined it as a national characteristic.
He actually explains one of the hatreds that the Americans and the UK have for Iran is that Iran is a country which psychologically and economically wants its independence. And that is right at the core and the heart of the speeches of the Shia Iranian revolution.
If you actually looked at the meanings of independence –  there are interpretations you could look at in the English text which seemed to me to mean that he actually looked at the independence of individuals in an economic sense.
Now that quite surprised me coming from an Islamic philosopher. But  you  can look at concepts like justice in Islam and then you look at other things where he talks about social and economic justice. There is not that much detail but you get a colossal feeling in Iranian Shia Islam of a desire for  political and economic development.
Then, perhaps I cheated, I then contrasted that with the very narrow authoritarian and completely negative Wahabbistic Sunni Islam. It is used as a weapon of political control by the Saudi Arabian plutocrats,  autocrats and oligarchs. And that was how I answered a question which I was really was not fit to have been asked.
So to sum up how I feel about Iran: it is modern, it is confident, it is developing. There is big danger of an attack on Iran. I was fascinated to see these percentages and I could  go along with James percentages. But there is just one wild card in all this and its really is the world economic situation. Forget what Israel is up to. We all  know about the 16 intelligence agencies which all give Iran a clear bill on nuclear energy. They are just going for civilian atomic use.
The real problem is that when you get a very tough crumbling economic situation as I believe we are in and it is continuing you can forget your green shoots. When it goes really wrong  and underneath I believe it is speeding up that the pressures to go for war will be immense. And whether  its Israel having done it or the American, Iran could be attacked. There are other possibilities for war. James talked about Pakistan but war is a possibility.
On foreign policy, Iran is playing a very low profile, low key position. This was explained to us in one of the conferences. It comes from the doctrines coming from Imam Khomeini. Very broadly the doctrine concerns ethics. No way can Iran  ever be an aggressor It can be a very tough defender but in international politics it abhors aggression.
Now contrast that with the Western policy and its propaganda which is you are charitable is interfering and if you are uncharitable it is aggressive.
*Revd Frank Gelli: Born in Rome.  After achieving degrees in philosophy, theology and education from London and Oxford Universities, in 1986 he was ordained as an Anglican priest. From 1989 to 1991 he was chaplain of the church of St Nicholas, Ankara, Turkey. Curate of Kensington until 1999, he has since devoted his energies to the twin tasks of writing full-time and commitment to inter-religious dialogue. He is founder and coordinator of the Arkadash Network, a spiritual fellowship devoted to Muslim-Christian friendship and reconciliation. He has just finished writing a book on the Prophet Muhammad pbuh.gif and is currently working on another book on Jesus.

*Dr. James Thring: BArch MCD (Liv) PhD (Cantab) MRTPI Reg’d Architect & Chartered Town Planner, is Convenor of Planning for Peace; focusing on long term sustainable solutions to conflict and injustice, Member World Constitution & Parliament Assoc., building a democratic global commons. Former Hon.Sec. Professions for World Disarmament & Development and Exec. Member Architects & Engineers for Social Responsibility.

*Rodney Shakespeare:
He is a Cambridge MA, a qualified UK Barrister and a well-known paper presenter and lecturer particularly at Islamic conferences dealing with money, the real economy, binary economics, and social and economic justice.
 

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