We are a proud Catholic nation with potholes and we don't like Islamic banking
Posted beneath a news story on Islamic banking, and its potential in the Maltese financial services sector:
Isabella Barbaro-Sant
For the sake of reason & goodness..this is a NO NO for our country and for all men and women of good will.. We all know what Sharia means… oppression, fanaticism, extremism at its purest form, zero rights for women, lack of education… ( just to name a few ), and now we are dreaming of welcoming amongst us its academic branch in the form of ISLAMIC BANKING !!I am not saying our banks do not need to be more friendly towards us… anzi, far from that… but this is not an alternative to offer us.. I expected better than this from our financial Institutions, and pray and urge the learned gentleman who spearheaded this proposal to rethink it with its full implications .. Remember, the St John’s project was shelved for many a good reason, one of which was that, first and foremost, this being a place of worship, not a museum piece. This must be treated on similar lines.. we are a proud Catholic nation and like so, very proud of our roots.. with all our revered potholes and other defects !; any other intrusion is not acceptable, in whatever form this may come by..
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Interesting. This has been viewed in the UK. Although this is accepted within Islamic States, it may prove difficult in a Western society.
I vote we canonise her.
The irony is that Islamic banking is saner and sounder than its bubble-creating, savings-syphoning Western counterpart.
The Bishop of Gozo and the Malta Resources Authority should look into this matter. Or perhaps Theresa Friggieri may be in a position to put a stop to this outrage.
Maybe the learned lady would be wise to note that the credit crunch that has engulfed the western banking system has hardly caused a ripple in the Islamic banking system. That’s because their principles have not been undermined by selfish greed (Greed is Good!) where top level bankers earn multi-million-pound bonuses for running their business into the ground. Suffice it to say that financial centres like London a have put legislation in place already to facilitate the co-existence of Islamic banking with western-type banking. And no, Mrs Barbaro Sant, they won’t cut your hand off if they catch you stealing from the till or force you to wear a burqa to go to the branch.
There are around 50 foreign banks in Malta – I discovered this through university – creating jobs and foreign earnings and instead of saying thank you, the Maltese invent some wacko conspiracy theory about how everyone is going to invade us. Here’s a real conspiracy theory: I believe somebody is lacing our water supply with LSD, because nearly everybody on timesofmalta.com lives in Lala-land.
Let’s guess at the response to a news story about the importation of kosher food:
“OH MARIJA MADONNA HANINA BAMBIN, The jews are going to poison us with their food.THEY KILLED GOD WE CANT EAT THERE FOOD ..oh no WE COME FROM CATHOLIC CONTRY ……UNLEAVENED BREAD IT NOT MAKE SENSE..NO PORG???..I GET PIGG FOR THEM THEY SCARED OF PIGGES .. They are using their JEW TRICKS TO TRICK US GONZIPN YOUb BOW DOWN TO JEWS YOU JEW SLAVE..THEY ARE GOING TO KILL US LIKE THE PALESINTINIANS and V2 ROckets.. …WE ARE CATHOLIC CONTRY no way the Bishop want let it heppan; WHO IS KOSHER DI XI DITTA JEW? NO JEWISH LAW PLZZZ>>.THE JEWS ARE TAKING OVER MALTA ..GONZIPN WHERE ARE YOUR HENDS!?!? FIRST THE SEMETRY AND NOW THEY WANT TO IMPOSE LAWS ON US?!!? THE SPENISH KICKED THE JEWS OUT I KICK JEWS OUT NOW THEY KILLED OUR LEEDER.
What about the suspended sentence a Maltese citizen got for “offending Roman Catholics or the ministers of this religion during the Nadur carnival” after the message by the archbishop of Gozo?
[Daphne – That’s the subject of my column tomorrow.]
I work in a bank and there are often Muslims who refuse to hold an interest-bearing account. When we told one of them to accept the interest and then donate it to a charity, he still refused because it was against his principles and he was afraid of anyone finding out.
@Graham C
I would be very wary of this posted comment on the Times which you produced here. It is very clearly a plant – an elfin one methinks. Too many spelling mistakes and whoever wrote the post went out of his/her way to invent even more mistakes, so I would not look any further into supposed meaning or message. It’s elves jumping on the band-wagon & continuing the racist thread spread by The Times (which newspaper I’ve stopped buying incidentally).
[Daphne – Actually, Carlos, the ‘comment’ Graham ‘reproduced’ was clearly a mock comment he wrote himself, as an example of what we can expect as a response to the importation of kosher food.]
Better the devil you know! If you buy a car through Islamic banking they buy it for you and then ask you to pay a certain amount per month which includes their charges and hidden interest: this is because in Islam they consider interest to be against Sharia law and if you deposit money in an Islamic bank you get no interest at all; they seem to think that inflation does not exist.
[Daphne – Have you heard of the concept of free will and free choice, and of that other concept of grown-ups making their own informed decisions, Emanuel?]
@ Daphne – Sorry, had not woken up yet
@DCG
Who said anything against free will and free choice? But free will and free choice should be based on the correct information and not necessarily from internet sources! I have lived in Islamic countries for 10 years and know what I am talking about! If you have lived in Islamic countries you would have learned that there is no free will and no free choice in these countries: only conformity, otherwise we will see about that!
[Daphne – I can’t follow your train of thought, sorry.]
I may be splitting hairs but I think there’s a difference between ‘Islamic’ and ‘Muslim’. An Islamic bank would be the equivalent of our APS though probably more strict in its adherence to religious canons. A Muslim bank, on the other hand, would simply have owners who happen to be Muslim and it would carry out normal business activities.
Does anyone know if banks in Muslim countries offer interest-bearing accounts?
Emanuel Muscat, I doubt the Muslim bank will be for Maltese people. Banks come to Malta, because our GONZIPN (as the elves like to call it) offer unbeatable packages to various banking firms, thereby decreasing unemployment, strengthening our economy and pulling money from other countries into ours.
People like to talk about money leaving our country and accuse Malta of selling out. I assure you these banks are not for Maltese people, but they are for non-Maltese, so it is the non-Maltese who are “selling out”, not us. Their money will be sitting neatly in the bank while your son, father, mother, daughter, cousin, friend will be earning good money working in one of these banks.
Emanuel Muscat: How does the introduction of Islamic banking in Malta determine the extent of free will and free choice? The Catholic church is far more influential than Islam.
@Antoine Vella: “Does anyone know if banks in Muslim countries offer interest-bearing accounts?”
Yes there are – Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Iraq for starters; I frequently work with my colleagues in banks in those countries. As for Islamic banking, rest assured that at least one Malta bank will offer Islamic banking services in the very near future.
Another stepping stone in the degeneration of this country. *sigh*. From the frying pan and into the fire.
Quote from today’s Irish Independent on line.
”Banks under fire for failing to pass on full rates cut” By Charlie Weston Personal Finance Editor
Saturday March 07 2009
Three banks were last night accused of profiteering on the backs of mortgage consumers after they failed to pass on all of Thursday’s cut in European Central Bank interest rates.Director of the Irish Mortgage Corporation, Frank Conway, said this was unacceptable.
“Banks that are not passing on the rate cut, or only passing on a portion of it, are profiteering on the backs of consumers.”
Bank Of Valletta’s CEO pompously announced that the bank will not be passing on the rate reduction to their mortgage holders. A good Christian Bank, of course.