“The Muslim world should be designing measures to save themselves from the domination of the United States dollar and the American financial regime.” —Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran
Also Read: Crypto Confronts Social Justice Warriors
Hegemony and Muslim Resistance
Hegemony refers to the leadership or dominance of one country or group over others. A nation with the most powerful fiat and control of international banking can achieve hegemony through trade wars, financial sanctions or bribery (aid), and the flex of expensive military might. A dominant state is known as the hegemon. The United States has been the global hegemon for more than half a century.
The globe is rebelling. According to the bitcoin.com article “Iran, Turkey, Malaysia Discuss Creating Unified Muslim Cryptocurrency”, at the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 — a four-day event that began on December 18 — the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “discussed the prospect of creating a unified cryptocurrency for Muslim countries. Rouhani proposed an Islamic financial payment [system] with Muslim countries trading in local currencies and the creation of a Muslim cryptocurrency to cut reliance on the U.S. dollar.” The Malaysian P.M. declared himself open to the “idea of a unified cryptocurrency for Muslim countries.”
Circumventing Established Superpowers
Muslim nations are not alone. Russia launched its System for the Transfer of Financial Messages (SFPS) in December 2017 as an alternative to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). SWIFT is an identification-code network for international transfers that allows financial institutions to send data to each other in a standardized and reputedly secure way. SWIFT is the default global system for financial transfers, which has been called the central nervous system of
