Two possible directions for this Sharia Economy debate to unfold (and they are the most common ones) – is this about economics? Or political stability – you know, the one in terms of harmony within the society, no conflicts, less discrimination racism sexism bigotry etc.
Erm. Okay. That’s it.
Let’s go!
Oh, wait, wait, wait. It is very highly likely that this debate WON’T be about the economics discourse one, but rather about the harmony within the society. Because the tendency of setting up the debate around an economic discourse carries the tone of.. erm… racism. What is the religion equivalent again? We forgot. Bigotry? Blasphemy?
Oh, and, by the way, when talking about Sharia Economy, the discourse will be circulating around the existence of Sharia banks. Because there is practically nothing else about Sharia in the economy we can talk about.
Team Affirmative
There is no burden for establishing a model or mechanism for Team Affirmative, due to the wording of the motion being This House Supports not This House Would. And in such a case, a challenge coming from your Team Negative saying that you did not set up the debate properly is rendered invalid for this motion. However, there is another way, a valid way, for Team Negative to attack your credibility in the chamber. Later on Team Negative.
However, it never hurts to establish a good model in order to increase your convincingness in front of the adjudicator: you could establish that you would like to analyze the benefits and the harms, the pro and cons of this Sharia economy, by emphasizing and iterating more on the benefits and the pros instead of their counterparts (of course, that is the no-brainer part). Then, as a model, you would like to create a difference between the different minimum credit adequacy ratio (CAR) requirements for conventional banks and Sharia banks.
Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), also known as Capital to Risk (Weighted) Assets Ratio (CRAR), is the ratio of a bank’s capital to its risk. National regulators track a bank’s CAR to ensure that it can absorb a reasonable amount of loss and complies with statutory Capital requirements. It is a measure of a bank’s capital. It is expressed as a percentage of a bank’s risk weighted credit exposures. This ratio is used to protect depositors and promote stability and efficiency of financial systems around the world. It determines the bank’s capacity to meet the time liabilities and other risks such as credit risk, operational risk etc. In its simplest formulation, a bank’s capital is the “cushion” for potential losses, and protects the bank’s depositors and other lenders. Banking regulators in most countries define and monitor CAR to protect depositors, thereby maintaining confidence in the banking system.
Erm.. shamelessly copy-pasted from Wikipedia. Peace.
Anyway, that means that this automatically puts you as the European Central Bank (ECB), the central bank regulating the monetary policy for all of the EU (I would like to copy-paste another Wikipedia article regarding monetary policy right here and now, but MegaSableye is looking at me with a threatening aura). There indeed will be an extra burden of proof for you, which is that you will have to assert the justifications of how ECB has the right to create this.. erm… discrimination. But it’s not that much and won’t occupy most of your allocated speech time. Just a little bit of rights-and-obligations analysis, then how these R&O are derived from and to them, put in a little bit more about some social contracts, done.
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Because this will create harmony within the society.
Make no mistake in the urgency of the current status quo. There is still prejudice. There still is that Islamophobia. The fact that there is a significant surge in Sharia banks and conventional banks establishing their Sharia counterparts, means that there is a growing belief in the Sharia system. What does this mean towards the community as a whole?
Try elaborating by borrowing the perspectives of both the locals (Native European and their already established citizens) and the Muslim immigrants. Further characterization should also analyze the distinct characteristics between a welcoming, prejudicial, and a moderate local – the same goes to the immigrants as well: extremist, liberal-secular, and progressive.
Anyway, at one point of your explaining this argument, you will arrive at a particular part of the locals: the traders – financial people. Bankers, accountants, investors, those IRS mustards – you get what I mean. Picture them as the melting pot because in all likelihood will you encounter all three types of welcoming and prejudicial and moderate local towards the Muslims.
The fact that this trust towards the Islamic Sharia system is generated from this pool of people will be the starting point of spread of Islamic knowledge and exposure towards the other locals, including the prejudicial ones. Explain the process of how this will help eradicate Islamophobia, or if it can’t, at least it will erode some of Islamophobia elements. Hey, better than nothing, right?
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Because there will be more bargaining power of Muslims.
This serves as a powerful explanation that you will use. Still a sub-argument a supporting assertion with its own separate elaboration from your Team Affirmative Argument 1, though – but which is a good thing, because if previously established that the Islam is in the passive (only waiting and hoping for the bankers and finance guys to do their job), then now you can assert that the Muslims can also be in the active.
In combatting Islamophobia.
The fact that these Sharia system is based on the Koran, and the fact that the Koran as a holy scripture from Mohammed creates multi-interpretation calls for Fatwas, and these Fatwas vary very greatly among different Muftis. Or Faqihs. There are lots of confusion as to which things are considered as Farḍ, which are Sunnah, which are Mubah, Makrūh, Haram, etc. etc.
This calls for a board of Muftis, either by appointment, or anointment, or election. Explore the various ways Islam as a brotherhood (they coined the term themselves) could try to change the stereotype people will have towards Islam.
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Let’s go for the model.
Okay, now say that you choose to run our proposed and recommended mechanism. Now what? First characterize yourselves as the ECB (should be easy enough) and why it is acceptable for everybody (Team Affirmative, Team Negative, the adjudicators – and the timekeepers and the audiences and the cleaning service passing by the debate chamber) to picture themselves (yourselves) as the ECB. Then exploring the jurisdictions for the ECB (the R&O) we talked about on the beginning of this section in this post entry.
One of the factors how this Sharia banking managed to garner such a huge interest (and still growing) is that Sharia banking offers a plethora of products for customers or investors looking to participate. However, defined by a ‘real and rooted’ approach, with a focus on assets, it avoids the excessive complexity and ambiguity of some conventional products. For example, Islamic banking embraces risk-sharing as opposed to risk-transfer. In an Islamic finance (Islamic mortgage) and based on the Murabaha structure, the bank takes the responsibility of purchasing the item and re-selling it to the buyer at a profit. This arrangement enables the buyer to repay the bank in instalments. The bank protects itself against default by asking for strict collateral.
Anyway, remember what we said about the direction of this debate “WON’T be about the economics discourse one, but rather about the harmony within the society”? Forget about that. You’re the ECB. Of course you’re going to talk about economics. And because Sharia banks happen to have less risk appetite (more risk aversion) due to their nature of being “safer” in terms of potentially bad credit(s), you decrease their CAR requirements. They can afford an extra one-or-two non-performing loans.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Team Negative
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Because this will create chaos within the society.
Of course. What do you expect? Like, this has to be the opposite of what was in Team Affirmative Argument 1, right? Right. That’s why this argument is Team Negative Argument 1.
Trolling aside, the assumption arising from Team Affirmative is that this rise of Sharia economy will be portrayed as something welcomed by the locals. Now you are going to explain that the locals are going to be unreceptive towards this phenomenon.
If you came from Team Affirmative Argument 1, then you must have already known about the three different characters of the locals towards the Muslim immigrants: receptive-welcoming, moderate, and unreceptive-prejudicial. At this point of the debate, expect the clash to be heavily circulating around the characterization of the moderate locals. This is going to be another US-style of Republican versus Democratic fighting over the swing voters, this time the swing voters being the moderate locals. What you want to prove is that the unreceptive-prejudicial locals have more power and are more convincing than the receptive-welcoming ones. And, or or, or and/or, that the moderate locals tend to be more easily swayed by the leftists compared to the rightists. Or that at least a majority of them are (yes, by all means, please say that – we can never generalize that everybody is).
Alternatively, or additionally, you can shift your perspective to those of the Muslims and either say that “it is not time yet – to be celebrating” because when you celebrate you tend to overestimate your reception, thinking that everybody likes you, whilst the fact is that no, not everybody yet. Heavens, not even the majority yet. Heavens, NOT EVEN HALF OF THE TOTAL FORKING POPULATION yet.
Or how affirmative actions from the FEDERAL bank (not the government!) is an even worse form of affirmative action compared to those of governments. Well, affirmative actions are already bad at certain times, and now this one is just going to be badder.
Anyway, for the next point:
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Because challenging the model of Team Affirmative.
There is no burden for establishing a model or mechanism for Team Affirmative, due to the wording of the motion being This House Supports not This House Would. And in such a case, a challenge coming from you Team Negative saying that you did not set up the debate properly is rendered invalid for this motion. However, there is another way, a valid way, for you Team Negative to attack them Team Affirmative’s credibility in the chamber.
Ahh, I always feel great after copy-pasting something. Inb4 MegaSableye smacks me on the head.
You can always assert that this is not merely a value-judgment motion, because if it is, then what is the point of this debate?
This pertains to the loyalty and integrity of the Team Affirmative in the motion. If they really really think that Sharia economy is good but yet at the same time there is no concrete action whatsoever coming from them in order to sustain, or promote (or, you know, at least, just help) this Sharia economy. Then chances are that they don’t really believe in their cause that much. Pretty much equivalent to a lazy overweight couch potato thinking that exercising is good. Thinking. ONLY. Thinking. On another hand, the practicality aspect of the motion is now in your favor: you are now granted access to an extra argument with the wording of “crowd pressure” – that being said, we hope that you have already established the grounds and the elaborations for your Team Negative Argument 1 properly.
What happens when there is no concrete action and particular support coming from the government (or, okay, sorry; ECB) towards the existence, then pressure from the crowd is going to curb, or worse, destroy its growth. Even if the benefits outweigh the harms (as in, you concede that Team Affirmative Argument 1 wins over your Team Negative Argument 1), the likelihood of that happening is still existing and at large. Because no proper action from the government will create suspicion from those in favor of the existence of Sharia banking “Wait, what the fork, this Sharia banking is actually good but there’s no addressing whatsoever from the government. There must be something wrong going on here”.
But pay attention to how the tone of this argument will likely contradict some of (or the rest of) your arguments. You need to set your stance straight: Do you believe that Sharia banking is good? Or not?
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Because there is this wretched nature behind Sharia economy (the accounting system – a Sharia Accounting, actually).
dissent_me_plz: “So, you know, there is story of a prophet delivering a decree that thou shalt not work on weekends. The fishermen were thus prohibited from fishing. What they did instead, was installing a huge net surrounding the fishing area on Friday night, then “harvesting” their catch on Monday morning, after leaving their net be for two straight days and nights.
God later delivered punishment onto them fishermen by gifting them scabies on their skins.
And that is the story that my Sharia Accounting lecturer told us in the classroom on a certain day.”
The nature of this Sharia Accounting is much like how lawyers play with fire around the law, finding loopholes in and among words, trying their best to bend and twist without breaking them. The same way those fishermen exploited the loopholes in God’s decree.
Like all banks, Sharia banks do charge interest. They just give it another name.
Helena Christofi, an expert on Sharia banking, explains that Islamic banks extend a type of Islamic “credit”, called Murabaha, which shifts risk to the borrower in a manner similar to interest.
“An Islamic bank granting Murabaha credit to a customer for an automobile, for example, would purchase the automobile for the customer for $15,000 and the customer would owe the bank $20,000 in a year’s time. Similarly, under the ‘Diminishing Musharaka’ credit, the Islamic version of a mortgage, the bank and the customer purchase the property together. The customer must make monthly payments to the bank and pay a monthly rental fee, both based on the portion of the purchase price the bank still owns. Ironically, the interest this amounts to ranges between one and two percent higher than the interest on a conventional mortgage. Although the resale price of the vehicle and the rent paid on the house are akin to simple interest charges, the banks’ sharia boards legitimate the charges by renaming them ‘commissions’ or ‘profits’ so to speak”.
Clever, huh?