Christian Council for Monetary Justice
Papers su
bmitted by Members

Progamme for CCMJ Annual Meeting and AGM on Saturday

Assemble: 11 informally share, thoughts, view reports, scan books, etc 
 12 -12.30  Tarek el Diwany 'Interfaith approaches to inclusive structured justice' 
12.30 Discussion
1.00  Light Buffet Lunch
1.45 General discussion
2.30 AGM

Please come to any part you can. We still welcome late deciders
We also welcome any thoughts you'd like to be brought to the meeting.

Peter

- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Dear CCMJ members and Associates,

Our Annual meeting followed by our AGM is upon us.
Please look in for as much of the day as you can and include friends if you wish.
Please bring your displays, leaflets, inspiring books etc.
This day is a rallying of our resources and a strengthening of our commitment.
I am grateful for those who who have already sent notice of attendance or apologies. 
Below are the papers Colin has prepared for the day. Bring copies with you please.

Peter

CHRISTIAN COUNCIL FOR MONETARY JUSTICE

President Rt Rev. Peter Selby.
Vice presidents: Rt Rev John Flack, Rt Rev Mano Rumulshah, Austin Mitchell MP, Lord Sudeley
Chairman Rev Canon Peter Challen

11 October 2005

Dear Members

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
CHRISTIAN COUNCIL FOR MONETARY JUSTICE

Our annual general meeting, as advised last January and June, will take place on Saturday 29 October 2005 at Christ Church, The John Marshall Hall, 27 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8NY - the same place as for the last two years. An agenda is enclosed.

To get there from the nearest underground station, Southwark, turn left when leaving the concourse and then left again into the Blackfriars Road, head north and walk about 5 or so minutes and the church is on the left with the bridge over the River Thames easily in sight ahead. Coming from the Thames, the church is on the right.

We intend to have a pre lunch session starting at 11 am during which time our Muslim brother and friend Tarek El Diwany will lead us to discuss Interfaith approaches to inclusive structured justice. There will also be an opportunity to hear a 30 minutes recording of one of the radio interviews our chairman gave in New Zealand as well as an informal catch up on activities at home and abroad. We also hope to have pictures of our chairman in New Zealand to show he really was there!

A lunch will be provided at a cost of £3 and will be served at 1 pm. Because of catering requirements -(do we order 1000 sausage rolls or just 4 ?) it would be most helpful if you could let Peter Challen know by Tuesday 25 October 2005 by email, telephone 020-72070509 or at 21 Bousfield Road, London SE14 5TP whether you would like to join us for this fellowship occasion.

An informal discussion on the way forward for CCMJ also will take place just before the formal annual meeting.

This will start at no earlier than 2-30 p.m.and end hopefully by 4-15 pm depending on members' verbosity! Nominations for office can be made, with me, prior to the meeting or at the meeting.

For those whose membership, like mine, lapses in November, a renewal notice is enclosed. To cover costs, financial membership is £10 a year, but any sum from nil upwards would be welcome depending on one's personal circumstances.

Kindest regards

Colin J Whitmill

Secretary



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CHRISTIAN COUNCIL FOR MONETARY JUSTICE

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 29 OCTOBER 2005




AGENDA

1. Welcome

2. Apologies

3 Minutes of meeting 30 October 2004

circulated January 2005

4. Matters arising

5 Reports

Chairman

Treasurer

Constitution Committee

report attached

6 Notices of Motion


Donald Martin

"That the subscription for life members be £500 with immediate effect."

It is my view that the current life subscription is a burden on existing members paying by annual subscription. No reserve has been set aside in the accounts to service life members in the future. If the life subscription is increased to £500 I would suggest that any life subscriptions are put in a special account and that a proportion representing the annual subscription is transferred on an annual basis for general use


Secretary

a. That the annual subscription for membership be £10 a year or whatever sum a person can afford.

b.That the Executive not accept any applications for life membership this year.

7. Election of Officers

Chairman

Vice Chairman

Treasurer

Secretary

8. General discussion

9. Date of next meeting



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


REPORT ON VISIT TO MAURITIUS
by Peter Challen, Chairman Christian Council for Monetary Justice


At the end of July 2005, a multifaith group, led from the new Islamic Cultural Centre in Mauritius, invited me to join a group of resource people from seven countries at a two-day seminar through which to formulate a 'Project Mauritius' to help that multi-faith, multi-ethnic community resist the deep degrading inroads of globalisation.

There was excitement among all participants, of which a small majority were Muslims, that a Christian should come to affirm the Islamic conviction that all trade and investment should involve the sharing of risk and reward, of joy and sorrow. I was kept intensely busy for not just the two-day seminar, but for the six days of my stay. I hardly saw that beautiful island of "a people born from the world in a land born of the sea," but I reached deep into a dialogue about our common humanity to which all aspects of faith in the God of the universe contribute.

In my discussions, I was keen to assert that the principles that lie behind Islamic economics and most contemporary Islamic financial instruments are to be found in all great faith traditions, though references are scattered and in modern times often lost from sight and study.

Unfortunately, the seminar programme contained no reference to the global context in which the conference was meeting. I recorded four hazards that raise serious questions over a slow process of 'co-existence' and the introduction of Islamic Windows in Western Banks.

Danger of western coercion

The danger of coercion by or seduction into the present economic paradigm far outweighs the likelihood of slowly converting the western neo-classical economic paradigm, but participants at the seminar were not aware of that.

I recorded for further study those hazards and the introduction of Islamic Windows in Western Banks.

The four destructive giants - ogres - that stalk human society on this precious planet are ;

a. an unquestioning acceptance of the present economic order. [despite immense indications of global degradation in the recent UN Millennium Eco-system Assessment (March 2005), which suggested that the tipping point in major indicators of final collapse of human life support on earth may well lie only two generations ahead].

b. a profound mal-distribution of land, assets, resources and knowledge [Absolute property rights erode our understanding of stewardship of 'the Commons'. The accelerating privatisation of water, for instance, may be the next cause of war].

c. an inordinate power given to corporations [God's economy-world or house-keeping-challenges corporate law, which requires 'externalities' to be paid for by society at large not the originator of the detrimental costs.]

d. a deeply flawed bank credit/money system

Challenge to Mauritian Deputy Prime Minister

It was my privilege to be invited to meet and discuss with the Mauritian Deputy Prime Minister, and later with the Minister of Finance, aspects which I also recommended that the Project team might explore.

The challenge was that they should give detailed consideration to the advice given in the 1980s by a member of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice to Prime Minister, Dr Mahatier of Malaysia: - [which advice led him to free Malaysia from the conditionalities of the IMF]

a. Put immediate foreign exchange controls on your currency.

b. Reverse the liberalisation of the financial markets

c. There should be no inclination to privatise national assets

d. Avoid further borrowing and raise capital domestically [People's money publicly used by the central bank - publicly owned and transparent in all its transactions]

e. People must be housed and fed as a priority over any external commitments. [We are all Mauritians,' is already your national slogan - let a first call on your nation's wealth be a basic income for all citizens!]

f. a serious afterthought- look frequently to your own security. [Have the courage of your convictions - support one another - serve one another - rise above the self-centredness greed and control which is bred by finance capitalism and abhorred by all the great faith traditions. ]

While the ministers graciously acknowledged the views presented, my fear is that their advisers may well not have the impetus to depart from their learned commitment to orthodox finance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CCMJ AT CENTRE OF FIGHT FOR NEW WORLD

A report from CCMJ member Rodney Shakespeare

Firstly, two things about CCMJ:--

a) It is against interest. This immediately resonates with the core beliefs of the three main monotheistic religions.

b) The name Christian Council for Monetary Justice has a surprising efficacy in Islam.

Secondly, modernising Islam has a number of characteristics but the following must be mentioned if this

report as a whole, and its significant "twist" at the end, is to be understood. Modernising Islam:--

i) rejects all forms of riba/interest (but not administrative cost)

ii) hates inflation

iii) desires to connect the money supply with the real economy

iv) upholds market and private property solutions

v) resents the way countries have been trapped into often unrepayable debt which, because of the effects of interest, makes for an everlasting drain on a country's resources

vi) desires more independence

vii) desires more democratic political forms

viii) wishes to evolve something distinctive

ix) has a strong sense of social and economic justice

x) has a sense of loss of status in the world combined with historical memory of past achievement.

Islamic views

As far as is known, in the context of monetary reform, modernising Islam sees only one way in which all of i) to x) above can be resolved into a coherent whole. That way, in summary, is the use of interest-free repayable and cancellable loans directed at productive capacity in the following areas:--

* public capital projects

* private capital projects if wide ownership is involved and a basic income results

* environmental capital projects including clean energy generation

* small and start-up businesses

In all cases, the use of interest-free loans halves or more the cost and an increasingly wide acceptance of the general concept is happening.

CCMJ involvment

The story starts with Peter Challen and Rodney Shakespeare calling on CCMJ members for help in answering questions about what might lie within Islam so that a truly global solution to present problems could be set out in Seven Steps to Justice. Members were helpful but some key questions remained unanswered.

There then occurred a remarkable incident at an inter-faith gathering which opened the path to Masudul Alam Choudhury who is now undoubtedly the leading Islamic economist. Choudhury provided information about possibility inherent within Islam and, as a result, the Seven Steps book was completed and then presented at a major Islamic monetary conference in Kuala Lumpur in August, 2002.

Soon after, Rodney was invited to write the Foreword to Choudhury's magnum opus - The Islamic World-system - and to submit a paper to the October, 2003 Oman conference. The paper (which should be understood in the light of i) to x) above) became central to the conference whereon, and as a consequence, the main funder of the conference, apparently determined to crush new thinking, withdrew support. However, exhibiting remarkable resilience and drawing on his ever-increasing stature, Choudhury managed to transfer the conference lock, stock and barrel to Trisakti University, Jakarta. Trisakti is the birthplace of the 1998 Indonesian reformist revolution and, in January, 2004, it gave a splendid welcome to the conference and its papers.

Peter was then asked to write the Foreword to another major Choudhury opus and, in December, 2004, at the Chittagong conference in December, 2004, neoclassical argument was comprehensively defeated and the monetary way forward agreed (in summary) as gold-backed 100% reserve Islamic endogenous (as defined) loans directed at productive capacity on market and wide ownership principles.

NB. The gold backing is essentially to assure that inflation will be restrained (although the endogenous (as defined) loans are, in practice, counter-inflationary - see Seven Steps), and the 100% reserve aspect is a way of saying that the banking system would not be allowed to create any new money (although it can administer newly created interest-free central bank money directed at forms of productive capacity broadly on Seven Steps principles).

University involvement

Trisakti has now established (since January, 2005) the first PhD program in the world to teach the new thinking; about ten universities are in various stages of, and connections with, the new thinking; a recent conference (McGill, Montreal) was devoted solely to teaching the subject; and in December, 2005 there is to be the Universal Paradigm conference in Dacca attempting to set the new monetary developments in relation to all - yes, all -- areas of human study which might seem impossible but at least two universities have fought for the honour of holding the conference. In general, much university conference and other opportunity is now opening up but the problem is essentially that no one person is able to teach all of the subject and so conferences etc (which have many associated practical problems) will still have to be organised.

November 2005 conference

So what is the "twist" mentioned early in this Report? In Jakarta, at the end of November, 2005 there will be a huge and crucially important conference organised by various key Islamic bodies (including the body which withdrew funding in 2003) and the indications are that the new thinking is likely to prevail at the highest levels of Islamic academia including banking and finance theorists etc. Indeed, the acceptance of endogenous (as defined) money appears to be progressing so well that a key Islamic conference at Harvard university in the USA in 2006 is essentially being presented with a fait accompli namely that (in contrast to the position of several important American Muslim academics who say that Islam must accept interest if it is to ever succeed) riba/interest is not only wrong but unnecessary (the unnecessary aspect being an important part of the new thinking). In a fundamental way, therefore, (in a development separate from Trisakti), everything seems to be coming to a head at Jakarta in late November, 2005.

Everything? Well, maybe everything because Harvard has been asked to choose between accepting the endogenous (as defined) money supply as something developing easily and naturally from within the existing system and improving upon it OR, if it does not accept the validity of the supply, to see it being taken up separately by Islamic societies who will soon be giving a moral, intellectual and material lead. At the moment. Harvard is awaiting the outcome of the late November Jakarta conference but the Jakarta die is seemingly cast in favour of the new thinking

Fight for new world financial system

Or rather, the die did seem to be cast except that one of the most powerful economic (and non-Islamic) institutions in the world has now got wind of the situation and appears to be intervening heavily because - and this is the "twist" of this Report - it has realised that what is happening in Islamic academia will directly and comprehensively change present conceptions of economics and finance not only in the Islamic world but also in the non-Islamic world as well.

So, in a perhaps strange and roundabout way, CCMJ is now at the centre of the fight for a new world.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




TO ALL MEMBERS
REPORT OF CONSTITUTION COMMITTEE


A draft of a revised constitution is attached. Your committee has taken into account the matters raised at the last annual meeting and a draft of our work was referred to a solicitor as sought by a member on the basis that the advice cost nothing.

The solicitor advised that she could not give legal advice as her solicitor's liability insurance only covered that for her employers. However, through her husband, there were comments given that the draft constitution was too short, lacked definitions and consistency of terms. He advised that a standard document be used as provided for the by Charity Commission.

Two members of the committee looked at two hefty documents supplied by the Charity Commission and reached the conclusion that the standard document referred to would probably cover some 18 pages of constitution and related to those unincorporated associations seeking registration with the Charity Commission.

Unless the members wish to go down the road of registration as a charity, it would appear to the committee that our own proposed constitution would be adequate for our purposes. The current constitution just required tidying up. We believe systems are made for people not people for systems.

However there were valuable aspects in the standard document that have been incorporated in the attached draft, which is recommended for adoption.



Peter Challen

Desmond Cumberland

Colin J Whitmill

4 October 2005



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CHRISTIAN COUNCIL FOR MONETARY JUSTICE
CONSTITUTION



1. Purpose

To bring together in association, all who seek, as part of their faith, a more just financial system other than that currently in use.

2. Name

The association shall be called the Christian Council for Monetary Justice [ CCMJ ]

3. Aims

a. To present a Christian Witness as to the true function of a monetary system in society

b To examine the working of existing laws and international arrangements which relate to financial institutions especially in regard to their wider economic, social and moral implications

c To press for monetary measures that will contribute to economic and social justice throughout the world.

d To develop and promote an economic reading of the Bible and a biblical reading of the economy

e To resource the work of economic literacy and popular education around domestic and global issues of economic justice in the faith communities


f To seek to enable people far and wide to stimulate a more general awareness of the pertinence of faith to the economic order; and in particular to the urgent need to generate monetary reform.

4 Membership

a. Membership shall be open to persons of all Christian denominations who are interested in active furtherance of the aims of the Council and to those of other faiths sympathetic to exploration of monetary justice

b Applications for membership shall be deemed to be provisional until accepted by the Executive. Should the Executive decline to accept a membership application, or a renewal of membership, it shall advise in writing the applicant, who shall have the right to appeal the decision to the annual general meeting for final adjudication.

c. Members shall pay such financial subscriptions as contributions to the work of the Council as are determined by each annual general meeting.

d. The membership of a member will be deemed to have lapsed twelve months after the date when any financial renewal was due and for the following twelve months it will be deemed to be that of an associate member.

e Applications for non financial associate membership shall be considered on the same basis as outlined in rule 3b.

5. Annual General Meeting

Notice of the annual general meeting shall be given by the Executive to all members no later than 14 days prior to the proposed gathering. The purpose of the meeting shall be to elect officers for the coming year, receive reports from retiring officers, and attend to any matters brought to the meeting for consideration. Financial accounts for the previous year shall be presented to the meeting , but shall be audited before being approved by the Council. The Executive shall arrange such audit as is required.

6. Officers

Officers of the Council, to be elected at the annual general meeting, shall comprise a chairman, a vice chairman, a secretary and a treasurer.

The officers will form the Executive of the Council and shall have the right to co-opt such persons as they deem necessary for the fulfilment of its work. Those co-opted shall not have a vote on any matter requiring a ballot to reach a decision. Any vacancy in elected positions may be filled by the Executive on a temporary basis if necessary until the next annual general meeting.

7. President and vice presidents.

Appointments to the positions of president and vice presidents may be made by the Executive, but shall require to be confirmed at the annual general meeting

8. Meetings of the Council

a. The Executive may call, or approve of the calling of, any meeting of the membership at any time between annual general meetings in furtherance of the aims of the Council.

b All meetings shall be held at commonly accepted sociable hours and at venues in the United Kingdom accessible by public transport.

c Only financial members will be eligible to vote on matters for which a vote has been sought.

d A quorum for any meeting requiring a vote to resolve or determine matters or elect officers shall be 20% of the total financial membership at the time of the meeting.

e A change to the constitution shall require the approval of 75% of those financial members attending unless the Council resolves by majority vote that the matter should be determined by a postal ballot of all financial members. In such circumstances a change to the constitution shall require the approval of 75% of those voting.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Be open to the spirit,
exude humble strength,
celebrate life emergent, and
find the promise of journeying