I could not believe my ears when I heard that our government is bailing out the banks using tax payers’ money. In my opinion this is rewarding those who made the mess in the first place. I would have liked to have seen a more robust and principled approach taken by the government to reign in those who have been simply shamelessly greedy. The bankers and the executives of these financial institutions have behaved irresponsible, callous and in total disregard to the well being of their customers and us all. In other professions they would have been investigated for criminal activities.

We would all agree this a time of national crisis and during such a time every citizen has a moral duty to lend a helping hand to prevent our economy from sliding further into deep recession.

I would like to propose the following steps that the government and us all could take both individually and collectively to help stabilize our economy -

1. Moratorium on bonuses - All the CEO’s, partners, board members and senior executives of these firms should be ordered to pay back 50% of their last years bonuses and forgo any impending bonuses for this year. There should be a freeze on any pay rise or bonus packages for at least the next three years or until we are out of recession.
2. Confiscate luxury assets - All the luxury jets, cruise, yachts, holiday homes and extra houses and flats these people have bought with the bonuses should be confiscated and sold, all proceeds should be used to pay back innocent public their pension savings and the hard working individuals their hard earned savings so that they can simply pay their mortgages and live.
3. Freeze on essential food and fuel price – There should a three year freeze on basic food and essential fuel price. Government should cut tax on these items immediately. This will ease the burden of the poor public who are making such stark choices such as whether to eat or keep their homes warm. This is simply immoral. The profit margins of big companies are still grotesque. For example Tesco announced a profit of £2.8bn at the beginning of the year while the rest of us have been making difficult cut backs. BP made a profit of 3.4bn between April and June 2008 alone, of course at our misery as we paid nearly £1.50 a litre for petrol. The companies must be forced to reduce the cost of fuel immediately.
4. Tax the multi-nationals – Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Our country is on the brink of recession, we are all loosing our savings and cost of living is increasing every day. Yet multi-nationals have made enormous amounts of profit, they should be taxed heavily and the money collected should be used to combat poverty amongst our children and elderly.
5. End wasting food – We should give up on buying unnecessary food. When we go to the supermarkets we should not fall victims of the marketing ploys – “buy one get another free”, “buy three for the price of two” and list of promotional adverts continues. Most people end up throwing these items in the dustbin. We do not need them so let us not buy them. This would help ease on the demand and thus supply. There is not infinite amount of food available in the world; our greed has a knock effect on the poorer parts of the world. Now that we are all feeling the pinch let us reflect on the plight of the poor people of the world and end wasting food.
6. Invest in ethical funds – We should not just be fixated on the profit we get from higher and higher interest rates. It is unethical to demand continuous profit while refusing to share the losses. There is a popular saying “no pain, no gain”. Our greed is ultimately our undoing and if not us, someone somewhere in the world would have to pay for it. I would invest in ethical funds and should be prepared to share the loss and benefit from the profit.      

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As I was driving to a meeting I heard the news on the Radio 4’s PM programme about the 73 old Austrian Josef Fritzl who has held his own daughter for 24 years in his celler and sexually abused her including fathered 7 children from her. He actually confessed to his crimes!

I physically felt sick! What kind of animal would do that? In fact calling him an animal would be an insult to the animals. He is worse than animals.

I can not think of any punishment that would befit this man. Should he be killed? Should he be locked up? Either way nothing will give back to the innocent victim her lost 24 years, her dignity, her life and sanity! Nothing will remove this man’s crime from lives of these children, the irony is these children are the living proof.

How should Austria deal with him? How should the world deal with such crimes and criminals? I feel if we stay silent or delivers a disproportionate punishment we would all be guilty of committing a grave crime against the victim of this ordeal. For she deserve justice! My heart goes out to the innocent children! Can you imagine growing up with such a history?

This reminds me of Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager held captive in a cellar in a house in a Vienna suburb for eight years, who ran to freedom in 2006.

It does pose a serious question for many people - should every cellar in Austria be checked? It is better to be safe then sorry. I know Austrians are shocked and disturbed by this news but this would haunt Austrians for a long time unless they deal with this propblem decisively. How many more cellars are holding young children captives? How many more are being abused?

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I was invited to Peterborough to deliver a lecture on what would Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) say if he was to descend amongst us today. The lecture was held in one of the Mosques in the middle of the town and attracted a good crowd, all of them were Muslims. In my personal view I believe if the blessed prophet was here today he would encourage all people to -

1. Find peace in their lives and spread peace in the world

2. Care for the people of the world regardless of the background

3. Share the good teachings of Islam

4. Open the doors of the mosques so everybody could benefit from them

5. Work together for the common good

“You have been sent to be nothing but a mercy to the universe”, God clearly summarized in the Quran the Prophetic mission. He stood by the poor and the needy to create a society based on honour and equality , he challenged the oppressors and declared justice as an absolute moral imperative, he restored the rights of widows and gave shelter and hope to the orphans. He embodied all the goodness, morality and character. He said in one of his speeches that he was sent to refine to perfection the character of people and if he was here today he would do exactly that.   

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