Thursday, January 06, 2005

Are We Stingy?

Reprinted from the New York Times (registration required)

Gulf Arabs Wonder: Are They Being Stingy With Aid?
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

CAIRO, Jan. 3 - The newspaper Al Qabas in Kuwait set off a debate spreading throughout the country and beyond on Monday by suggesting that Kuwait deserves its reputation for being cheap and oblivious to people who go there to work as servants, given the relatively low level of aid it has donated to the tsunami victims at a time when the state treasury is bursting with an oil bonanza.

Noting that the bulk of the nannies, drivers, menial laborers and other servants who keep most households running in the emirate come from Southeast Asia - imported workers easily outnumber the native population - some Kuwaitis agree that the country and its Persian Gulf neighbors need to be doing much more.

But the campaign to shut down Islamic charities accused of financing terrorism has left many people confused about where to turn when they do want to donate money. And a few extremist Friday Prayer leaders and other religious commentators fueled the uncertainty by suggesting that the tsunami destruction was the wrath of God.

Gauging the extent of private donations for the region proved difficult because nobody seems to be collecting the information. Many donations are channeled through the government-backed Red Crescent societies, but senior officials either did not return phone calls or said they were too busy to make a tally. There were random charitable acts around the region.

In an echo of the debate about skinflints that occurred in the United States over the government's level of aid, though, a front-page editorial in Al Qabas on Sunday said gulf Arabs had an obligation to dig deeper in their pockets for the people of Southeast Asia because of the longstanding ties between the two regions.

"We have to give them more; we are rich," Waleed al-Nusif, the editor in chief of Al Qabas, said in a telephone interview. "The price of oil doubled, so we have no excuse."After the paper's editorial appeared, the Kuwaiti cabinet raised its announced donation on Sunday to $10 million, from $2 million, having previously doubled it. Kuwait is expected to run a budget surplus this year of roughly $10 billion, and Mr. Nusif noted that the government had just distributed an estimated $700 million to the Kuwaiti people themselves, the public share of the unanticipated revenue.

He said Kuwait should give a minimum of $100 million, not least because many of the country's 1.29 million foreigners of a total population of 2.25 million come from the devastated regions.
"They built Kuwait, and they raised our children," said Mr. Nusif, noting that before successive oil booms, India and other countries opened their doors to Kuwaitis, who were then relatively poor. The paper also advised Kuwaitis to check with their housemaids to see if they wanted to phone home in case family members were dead or missing.

It was not the kind of reminder necessary for an older generation of Kuwaitis, Mr. Nusif said. "Our fathers were more generous than we are," he said. "They had suffered more."
The editorial became the hot topic in diwaniyas, the nightly salons where men gather to chew over the issues of the day.

"We should show more sympathy, especially since we have a budget surplus and these are our neighbors in Southeast Asia," said Saad al-Ajmi, a former Kuwaiti minister of information. He believes more private donations will be coming.

The Qabas editorial did not cite Kuwait alone in seeking to fatten donations. It said all the Arab gulf countries benefiting from huge oil revenues should give more. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have each pledged $10 million, while Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, raised his country's cash contribution tenfold, to $20 million, on Monday night.
Most pledges from the gulf Arab nations were made in the first hours after the earthquake, and as the scale becomes apparent, more money will be pledged, officials said.

The Islamic Development Bank in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, said it would distribute $10 million in emergency aid to Indonesia, the Maldives, Somalia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. The Thai Embassy in Kuwait said some people were dropping by to give money, with one business phoning to say it wanted to bring $14,000.

The Kuwaiti Embassy in Jakarta announced that it was chartering a ship to deliver aid to devastated Aceh Province in Indonesia. In Riyadh, the Saudi capital, Dr. Saleh al-Tuwaijri, vice president of the Saudi Red Crescent Society, said the government's $10 million donation would go directly to sister organizations in the affected countries. He said that per capita giving in the gulf was generally high, but that ordinary citizens faced obstacles to making donations because so many private charities had been closed under American pressure on suspicion of helping finance terrorism. No replacement mechanism has been established, which makes public fund-raising difficult, he said.

In Kuwait, some charities drew fire by advertising that they were collecting money for Muslim victims. Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, is the most populous Muslim nation. "I don't know why only Muslims, when disasters do not differentiate between religions in choosing their victims," Muhammad Mousaed al-Saleh, a columnist, wrote in Al Qabas. The daily paper published a religious ruling, saying donating to non-Muslims is permissible.

The view that wanton behavior provoked the quake was the subject of Friday sermons in Saudi Arabia and of other religious commentaries. "Asia's earthquake, which hit the beaches of prostitution, tourism, immorality and nudity," one commentator said on an Islamist Web site, "is a sign that God is warning mankind from persisting in injustice and immorality before he destroys the ground beneath them."

Walid Tabtabai, a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, said the earthquake was a message.
"We believe that what occurs in terms of disasters and afflictions is a test for believers and punishment for the unjust," he wrote in a column in the newspaper Al Watan.

17 comments:

  1. zaydoun, its good when u hear people like Tabtabai and the Islamic website say this stuff!! Shows you how much they lost track of the world, they're f*cking idiots!

    I agree with AlNisif, read my post about the same subject, and was inspired by ur previous post about the min7a

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  2. يسلم تمك ripped_heart
    and thank you Z for this article !

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  3. I first heard of such criticism when I was watching CNN and they specified KUWAIT!!!
    It made me angry because I know we are a country with a heart and I really hope the government will step up and do more.
    I just wanna know if any charities are doing anything, I watched something on Dubai TV about some sort of telethon for the Tsunami victims, are we doing anything similar?

    Oh yeah and Happy Birthday Zaydoun :)

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  4. ripped_heart
    Couldn't have said it better. Exactly my feelings as well.

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  5. First of all even befor i read this article i have to say this:

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
    HaPpY BiRthDaY TO YoU
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MR.Zz
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

    :) wish you a great year with many million years ahead
    manen7eremsh

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  6. ripped-heart
    thank you
    i really agree with you.

    If people around the world think that kuwait is not donating to the tsunami affected countrys i don't blame them.although they don't have the right to do such a thing but my point is that kuwaitis who are sending the help are not organized.
    First ; we are not helping these country so other can see that we are helping our friends on earth so when the donations are dilivered the media is not there . hatha 6abe3 al kuwaitieen yesawoon al kheer min wara al 7ejaab.
    Am i Wrong kuwaitis?

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  7. Here's a comment from my sister overseas...i saw it, i want to post comments sometimes bess wayed qissa!!

    tell your fellow bloggers that michael shumakher alone donated 10 million.
    same as the kuwaiti gov!!! and that the stingy british public donated almost 80 million. norwegian public 180 million and they don't have khadam from sri lanka etc...not to mention the three min silence etc...the total arab donations so far has been 54!! including saudi. considering that the majority of the dead are muslims. bess fal7een yabnoon misajid and yi7ajboon il banat!! even east timor and nepal donated money!!! min wain lihum??!!
    while kuwait is generous. in this day and age aid is a duty of rich governmenrt and not a favour. it took critisim to increase our share and it's still not enough. no one is doubitng that the public is generous bess 7ikoomatna tool 3umurha zittiya

    and happy birthday. i tried to call you but you're not picking up.

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  8. يا اخوان الي بالكويت و اذمتكم انتو شفتو اي شي من الي قالته اخت زيدون بالكويت؟؟؟
    تلفزيون الكويت و لا جنه صاير شي ابجيرانا و الاكثر بعد الجرايد انعفست على ابو الحسن و الواحد لازم يدور على خبر الفيضان. يعني ترى هذا اهوا التخلف ابعينه و اثبات ان الطبطبائي خايف على الجم فلس عشان يخاف سفؤات المكسيك ما اتسير اببلاش

    والله عيب

    ReplyDelete
  9. أخت زيدون ,, يا اخوان الي بالكويت و اذمتكم انتو شفتو اي شي من الي
    قالته اخت زيدون بالكويت؟؟؟
    تلفزيون الكويت و لا جنه صاير شي ابجيرانا و الاكثر بعد الجرايد انعفست على ابو الحسن و الواحد لازم يدور على خبر الفيضان. يعني ترى هذا اهوا التخلف ابعينه و اثبات ان الطبطبائي خايف على الجم فلس عشان يخاف سفرات المكسيك ما اتسير اببلاش

    والله عيب
    و لا بيت التمويل بدال هالاشتثمرها مع الله كانو يسون شي حق المساكين

    و بعد تشطرو و اطلعو فيها تلفزيون الكوين ان يقولون شوفو معجزة الخالق ان اب اندونيسيا كل شي انمحى ما عدا المساجد ما صار فيها شي
    و كل البيوت الي حوالين المسجد تهدمو !!! يعني قمه بالذكاء المسجد ما تهدم لان مبني من كونكريت و البيوم الي كوتلينا من جينكو !!!!

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  10. Stingy o nos..
    And what's worse than being stingy is coming up with lame excuses for being stingy.

    Stingy Kuwitis!
    (did I emphasize on the word "stingy" enough?)

    Happy Birthday Zaydoun

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  11. Question is... what are the PEOPLE doing?

    It's one thing if the government does not extend as much aid to the Tsunami victims as they ought to have had, but I am sure the population of Kuwait can show their support in much bigger monetary numbers than the government has at this point.

    Contact www.doctorswithoutborders.org and make a donation through them. Do not consider questionable organizations like the Red Cross, or Unicef. They've gotten 'too big' and commercial lately, not to mention politcal as well. doctors without borders functions on more unbiased grassroot levels.

    Peace.

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  12. Zaydoun...

    I am not surprised there has been a lack of -public donations- from all Arabs... when there is the belief that one country does not have Arab/Muslim friends with others, then such stinginess is to be expected.

    'Nuff said, the Ummah is shamefully suffering... !@#$% this makes me mad!

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  13. Ripped Heart:

    Excellent points.

    you said:

    "The people who are quick to judge that Kuwait is stingy should look at what Kuwait has done. Kuwait always sends aid and help to Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and a bunch of other countries that's never highly publicized. "

    Yes, Kuwait and its people have donated money to Palestine... most of it ending up in Suha's shoe collection, which Kuwaitis should be OUTRAGED over and demand answers as well as insist that the amount donated meets its intended destination. If the money I donated to a humanitarian cause ended up funding such 'apathy', believe you me, I would not remain mum over it.

    It's one thing to care enough to donate, which is all good and dandy, but FOLLOW UP on it, dont just become complacent after you've given the money away. What would be the point of having donated to begin with if the money you gave was not used as you had intended it to be?

    Before I am accused of passing judgement, allow me to clarify that this applies to ANY country, not just Kuwait.

    Ok.. I'm stepping off of the milk-crate... who wants the stage now?

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  14. Ripped Heart:

    Excellent points.

    you said:

    "The people who are quick to judge that Kuwait is stingy should look at what Kuwait has done. Kuwait always sends aid and help to Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and a bunch of other countries that's never highly publicized. "

    Yes, Kuwait and its people have donated money to Palestine... most of it ending up in Suha's shoe collection, which Kuwaitis should be OUTRAGED over and demand answers as well as insist that the amount donated meets its intended destination. If the money I donated to a humanitarian cause ended up funding such 'apathy', believe you me, I would not remain mum over it.

    It's one thing to care enough to donate, which is all good and dandy, but FOLLOW UP on it, dont just become complacent after you've given the money away. What would be the point of having donated to begin with if the money you gave was not used as you had intended it to be?

    Before I am accused of passing judgement, allow me to clarify that this applies to ANY country, not just Kuwait.

    Ok.. I'm stepping off of the milk-crate... who wants the stage now?

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  15. i think people trust in any way to donate is devastated
    the campain run by a lot of writers attacking every charity and hearing about USA crack down left many people scared from even donating , i was setting in my family lunch at friday and saw them talk about the tsunami , and were they can donate , and you know what most said ? they don't know , and they should just give the poor people who clean the street , since there is no other place , i told them about the red Crescent or the sri lanka embassy
    but some do not trust the red Crescent because its a goverment agency ( who can blame them )
    and don't say online donation , a lot consider using credit card on internet is bad

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  16. Walid Tabtabai, a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, said the earthquake was a message.
    "We believe that what occurs in terms of disasters and afflictions is a test for believers and punishment for the unjust," he wrote in a column in the newspaper Al Watan.
    - Dude, may you burn in hell for your mistakes! The Quran says that the devil can hide anywhere - even behind long beards. Walid Tabtabai is definately proving the truth to that. Where is his compassion?

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  17. This site gives a breakdown of how much nations are contributing, what their GDP is, per capita spending, etc. http://www.nakagawa.ca/ascorbic/tsunami/

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Keep it clean, people!