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[Twisting in the Wind]

Yesterday in the LA Times there was a breakdown of countries who've given toward tsunami relief. At the top of the list were Australia and Germany, then the EU and US, and then there about 5-6 other countries, and then dead last in the list was Saudi Arabia!

Maybe it was just the way the list was composed, and it was just happenstance that Saudi was listed dead last, but it got me wondering, why, with all the millions and billions Saudi has from oil and privately, would that country not rank higher?

With Indonesia as the world's largest Muslim country by some calculations, I would think that Saudi would have a vested interest in supporting the region and reaching out to their "Muslim brothers."

Does anyone else think this is odd? Any ideas as to why, with almsgiving as one of the 5 pillars of Islam, Saudi, which could certainly afford it, hasn't given more (I don't remember the amount cited by the Times and unfortunately the paper was taken out with this AM's trash).

[moonraven]

I couldn't find your list on the LA Times site.

The initial Saudi pledge was 10 million. At that point (December 29) the US pledge was 15 million.

The Saudis raised theirs to 30 million on January 6.

On January 7 the Saudies indicated that they had raised 80 million more in a telethon--above and beyond the 30 million--including 5 million from King Fahd (makes Bush's 10,000 look kinda like peanuts).

I didn't find anyting more recent in Internet.

[Twisting in the Wind]

It was on an inside page so maybe it wasn't on the internet. I can't remember the amounts. It had I think Australia first then Germany then EU, US, then all the other countries, icluding Japan and Saudi was last in the list. I thot it was just interesting that they cut the list off with Saudi, making it look like they were stingy (ier) than other developed nations.

[Cardinal Synn]

I don't really understand what it means (I too haven't been able to view the list so I'm just going by what you wrote) by "Germany then EU". Germany is a member of the EU. Did it list other member states seperately too? Do tell.

[moonraven]

Perhaps the point that you made about the list being cut off at the Saudis in order to make them look stingy would be informative to the person who yesterday on another thread insisted and insisted that the LA Times was a leftist newspaper....

[Twisting in the Wind]

Criticism Spurs Boost in Aid From Arab Nations

Despite the increase, many people in Mideast still fret that the region, flush with oil wealth, appears stingy in its tsunami relief efforts.

By Megan K. Stack
Times Staff Writer

January 5, 2005

CAIRO -- Amid a swelling debate in oil-rich Arab countries over their amount of aid to tsunami victims, several Persian Gulf governments have hurriedly fattened their cash pledges.

The increase in aid from countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates came only after a debate over whether governments were damaging their image by failing to dig deeper into their pockets.

A more esoteric discussion on Islamic websites and chat rooms focused on whether the aid effort qualified as an Islamic cause, even though the majority of those who died were Muslims.

Of an estimated 150,000 dead, about 94,000 are from Indonesia, a nation far from the Islamic heartland in the Middle East but nevertheless the world's most-populous Muslim country. Most of the others killed were in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, which have Muslim minorities.

Even after the pledges were increased, many Arabs and Muslims continued to fret that their offerings were not commensurate with the region's growing oil wealth and fed anti-Arab stereotypes. The hand-wringing mirrored American worries that the U.S. damaged its image by responding too slowly.

Analysts in the Persian Gulf said that state-run media responded sluggishly to the disaster, and that some potential contributors were concerned they might unwittingly choose charities that have been accused of funding terrorism.

The Saudi government tripled its offering to $30 million Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates increased its aid tenfold to $20 million and began airlifts of relief supplies. And Kuwait, after being blasted for stinginess on the front page of one of its prominent Sunday newspapers, upped its pledge from $2 million to $10 million.

Newspapers in Kuwait and Lebanon have been among the most outspoken critics of the Arab response.

"Caricatures of white-robed sheiks sailing their luxury yachts on seas of oil and using $100 bills to light their Havana cigars will only be reinforced in the face of collective miserliness in this hour of human need," warned an editorial in Lebanon's Daily Star. "Especially if the petroleum-rich Gulf states do not dig a bit deeper into pockets that have become quite deep indeed over the last few years of high oil prices."

The rumblings came to a head in Kuwait, where Al Qabas, a leading newspaper, published an editorial criticizing the government's offering and reminding Kuwaitis of the close ties that bind the desert nation to southern Asia.

The well-off in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries hire people from southern Asia for menial tasks they are loath to tackle themselves.

"We stepped into the modern world with them, and through them," the editorial said. "Its sons are helping today in building our country and raising our children."

After a debate in parliament, Kuwait boosted its offering, but some Kuwaitis remain mortified.

"If the tragedy was presented as a 'Muslim tragedy' you could have found a stronger response," said Waleed Nusif, editor of the paper. "Some would even go as far as saying what happened was God's wrath on people who deserved it. Unbelievable."

Fahad Kheraiji, a professor of mass communications at King Saud University in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, said he wanted the government to organize a national campaign to collect private donations.

"Everybody wants to participate," he said, "but we don't know how."

"I think the money is not enough," Kheraiji said. "Saudi Arabia has a responsibility as a Muslim country and as the largest oil-producing country."

But the government has been leery of cash contributions, he said, since Saudi charities were shut down after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to stem the flow of money to terrorists. "They're very careful when it comes to cash moving out of the country," he said.

Heba Raouf Ezzat, a political science professor at Cairo University, said these nations had no history of offering aid to non-Muslim countries.

"They are focused on religious solidarity rather than global society," she said, adding that the debate over how much to contribute was an indication that their societies were changing.

On Islamic websites and in chat rooms, the questions included: Would Muslims who died in the tsunami be considered martyrs? Is it all right to donate to tsunami victims, even though some of the goods and money could end up in the hands of nonbelievers?

"Is it permissible for us, as Muslims, to [appeal to God] for those human beings afflicted there even if those people include Muslims and non-Muslims?" asked one person who logged on to Live Fatwa, an online forum in which an Islamic scholar answered religious questions.

"There is no harm or prohibition to pray for those people who lost their lives in that natural disaster," replied Sano Koutoub Moustapha, a professor from the International Islamic University in Malaysia.

"However, your beloved Muslim brothers and sisters deserve more and more" of your prayers and appeals to God. They deserve your moral and financial assistance, he wrote.

Moustapha told the readers that money given to non-Muslims was not considered zakat, the religious tax a Muslim is obliged by the Koran to give to the needy.

"The Muslims among them fall under the category of needy people," he wrote. "As for non-Muslims, they might deserve donation or any other form of assistance," but not zakat.

It was time, he wrote, to think of Muslims.

It's a time of "Muslim solidarity, Muslim unity and compassion among Muslims," he wrote.
Copyright � 2005, The Los Angeles Times

[Twisting in the Wind]

[Twisting in the Wind]

[moonraven]

European countries have pledged separately, and the EU has alsopledged jointly.

[moonraven]

The LA Times, as are all large circulation papers in the US, is RIGHT of center.

Just as the Democratic party is RIGHT of center, and has been since 1980 when the Democrats decided they had to be on the right to compete with the popularlity of R. Reagan.

[Twisting in the Wind]

Well, thank you for that clarification, MR!

[Josh Lyman]

[Roger]

I find it more than a little disturbing that we of all people - expats, nomads, exiles - are debating who has done the most/least in terms of disaster relief for the victims of the latest tsunami. Is it our business to rank the nations???

I have seen a picture of a Saudi father with a boy donating money into a box. The picture was carried by some Chinese daily - maybe the CD, or maybe the SCMP, I forgot. Again, I think, it is individuals that donate, not nations per se; even if the king of SA or the son of a bush pledges so-and-so many million euros/yuan/rupiahs, they are doing it in the name of their country only but not with total consent from their subjects. It invariably is a PR exercise when state leaders pledge funds. When they have to justify their outlays to a parliament you can always see how they are trying to sell their pledge as benefiting their own country! The German parliament in fact was considering sending unemployed technicians and engineers to SE Asia - to make them earn their unemployment benefits.

Does religion compel leaders to commit any help to those in distress far away from home? Maybe the SA imams consider Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia as Sodom and Gomorrha and don't want to help their brethren who are too tolerant?

Finally, we had better wait until the end of this year to see who has actually released any significant amount of money, and who has merely "pledged" to do so.

[Twisting in the Wind]

I don't think, MR, that the LA Times would be considered by anybody, left, right, or neutral, to be "right of center." Most people I've talked to peg it as L of center to downright leftist, but that's neither here nor there. When I read it, I, being left of center in some issues, and very left-wing in others, do not see it as anything R of center at all. I would consider the Pasadena Star News R of Center and the Orange Cty Register a position paper for the John Birch Society, and left of those I'd place the LA Times. Well, we agree to disagree.

[Twisting in the Wind]