Private money in the Middle East is a very conspicuous commodity. We have a lot of rich people around. It is their right to spend their money as they wish, but for all our holier-than-thou attitudes when addressing others, we simply stick out like an odd thumb. We are known the world over for excessive spending. Not only do we verge on the vulgar; we trespass on its horrid domain.
To any person on earth, a vulgar car with tinted windows passing by will not be identified as belonging to Madonna; rather, it will be identified with a rich Arab.
Horses winning races are a luxury of our super rich. There is nothing wrong with that, but it betrays that glory in our world is a personal domain.
These days, any man worth his ill-gotten gold dinars is worthless if he does not build a spectacular shopping mall or an obscene building that advertises his wealth. Our cities are turning into a jungle of buildings that are either an insult to the aesthetics of others, or half empty shopping malls that cater to a population far smaller than the numbers on offer.
I was on a shopping spree with a friend of mine in Paris. He asked me to show him the places.
It turned out that he knew where he wanted to go without my help. At Versace, he insisted on buying a pair of trousers worth thousands from the latest collection. I tried to tell him that those trousers were made for an Italian aged twenty or so who crafted his body running around the hills of Rome and feeding on a healthy diet of olive oil rather than rice.
My gentle reminder that his portly body would look ridiculous in those trousers earned me his anger and a firm demand to the store to make it in his size (which they did not have).
Days later, I saw him parade his fat body in Spanish-style trousers that go up halfway through the belly. I will not elaborate. Meanwhile, Bill Gates goes around in clothes probably bought at Sears.
We might not have the know-how to devise a cure for AIDS, but our money surely can help.
Why is it that thousands of archaeologists and anthropologists spend years under the sun to discover our history when not a single penny came from our coffers?
Our scholars go a-begging when belly dancers are richer than the Rockefellers. A scholar working in his lab or in his library is not visible enough. Buildings are.
Even our charity lacks the decency of humility.
Funny that our religion says that for charity to be valid, your left hand should not know what your right hand did.
- Arab News Opinion 24 July 2003
