Much has been said and written about the Saudi government’s donation of $30 million to the victims of the Asian tsunami. An initial donation of $10 million was decried as too small by some critics who also lashed out at the US government for giving only $15 million to begin with. But in the first three days following the unprecedented Dec. 26 undersea earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Indonesia, neither the Kingdom nor the US was fully aware of the extent of the devastation. Once things became clearer, Saudi Arabia quickly upped its contribution threefold, pledging $30 million, while the US in the end pledged $350 million.
With millions of Indonesians, Indians and Sri Lankans living in the Kingdom, we, more than most, have many ties and links with the devastated areas; those links required us to be generous. And we were. After Saudi Television held an all-day telethon on Jan. 6 to raise money, individual Saudi donations totaled more than SR300 million — $82 million. That surpassed the total donations amounting to $70 million of four neighboring Gulf states. Still the Kingdom was attacked by some in the West for allegedly being stingy, uncaring and lacking in compassion.
They did not know or refused to acknowledge that per capita Saudi Arabia has given more money to the tsunami victims than either the United States or the United Kingdom, both much richer. For some strange reason, the oil wealth that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states enjoy seems to raise the hackles in our critics, who want to paint Gulf Arabs as good-for-nothing, corrupt, decadent and uncaring people.
But the truth is that Saudis sympathized with the plight of the tsunami victims and gave generously, many stressing that their aid was for all victims, no matter what religion they followed or what group they belonged to. Humanity overrode everything.
The fact is that many Saudis prefer anonymity when it comes to performing charity. A leading Saudi industrialist, for example, sent a planeload of aid consisting of disinfectants and detergents and asked that his name not be published. Likewise, three Saudi schoolgirls in Jeddah launched an appeal for donations of bottled drinking water to be sent to Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India. They also asked that their names not be published, wanting their charitable effort to stand on its own merit and not on the names of its organizers.
While it is true that the Kingdom and its Gulf neighbors enjoyed record surplus revenue last year because of the high price of oil, it is also true that much of the surplus is earmarked for debt repayment and investment in urgently needed infrastructure projects.
The fact remains that Saudi Arabia still provides much more direct aid to the affected Asian countries than others do; so many Sri Lankans, Indonesians and Indians work here and they regularly send most of their paychecks home. Already in the aftermath of the tsunami, recruitment agencies in Sri Lanka have reported a sharp increase in women applying for work in Saudi Arabia as maids. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries should of course be willing to offer them jobs, but we must also be careful not to take advantage of their desperation by forcing them to accept low salaries.
