The tsunami disaster is one of the most vivid in history. It is an event that has affected millions. What has been equally striking is the response from the international community. The immediate public expression of sorrow and sympathy for the victims changed into voluntary work, dispatch of relief goods and setting up of long-range plans to help the victims of this great disaster get back on their feet.
The initial response in our part of the world was slow. Even the media reports on the events were small compared to the major networks in Europe and America, where, as I write this, the focus is still on Southeast Asia. I received calls from many Muslims in America who said that in newspapers, on radio talk shows and even in Internet chat rooms the criticism of the Gulf states due to their tardy reaction to the crisis was appalling.
“They are taunting us,” said a Muslim physician from Los Angeles.
For a moment I too felt helpless. But not in despair, as I was getting calls from young and old inquiring about how they could help their brothers and sisters in distress. This was an exhibition of the true spirit of our people. They wanted to help not for publicity but as an act that conformed to our ideology. Then came the news of the Kingdom’s donation followed by the Tsunami Relief Telethon.
Men, women, children all came forward to give. The spirit of giving lies within our nature. And we did it without hesitation. We did it in the form of a telethon not because we wanted to publicize our donations, but because it was expedient. We had no need to call attention to our generosity. Saudi Arabia has a long history of being at the forefront of efforts to aid those in need. Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf has stated on many occasions that although we are a developing country ourselves, since the mid-1970s the Kingdom has given more than $75 billion in assistance to developing nations. That is nearly four percent of Saudi Arabia’s GNP. Internationally, many developed countries have not met the suggested target from many aid agencies of 0.7 percent of GNP in overseas development assistance. So we can hold our heads high.
I will admit that there was inertia among us in the first four or five days after the tsunami, but there was a reason for this. The closure of Islamic charities, the hounding and persecution of innocent people whose only crime was helping give aid to the needy, frightening individual donors, all created a state of numbness and confusion. The telethon was an excellent move because it gave our people the green light to give.
And yet, our effort to empty our pockets still wasn’t pleasing to some. At the time of the telethon I received a call from a journalist at the BBC. “Why are you publicizing this charity effort?” he wanted to know. “Isn’t it that in Islam the left hand should not know what the right has done?”
“You really are a strange people,” I told him. “Day in and day out your media is attacking us for lack of concern for the victims of tsunami. When we do something and let people know it, you come up with such strange remarks. You still aren’t satisfied.”
And this brings me to the point of the media. We have worked and continue to work to create the best Arabic media. However, if we don’t reach out to others in a language they understand, much of this effort becomes futile. Basically we are simply preaching to the converted.
It is time for us to invest in a modern satellite television network that reaches out to millions. We need to sponsor programs that appear on other television networks too. We do not want to re-invent the wheel. When we can, let us use what channels are available. For example, we should have welcomed foreign TV networks to cover our donation drive and see what our people were doing.
There are some who would say that such attempts at influencing global public opinion are futile — that no one cares to highlight our contributions. My response to this is that the current negative perceptions were not created overnight and we cannot resurrect our reputations in a matter of days. We must help people care about what we do by showing our goodness at the grassroots level. And since we consider helping others a matter of duty, demonstrating our continuing commitment to aiding our brothers and sisters around the world will come as a matter of course.
I would like to see Saudi Arabia start an organization similar to the Peace Corps where our young people could volunteer their time and skills in underdeveloped areas. We have many wonderful young men and women who would be pleased to share their talents with those less fortunate and it would be an important growth opportunity for our youth too. Also, as a part of the tsunami relief effort I would like the Kingdom to make a commitment to sponsor orphanages in the affected areas. There can be no greater gift than to give a child a future.
And, if everyone will forgive me, I would like to put forward a word of caution. Right now, agencies are enthusiastically counting the pledges of international aid. But last week, Barbara Stocking, the director of aid agency Oxfam urged donor countries to avoid the broken promises of previous disasters and ensure that all of the monies pledged are delivered.
“We must ensure we don’t repeat the mistakes of previous humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Liberia and elsewhere where donors have either failed to deliver the aid quickly enough, or at all, or delivered aid at the expense of other disasters,” she said.
Stocking cited the Bam earthquake in Iran a year ago when $115 million was pledged to a UN appeal but only $17.7 million was delivered. The people of Bam are still living in tents and the current, more horrifying disaster, has swept them off the front pages and into oblivion and despair. Are those women and children in Bam less deserving of aid than the tsunami victims?
While condemning the sinners I must also applaud those with enterprise in our midst. Samsung’s Chairman Kun-Hee Lee, on learning of the true extent of the tsunami damage, increased Samsung’s financial commitment to the relief effort and immediately sent out a medical team from the company’s headquarters in Korea. That medical team is already on the ground in Thailand helping relieve the misery of the tsunami survivors. I wish I could cite a Saudi organization that had made such a decisive move.
Whatever else we do by way of the tsunami relief effort we must mobilize the media to provide ongoing coverage of the events in the affected areas as they unfold. Silence in this respect is not golden. We are humbly satisfied that Arab News has played a vital role in letting the world know what we are doing in the Kingdom to help those less fortunate. We pledge to continue to provide fair, balanced and in-depth coverage of the rebuilding programs as they are launched in the devastated nations. We believe that what the world needs now is information, not deception.
