Muhammad Al-Baladi
I RECENTLY read a news story about rich Westerners which made me think about how rich Arabs compared. I am not going to talk about Mark Zuckerberg who recently announced that he was going to donate 99 percent of his Facebook shares, valued at $45 billion, to different causes. Rather I want to focus on Bill Gates.
Gates is a staunch patron of charity projects. Lately, he donated hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a vaccine that fights AIDS, a vaccine which will end the suffering of millions of people within five years.
Rich Western people focus more on humanitarian causes and tend to give away millions to help the largest number of human beings without any discrimination or racism. On the other hand, some rich Arab people tend to focus on ostentatious displays of wealth and brag about giving away money to the poor who line up in front of their fancy villas and palaces.
Wealthy Westerners focus on education, health, poverty, scientific research, water, agriculture, development of skills and empowerment of the poor. They establish foundations to serve these causes. They want to help because they feel they are responsible and have to do something for other unprivileged human beings around the globe.
Undoubtedly, rich Arabs such as Sheikh Al-Rajhi and others are known for their loyalty to their country and generous donations to help the poor and needy in the Kingdom. But only a few rich people donate generously. Sadly, some of the sons of rich Arabs brag about their wealth with fancy cars on the streets of London and Paris or feed SR500 bills to their camels. In fact, some rich Arabs are poor because they have nothing but money.
