It’s disappointing to note that except for Pakistan and a handful of other Muslim countries, the governments of the Muslim world seem insensitive and unmoved by the enormity of Asia’s tsunami disaster. This indifference is pathetic, especially given the fact that every Muslim is obligated by his/her religion and the traditions s/he follows to do more than most in helping people in need. Allah has blessed several Arab states with immense wealth, and yet many of these states’ leaders prefer to let billions of their dollars rot in Western banks rather than reach out to those in distress.

The super-rich Saudi elite are, of course, are always willing to offer help whenever any U.S. business, such as Walt Disney, faces bankruptcy. Arabs have also invested heavily in international financial institutions. For example, the Saudi elite owns more than one-third of the shares of CitiBank. It was the rich Saudis who invested $6 billion dollars in the United States in the aftermath of September 11.

And yet the Saudi government’s wealth has done little to deepen its generosity towards those countries affected by the tsunami. The Saudi donation of $30 million and Kuwait’s $10 million seem peanuts when compared to the relief aid announced by non-Muslim countries such as Australia’s $800 million, Germany’s $700 million, Japan’s $500 million, the United States’ $350 million, Great Britain’s $96 million, Sweden’s $75 million, and Spain’s $65 million. A $24 million dollar donation by an Indian woman seems a slap in the face of Kuwait, which, despite being world’s richest per-capita country, donated less than half that amount.

It’s unfortunate that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf sheikhdoms are spending billions of dollars to support the world’s policeman merely to save their own ruling classes, while keeping the doors of their treasuries closed for the nearly-annihilated victims of the tsunami disaster. It seems wealth is dearer than the needs of humanity to these Muslim rulers and princes.

Islam also obligates Muslims to care for the thousands of orphans who have emerged from the debris in several of the affected countries. Here, too, the Muslims’ indifference is visible. While non-Muslims are making queues to adopt these orphans, the Muslim response has been hardly noticeable.

Muslim governments are not the only ones deserving of criticism, however. Donations and reconstruction aid offered by the United States seem, at face value, to be generous; one suspects, however, that the U.S. rulers have also started playing politics over the heads of the dead.

The United States has started making Napoleon Bonaparte-like statements and making political mileage out of the death and destruction caused by the tsunami. They want the Muslim world to believe that the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel’s occupation of Palestine are just and legitimate. President Bush has deputized his father, former President George Bush Sr., and former president Bill Clinton, giving them the job of diverting the attention of the American people from the Iraqi Vietnam toward the task of raising funds for the tsunami victims. This ploy is being used to diffuse the anger of an American public disenchanted by electoral irregularities and foreign invasions.

At the same time, one must note the immense contribution of another former president, Jimmy Carter, who continues his humanitarian work even today. Probably, Carter was not invited by the Bush administration to join the fundraising effort because he is opposed to the jingoistic and adventurist policies of the present U.S. rulers.

It is also painful to note that while the U.S. government is using former U.S. presidents in the appeal to collect donations for the tsunami victims, several Muslim charity groups have been excluded from the process. These banned groups, which collectively have millions of dollars in assets, collect charity for the needy. If the U.S. government is truly sympathetic to the tsunami-affected people, then it should lift the bans on the Muslim charity groups and unfreeze their accounts. These millions should then be distributed amongst the tsunami victims.