Turning A Blind Eye To Poverty

Much of the publicity on poverty is focused on far away Africa, but nobody takes the time to take a closer look a few yards away from their own doorstep.

INSTEAD of walking to my office as usual, I thought I would walk a few paces down the road to help me unwind. Cars were swishing past me, some at a breakneck speed. I walked past a posh villa, past a glimmering Mercedes and past an old rubbish bin — all just less than 200 meters apart.


Instead of a cat swinging at the edge of the bin, a poor soul was hanging halfway down the rubbish dump rummaging for something worthwhile to take home. Just to my right, another man was squatting outside a shabby cafeteria, with a cigarette stub hanging from his parched lips. He looked tired, fed up and above all, hungry.

He looked at me when I passed him, but I don't think he really saw me. There was a very appetizing whiff coming from the cafe's kitchen. Then it hit me. The man, if he could not afford to eat, could at least smell the food.

My thoughts were intruded by a sharp beep behind me. I was blocking the way of the Mercedes as it was coming out of the parking lot. It accelerated to the main road in a mad rush. The irony was that the squatting POVERTY IS ALL PERVASIVE: There are people struggling to make ends meet even in affluent societies man had nowhere to go, no money to make and no one to see. He was timid, without aggression and completely harmless. The owner of the Mercedes had to keep appointments to make
money, and so he had to push a few people to do it.

In just that short walk, I saw life, on one side, hanging on the edge and on the other, flourishing. But both sides were measured by a monetary scale.

I decided to walk back to my office 10 minutes later, closely followed by a beggar. As I opened my wallet, I could still see the man rummaging the smelly bin. Why did these two men choose desperate need of money? Was it pride and humiliation?

Beggars make a living, but unlike office workers, they make a dishonest living.

Last week, an insurance company invited people for an extravaganza dinner. It was for a selected few, but the food was enough to feed all the hotel's guests. Half of the plates were half eaten and would end up in a bin the next day. Sometimes, I think the contribution of the world's wealth is distributed unevenly. Much of the publicity on poverty is focused on far away Africa, but nobody takes the time to take a closer look a few yards away from their own doorstep.

Poverty is growing in the Gulf region, but the authorities like to put up a front that everybody lives a privileged life. In Dubai, the homeless creep in the dead of the night to sleep on the roofs of office blocks. They sneak out at dawn undetected. In Oman, they sleep on construction sites. We get to hear of similar stories from other countries of the region.

It is early days yet, but the problem will become widespread if it is not checked. Expatriates are mostly blamed for this. Authorities say that laborers and failed businessmen prefer to stay in the Gulf, living in squalid conditions rather than going back home. That may be true, but the governments of the region should do something about it. Poverty is not just confined to expatriates. There are pockets of nationals living in some parts of their countries, struggling to make ends meet. Just take a drive beyond the skyscrapers and glittering malls to see the proof of this. If these are isolated cases, then it is only a matter of a few decades for it to be an irreversible phenomenon.

BY SAIEH AL-SHAIBANY