Editorial: An example to follow

Thursday, Jan. 6, 2005 | 9:13 a.m.

In this day and age of spoiled athletes, it's refreshing to see Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher donate $10 million to aid victims of the Asian tsunami. Part of this is personal for Schumacher because one of his bodyguards was killed in Thailand by the disaster. Nonetheless, Schumacher, who made $80 million last year and donated more than $1 million in November to UNESCO for children in need, is known for his philanthropy. It's too bad that we can't say something similarly nice about oil-rich Arab countries, which have close ties to the devastated nations but have been miserly in their donations. While some of the countries ravaged by the tsunami have Muslim minorities (Sri Lanka, India and Thailand), the hardest hit, Indonesia, has the greatest population of Muslims in the world, making the Arab apathy even more telling.

A case in point is Kuwait. As The New York Times noted in a story this week, Kuwait is awash in money -- it has a budget surplus of $10 billion this year -- and many of the country's 1.3 million foreign workers come from the areas devastated by the tsunami. It was only after criticism by Kuwaitis that Kuwait's government announced on Sunday that it would donate $10 million to relief efforts, increasing its previous commitment, which was a paltry $2 million. Other Arab countries have increased their contributions following the rebukes, including Saudi Arabia, which upped its donation from $10 million to $30 million. Even with this increased financial support, there is criticism by Arabs that their governments still aren't doing enough, and we couldn't agree more.