December 26 will remain a black day in the history of this world. An under-water earthquake measuring almost nine on the Richter Scale struck somewhere close to Indonesia and the consequence was a tsunami that did not spare the poor living around the coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Mankind had not witnessed a disaster of this kind that struck so many countries simultaneously. But the response of Pakistan to this regional calamity has been rather calm. Even the Muslim Ummah does not seem overtly exercised even though Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has been the worst affected.
 
The initial count down was obviously based on estimates and started with around 5,000. And it started rising by the hour, and within a week the toll crossed 150,000. And it is clear now, that the exact numbers will never be known. We all have been hearing a phrase from our childhood days that a friend in need is a friend indeed. Tsunami the tidal wave struck in the morning and the Japanese team of doctors and nurses were on their way to Indonesia and Thailand by that evening. Australian Foreign Minister declared giving seven million dollars the same day to help the victims, and its assistance has now gone over USD 800 million. International community has pledged over USD 5.5 billion. Private citizens in many countries have donated to charities to help tsunami victims, and their contributions have often exceeded what has been pledged by their governments.
 
India, despite being itself a Tsunami prey had sent more than a dozen helicopters by the same evening. British, German and some of the other European governments had followed suit.
 

Over two weeks have passed by and one cannot help wondering as to where on earth has the Muslim Ummah gone. The President of Pakistan just in passing made a brief reference to the disaster while making a speech and the government declared support of $100,000. This is the seventh nuclear state of the world, with a missile program that professes to reach thousands of miles away. And it doles out this kind of money for a disaster of this magnitude to its brotherly neighboring countries that are also SAARC members and Pakistan incidentally is the current SAARC Chairman. Pakistan can do better than this. The least we could have done during this was to send our troops to help rescue the victims and help them with the restoration efforts. Our response has always been pathetic. During the Bam earthquake in Iran, it took our army medical team almost three weeks to reach the place, despite Bam located just across Balochistan, when the British with their sniffing dogs were there within 24 hours. When will we stop playing `plot-plot' in our defense housing societies and wake up to our responsibilities as a responsible member of the world community. Or is our job confined to issuing condolence statements that are issued within minutes which are drafted by a section officer and all of which read the same. God knows as to why the media even bothers to report these statements. Or is our job and for that matter the whole of ummah confined to simply exporting jehad? And where are the Tabligis? I really wish that they would concentrate more on the humanitarian aspects of life than worrying about the length of their pyjamas.
 
What to talk of Pakistan, the oil rich Arab countries do not appear to move. They are one of the richest countries in the world. But not a single penny donated by them. These countries' rulers appear to be obsessed with 2Ws: Wealth and women. Almost each of them would have a minimum of four wives and there obviously would be a concubine running into dozens. They would be owning innumerable casinos throughout Europe and would have billions of dollars stashed in foreign banks. But when it comes to governance, their sole job appears to be kissing each others' cheeks in public. And not a penny for the poor fishermen in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.
 
According to Reuters, two weeks after the tragedy, the oil rich Gulf countries, have pledged about USD 200 million. Half of which is coming just from Kuwait.
 
It is at times like these that one cannot help saluting the people in the West. I was once in North Carolina in the United States over the Christmas Eve and one of the local television channels showed in the six o'clock news a family shivering in the cold because they were homeless and did not have proper clothes. By ten o'clock, the same television channel made a fervent appeal to stop sending them more stuff for this family as they showed two rooms full up to the roof with warm clothing and food items that had been donated to the channel by the people of Charlotte within the past four hours.
Whether Rwanda, Bosnia, Afghanistan or now the Tsunami, it is only the West and Japan that responds. Our job is confined to raising objections and demanding for more. We have our begging bowl in front of us and are willing to accept aid and grants from any country of the world for conducting our immunization programs and for proper running of our schools, and then we have the nerve to conduct nuclear tests and undertake missile launches with our own money. Bosnian women were getting raped for months and the whole Islamic world watched in silence. It was only the West that eventually rescued them. Afghanistan bled for more than ten years after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops and while the West adopted a hands-off policy, particularly after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. And all we as Afghanistan's big brother could give them was more land-mines and sub-machine guns to fight each other. We did not bother to build a single school, hospital or a bridge during the five years of the Taliban rule.
 
The West is rich but so are the oil rich Arab countries. But the West is perhaps rich because of these very values that we appear to lack. The Western charities are not run on government and US AID and EU money. Common folks on the streets donate cents and pennies and put them in boxes that children carry from door to door. The West has proven time and again that it responds to human needs any where in the world regardless of color, nationality or religious denomination. Our concern is only confined to our Muslim brothers but most of the time even that is confined to simple condolence messages: as for the remaining, behead them because they are not going to heaven anyway.
 
[Anees Jillani is a lawyer, and is the head of SPARC, a NGO involved with children’s issues in Pakistan.]