Hollywood Superstar Angelina Jolie!

A better human than most Muslim millionaires?

By Latheef Farook

(April 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Moved by the miserable plight of Afghan girls Hollywood super star Angelina Jolie has set up a separate school, at a cost of US dollar 75,000,to accommodate as many as 800 students.

The question which put to shame the worldwide 1.6 billion Muslims is where are the so-called Muslim millionaires and billionaires and what have they done to alleviate the pathetic plight of the Afghans who have suffered immensely in a more than 30 year war imposed on them first by the collapsed Soviet Union and now by the United States and Europe.

Isn’t this the sad reflection on the overall bankruptcy of Muslims living scattered from Indonesia in South East Asia, India Pak Sub Continent, predominantly Muslim Middle East ,Africa to Europe and United States despite their vast manpower, financial wealth and other resources? Afghan Muslims have been subjected for more than three decades to one of the worst forms of killings and atrocities ever known in human history. Despite its ancient and rich history it is today a wasteland. The question is where have the Muslim countries and the Muslims been? What have they done to save this country and protect its people?

Perhaps their conscious is dead as they have abandoned the humanitarian feelings, moral values and the great emphasis on charity and compassion taught by Islam which they claim to adhere to.

The Vulgar opulence of the ruling elite of some rich Muslim countries stretching from the Gulf to Brunei is common knowledge. Their palaces of extreme luxury built with the natural wealth of their countries their people should have benefited from, their private planes which are more like flying palaces, their gold plated toilets, extremely vulgar lifestyles and on top of all their willingness to collaborate with the crusaders against their own Muslim brothers and sisters show the low moral depths to which they have descended.

Leave alone the regimes in Muslim countries, most of them lackeys of the US, UK and France, what have the rich Muslims done to help these starving men, women, children and the aged. There are hundreds of thousands of millionaires and billionaires all over the Muslim world. They float in extreme wealth and spend lavishly on enjoyment. And not just enjoyment, what they do amounts to wanton wastage. I know of cases where in the Gulf countries seven camels would be slaughtered for a feast and the invitees would partake of a small piece from one or other of these where one or two camels would have sufficed. The rest is dumped into garbage trucks and disposed of without any qualms whatsoever. Then take the Sahans or gigantic platters of the size of a room from which food is partaken from the sides and again the rest thrown away. I also know of one case in Sri Lanka where an invitation card cost as much as Rs.750 and the wedding meal about Rs.2500 each at a time when fellow Muslims are undergoing great hardship.

How many of them have ever stopped to consider the plight of oppressed or poverty-stricken Muslim peoples? How many of them have ever thought of providing a decent meal or a piece of cloth leave alone building a school, hospital or even a hut to shelter a fellow Muslim.

Can they call themselves Muslims by any yardstick? Can they call themselves Muslims when even in the affluent west the typical Christian family thanks God for their daily bread before partaking of their meals.

Angelina, born to Hollywood actor Jon Voight and French Actress Beatrice Merchand had everything from glamour to wealth at birth. She first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia and started visiting refugee camps around the world. She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits. This humanitarian work earned her the name as a good will ambassador by the United Nations on August 27, 2001.

It was during one of these visits which took her to refugee settlements in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province in October 2008 where she was visibly moved by the stories of the sufferings of Afghan people and the pathetic plight of families who were reluctant to send their girls to mixed schools for religious or cultural reasons.

She decided to set up a girl’s school which, with its eight class rooms and four administration buildings, was opened on Monday 15 March 2010. Angelina flew all the way from the United States to Afghanistan to attend the opening ceremony of her school.

Speaking at the opening ceremony 14-year-old Laila, whose family returned to Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan in 2008, praised Jolie and the U.N. for investing money in education. She said, "I always had hopes and dreams of going to school. The hope to become a qualified teacher has revived me." Her father, Ustad, adds, "This is what we needed here and I believe there is a need for every community if we want to build the future of our country - to build schools and get education."

Earlier during a visit to Afghan refugees in Pakistan she donated one million dollars for Afghan refugees As a result of assistance rendered to their former subjects the Royal family of Swat have awarded her the honor Khanum Sahiba the equivalent of being made a lady.

And again we ask the question “Who is a better human being? A compassionate Angelina or those heartless millionaires and billionnaires who happen to be Muslims”.Ends