A FEW days ago, I read a story that reflects the reality in most of the Arab nations. The story was about a man who had just received his salary and was returning to his family in a crowded bus. While he was on the bus, a pickpocket managed to steal the salary from his pocket.

When the man was about to pay for the bus ticket, he realized that he didn’t have money in his pocket. The bus conductor then scolded him for boarding the bus without any money to pay for the ticket.

This was when zeal struck the thief, and he said, “Brother, I will pay for this man’s ticket”. The man smiled and said to the thief, “God bless you and many people like you, sir”. The passengers also praised the thief for his morals and conscience.

This type of thief is present in the majority of official institutions in the Arab world. In fact, they are on a rise. Indeed, many of them have reached the highest ranks, and are still owners of honor, gifts and favors, and they receive appreciation and gratitude.

This is what Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani wrote in one of his novels - “They steal your loaf, and then they give you a part from it. They then order you to thank them for their generosity”.

These people are no different from the bus thief. There are many who go out to people, bragging about the achievements that are mainly from the core of their work for which they receive salaries, while the number of poor people continues to increase because of those who rob, humiliate and push them to more need, hunger and deprivation.

In Iraq, the latest official data revealed that about $500 billion were looted during the period from 2003 to 2020, and the looters fled abroad. At the same time, the rate of the poor reached more than 40 percent. This is happening in a country that is considered as one of the richest in oil reserves and other natural resources. Iraqi officials revealed that 6,000 bogus projects costing $178 billion were implemented by successive governments over a period of 17 years.

In Lebanon, the situation is not much different. Rather, it can be said that corruption is widely prevalent. This is because everything is based on a sectarian and political quota system. Many reports have been published throughout the world regarding the fact that about $380 billion was looted by Lebanese officials. In the end, the Prime Minister Najib Mikati came out to ask the people to “bear some of it”. That man’s fortune amounts to $3.3 billion, the majority of which came from his “savviness” in the acquisition of public money. It is strange that he is negotiating with himself in order to renew the contract of one of the services that he has monopolized.

There are some Arab countries where officials looted billions of dollars and transferred them abroad. In Kuwait, it is not known how much public money was looted. We have some who took advantage of the Iraqi invasion of the country and looted money from the sovereign wallets, the management of which they were supervising from abroad. At the time, this was known as “the theft of the era”. In order to escape accountability, they gave up their Kuwaiti citizenship and obtained the nationalities of the countries where they enjoy the money they looted without any kind of accountability or supervision, and where they are not being pursued.

Stealing public money is an old custom in the Arab world. Some consider it as a “savvy” deed, and you rarely find an official who does not “splurge” or does not help corrupt people and support corruption. One of the strange things is that all those who looted from public money usually place a sign on their desks with the Quranic verse - “This is from the Grace of my Lord”.

One of them had said that Satan protested against him and said, “I am very angry with this man, I helped him in looting, and yet he does not thank me”.

These people and others bribe the guard to steal all the grapes, leaving only a few grains for the people, and they then ask to be thanked for their generosity.

As long as the Arabs believe public money is loose money, the looting will continue, and more officials will learn to steal.

Therefore, these countries will only exist when the thieves are held accountable and taken to prisons instead of being praised for paying for the bus ticket with the money stolen from the victim inside the same bus.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times