The generous virtue in vanity

The amount of wealth in the Middle East is quite visible, and when it comes to individual wealth, it is more evident than practically anywhere in the world. It translates into a disproportionate number of people driving Hummers, smoking expensive cigars, having the largest aquarium, the largest shopping mall, the most expensive hotel, the tallest this, the longest that. It is not without reason that Arabs are often associated with extravagance and bad taste. I once visited a house in Lebanon where the toilets feature faucets made of gold. Yet with so much wealth transformed into visible signs of itself, not much of it has been used to fight poverty, illiteracy and disease. In a study yet to be published, the Arab world is said to have at least 22% of its population living on less than a dollar a day. If we include the population living on less than