After it became known that an Arab businessman, Khalaf Al Habtoor, donated close to $1 million to Illinois College, a caller to the Journal Courier’s Open Line objected: “I am in shock that Illinois College would take this gift from this person and this country. You just lost my respect.”
Why did the writer have to use the anonymity of the Open Line to hide his identity? Was he ashamed of his bigotry? He obviously has never been in “this country,” the United Arab Emirates (UAE), nor has he tried to inquire about “this person,” the founder and chairman of the highly successful Al Habtoor Group, a leading Arab business house with strong international ties.
In the past four decades, the UAE has used its petroleum resources to build a prosperous modern economy with an annual per capita gross domestic product of $34,000 for its 4.6 million inhabitants. Only 32 percent of them are Arabs. During my stay in the UAR, I had an opportunity to get a glimpse of the country’s dazzling commercial development. Presently, $350 billion worth of active construction projects, an expanding manufacturing base, and a thriving services sector are making the UAE’s economy a shining example for other Arab societies to emulate.
One of the leading contributors to the UAE’s ambitious advance in capitalism is the same Khalaf Al Habtoor who is willing to share a small portion of his affluence with Illinois College. Mr. Habtoor was a building engineer in 1970 when he decided to develop a business of his own. Gradually he branched out from engineering into automobile sales, real estate, hotel management, catering, and, last not least, into education.
In 1975 he founded Al Ittihad Private School in Dubai city. Half of the over 1,000 students in grades K to 12 and some of its teachers come from non-Arab families. In 1991 Habtoot launched the first of the Emirates’ 10 International Schools where 2,000 students from some 80 countries may earn diplomas and bachelor degrees.
In addition to his business responsibilities, Habtoor has served on the Emirates’ National Council, as chairman of the Commercial Bank of Dubai, and as board member of Dubai’s Chamber of Commerce. He also served as executive board member of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and was, from 1994 to 1997, the only foreigner on the World Board of Governors of the American United Services Organization. The American Medical Association made him an honorary member in recognition of his contribution to the establishment of the Association’s “Arab Cultural and Medical Awards.”
Since 1993 Habtoor has published, in English and Arabic, the magazine Al Shindagah. It mainly addresses the challenges of the Middle East and reflects his maxim, “The best way to predict the future is to create it,”
It is shocking indeed that anybody would criticize Illinois College for accepting a major donation from an Arab businessman who stands essentially for the same values that drive free enterprise in America. Regrettably, the terrorist assaults by political extremists and Muslim zealots from Arab societies upon American targets have given new impulses to Arabophobia in our country.
The neoconservative bigots, however, who have been claiming that Arabs need civilizing and are barely capable of running their own countries without American supervision differ very little from the colonialists who first forced Arab societies under their yoke. In primitive popular imagination, “the Arab” stereotype again plays the role of duplicitous villain, oppressor of women, rioting stone-thrower, or fanatical suicide bomber.
Arab leaders such as Khalaf Al Habtoor are keenly aware of the immense human rights problems and the seemingly intractable political and economic challenges that the Arab world faces. That is a major reason why they want and seek the benefits of improved relations with the United States and are eager to build more bridges, in word and deed, between their culture and ours.