Business leaders must heal region's wounds

Dubai: Queen Noor of Jordan is calling on the Middle East's business leaders to take a leading role in healing the region's desperate social strife.

Speaking on Tuesday at the Leaders in Dubai business forum, the widow of the late King Husain of Jordan highlighted the plight of Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine and demanded greater corporate responsibility in promoting moderate thinking.

"The welfare of people is good for business and for developing sustainable and dynamic markets, as well as being a moral imperative. Examples of corporate social responsibility are few and far between, but they are on the rise," she said.

The author and humanitarian highlighted the region's "knowledge deficit", stressing that business can play a role in the field of education and technology, especially by increasing internet use.

"Companies can have an important impact on access to information and the exchange of ideas, which would mobilise moderate forces to become more active and assertive in opposing the extremes," she said.

During her speech, Queen Noor, who published her bestselling memoirs Leap of Faith in 2002, showed anger and frustration at the ugly conflicts plaguing parts of the Middle East.

She highlighted record civilian death tolls in Iraq last month, recent Israeli raids on Gaza and a growing feeling among Palestinian boys that suicide bombing is their only option in life.

"There's no doubt that something must change. Problems in our region are escalating at an unprecedented rate," she said.

"When I first moved to this Arab world over 30 years ago I was over-whelmed by the human suffering I saw everywhere, by the number of people who lives were touched by tragedy, poverty and powerlessness and the fact that the rest of the world appeared to know so little of it.

"The combination of political frustration, social alienation and economic disparity throughout the region created a volatile landscape which the west largely overlooked because of their single-minded focus on ensuring access to oil. I wanted to help but I wasn't sure what I could do."

Queen Noor demanded that the "compassionate majority" take a greater role in shaping the region's future and accused major international powers of focusing on military security rather than human security.

"This year global defence spending will reach $1.18 trillion, compared to approximately $60 billion on humanitarian aid," she said.

"Peace and understanding will never be won at the end of a gun. The will only be won when we can address the human realities of poverty and injustice that underlie so much of the instability that we see in our world. It's no accident that 15 of the 20 poorest countries on earth have suffered civil war during the past decade and a half," she added.