Reduced to Beggary

Had an interesting conversation with Noi today about beggars in Singapore. There are frequently beggars outside mosques - lots, for example, can be found round & about Mesjid Sultan. Noi is, rightly, dubious about who these people are and where they come from and was saying that a column in Berita Harian recently raised similar questions. She pointed out that you just don't see beggars outside mosques in Malaysia, or at least we don't. She's right (observant as ever) and that seems extraordinary given the degree of genuine need in Malaysia.

An important idea in Islam is the need to give charity open-handedly and not question the circumstances of the recipient too much. In a sense our concern is a selfish one, for the good of our souls, and since the giving of charity automatically does us good we shouldn't be overly concerned with where it's going. I like that paradoxical sense of the selfishness of charity - it's somehow more attuned to the reality of human nature and it's hard to feel superior to others when you know that, in some way, you're doing what you're doing for yourself. So we'll certainly continue to (selfishly) give, but I still find myself fascinated by the question of who the money is going to and for what real purpose. There's so much I feel I don't know about simple things in this society, just on the level of how it all works, and what people's lives are really like, the kind of people I don't know and don't get to talk to. For all its affluence Singapore is full of people on the margins - the maids, the building workers - and I sometimes think that margins are the places of deepest interest, and possibly a kind of truth, in a society.