REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, By: Ikhwanul Kiram Mashuri

I read the above title in an online version of Al Sharq Al Awsat, a London based Saudi Arabian newspaper published on October 5, 2013 edition. Reading the original article Al Fuqara Walimatun Li-asmak Indonesiya, my feelings were mixed, between shocked, sad, touched, and also curious. Idle question emerged, is there any fish in Indonesia as greedy as it has? Then, why should the poor? Aren't they skinny? Why it's not the rich with whom perhaps more delicious because they can eat nice meals and it's regularly anyway? So, how did the poor Arabs become a fine cuisine to Indonesia's fish?

Yes, this article was indeed discussed around the fate of the poor. Precisely, the poor Arab residents of the wealthy Middle East region. They are victims of civil war in Lebanon. They now inhabit a poor region in the south of the country, between Tripoli to the Syrian border. They are poor people in Egypt who were desperate to see their state improved. Several military coups and power struggles have led to economic collapse, rising unemployment and poverty.

They are poor victims of the U.S. invasion in Iraq and its allies. Also, they are victims of protracted intergroup, ethnic, and religious conflicts. Almost every day the poor people of Iraq haunted by suicide bomb attacks. They are poor people who are victims of conflict between Syrian regime President Bashar Assad with opposition. They are now living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. They are poor Syrian people who ran out of food daily that led local clerics to justify eating cats and dog's meat. They are poor people in Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and other Arab countries.