‘Kuwaiti youths are modern, well-versed in multiple professions’
“THE Kuwaiti voices calling for Kuwait to deport the expatriates have become louder and a frenzied campaign in the social media has given weight for this call, and I wanted to highlight this issue with a simplified and far-away analysis, explaining the reasons that unfortunately forced some Kuwaiti citizens (tweeters) to advocate this call,” columnist and colonel (ret) Abdullah Al-Mesbah wrote for Al-Anba daily.
“Kuwait, since the beginning of its renaissance, was not a repellent but rather attractive country for the expatriates, it embraced many Arab and foreign nationalities to work and earn their livelihood (legally) on its giving land, starting from the sons of Yemen and all Gulf countries, through Iran, Iraq, the Levant, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and even Sudan, and the armies of Asian and African labor.
“All expatriates in general felt safe and secure and lived in harmony with the Kuwaiti people, and they guaranteed all their legal rights and decent livelihoods, and there was no kind of sensitivity or discrimination between them and the Kuwaiti people, to the point that many of them had left their countries and families and preferred to stay and settle in the State of Kuwait.
“The government is the one which sparked the war of words between the Kuwaiti people and expatriate communities, as the nucleus of strife began to appear in the early nineties of the last century when Kuwait recovered and shook off the dust of war after the hateful Iraqi invasion, and the entry of expatriates into Kuwait began from all sides and without any prior planning or study from the esteemed government, which was in light of the MPs’ preoccupation over the successive sessions of personal interests, sectarian and partisan conflicts, interrogations and muscle-flexing to settle personal accounts with the government, in turn pursued a policy of breaking the bones with the National Assembly and as such, the country found itself in state of confusion, as such the Kuwaitis were lost amid the relevant circumstances.
“The tumor of the crisis started with inflammation at the beginning of the twentyfirst century when the government started to use foreign expertise in planning and making the fateful decisions regarding the future of the Kuwaitis, there the relevant foreign advisors tailored the decisions keeping in line with their own directions. “Not just that, the government, paid these advisors huge salaries and unbelievable privileges where this happened at the expense of the Kuwaiti experiences and efficiencies which were ignored by the government in spite of there were Kuwaitis who were efficient in the legal, economic, administrative and the media fields in addition to multiple other fields required for developing the vital projects and upgrading the State of Kuwait to keep abreast with the other states which had preceded in many fields.
“The government guaranteed many semiimmediate job opportunities for expatriates without the hassle of queuing for jobs, given the fact that this was happening while the Kuwaiti graduates were kept on hold for two years or may be more waiting for a job.
Moreover, the Kuwaitis who were seeking jobs observed that those who were preferred and given priorities in recruitment were our expatriate brothers.
“It is needless to say that the Kuwaiti youth in the 21st century are not the same as they were in the 1950s and 1960s, because they have gained the experience in many fields and they have reached to an advanced level of education and have become terms of references at both the Arab and international levels.
“However, this doesn’t mean that the State of Kuwait no longer need the experienced expatriates, rather it shall need them as long as Kuwait strives for development and upgrade the level of the advanced states, but what is required shows that the experienced Kuwaitis should be taken into confidence to enable them to take the initiative when it comes to major projects, the future planning and enactment of the laws and legislation related to the Kuwaitis that shall constitute the future of the Kuwaitis at large, as the Arab proverb says ‘the people of Makkah know its geographic details more than any other people’.
“The unemployment rate among the citizens has reached an unprecedented level and many Kuwaiti families are in danger, heads of families without work and families threatened with collapse and young people eager to serve their country clash with closed government doors, and if he goes to the private sector, he clashes with an incoming official who withholds everything that would develop his performance and the realization of his ambition, and if he demands his rights, he is threatened with termination of his job.
“In conclusion, I would like here to say on behalf of all the Kuwaitis, welcome to the expatriates in your second homeland – the State of Kuwait, but everybody, should keep in mind that the priority in terms of recruitment, will be given to the Kuwaitis, because the employment is an acquired right of the Kuwaiti prior to any expatriate.”
