Christopher Davidson - After the Sheikhs - The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies

In particular they have faced great difficulties in acquiring official documentation such as birth and marriage certificates, driving licences, and passports. As a result many have never been able to access free government schooling, [575] 114. Ibid. have failed to secure government housing, and are thus obliged to pay rent on property in much the same way as expatriates. Moreover, most also fail to secure public sector employment and thus have much lower salaries, on average, than the poorest ‘full’ Kuwaiti citizens. According to a recent BBC report many of the bidoon only earn a few hundred dollars per month. [576] 115. BBC News, 18 July 2011. A number do, however, seem to acquire employment in the police or the security services, likely because unswerving loyalty in these jobs is highly valued by the state and has been set up as one possible route to naturalisation.

In 2011, the plight of the Kuwaiti bidoon seemed little better, with a Human Rights Watch report arguing that ‘For 50 years, Kuwait has dawdled in reviewing bidoon citizenship claims, while creating a straightjacket of regulations that leave them in poverty and extreme uncertainty’. Moreover, it claimed that ‘Kuwait has every resource it needs to solve this problem, but chooses to stall instead’. [577] 116. Human Rights Watch, 13 June 2011. Similarly, prominent journalists in the region have recently concluded that the bidoon have ‘… been dehumanised and rendered invisible by government policies coupled with pervasive social stigmatisation’. [578] 117. Jadaliyya , 26 March 2011. Article by Mona Kareem. Notably, the government’s new Central System for Resolving Illegal Residents’ Status — known colloquially as the ‘Bidoon Committee’ seems to have made little progress. While it has recently issued ration cards to bidoon, allowing them to receive subsidised foodstuffs via government-run cooperatives, the committee more importantly continues to reject applications for birth, marriage, and death certificates, and thus continues to prevent the bidoon from establishing any form of legal relationships in Kuwait. Moreover, according to Human Rights Watch it still regularly claims to have evidence of the bidoon’s ‘true nationalities’, although bidoon applicants have not been allowed to see this. [579] 118. Human Rights Watch, 13 June 2011. In late 2010 officials even publicly claimed that at least 42,000 bidoon in Kuwait were really Iraqi citizens and suggested that ‘[Kuwait] has possession of documents that prove their affiliation to other Arab countries, so diplomatic measures need to be taken’. [580] 119. Khaleej Times , 7 November 2010.

In February and March 2011 over one thousand bidoon reportedly took to the streets to demand better rights. Although there has since been a more broad-based Kuwaiti movement which, as discussed later in this book, opposes the current government and members of the ruling family, the bidoon protests can nonetheless still be viewed as an early Arab Spring protest. A group representing the bidoon — the Kuwaiti Bidoon Gathering — was formed, with its representatives stating that ‘… the most important right that we are asking for, and this is non-negotiable, is the right for a Kuwaiti citizenship’ and arguing that ‘…there are some basic human rights, like the right for healthcare, the right to work, the right to mobilise, the right to have identity papers, the right for education and travel’. Moreover, claiming that ‘…these are the normal and basic rights for any regular human being living anywhere’ the group has stated that its first protests were the result of ‘…the events in the Middle East inspired the young bidoon to go out and ask for their rights — the rights that were taken away from them’. [581] 120. BBC News, 18 July 2011. Interestingly, at the rallies the protestors were sighted carrying flags with swastika symbols and slogans that complained of the fascist nature of the Bidoon Committee. With the security services responding to the protests with water cannon, teargas, smoke bombs, and concussion grenades, and with dozens reportedly injured and large numbers held in custody, the situation seems likely to deteriorate further. [582] 121. Jadaliyya , 26 March 2011. Article by Mona Kareem. Indeed, the Kuwait Bidoon Gathering has hinted that the situation in Kuwait is now a ‘ticking time bomb’ and that ‘the bomb hasn’t burst yet and these are only sparks before the big explosion’. [583] 122. BBC News, 18 July 2011.

Although having received far less attention than in Kuwait, the bidoon issue is becoming increasingly significant in the UAE, where there are believed to be between 10,000 and 100,000 stateless persons, with some even living in the wealthier emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Much like in Kuwait, they have been unable to obtain key documentation or access most benefits of the welfare state. In particular they lack the vital ‘family card’ or khulsat al-qaid , which is required to prove one’s lineage. At best they have only been able to receive temporary passports — thus excluding them from employment in the public sector. Moreover, they are often publicly discriminated against and — to a great extent — stigmatised by the government. In April 2011, when — as described later — six pro-democracy activists were arrested, the UAE’s state-backed news agency kept referring in all press releases to one of their number as being a ‘person without valid documentation’. This gave the impression that he was somehow of dubious character in addition to not being a bona fide UAE national.

In an extensive report by the UAE-based Arabian Business magazine in 2009 a number of UAE bidoon were interviewed — a rare occurrence and a voice not usually heard in the country. One female interviewee claimed that she was just one of thousands living in difficult conditions, explaining that ‘when you are a bidoon you cannot do so many things. You are not expatriate or a local; you are in-between’. Although she admitted that her family were originally from Iran, she explained that they had arrived in the country — then the Trucial States — back in 1953 and had received Sharjah passports. However, after the UAE’s independence in 1971 they were only given temporary passports which were renewed every six months until 1982 when their application was denied. Many other UAE bidoon claim descent from local tribes and can trace their lineage back several generations. Indeed, the report claimed that ‘according to anecdotal evidence, nearly 50 per cent of the [UAE] bidoon’s fathers were born in the Gulf monarchies while around 30 per cent of their grandfathers were born in the region… [but] today they find themselves in no man’s land’. Speaking of this diversity, a spokesperson for Refugees International explained that ‘[a UAE bidoon] could be someone who finds themselves in that situation for a number of reasons; their family may have lived historically in the country, but for some reason was not documented or chose not to be documented at the time; it could be someone who entered the country seeking asylum… there is no one stereotypical situation; it really is a diversified community of individuals’. [584] 123. Arabian Business , 13 July 2009. Recent research has also demonstrated that some of the UAE bidoon often move back and forth between being citizens or not, with temporary passports seemingly being dispensed and then revoked at whim. Described as a ‘liminal population’ that is politically managed depending on the government’s priorities of the day, these more fortunate bidoon are still left unable to plan for any kind of future. [585] 124. Presentation by Noora Lori at the Middle East Studies Association annual conference, 4 December 2011. ‘The Political Management of Rentier Transformations, Naturalization Policy, and Liminal Populations in the UAE’. Nevertheless, regardless of their precise backgrounds or their exact passport status, all of the UAE’s current bidoon firmly claim to be Emirati, with most alluding to the fact that they, their parents, and their grandparents have never known life in another country. One interviewee simply stated ‘…my life is here; all of my close friends are Emiratis. I know more about the UAE than I know about Iran. It would be impossible for me to live anywhere else’. [586] 125. Arabian Business , 13 July 2009.