Abdullah Al-Mesbah, columnist and retired colonel, wrote an opinion piece for Al-Anba daily, where he provided some insight into the calls for reducing expats in the country. “The Kuwaiti voices calling for Kuwait to deport expatriates have grown louder and is backed by a frenzied campaign on social media, and I wanted to highlight this issue with a simplified and detailed analysis, explaining the reasons that has unfortunately forced some Kuwaiti citizens (tweeters) to advocate this measure.”
He said, “Kuwait, since the beginning of its independence, was not a repellent but rather an attractive country for expatriates, embracing many Arab and foreign nationalities by allowing them 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, secure and lived in harmony with the Kuwaiti people, and they were guaranteed all their legal rights and decent livelihoods, and there was no show of discrimination against them by the Kuwaiti people, to the point that many of them had left their countries, and preferred to stay and settle in the State of Kuwait.
Outlining the modern reasons for the sudden campaign against expats settling in kuwait, Al-Mesbah said, “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.”
“This was in light of the MPs’ preoccupation over the successive sessions dealing with personal interests, sectarian and partisan conflicts, interrogations and muscle-flexing to settle personal accounts with the government, who in turn pursued a policy of exchanging barbs with the National Assembly and as such, the country found itself in state of confusion, as such the Kuwaitis were lost amid the disagreement.
“The flames of the crisis was fanned at the beginning of the twenty-first century when the government started to use foreign expertise in planning while making the fateful decisions regarding the future of the Kuwaitis.”
“The foreign advisors tailored the decisions in line with their own views. Not just that, the government, paid these advisors huge salaries and unbelievable privileges at the expense of Kuwaiti professionals with experience and technical-ability, which were ignored by the government.”
He added, “This was in spite of there being Kuwaitis who were efficient in the legal, economic, administrative and the media fields as well as multiple other professions required for developing the vital projects and upgrading the State of Kuwait to keep abreast with the other states which had advanced in many fields.
“The government guaranteed many semi skilled e job opportunities for expatriates without the hassle of queuing for jobs, this was happening while Kuwaiti graduates were forced to wait for two years or more for a job. Moreover, the Kuwaitis who were seeking jobs observed that those given preference and priority in recruitment were expatriates.”
Speaking highly of the present day Kuwaiti youth, Al-Mesbah stated, “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 experience in many fields, and they have reached to advance their education at the highest level to 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, 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 ahead to any expatriate.”