ShareEven our best writers are starting to follow the current. In the last few years, and especially the past few months, we have heard nothing from parliamentarians and officials except for a propaganda war against expats. Expat this. Expat that. Without even thinking, wherever they see a weakness in services in the country - blame it on the expats. Without studying it. Without admitting the real problems. Push the expat button - it's the right button.
Imagine a well-known respected writer suggesting to get rid of porters at the airport to adjust the demographic imbalance in Kuwait! He also suggested removing expats from the roles of imams and muezzins because they are exhausting the budget of the ministry of awqaf and Islamic affairs. May I ask how many imams and muezzins we have in the mosques? Is this really a number which will reverse the demographic imbalance and open tens of thousands of jobs for our kids?
And we should give valet parking and hospital cleaning jobs to bedoons, according to his idea. So we are not going to give it to our kids but to another stratum of expats. Excuse me! Why are you discriminating between bedoons and other expats? If you haven't given them nationality, this means they are considered expats, I'm sorry.
Of course I agree 100 percent that there is a horrible demographic imbalance. But not only in Kuwait. It is a problem which the whole Gulf is facing since we discovered and started selling petrol and became rich nations, giving citizens the option to select the jobs they like. Because none of us in the Gulf will opt to be a valet, cleaner, servant, tailor, builder, plumber, driver, maid, etc. Our wealth is a gift from God and it allowed us to build our countries, so we need workers. Nothing wrong with that. But people have taken advantage and abused the system big time to make money through human trafficking and visa trading in the millions, especially in Kuwait.
So let's talk about what's the real problem. Let's not start running after airport porters or hospital janitors. Let's talk about the millions of visas traded and hundreds of millions in dinars going into the pockets of influential people.
Thank you very much. That's enough for today. I'm sick of this topic and the hypocrisy of society.
By Badrya Darwish
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