The Lesser Humans of Arabia
Hassam Gul
When the era of post-covid-19 encroached on the desert girdle in Arabia, influential Kuwaiti actress Hayat al-Fahad called for the expatriates, which makes more than half of the population in Kuwait, to be put “in the desert.” In a tone of fear-mongering, she appealed against humanity.
She spoke as if they were mistaken for lesser humans. It was an appeal that reached millions through modern communication lines. It was a message of discrimination not new to the Gulf region. It is unknown and unfair not to think whether the person intended Nazi-style concentration camps. However, one thing that is clear is that the British colonial mentality still prevails in elites' minds.
Affected by the pandemic lockdown, facing unbearable conditions, South Asian and African migrants in the GCC are neglected. In part, the GCC polity is acting against the teachings of Islam that form the basis of their identity. The migrants have a right to stay and to be integrated into society.
Today, many migrants of the Gulf region find themselves in the hotbed of infections, quarantined in labor camps due to the lack of access to a basic health-care system. They resemble a flock of forgotten orphans, awaiting the Emirati pity, Saudi’s virtuousness, and Kuwaiti idle funds. They find themselves in the rooms of camps where six-to-twelve are packed to the gills.
Religion was used as soft-power to enforce hard power — for instance, it constructed the paradigm of Al Ikhwand, militarised colonies deployed to protect the outskirts of the Nejd, and in a similar case, the Iranian revolution on the Iranian plateau, which shaped the Persian heartland to her core geopolitical potential. However, the Islamic virtues that were interpreted as a gateway to inherit exceptionalism have yet to be extended toward the migrants that filled the demands of the region, which the polity of GCC could not fill with their demographic hub that are more liabilities than assets (Kaplan, p. 261).
Historically in the case of KSA, the pro-religious bias crept into the youth, and the theme resulted in “militated [response] against producing enough Saudis well versed in science,” writes Dilip Hiro. Aramco, to this day, relies on foreign workers, starting in the early days from Egyptians and Palestinians, and other migrants (Hiro, p. 18).
The House of Saud had relied on and will continue to do so on the religious establishment for her ruling legitimacy because she had not enacted political institutes that can convey any larger political legitimacy (Kai Bird, Divided City). The family rests on the autocratic ropes with the assistance of the establishment, though how tenuous—allowing her to remain in control, but it also presents a dilemma of social change, being under the prerogatives and contestation of establishment, and under the scrutiny of international actors to the contrary, with a deep interest of the ruling family. This entrenched political nature is a valid argument for the GCC's most powerful actor to integrate migrants in the near future.
Salman Al Farsi, Suhavb Rumi, a trader, and an enslaved Ethiopian Bilal followed Islam's message and migrated. Bilal’s much-improved fortune illustrates the practicality and righteousness of the message of egalitarianism. A leading newspaper in the United States was published as ‘The Bilalian News.’ He’s a symbol of egalitarianism that has yet to overcome the prejudices found among some Arabs against outsiders. Migrants should be acknowledged. They are not only a source of cheap labor, but have also faced decades of exclusion. It is now the responsibility of GCC actors to integrate migrants into their societies.
Even before the pandemic, migrant workers were forced to accept hazardous jobs due to economic disparity brought by the forces of globalization and oil in the region. Southeast Asians and migrants from Africa continuously face integration challenges because of racism at the institutional and non-intuitional level, alienating them at the workplace. Avenues were created to be exploited by the employers, which only strengthened their hands in negotiating wages and other work conditions, such as in the Kafala system.
Ethnic discrimination in the workplace is also a condition faced by skilled workers. Arabs of the region and beyond and Western workers are paid higher salaries. This results in further social exclusion, followed by psychological exhaustion for migrants from South Asia and Africa (Marwan, p. 291). The kafala system, a form of sponsorship system in the GCC through which the migrants are monitored, needs cultural penetration that can subdue and install behavioral change. A necessity that is now underpinned by the emergence of the pandemic, which should be taken as an opportunity by social engineers to engineer a harmonious society of equality.
Women among migrants receive even lower salaries (D Jamail, 2008) than their male counterparts, facing what UN-ESCWA chief Marwan called "the triple burden of poverty, sexism, and cultural estrangement."
Migrant workers are prone to hazardous conditions, notes Marwan in his work, because health safety (OHS) regulations are not easily available, and if available, the personnel are inadequately trained, except in Saudi Arabia. This shows ill-preparedness against the possible infection in the workplace to which migrants are prone. Agricultural workers go through the same desert that many migrant workers pass through—facing psychological-entangled workplace dynamics, besides other sordid heads (Marwan, p. 294). Grand Mufti had acknowledged that migrants suffer oppression and exploitation in Saudi Arabia.
Religion is said to be integrated into the system in the region. However, it remains limited. Bernard Lewis, the prominent social scientist, argues in his thesis that religion is a handmaiden for polities to utilize and exploit in their political ambitions. Nevertheless, it could be restored to its right footings.
The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), in his Farewell Address, explained the basic religious and ethical ideals of Islam. Racial equality was one of them. It was a sermon for a society inflicted by tribal and ethnic superiority. It was a message of egalitarianism. “All humans are descended from Adam and Eve. There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a non-Arab over an Arab, and no superiority of a white person over a black person or of a black person over a white person, except on the basis of personal piety and righteousness,” said the Prophet in his last sermon. His message was aimed at upholding the notion of egalitarianism. If one were to judge, they were liable to do so on the principle of professionalism and competence.
*
Hassam Gul is a writer. His work has appeared in several publications. He is also a biotechnology scholar and a small-time entrepreneur.
*