How racist we are! For 50 years and they are working with us and shared building our state and we never told them thank you. Half a century, and most of them wasted their youth working. They go to work in the morning the benefit of which, regardless of its size, goes in the end to the circle of the country growth. They got married here and brought up their children here. Even their children thought that they are Kuwaitis and they in fact are Kuwaitis by birth. We would not have made these great jumps during the past 50 years without them having come to our country and shared with us building, founding and construction.

For 50 years, and they are in all government organizations as well as the private sector. Engineers, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, laborers, mechanics, university professors, teachers, typists, builders, contractors, salesmen for fruits, vegetables and clothing, technicians and consultants, even singers and saleswomen at “Souq Wajef”.

For 50 years they suffered what we have suffered and maybe more.

When the Government woke up one day and wanted to amend the population structure, it did not hammer the hands of residency traders but went straight to the expatriates and put conditions on them and on their residency, and imposed medical insurance on them. Even the insurance is of no use.

In order for one of them to live with his wife and three children, he has to bear their medical insurance and the cost of their residence which exceeds his minimum wage, although there are no limited wages for Kuwaitis and they are never limited for one day.

The Government put make-up on the eyes of the population structure, and blinded the eyes of the expatriates, who carry the full responsibility for all the mistakes of the population structure since 1980 until now.

If the government instead hammered the hands of residency traders, as it has hammered expatriates with decisions that have made the country like a nation of expatriate bachelors.

For 50 years expatriates have come and gone. They build and construct and share the work and building with us, and the general public of citizens has no idea about them except that they came looking for a dinar —as if the citizen is an angel coming from heaven and doesn’t eat or drink or look for a dinar. Didn’t we make a big fuss and our last National Assembly was dissolved over KD 50?

When we look at expatriates we say they came to eat our food and take our jobs. In spite of our Constitution guaranteeing us education and health and employment, they are those who can hardly find a job to make enough money to live until the end of the month.

For 50 years most of them heard this sentence “I am Kuwaiti…you are an expatriate…this is my country.” Racial breath. We forget that the one with the red flag in the road doing repairs for our safety and warning of dangers is an expatriate standing in the middle of the day in the sun, while we enjoy our air conditioned cars.

We forget who taught us – expats, and who started our art movement – expats, and who founded our media – expats, and who treated us – expats, and who built the high rise buildings – expats.

For 50 years, and we find it too much to tell them ‘thank you’ from the heart, thanks to every expatriate who lived in this country or who came to it, even if he did nothing except put a nail in a placard at the side of a dark road.

Note: This article was published on 20th August 2008 in Al-Anbaa and I repeat it for two reasons. First it is due and still valid for publishing. The second is that it has been published lately in the social media claimed to be by a Saudi writer named Saud Al-Baqmi. — Al-Anbaa