By
ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM
Saturday
29 September 2012
According
to the general definition, expatriate is a person who has the nationality of a
country, but lives in another, usually as a guest worker. But, what does the
word expatriate mean in Gulf states and Saudi Arabia? It means a worker from an
Arab country or South East Asia. In other words a young Western English teacher
working in the Kingdom is not an expatriate, but a rocket scientist from South
East Asia is one.
Expatriates'
presence and their number in Saudi Arabia is the most talked-about subject. The
irony is that the more we complain about their number in the Kingdom, the more
expatriates we bring in. They arrive at our airports in the thousands everyday
and we, the Saudis, are the ones who are asking them to come over and we are
the ones who provide them with entry visas. So, why do we bring the expatriates
to the Kingdom at night and complain about them in the morning?
During
the economic boom in 1973, Saudi Arabia launched the biggest infrastructure
projects in the world. These projects transformed the country and made it one
of the modern states in the world. At that time, Saudi Arabia's population was
small compared to the size of the country and not enough educated young men
were there to do the amount of work needed to be done. Also, the Kingdom lacked
the know-how and technology. So, Saudi Arabia brought millions of expatriates
from different countries. Asian countries had the lion's share in the expatriate
work force. The expatriates brought with them new habits, new culture and new
food. Both the Saudis and expatriates learned from each other. As time passed,
we became accustomed to the presence of the expatriates. We see some of them
doing some work which should have been done by young Saudis. For example, there
are many jobs at restaurants that can be taken up by Saudi students as part
time jobs. But many Saudis have become used to having the expatriates do manual
jobs. As for many expatriates, they learned from the best technologies the
Kingdom brought. The Kingdom brought and is still bringing state-of-the-art
gadgets in hospitals, petrochemical plants and many other places. But, at the
end of the day, we should know that it is the expatriates who contributed the
most to the development of the country.
Many
of the expatriates enjoy being in the Kingdom and have stayed here for a pretty
long time. Many of them consider Saudi Arabia as their first home and many of
them have deep loyalty to the Kingdom. We have seen them stand by our side in
many difficult times. During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, all the
expatriates stood by our side. But, nowadays we keep hearing how dangerous the
expatriates are to our society. The expatriates are not a threat for us,
because they are here legally and we are the ones who have asked them to come
and work in the Kingdom. The real danger and real threats come from not
teaching our youths how to respect others and how to learn from them. And what
is more alarming is that we don’t teach our young ones the best work ethics. We
must show our youths the best way to do the job and not put the blame on the
expatriates.
For
me as a Saudi, I would love to see every job filled and done by a Saudi no
matter what kind of job or work it may be. The unemployment has not been caused
by the expatriates. The high unemployment among young Saudis is due to our work
ethics and habits. Our education system doesn't prepare our young ones to be
part of the work force. If we don’t teach our young men appropriate work
ethics, we will continue to rely on the expatriates even for jobs that don’t
require any experience.
There
are millions of expatriates in the Kingdom and some of them have been in this
country for many years. Many of them have spent years of their lives building
this country. Some of them have children born and raised here and all they know
is the Kingdom. They have their friends here. Some of the expatriates find it
difficult to educate their children here. Most of the expatriate children born
or raised here leave the Kingdom for university degrees, but we can take some
of them and have them pay for their education. Most of our universities teach
their subjects in English and the presence of some young expatriates is very
important to have a mix of nationalities on the campus. Medicine and
engineering colleges can take some of the expatriate students because having a
multinational and multicultural environment is healthy for the education
system. And I am sure many expatriates are willing to pay for their children's
education in the Kingdom rather than sending them away. Many of the best
schools in the world are the ones that have many nationalities among its
students. America is an example. Expatriates all over the world have a tendency
to be more serious about their education and this can have a positive influence
on our students.
We
shouldn't think of the expatriates as dangerous people or a threat to the
society. They are here to help us continue building our country and it is our
duty to prepare plans to replace expatriates with Saudis. We should plan
Saudization of various jobs without affecting our progress and development.
Complaining about the expatriates, their number and their money transfer is not
the solution.
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