Politics of Saudi Street Art

Prior to the Arab uprisings, street art in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was seen as a funky, yet westernized, form of expression. Over the past two years, street art has become the new wave of expression, after photography and graphic design became too popular. There is a certain power to this emerging phenomenon as it gives visibility to certain issues and shows discontent among the youth.

In Kuwait, street art targets issues of undocumented migrants and gender tensions, but there’s also plenty apolitical, individualistic works. In Saudi Arabia, pictures of street art circulate and are feverishly documented before they are erased by the state.

The works in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were clearly influenced by Egyptian street artists. The figure of Sad Panda, for example, appears inJeddah. The images of celebrities are used to send messages, most famously Um Kulthoum as a feminist figure. A few years ago in Beirut, the Mashrou’ Leila singer did the widely-known Um Kulthoum “Boos al-wawa” graffiti. Similar depictions of Um Kulthoum illustrated the clash between eras.

The Untold Stories of Kuwait's Palestinian Refugees

Samah Hijawi and Diala Khasawnih – A Journey

As Kuwait was being ‘liberated’ in 1991, angry nationalist ghosts were hunting Palestinians and Iraqis. The United Nations went searching in police stations, though they forgot to search the basements of schools. Alongside the scores of individuals tortured and murdered during the Kuwaiti invasion and the Second Gulf War was the displacement of thousands of Palestinians. In the smallest houses rented by Palestinians in every Kuwaiti neighbourhood, cars were seen loaded with bags and possessions. Mass deportations happened not only after Kuwait’s liberation, but also during the first months of the Iraqi occupation. As a result, many decided to flee in fear of the coming war. They were never welcomed back, nor were their stories seen as deserving to be told.

Raids on Gulf Migrants: Pictures and Thoughts

In the western Yemeni town of Haradh, on the border with Saudi Arabia, Ethiopian migrants sleep out in the open near a transit center where they wait to be repatriated. Source: Reuters.

In the past few weeks, 200,000 undocumented immigrants were deported from Saudi. Arrested in raids, left to sleep in the open air, piled in front of migration offices, and shown every kind of discrimination and abuse, those immigrants continue to be deported by the country that is home to King Abdullah’s Interfaith Dialogue Center.

Simultaneously, Kuwait follows its “big sister,” deporting hundreds in the past few weeks. Pictures of those migrants are taken without their permission, while policemen pose proudly as they fulfill their national duties. Racism is a living legacy in the Gulf, softened by Western powers and overlooked by media that would prefer to cover the story of a handsome man being deported from Saudi rather than those of the tens of thousands deported.

* Continue reading this article in AlAkhbar

Egyptian Men: The New Savages?

Since the first days of the Egyptian revolution, sexual harassment was a focus for Western media. Although the issue is important, it was dismissed and denied for a long time in Egypt. Yet a lot has happened since last year, with more activism and work being done in that regard. Egypt finally acknowledges the existence of this phenomenon and the denial of the state is no longer effective as women go on TV and narrate their stories as victims of harassment or rape.

When it comes to Egyptian women, the state often blames them for the sexual violence. They are asked to fit the mold of an “ideal” woman, one removed from public and political spaces. When football Ultras were protesting against the military junta, they segregated women from men and commanded women not to smoke cigarettes. Those football Ultras, who are foolishly called “the revolutionary army,” represent just one of the macho faces of society.

With foreign women living in and visiting Egypt, the equation differs to some extent. Egypt is now not only promoted as a country that provides zero security for tourists, but also as a misogynist space. The 99 percent figure keeps coming up in the conversation on sexual harassment in Egyptian streets. This is a street-phenomenon that keeps growing as the state ignores it and blames it on women. It is also a complicated performance of masculinity. 

Arab is Not the New Black

Having lived in upstate New York for the past two years, racial discrimination has become the center of my life. Back in Kuwait, the discrimination I faced as a stateless individual was harsh, but different. In the US, I’m either discriminated against for looking like a Latina, meaning “an immigrant who is taking THEIR jobs,” or as an Arab and Muslim, meaning a potential terrorist or a victimized brown woman who escaped hell.

In Kuwait, legal procedures were my nightmare, but I faced stereotypes, rejections, and police harassment. I’ve written before about the legal and everyday discrimination that a stateless person faces in Kuwait, so my aim here is to focus on my recent experiences in New York.

For the first part of my residency as a student here, I tried to escape the labels imposed upon me. However, after several incidents of discrimination in public places, sometimes by police, I felt I was forced into those labels. Here, I am not stateless or Kuwaiti or just an Arab Muslim. Most importantly, I am an immigrant woman of color. This is the reality for me, and I can only negotiate within this frame. Accepting this reality has helped me see through tensions around me.

Remembering the Stateless Women

Writing this post on the International Women’s Day, I thought of speaking about stateless women. I feel obligated to make the disclaimer that those ‘international days’ are indeed problematic to practice as they further ‘other’ all those ‘celebrated’ groups. In other words: Why would we discuss women issues and celebrate their struggle, if we do so every day?

Those days highlight the irony of our realities in relation to gender issues. However, I will use this ‘ritual day’ to speak of stateless women. By stateless women, I do not only mean women I grew up around as a stateless person from Kuwait, but also other stateless women around the world. This includes Kurdish and Palestinian women in the region, and also women in refugee camps around the world.

Around the Arab world, the middle class women leading women rights movements are still obsessed with integrating themselves into the body of citizenhood. Considering how most of women rights movements started with fighting for voting rights, women issues have been centered on the system and regulations.

Sexual Violence in Egypt: Can Men Protect Us?

This is an anti-sexual harassment artwork made by Egyptian graffiti artist Ganzeer. The artwork represents a typical male narrative of sexual violence. The sentence reads: “Are you a man or an assaulting animal?”

Many of the so-called revolutionaries thought it was not the right time to talk about gender equality, that women gain rights as the political struggle proceeds, and that the gender-related issues raised are pushed by western-liberal propaganda. Many times, I thought the incidents of sexual harassment in Egypt were exaggerated or too few.

When I first read reports on ‘gang rape’ in Tahrir square last year, I dismissed them thinking they are only rumors by the many weird Egyptian websites and ‘yellow newspapers.’ In the past few months though, Egyptian women screamed loudly enough to mobilize themselves and others around the world to protest sexual violence.

Last year, the anti-sexual harassment march was attacked in Cairo and it was discouraging to organize another one. This year, harassment is no longer the appropriate word because it is rightly replaced with sexual violence as we see videos of gang rapes happening on the margins of massive marches.

Weeks ago, Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas tweeted a scene of Egyptian women getting searched before entering the book fair. Many of them turned in knives; a scene that tells us about the kind of reality Egyptian women have adapted themselves to. Shortly after, we saw women marching with knives in Cairo threatening to play the game of violence if necessary.

Targeted by Kuwaiti Police, Stateless Video Blogger Calls it Quits

A video blogger known for documenting violence against stateless protesters in Kuwait has quit, writing on Twitter that authorities beat and coerced him to do so.

Under the nickname “حمقان البدون” meaning the “Angry Bedoon“, (Arabic for stateless), the blogger made a name for himself in his community for using footage of violence by riot police against stateless protesters to make videos on YouTube subtitled in English. Many of his videos were used by TV channels, being the only footage available documenting violence against stateless protesters.

His story was first reported by Alaan online newspaper with the title “The Bedoon's Minister of Information Resigns.” The move comes nearly three months after the arrest of activist Abdulhakim al-Fadhli, who is currently on hunger strike.  Al-Fadli has been sentenced to two years in jail for using Twitter to organize and mobilize protests.

* Continue reading here

Nudity as an Intervention

Since Alia al-Mahdi stripped off in the Swedish winter to protest the sexist laws of the new Egyptian constitution, the debate over nudity and feminism has not stopped. There are two main camps critical of Alia’s acts for different reasons. Those in favor of conformance with social norms do not have to think twice before labeling her a whore for not dealing with her body the way she is supposed to, while the other opinion labels her a neo-liberal feminist, especially after she became a member of the FEMEN group. The smallest camp, though, can be described as the typical self-hating Arab liberal who praise any controversy that can provoke our backward-sexist-beast societies.

When Alia first posted naked pictures of herself on her blog last year, the visitor-counter did not stop ticking. Having written about the reactions to her pictures, I received tens of disgusting messages from Egyptian men, as if I were Alia herself. When she showed up in front of the embassy in Stockholm, her message, this time, included a context that was lacking in her past controversies. What triggers me to write this is the after-debate that is raging on one of the extremes.

First, we might want to look at the reactions to Alia’s naked photos last year and her subsequent naked protest. I see a person like Alia normalizing an individual and personal practice (whether we agree or disagree) by breaking a taboo. Last year, the mainstream spoke of Alia for weeks and attacks against her continued. The reactions were less tense this time, not because she was less controversial but because the taboo is being challenged continuously. Last year, “the elite” criticized Alia for defaming the image of the Egyptian revolution. There was this sense of a Utopia from which they wanted to expel a woman for her form of expression.

I do believe that what FEMEN does can promote Islamophobia among other things. This is where having a world-wide feminist movement becomes problematic because one act is being imposed upon different contexts. In the Ukrainian example, FEMEN came radically to overturn the sexualized and objectified image of the Ukrainian woman who is portrayed in the mainstream as a whore. The group is growing worldwide and targets all religions for their sexist and homophobic views. In Alia’s case, thousands were protesting near Mursi’s palace in Cairo when she decided to pose naked in front of the embassy in Stockholm. Alia drew attention to what she cares about: women’s rights in the new constitution.

Feminist voices of different ideologies, just like the voices of minorities, have been subdued since the revolution. They have been considered secondary in priority because what matters most is achieving justice against the criminals of Mubarak, SCAF, and now the Ikhwan. The unquestioning nobility of this goal is used to silence others. It is fine to disagree and criticize Alia but it is not fine to exclude her from this entity called ‘the revolution.’ A young woman like her took part in the revolution believing it would bring greater gender equality. She and her boyfriend, the blogger Kareem Amer, posted a video after the revolution challenging public space by being intimate openly in a park. A person’s need from the revolution might not be focused on an individual need, but this should not criminalize the importance of interventions made by those who care for their personal freedoms. Both discussions should enrich a post-revolution project.

Alia’s choice would not be my own. Alia can be used by western media and liberal feminism for political propaganda. FEMEN’s attacks on Islam are outrageous as they target a religion of minorities in Europe, which faces hate speech every day. Yet, Alia is making an intervention for women’s rights in Egypt and for personal freedoms to be considered part of the discussion, regardless of form and content. Whether her intervention will create space for women or not, her acts do not need not be suppressed and labeled as the acts of a traitor, “the native informant,” or the ‘feminist whore.”

The Myth of Kuwaiti Democracy

Kuwaiti activist arrested in a Bedoon protest

“We just want to be like Kuwait” is a sentence that one might often hear from people of the Gulf – specifically Saudis and Bahrainis. The sentence reflects either their desire for greater individual freedoms or to be able to express themselves freely in politics. In the 1960s and '70s, Kuwait was one of the centers of the Arab world in hosting politicians, intellectuals, and a dominant, powerful progressive opposition – a place where movements of all kinds were active in demanding change and greater freedoms. Kuwaiti women were involved in sports, the arts, and politics decades before their counterparts in the rest of the Arab Gulf. It is for all these factors that Kuwait has been referred to as the only democracy in the Gulf – factors that have disappeared in the past three decades.

In the 1980s, supporting political Islam was the government’s response to counter the dominance of leftist movements. The game did not succeed at the beginning, but it surely did after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The stance of Arab regimes and Arab leftists in support of Saddam’s invasion was the bullet that killed leftism in Kuwait. A new page was turned and the political map was dominated by the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), Salafis, old-money conservatives, tribes, and liberals (as the alternative to leftists).

Right now, the political map in Kuwait is confusing and points to a state totally dominated by the government since the constitutional court dissolved the parliament last June. The country is waiting for the reinstalled 2009 parliament to be dissolved by the emir and for new elections to take place. All of this comes after last February’s victory by the Islamist-Conservative majority. The Arab Spring is definitely having an impact on Kuwait; on political citizens and on the stateless (Bedoon) community.

All this time, authorities in Kuwait have been trying to fabricate proof against anyone political in Kuwait. It has been trying to conceal its violations against the stateless and migrant workers. It has been silent towards all those online users sentenced to jail for criticizing authorities or expressing their views toward religion. Why? Simply because the country does not want its ‘democracy’ to die; at least not in front of the world.

All those violated in Kuwait have been paying the price for this dead myth; the councilors of Kuwait keep warning of the perils of letting this myth die. Kuwait does not receive the criticism it deserves, not only because it ‘pays’ to stave off attention, but because violations and conditions across the Gulf are comparatively worse and well-publicized, especially in the media. But there is no Kuwaiti democracy; tear gas and shotguns have already arrived and are in use!

How can there be a Kuwaiti democracy when the country gives money to the regimes of Bahrain and Jordan without parliamentary approval? How can there be a Kuwaiti democracy when the parliament is dissolved and frozen at whim? How can there be a Kuwaiti democracy when protesting is continuously criminalized by the state despite all constitutional rights? How can there be a Kuwaiti democracy when women are still unequal to men despite having obtained their political rights and being publicly elected? How can there be a democracy when the stateless (Bedoon) of Kuwait are always illegally arrested, interrogated, tortured, and threatened? How can there be a Kuwaiti democracy when migrant workers are beaten, tortured, insulted and raped without legal recourse to protect themselves?

On Tuesday, a Bedoon protester was shot in the eye. Let’s open our eyes to the real state of Kuwaiti democracy.

* Published in Al-Akhbar

Whose Refugees Matter More?

In my previous post, I wrote about the recent meeting of the United Nation’s Human Rights Council about Bahrain. Recommendations “demanded” Bahrain to stop its systematic violations that include killing protesters, arresting hundreds, torture cases, and many other things. Will Bahrain take the recommendations seriously? If not, will the United Nations put sanctions on Bahrain? Will it send observers to Bahrain? Will it discuss any kind of intervention? The answer is: of course not!

It is no surprise that the United Nations with all its bodies has brought nothing but disappointment to the Arab world, but when it comes to the regimes of the Gulf and their practices, the story is even worse. Another establishment of the United Nations that should be looked at is the UNHCR – or the UN Refugees Agency. If you are constantly following up the statements made by the agency’s representatives, you will not be surprised to know how double their standards are. In Syria, for decades, the Agency did not bother to fight for the Kurdish community, stating that they would rather work in Syria according to the regime’s rules than lose their place in the country and thus be unable to help other refugees.

Similar statements were made in all the interviews with the Agency’s representatives in Kuwait. Although the agency includes the stateless (Bedoon) community in Kuwait under the umbrella of refugees, the agency offers no help to them and makes no comments on Kuwait’s continuous violations against them. A few days ago, Hanan Hamdan, the head of the Agency’s office in Kuwait, enraged the Bedoon by stating: “Naturalization of Bedoon is a decision up to Kuwaiti authorities.” She also suggested that Kuwait should organize a conference to speak about its “leading experience” in dealing with the issue of statelessness; surely she wasn’t referring to the state’s experience in arresting more than 200 protesters, torture cases, and denying Bedoon their rights to documents, health care, employment, and education. The meeting covered by Kuwaiti press showed Hamdan with Saleh al-Fidala; the man assigned by the Kuwaiti government to solve the issues of Bedoon despite his being openly racist against the stateless community.

This meeting and Hamdan’s statement came right after Kuwait’s donationof a million dollars to Syrian refugees. Certainly, no Bedoon or Kuwaiti objects to the offering of aid to Syrian refugees, especially after seeing their government, in the absence of a parliament, give billions to the regimes of Bahrain, Jordan, and Oman a couple of weeks ago. The objection comes to the policies of the United Nations establishment that cares more about keeping donations from Gulf regimes coming by complimenting their “brilliant” plans in dealing with statelessness!

Shortly after that scandalous meeting, three international human rights organizations published a letter addressed to the Emir of Kuwait calling him to grant rights to the Bedoon community. The statement confirmed that Kuwait hasn’t fulfilled any of its promises made to international committees regarding the issue of Bedoon. It also states that Bedoon are facing continuous abuse and discrimination and are denied their basic rights, documents, and deserved naturalization.

So what should we expect from UN bodies in the Gulf? Well, nothing really. As long as Gulf regimes keep throwing money at them, we will never see them standing clearly against the violations of their donors. The better option is not to expect much of them and to, instead, keep unveiling their hypocrisy.

* published in AlAkhbar

The YouTube Salvation

Last week, many Kuwaitis were either shocked or thrilled by a YouTube video showing a group of young actors getting attacked by some unknown man. The video was uploaded anonymously but since state security men dress casually, people interpreted the video as being footage of a man from Kuwait’s interior ministry attacking the actors for their brave (or off-limits, as some find it) critique of socio-political issues in Kuwait.

Those who are xenophobic and/or in favor of playing the role of “morality police” were happy to believe that those young men were put out of action, while those in favor of free speech were highly disappointed. The latter found the video as evidence of how the government intimidates people for being openly and constructively critical of issues such as racism and corruption. It turns out the video was in fact just staged by the group to generate reactions. 

* Continue reading this post in Al-Akhbar

An Invisible Nation: The Gulf’s Stateless Communities

Image from I. Piccioni-A. Tiso/Molo7 Photo Agency

The issue of statelessness in the Gulf is as old as the post-colonial oil states from which they are actively being excluded. Until the 1980s, the status of the Bedoon was not seen as a political issue, with the fledgling governments more concerned with state building functions than with further limiting citizenship rights. The oil bust of the 1980s, however, strained the budgets of the Gulf regimes, who responded by constraining social services and restricting citizenship laws. The brunt of these restrictions largely fell on the stateless population—and in some Gulf states on migrant workers as well—who had been allowed health care and public education. Their intent was to force those seeking Gulf citizenship—particularly the Bedoon—to leave and start their lives as citizens elsewhere. These restrictions only served to exacerbate the numbers of stateless subjects, as few opted to abandon their family ties and communities or their geographic attachments in search for a new home country.

The 2010 UNCHR statistical book maintains that there are seventy thousand stateless subjects in the Saudi kingdom alone. This surely excludes hundreds of thousands of Mawaleed, a category which includes both those who are born in the country to foreign parents and those children of Saudi women from foreign fathers. In both cases, there is rarely any activism or reporting on statelessness in Saudi Arabia. It is believed that the seventy thousand includes families living in remote areas who are either unaware of documentation procedures or do not care to be registered in the system.

In Bahrain, considering the politicization of naturalization, the oppressed Shia majority understandably opposes the idea of granting citizenship. In the past decade, stateless Bahrainis and “mercenaries” have been naturalized as the state has sought to shift the demographic balance. Bahraini opposition claims that the regime has naturalized up to 120,000 but there are no official numbers. Those naturalized stateless persons are believed to be residents of Bahrain for two generations or children of Bahraini women who are married to foreigners. The “mercenaries” were naturalized after being brought from Yemen, Syria, Pakistan and other countries to work in security forces. The 1994-2001 popular uprising had resulted in the repeal of the State Security Law and the reestablishment of constitutional rule under the new monarch, thus limiting state power. In response, the Prime Minister expanded political naturalization in an attempt to change the demographics of Bahrain to weaken the Shia majority. He felt that he was becoming powerless and, with the support of Saudi Arabia, led the push for naturalization to further strengthen his role through the police and army. Resultantly, the current number of stateless persons in Bahrain does not exceed two thousand, most of whom are children of Bahraini women.

While the struggles of stateless communities in other Gulf countries remain largely undocumented, Qatar presents a slightly different case. Several reports were released for the first time earlier this year about the stateless population there, estimated at three thousand people who belong to one or two tribes. The reports provide accounts from a number of the Bedoon about their living conditions and in which they contrast the Bedoon’s struggle to the ease with which athletes are naturalized in return for their services. The numbers are comparatively smaller but again, little is known about their plight. Few Qatari Bedoon are politically active online and there are no statistics, official or otherwise, on the number of children of Qatari mothers who have not been naturalized. The reports’ criticism centers around Qatar’s increasing role and intervention in regional politics when the small state should be dealing with its own internal problems, including its major violations of human rights against migrant workers and its stateless community.

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates present the most interesting cases of statelessness in the Gulf. Kuwait has approximately 120,000 Bedoon, the vast majority of whom belong to Arab tribes that had settled in the desert prior to independence. Kuwait does not grant women the right to pass citizenship on to their children, which has greatly exacerbated the problem of statelessness, since many Kuwaiti women have and continue to marry Bedoon men. Instead of attempting to assuage the increasing tension with and the struggles of the Bedoon population, Kuwaiti authorities issued a secret decision in 1986 to gradually strip this community of all its rights. Denied any form of official documentation in the 1990s, the Bedoon lost all access to formal employment, health care, and education.

In 2008, the Bedoon in Kuwait began to organize politically for the first time (following the lead of activists in the United Kingdom—notably, Mohammed Waly Al-Enizi—and in Canada), and have become increasingly active. They started with sit-ins, but participation was low and they were met with significant opposition from the police. With the failure of organized sit-ins, Bedoon activists turned to awareness campaigns about the plight of their community. They started to sponsor lectures that educated Kuwaiti society and media about the Bedoon, focusing on first dismantling all the existing stereotypes on those who are stateless and shedding light on the forms of discrimination they face. It was not until the 2011 uprisings, however, that things really began to change. Bedoon protests started in February 2011. Tens of Bedoon activists have subsequently been arrested, with some tortured, released, tried, and then acquitted. Kuwaiti authorities have responded recklessly, without any sense of direction or long-term plan. On the one hand, they made big promises to the Bedoon in order to diffuse the tension when their protests garnered significant media attention. On the other hand, they violently cracked down on protesters when the media was preoccupied with other things. Bedoon protests are ongoing nonetheless. They are mostly organized in reaction to official statements and the arrest of activists, or to bring attention to their plight. The protests often take advantage of political opportunities and openings, when the country is going through a political crisis such as the latest court decision to dissolve the parliament for being unconstitutional. The Bedoon have achieved little by way of legal gains. Yet, Kuwaiti society is finally getting to know the reality of Bedoon life and suffering and some Kuwaitis are starting to extend their support. Kuwaiti “Group 29” was able to secure one hundred seats for the highest ranking Bedoon students after having a daily sit-in in front of Kuwait University’s admission office last month.

The struggle of the Bedoon in the United Arab Emirates has recently emerged from the political unrest of the Arab Spring. Until last year, the United Arab Emirates had not only successfully managed to block any information about its stateless communities, but was also actively engaged in removing the Bedoon from their homeland. UAE authorities bought passports from the Comoros and gave its stateless community an ultimatum: either accept these new citizenships, or become illegal residents and detained. Surely this inspired their Kuwaiti counterparts who instead purchased Eritrean, Dominican, and Albanian passports. The United Arab Emirates provides no official statistics on its stateless community but according to a report in the Emirati English-language newspaper The National, they numbered about one hundred thousand four years ago. The actual population is likely double this number, without even including the thousands of children of Emirati mothers who are denied passing citizenship to their children. While the United Arab Emirates has recently claimed to have issued a decision to allow female citizens to pass citizenship to their children, in reality, committees were formed to examine their cases on an individual basis.

In the past few years, when communicating online with stateless men from the United Arab Emirates, I was surprised by how terrified they were of speaking about statelessness or even telling me that they are stateless. Some Emirati artists and bloggers do not openly admit that they are stateless for fear of both being judged according to society’s stereotypes against them and being arrested. Their fears are justified, given that the UAE authorities recently revoked Bedoon activist Ahmed Abdalkhaleq’s travelling document, gave him a Comoros passport instead, and exiled him to Thailand. Abdalkhaeq was one of the UAE5 who were arrested last year for demanding reforms. According to The Economist, he also runs a website about the stateless community in his country. So far, the wave of political arrests in the United Arab Emirates has cost the community fourteen members and stripped several of them of their nationalities.

In Kuwait, there are many blogs and forums that allow the Bedoon to speak of their cause. This year alone witnessed the rise of Kuwaiti activists devoted to the Bedoon, their protests, and their rights. The cyber world, however, seems to have no place for the Emirati activists, who are much more fearful of their security regime. However, just the way the UAE5 encouraged others to speak up, Abdelkhaleq seems to be the one who will set up the way for his community to be active and speak out. Abdelkhaleq is one of the UAE5, but he had received little media attention until his detention and subsequent deportation.

Despite all differences, with Saudi Arabia being the most extreme model and Kuwait being the least oppressive example, the Gulf countries look very much alike in their failed policies when dealing with statelessness. This is a region with corrupt and oppressive authoritarian regimes committing political and economic suicide by refusing to heed calls for change. This invisible nation of stateless communities residing in and around the Gulf is becoming increasingly outspoken. Oppression, forged passports, and exile are all methods that do not seem to work with the Gulf’s stateless community, especially when we consider how thousands of young women and men are denied basic rights and have no means to leave their countries. The Gulf states, with the exception of Bahrain, have so far been able to portray their countries as less in crisis than the rest of the Arab region and thus to hide their internal problems from the light of day. This status quo will not long remain, as minorities and communities like the Bedoon continue to mobilize.

* Published in Jadaliyya

Exile is Not the Answer to Statelessness!

A year ago, many Bedoon activists wouldn’t have been able to answer questions about the status of their counterparts in the United Arab Emirates due to a media blackout that the country was able to maintain until this year when they decided to send Bedoon activist Ahmed Abdul-Khaleq into exile. The Bedoon in the UAE number at least 100,000. Many of them are children of citizen mothers who are not allowed to pass citizenship to their children or spouses. Abdul-Khaleq was one of the five arrested last year for demanding reforms and democratic changes in the country. Since his release, the government has been planning to get rid of him as he calls on other Bedoon to speak up for their rights.

* Continue reading this post in Al-Akhbar's "The Subaltern."