Sometimes I wish I could spend my days and nights leaning on a rotten wooden table in a popular coffee shop overlooking two streets, with a television set that only airs black and white shows, in the hope that I would become completely frozen and my mind would stop analyzing. I would sit at that table I love and start playing backgammon, and then cause a commotion with my yelling and express out loud all the complaints I have as a citizen. Before that I would start playing with a cup of mint tea in my hand. To avoid any misunderstanding, I am talking about playing my backgammon game. Sometimes, I do recognize, I hate direct writing and prefer indirect writing, which forces you to read between the lines, although I am not a fortune-teller! I do recognize that sometimes my pen lashes at me, takes over my fingers and jumps over the keyboard, taps into my subconscious and draws everything from it, thus turning towards symbolic writing that launches arrows which never hit the target, nor cause it to falter. The Saudi citizens are complaining about some ministers who are making their lives difficult, trying to make them think they are spending on them from their own money and continuously urging the citizens to show them gratitude, despite the clear statements of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah who stressed that "the citizens come first." And by the way, some of the latter ministers are not pleased by anything published in the media by the "thugs" of journalism and the writers – as they describe them – because they like praise and despise defamation. This is not to mention other important ministries that avoid the local process and warmly welcome the foreign one. The Interior Ministry often comes up with genius ideas, at a time when there is not one ministry in the state that does not complain about it. Indeed, it is as though it were offering donations, gifts or yearly aid, rather than official rights, knowing that this ministry controls the funds of a rich oil state that is sending grants and assistance to several countries. As for the practices of the Ministry of Labor, they have almost completed the humiliation of the unemployed through the Hafiz program, despite the clarity of the decision and its stipulations. Hence, the ministry has been tirelessly deducting the allocations offered to the beneficiaries, even if the updating was unintentionally disregarded, while undermining this right with forced gratitude at times and threats at others, all for 2,000 Riyals which are no longer doing any good in light of the high prices. Ever since Adel Faqih reached the Labor Ministry, he has been making pledges to the unemployed and promising solutions that are numerous in his ministry, but actually completely absent. He came up with decisions to nationalize jobs and impose the employment of Saudi nationals on companies, while the last among these solutions was the so-called Nitaqat program. This prompted a race over green, yellow and red cards, and until now, it is being said that no one passed. In addition, his ministry was behind the emergence of black markets due to the delay in introducing domestic workers, until this became a major problem. The third calamity is the Housing Ministry, as we had been expecting the minister of a modern ministry to put forward valid solutions to the housing problem. However, he completely distanced himself from the situation and said: "Do not hold me accountable until lands are made available." We live in a state the size of a continent, with plenty of lands and deserts, while the minister is still making excuses and failing to solve the problem? What is certain is that the criticisms made against these three ministries are not due to any spite towards them or to a wish to make the problem personal. They are due to a wish to expose the confused work of these ministries, knowing that the officials should remember that citizenship is about a partnership between rights and obligations and that the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques assures on every occasion that the citizens come first. At this level, I am stating the situation as it is, due to the ministries' behavior that is causing frustration among the people. The last of these frustrations was due to the interview delivered by the minister of planning and economy, after he tried to bridge the gap between the troubles of the citizens and his ministry's (present, yet absent) plans, through statements which were limited to Rotana channel. I believe that he himself would not believe his talk if he were to hear it again. What is certain is that quick interaction, the ability to make a difference and finding valid solutions is not as difficult a task as some depict it. Therefore, the citizens should be granted the first priority and their full rights, or else the ministries will continue to issue statements in parallel to the unconvincing talk seen in the form of “mouth-rinsing" on satellite channels. [email protected] twitter | @JameelTheyabi
