Faiz Saleh Mohammed Jamal Okaz newspaper UNTIL today, I am unable to comprehend why we, Arabs in general and Saudis in particular, tend to be too strict and too inflexible when it comes to granting nationality. Is it due to our feeling of superiority over others? Or is it because we feel that our country is a target for all those looking for quick wealth? Or is it because some believe our society is ‘special?' Or maybe it is due to our security apprehensions? What are the real reasons that make us so stringent in granting Saudi nationality to foreigners who were born here or have or lived for many long years in the Kingdom? To begin with, we should not have any sense of superiority over other races because Islam states clearly that an Arab is granted no privileges over a non-Arab except by piety. Secondly I do not think our country is a target for wealth seekers simply because we are no better or wealthier than many countries which grant their nationality on birth. Believing our society is special is a kind of misguided feeling of superiority which is not only abhorrent but unacceptable in Islam. Nor do I think that our security fears are acceptable reasons to prevent us from granting nationality to foreigners who are born in the Kingdom because history has proved beyond doubt that the major security upheavals are not usually the work of nationalized foreigners. Where does the problem lie then? Why this rigidity in granting the Saudi nationality? Last year the regulations concerning the granting of nationality were amended to give the nationality to foreign women married to Saudi men and also to the children of Saudi women married to foreigners. These regulations seem simple and look logical only on paper, but when they are applied, they leave destructive effects on the lives, honor, dignity and loyalty of many people who were born and lived in this country for long years. I know a person who lived in this country and served the education and cultural sector for more than six decades. His children got the Saudi nationality because his wife was Saudi but he lived with a residency permit (iqama) until his death. I used to see pain in his eyes. There are thousands like him in this country. I know another man whose father, mother and brothers were all Saudis except for him. The father passed away and for one reason or another Saudi nationality was lost so the son was not given a nationality or a passport. He is now living as a foreigner with a residency permit. His brothers showed me heaps of letters they had written to the concerned officials requesting him the nationality but their requests were refused. I followed his case and wrote about his predicament to the authorities but no one listened to me. I also know a girl whose father was a foreigner and mother a Saudi. Her brothers were given the nationality but she was not because she was unable to score the required points that would qualify her for the nationality since her father died before her application for the nationality was made. She is anxiously waiting to marry a Saudi citizen in order to obtain the nationality but so far no one has proposed. There are two disabled orphan brothers who are close to 20 years of age now. They lived as foreigners in a shelter home among 200 other disabled Saudis until they were recently given the nationality. Paradoxically illegitimate children with unknown fathers and mothers are nationalized on birth and will be given their Saudi IDs when they are 15 years old. Here I beg to raise a question. Why the children of a Saudi wife of a foreigner will not be nationalized on birth? I hope the situations of these thousands of people will be corrected in the cause of humanity and to ensure their loyalty to this country.
