Mahmoud Ahmad I read an article, published recently in a local Saudi Arabic daily, calling for authorities to impose a ceiling on the stay of expat workers in the Kingdom and force them to leave after five years even if their services are needed and useful. The writer's strange reasoning was that expats are a threat to the demographic balance of the Kingdom and if the current trend continued, Saudis would soon be a minority in their own country. The writer tried hard to convince readers with randomly selected statistics that if the threat of the growing number of expats is not immediately dealt with, then sure enough the dire scenario of Saudis being outnumbered by expatriates would be a certainty. The writer then addressed what he described as a “legitimate question”, which is: Do we really need this large number of expatriates in our country? What are they really doing in the Kingdom? From time to time, we find certain people launching vitriolic attacks on expat workers with the intention of promoting expat-phobia while blaming them for each and every problem that we have as a nation. At these times, when we should be thanking expatriates for their wholehearted participation in the development of our country, we instead have people sparking hysteria against expats by calling for deportation timetables. What shocked me the most is the writer's assertion, while castigating his own brethren, that: “The defenders of the foreigners in our country are only Saudi by identity cards not by hearts or feelings”. I ask, are we really less Saudi if and when we defend the rights of expatriate workers in our country? Or, I again ask, by belittling the work of others, does anyone become more Saudi? The writer provides a breakdown of foreigners in our country: 1.76 million Indians, 1.32 million Pakistanis, 1.3 million Egyptians, 1.03 million Filipinos, and so on. Now let us see what conspiracy they are up to. Wait, they are doctors, engineers, accountants, laborers, drivers, teachers, managers, senior executives and others working in many laudable professions. And they have been working in tandem with Saudis. So where is the threat? Apart from providing the numbers, the writer has failed to pinpoint the shenanigans these communities are supposedly up to. I do agree with the writer on one point which is that there should be quick deportation of expat workers who enter the Kingdom illegally. Yes, deportation is a must as they have committed a crime. The same goes for people who overstay and violate residential laws. As for the rest of the millions of expatriates whom the writer wants deported, they have come to the country by obtaining Saudi visas and have entered the country legally. How can we consider them a threat when we recruited them to come and participate in the country's development? Deporting an expat after a five-year stay not only sounds funny but logistically ridiculous and costly. The writer, with this suggestion, is trying to put an expiration date on each expatriate worker. What he does not take into consideration is that for each expat worker recruited, it costs a company and sometimes individuals thousands of riyals. Who is going to bear the cost if they are forced to leave every five years? The people themselves! Therefore, a company that has many expatriate workers will end up spending hundreds of thousand of riyals just to recruit new ones, assuming that the company still needs the services of expats. Also with the population of Saudi Arabia still young and growing, will it be able to find replacements for the void left by expats in this five-year rotation? The writer argues that the “annual remittances of billions of dollars the foreigners make to their respective home countries are impacting our national economy. Some of them are monopolizing some sectors of the market.” However, this is money they earned by the sheer dint of their work and no one has the right, not even the writer, to question an expat about his money. Expatriates have come to this country to earn and support their families back home — a God-given right. What the writer fails to ask is: What investment opportunities have we offered expat workers in the Kingdom so that they are able to invest in this country and contribute positively to the economy? If there are any such opportunities, then they are extremely limited. As for controlling the market, sir, I would like to point out that this is due to young Saudis not being willing to work in certain jobs — such as the fruit and vegetable market. When the government stepped in to Saudize the fruit and vegetable market by force and gave Saudis stalls, the first thing the vast majority did was to rent the stalls to expat workers in exchange for a monthly fee. We have to admit the fact that this young Saudi generation does not want to work in certain jobs. Are we trying to blame expatriate workers for working hard instead of asking Saudis to work harder and compete? It is a fact that the vast majority of expatriate workers are hardworking and have respect for time. It is a fact that expatriate workers work longer hours and are more productive than we are while earning less than we do. It is not expatriates, but rather Saudis who should learn life's basic lessons. The writer, however, fails to mention that expats are participating in the economy directly and positively by buying from stores owned by Saudis, paying for medical treatment from hospitals owned by Saudis, paying for education in schools owned by Saudis and paying rent and living in buildings owned by Saudis. I want the writer to rest assured that expatriates love their countries very much and they are in our country only because of their personal circumstances or their hope to improve their living conditions. When their work here is over, whether it is a personal decision or because the company ends their contract, you can see them ready to leave with a smile. This is because they are going home. So they are not planning to stay in this country forever. If it pleases the writer, we can stop the wheel of development and shut down factories, hospitals, and companies operated by expatriates and eliminate any excuse for them to stay and in so doing we can go back to the kind of life we lived more than 70 years ago. Will we be able to live like that? When we demand that expat workers be paid on time, we are not less Saudi. When we want expat workers to be paid fair wages, we are not less Saudi. When we want companies to stop overworking expats, we are not less Saudi. When we defend their rights, we are not less Saudi. Expatriate workers are our ambassadors when they return home, and they should leave our country with good memories of their stay here and not with hatred in their hearts toward us. Their number, sir, is not sounding an alarm bell, but racism is. The writer can be contacted at [email protected].
