Al Jazeera is featuring some great black and white photos of the bidoon community in Kuwait with all the photos taken by award winning photographer, Greg Constantine. Check them out [Here]
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2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
11 replies on “In Pictures: Kuwait’s people ‘without’”
Cool stuff..
There needs to be a more clear and defined naturalisation process.
This would be beneficial obviously to non-kuwaitis wishing to reside in Kuwait as well as the state of Kuwait in keeping more accurate records of ‘bidoons’ that aid in the development of rights and services that they too have the right to. Also, theres a hundred more reasons such as prosecution, census, state records, archives, genealogy, and the list goes on…
There is no such thing as bidoon, the proper term is illegal residents. In America they call them illegal aliens. Most of these people are Iraqis followed by Syrians and some Saudis. They prefer living here illegally to living legally in their countries. Would you blame an Iraqi for wanting to live in Kuwait under any conditions rather than go back to that hell hole of a country? I wouldn’t, but he still must be processed & deported. We are not running a charity here.
True some are but some aren’t as also seen in the pictures decorated individuals who served their countries for many years being treated this way in their own country. Especially the two older men who served in Police and airforce can be said to be more kuwaiti than me an 18 Year old Kuwaiti. The old man has served as a policeman for Kuwait as much as i’ve been alive here. It would be a very difficult task to distinguish the Kuwaitis from the Iraqis and Syrians in the bunch but it should not be brushed aside as if it were nothing. Imagine if you were in their place.
I am talking in legal terms and not emotional nostalgia. These two men, if the story is true, served as foreigners with no promise of naturalization and they knew it.
If you open the door for nostalgia, each one of these 100,000 illegals has a story to tell, true or fabricated. That’s not how you run a country. You don’t naturalize people because they tell a heartbreaking story, otherwise we would have the moral and legal obligation to naturalize half of Africa and one third of Asia.
buzz i completely agree with you
So, what you’re saying is if a person comes from a war torn country, we should just send them back and let them face potential suffering or death? Like seriously grow a heart.
These are human beings, just because America labels people as illegal aliens doesn’t mean we should aswell. If we’re following Americas footsteps lets remove all our free universities and free healthcare.
Every human being has the right to go and search for a better life. And giving people their rights doesn’t mean the country will be running a charity, it’ll mean that this country will be compassionate and just. They have every right to be here. If it weren’t for these people this country wouldn’t be what it is today.
And these bedoon aren’t all immigrants, many have been here their whole lives. Many are children of Kuwaiti women. How is it fair that a mother can’t pass on her nationality to her children? And how is it a child’s fault if they were born here. You know what, let’s deport all orphans then too, I mean we’re not running a charity here are we.
True some are but some aren’t as also seen in the pictures decorated individuals who served their countries for many years being treated this way in their own country. Especially the two older men who served in Police and airforce can be said to be more kuwaiti than me an 18 Year old Kuwaiti. The old man has served as a policeman for Kuwait as much as i’ve been alive here. It would be a very difficult task to distinguish the Kuwaitis from the Iraqis and Syrians in the bunch but it should not be brushed aside as if it were nothing. Imagine if you were in their place.
I think it’s best left for Kuwait to decide who is and who is not a Kuwaiti.
And offer a grace period…
@Buzz it’s not as clear-cut as you imagine–for one, many of these people do not have status in their ‘native countries’. We’re talking about a few generations, all of whom were born and bred here, whose grandfathers (the ones alive during 1940-1960’s) did not register as Kuwaiti during that time. Today, most don’t have any papers, which is why they can’t return to their ancestral lands (if any) nor can they do anything about their status in Kuwait.
I know families, who in the same family, you will have several brothers (by blood) who have Kuwaiti citizenship and few who were not granted any. They are not Saudi, Syrian or Iraiqi by any stretch. Any more Saudi than the al-Sabah family.
I know one such man, who has passed away (in his late 70’s) whose brother’s all have citizenship, and he gained it a few years before he passed away. Imagine that, he served as a police officer the entire time. At least his children and grandchildren will now be considered Kuwaiti right? Nope not quite..it took a year or two, before his immediate children received citizenship–however their children (his grandchildren) are still waiting and their case is under investigation.
Ridiculous if you ask me. Their uncles and aunts have been Kuwaiti citizens for eons, yet their grandfather luckily gets it before he passes away..and now they have some semblance of hope.
How generous of Kuwait..had it been anywhere else, these people (orginally only about 10 thousand) would have easily been natrualized and that would be the end of it. In Kuwait, however, they are ‘illegal residents’ and will be for decades upon decades. Even if (some of) their mothers are Kuwaiti, even if they are born and bred here, even if they’ve died and served here.
I love Kuwait, but there is a lot of silliness in its citizenship laws–Kuwait actually has various grades of citizenship too! Not all Kuwaitis are created equal…
Fast-forward to 2013 and these same people, many of whom who lived here this entire time, indistinguishably from their peers, don’t have any sort of citizenship.
Calling them, ‘illegal residents’ as if they just crossed the desert a few weeks ago, understates their predicament.
Buzz needs to chill. These people are humans show some humanity. Don’t call them beggars because they want more rights. Its only natural to want
to fight for your rights and if you think that some of these bedoons don’t have a claim to citizenship you are just plain dumb. If you know that some of the bedoons have a claim then get off your high horse and stop looking down and marginalizing people who are just trying to live a better life by throwing them all in one basket and acting like there’s no problem. Your denial just shows that if there’s alot of Kuwaitis like you Kuwait will never change and will never strive to be better because of how “perfect” things are already. Just because the government uses these excuses doesn’t mean you have to be a parrot. The government realizes the problem and uses these arguments so that people understand the problem is complicated, and dynamic. You being a parrot shows that when there is a complicated matter, generalities and twisted rationalizations works on people like you who are to comfortable to try and come up with real solutions to real problems and not just sweep it under a rug.