Writer urges Saudis to 'be nice to expats'

A Gulf Arab columnist writing for the leading newspaper, the Saudi Gazette, has called on local people to ‘treat expatriates nicely’, warning that there is a real risk people could leave the country with bad memories.

“There is nothing better than an expatriate going back to his country with beautiful memories of Saudi Arabia and its people,” Mahmoud Ahmad wrote in the Saudi Gazette.

ONE FIFTH OF THE POPULATION

But he added: “Sadly, the ground realities are totally different, with most of the expatriates living in the Kingdom drudging through their days with the hope that all of these experiences would one day become a distant bad dream.”

Expats make up about 20% of the Saudi population, working in all levels of employment, from labourers and cleaners to teachers, scientists and accountants.

Ahmad warned that many expatriates living in the kingdom faced a number of maltreatments, including racism and said that ‘being kind and just to another fellow human being is inherent in Islam, so let’s practice it and be a true Muslim’.

'BACKBONE OF OUR INFRASTRUCTURE'

In an article that will inevitably fuel some level of debate in the conservative Gulf state, he argued that the expatriate workforce contributed ‘a lot to the Gross Domestic Product and the Gross National Product’.

“Engineers have been the backbone of our infrastructure — especially helping us to build roads and buildings and as the years rolled on in specialized fields,” he added. “Doctors have helped us in keeping our citizens healthy by manning our hospitals, even in conditions that were primitive.”

Ahmad recalled being educated by teachers and professors from Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Syria and Palestine.

“They deserve our thanks; they have earned it,” He wrote.

'TUGGED AT MY HEART'

He said that delaying people’s wages and generally treating people badly would inevitably lead to people seeing his fellow countrymen ‘in such a poor light’.

“A Pakistani worker once told me that he had to work 18 hours a day just to make enough money by the end of the month to pay his Saudi sponsor and to send enough money back home to his country,” he added. “I remember his exact words that tugged at my heart when he said, ‘I feel like a slave’.”

Saudi Arabia is currently running a Saudization project in which companies are being encouraged to employ local people over expatriates. Companies that employ foreign workers are required to pay a $640 fee per person.

Mahmoud Ahmad warned that the program, while legitimate and within the country’s rights, should not be used ‘as a tool to get rid of one set of the workforce’.

And he said Saudis should be thankful for the work of cleaners and other similar workers in the same way that Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum recently honored cleaning workers and others working in service sectors in the UAE.

(Mahmoud Ahmad writes for local newspaper the Saudi Gazette)

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