The Peninsula
Wednesday, 06 July 2011 00:59
As aircraft today form the backbone of transportation in the world, the naval vessels — “boats” and wild ships — “camels” have formed the most important means of mobility in various Arab cities, including the Gulf. That role became important in the nineteenth century precisely where it formed the commercially strategic region that linked the East and West, and presented for others the colonial ambitions, from vessels of Portuguese colonisation (1507), passing through the commercial ships for the Dutch and British East India Company (1820), to war ships in World Wars I and II (1914-1939),to US commercial and military ships till the day (2050)
1. Pearl trade turned for the population in the Gulf in this period, the largest and most important source of livelihood, and diving areas spread along the coast of the Arab Peninsula from Banat Sulama in Ras Musandam in the Strait of Hormuz, through the city of Dubai, along the coast of Oman, and then the coasts of Qatar and Bahrain, ending at the coast of Kuwait, till the Japanese in the last country of the World “Mikimoto” (Mikimoto Kōkichi), got success in a technique of pearl farming, entering into a period of deterioration, depression and extreme poverty along the coastal region and its people, to the discovery of western companies, oil fields, draw of Arab borders and turn the cities of Gulf into independent states. The means of transportation were open on borders, despite some obstacles, man has the freedom to move from one place to another without difficulty, contract, visa, passports and religious classifications, Muslim, Christian, or a sectarian Sunni, Shia, Druze, or sectarian ideology of Baathist socialist left-wing nationalist, and when there are crises and problems you see one carrying his bag and moving to the vast land of Allah from one city of Gulf to another city of Arab or abroad. Difficulties appeared after the transfer of villages and cities to states and after imposing conditions and restrictions, and limitations on movement and residence and life on land and belonging to the homeland and the definition of the citizen and the distribution of instruments of citizenship, as a result many categories of people of the land who were born and raised and grown and moved in the land deprived from nationality, citizenship rights and human rights, also deprived from a decent living, marriage, divorce, freedom of movement, education, treatment, and even receiving a birth certificate from the hospital to recognise a newborn or death certificate of the graves for the burial! And the label has become so strange to call them that has no place of exchange and expression (stateless). All their tragedies gathered in a single file postponed year after year, that is like a fish in the basin of accessories being watched since the era of colonialism to the end of the day without any solution! The tangle of stateless with us and our node with them is linked with our understanding and our belief in human worth, the thing that was not absorbed by a King of Africa and he cried, saying (Who are you?)!
2. As the boats on the shores of the Gulf carry the individuals and their families from Muscat to Abu Dhabi, from Doha to Manama, Al Ahsa, Dammam, and from Kuwait to Basra and land of Persia –the east coast of the Gulf in the past- A ship was carrying an immigrant named (Falmouth Kearney) from the small village “Moneygall” in Ireland to the New World, he was the son of a shoes maker, he has boarded a ship for America after his country was exposed to severe famine at the time, this person had no value for a period of one hundred and fifty years. then came from his grandchildren -though he was a bright white- a man with black skin , with Kenyan African origins, Muslim religion and Arab name, graduated from the best university in the world and became President of United States of America till(2016)! The small town has opened her heart to the American President in which he said “I’m Barack Obama from Migal Obamaz. I have come to my land to find the links we’ve lost at some point in our lives.” The old woman said about Obama “He has attracted me towards him strongly and printed a lovely kiss on my cheek. I would not wash my cheek, which embraced the Obama kiss as long as I live” There are many examples of migrants who deported from their native place to another, as did our ancestors in the Arabian Peninsula and abroad, but the fruit that we have is quite different, there is no recognition of many of the children of immigrants and their grandchildren who mixed their lives and their blood in the country and its soil, and remained destroyed, neglected and deprived from minimum essential rights that we agree on all of them without a difference in the East or West, we have signed on them and abide by them in international conventions, religious laws and human dignity!!
3. Last not the least, stifled voices raised from Kuwait after the uprising of Arab Spring that came out in the shape of a small peaceful demonstration to claim the rights for a stateless disadvantaged group that constitutes about (106) thousands of people in Kuwait, 33 percent of total population. And in the UAE twenty thousand people, 23 percent of total population. In Qatar, 1,200 people,16 percent of the population. And in Saudi Arabia, seventy thousands people, 73 percent of total. Their total number in the Gulf countries is nearly (184) thousand, two hundred people according to the latest report of statistical Office of the United Nations for refugee affairs, and according to the last report of Human Rights Watch some weeks ago, both reports have indicated that the Gulf countries have not progressed for decades despite its pledges to resolve the issue of stateless people living in the Gulf countries without the nationality or identity. The report, based on interviews with people from the stateless and with lawyers and activists, stated that a large number of stateless are still “in a position of weakness, without protection, and they are living in poverty” in the oil-rich countries, and they are considered “illegal residents”.
4. Indeed it is a paradox of fatalism that you may be lucky if you were born during flight, or on a ship sailing in the midst of the ocean headed to the New World and even before you breathe the air and touch the sands of the earth, you will be recognized as a citizen entitled to all privileges and rights, regardless of your origin, your class, your religion, your belief and your group. And you may become the President of the United States if you were chosen by the voters and proved your worth and your eligibility and your ability as did the son of a black (double), which father came (Al-Bisri) from Africa, found his mother (Trthot) from Ireland. while you may share with our fellow-citizens in religion, belief, determination, blood, family, tribe, caste, creed, geography, past history, present fate and in building the future and you may be a successful and outstanding student and leader, however you and your rights will be not recognised as a human being?!
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