Relationship between the UAE Government and the Bidoon - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal Does a dichotomy of perspectives exist between the UAE government, on one hand, and the bidoon, and the organisations supporting it, on the other, in the approach to the UAE bidoon issue? Name Professor Course Date The Research Question Does a dichotomy of perspectives exist between the UAE government, on one hand, and the bidoon, and the organisations supporting it, on the other, in the approach to the UAE bidoon issue? It will be argued in this paper that a dichotomy exists in the perspectives of the UAE government and the bidoon and the international organisation that support them in solving the problem of statelessness. A disconnect in public pronouncement and actual result is evident in the way the UAE government approaches the bidoon problem. Whilst the government announced that the bidoon issue is a priority and that the government will do everything to solve it, the fact remains that the bidoon who have been granted Emirati citizenship are few and does not make a dent to the number of bidoon now languishing in the country. On other hand, the bidoon and the organisations supporting it, such as the UN Convention on Human Rights and the UN Refugee Agency, believed that the bidoon are entitled to be embraced by a country where they were born and raised, which, in fact, is the only country they knew and deserve to be treated in accordance with the tenets and principles underpinning basic human rights. There are several reasons why this proposed paper will argue that such a dichotomy exists. First, it is evident that the federation of emirates of the UAE treats citizenship as a restrictive mechanism to shut out others it believes are alien to the Emirati lineage. The sole criteria upon which the UAE depends on in deciding whether to grant citizenship or not to the applicant is the latter’s capacity to show his tribal affiliation. This seems to stem from a supremacist point of view where one’s race or tribe is superior to others and therefore, should not be diluted by the entry of other tribes. This is contrary to what the bidoon and human rights advocate groups believe – that all people are equal and should be treated as such. The basis of citizenship should not be lineage, but loyalty and the intent to remain as a citizen of that country forever. Secondly, the UAE government has not ameliorated the plight of the bidoon who were discriminated and continues to be discriminated by refusing to issue necessary legal documents to give them the freedom to travel. In addition, the bidoon are deprived of government assistance in education, medical care, housing and other basic services for the simple reason that they cannot produce a family card. This is again contrary to the principles of the UNCHR, which mandates that every individual is entitled to basic services and should not be discriminated upon by reason of race and ethnicity, amongst others, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which holds that every person is entitled to a nationality. Lastly, the government is toning down the bidoon issue of the country by placing the number of bidoon population at 10,000, which is much lower than that cited by international agencies. The proposed research is original because a search of the body of literature on the topic reveals that there is no research material of exactly the same nature as the presently proposed topic that exists. As a matter of fact, there is scant material on the subject of UAE bidoon because the bulk of research is centered on the Kuwaiti bidoon. The UAE case needs to be looked into as well because the bidoon in that country is suffering no less than the bidoon of the other Gulf States. In addition, the proposed research is worthy of Honours research because the subject being tackled is both relevant and interesting from the human rights perspective and from the perspective of a fast globalising world. Statelessness strikes at the core of human rights because it is a deprivation of the right to have a home and all its concomitant rights and freedoms. Without a home there is no security, no stability and no dignity. In addition, the UAE bidoon are marginalised because they are deprived of basic services, such as education, medical care and housing. From a modern-day perspective, the UAR bidoon presents an interesting study because it provides contrast and at the same time complements a fast globalizing world where boundaries everywhere are being blurred. The bidoon issue seems to be a remnant of a world gone by where caste system existed or White Australia became a banner policy. Definition/Scope of Thesis There is dearth of material on the subject of the UAE bidoon, not only because research and studies have focused on the Kuwaiti case, but also because the UAE government is secretive in the way it is dealing with the bidoon problem. Aside from press releases announcing general comments about the issue, the government does not provide actual figures and other relevant matters. This proposed research is, therefore, going to be largely relying on newspaper articles and anecdotal narratives of the bidoon people from second hand sources. Methodology As earlier indicated there is not much literature on the subject and, therefore, this research proposal will rely heavily on secondary materials, such as newspaper articles, journal articles, books, press releases of both the UAE government and the bidoon and the agencies supporting them as well anecdotal narratives of the bidoon people cited in such secondary materials. Other potential sources are UAE legislations and directives, press releases, statistics and articles from the UNCHR and the UN Refugee and other human rights advocate organisations. Another potential source will be caselaw on human rights decided by international courts and carefully analysed for the doctrines they hold. All these sources will be subjected to analysis for the contribution they will make to the resolution of the research question - to support the view that there are dichotomies that exist in the pronouncements of the government with regard to the issue of bidoon and the declarations of the bidoon and the agencies supporting them. The proposed study will largely approach the research question using the qualitative approach. A contrary approach using interviews and surveys is precluded by the limitation of the distance of the researcher from the subject place and therefore, since there is no direct contact with human subjects there is no necessity to submit an application to the Committee for Ethics in Human Research. This methodology is chosen for the proposed research paper for its convenience and suitability to the subject matter. Literature Review Migrant workers flock to the Arab states in the Persian Gulf because of the opportunities available in these oil-rich countries. The UAE, which is a federation of seven states or emirates, viz. Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Kuwain, is no exception. In the UAE, migrant workers came in droves so that in 2010, they outnumbered the Emirati citizens by a ratio of 22 to 3. The 88% non-Emiratis living in the UAE consists of nationals of other Arab states as well as other Asian countries, but about 100,000 of this portion of the population are individuals that do not hold any ties to any country or state making them virtually stateless (Russel and Kleyn 180-181). These stateless individuals, called bidoon, are traced back to the time when official boundaries among Gulf States needed to be drawn officially when the oil boom in the region became imminent. Prior to the oil boom, many Arabic tribes wandered in the far corners of the region either to engage in commerce or as because wandering from one region to the next was the traditional practice of these nomadic tribes called Bedouin. The borderless, no passport system that the tribes were used to suddenly changed and many of them found themselves without a country (Etefa and Snort 2). The first treaty delineating boundaries was the Uqayr Treaty in 1921 and applied to the borders of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia (Toth 2005). In 1971, it was UAE’s turn to sign a treaty with Saudi Arabia to delineate boundaries. The imposition of official boundaries between and among Gulf States entailed the stopping of cross-border movements of the tribes. Most of the present bidoon, therefore, are part of the nomadic tribe Bedouin or are descendants of them. Like other Arab states, the UAE used tribal affiliations as the yardstick upon which Emirati nationality was determined and those who were not affiliated with any tribes were left in limbo (Russel and Kleyn 180-181). These stateless persons in the UAE are called bidoon (sometimes bedoon or bedoun), which means ‘without‘ (Emirates Centre 2013). According to the Emirates Centre, the bidoon in the UAE may have hailed from either of the two: a member of a nomadic Arab group within the Gulf region, or an ascendant who came from Iran or any country in the Southeast Asia before UAE obtained her independence. Thus, while such a person may have lived all his life in the country, he is not considered a citizen because he has no affiliation with the right tribe or even if he appropriately affiliated he is illiterate and did not register his presence in 1971. Many of the bidoon are descendant to parents who come from the country of Iran, but migrated to the country before 1971. The failure to register may either be because of lack of literacy or the home papers have been en route to the UAE (Ghazal 2008). About 50% of UAE bidoon claimed that their fathers were born in the Gulf monarchies whilst 30% believed their grandfathers were born in the region (Davidson 2013). In the UAE, having an Emirati mother does not guarantee the same citizenship if the father is a non-Emirati. Although such a child is granted the privilege to apply for citizenship it is the prerogative of the government to accept or reject it. This was the case of Essa Abdullah Jelal, whose mother is an Emirati, but whose father is a bidoon. In the UAE, the national status of the child will reflect that of the father, but not of the mother (Ghazal 2013). There are many drawbacks to being a bidoon. Employment is limited as they are prohibited from public employment. In addition, they are not granted access to many basic services normally granted to citizens, such as medical care, education and housing and they cannot travel freely because they do not the necessary papers. They are discriminated within the country and yet they cannot also freely leave it because they do not have nor are qualified to apply for passports (Emirates Centre 2013). A female bidoon remarked that being a bidoon is in between a local and expatriate with not much choices of action (Davidson 2013). The same frustration for the limitations imposed on being a bidoon was also expressed by Roya Hassan, who was the first female graduate of law in a UAE university, but who until now is still employed in a state owned company occupying a position that has nothing to do with the legal practice. The government’s rejection of her passport renewal application in 1982 doomed her to her present job unable to make use of the legal degree she struggled hard for (Ferris-Lay 3). In addition, just like the African Americans in the US in the not too distant past, bidoon are the usual suspects for everything negative that is going on, including crimes and even a slump in the economy. More importantly, the government sets the tone of discrimination against bidoon by often referring to them as ‘persons without valid documentation’ as was the case in the arrest of a bidoon in 2011 who along with five other companions staged a pro-democracy demonstration. This manner of referring to the bidoon casts them as suspicious and shady characters (Davidson 2013). On the other hand, UAE nationals enjoy education up to the tertiary level, free health care and land. In addition, the government offers citizens housing under the ‘people’s houses’ scheme and allows them to rent out the property given to them by the government to others (Hanieh 77). This privilege is extended to the labor sector: both government and private employment have set quotas for the employment of nationals. In the banking sector, for example, Emirati citizens must constitute at least 25% of every new set of hires and in addition, they cannot just be simply terminated from employment. Even teachers’ salaries are graded in accordance to citizenship and n on-citizenship with the citizens getting higher salary than the latter (Russell and Kleyn185). The bidoon in the UAE like all the other bidoon in the Gulf region are unable to get documentation and are given access to the benefits granted by the government to its citizens. An Emirati citizen is issued a khulsat al-qaid, which is a family card that traces his lineage, to prove that he is a bona fide Emirati citizen. The government may grant them temporary passport subject to renewal, but this does not entitle them to apply for jobs in the public service (Davidson 131). One account from a bidoon traces her roots to Iran, her ascendants migrating into the country in the 1950s receiving Sharjah passports upon arrival. In 1971, however, after UAE gained her independence the family was issued temporary passports renewable every 6 months. In 1982, their application for passport renewal was refused by the government and thereafter, became part of the undocumented populace in the UAE. Others traced their lineage to the monarchies within the Gulf region, but unfortunately did not foresee the importance of documentation at the time when the government called for it (Ferris-Lay 2013). The UAE has made efforts to resolve the bidoon issue, but every time there were no significant results because of the selective and slow process it has adopted. In 2006, the Supreme Federal Council constituted by the leaders of the seven emirates approved the naturalisation of 1294 of stateless persons (Etefa and Stort 16). Towards the end of 2008, the UAE started a registration campaign for stateless people within its jurisdiction setting up registration centres in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjay and Ahman. The government announced that it would solve the bidoon issue ‘once and for all’ (Ghalib 2008), but the criteria used were vague and the government has the prerogative to reject or accept applications (Paddington et al 757). A small number of bidoon were consequently granted citizenship, but only because they were able to prove to the government their lineage prior to 1971 (Davison 2013). The government, however, is reluctant to share statistics on the exact number of persons that applied or were actually accepted by the process, but unofficial sources cite 51 persons as having benefited by it in the first half of 2009 (Blitz and Lynch 190). It was reported by the UN Office of Human Rights that only a few bidoon benefited from this exercise and that many remain without documentation (Emirates Centre 2). In addition, every time the government grants a bidoon citizenship it always impressed on the grantee that it is a privilege and not a right and could only be sustained by loyalty, otherwise, it will be taken back from that person (Davidson 131). There are also reports that the government is taking an underhanded approach in resolving the bidoon problem. Human rights activists alleged that the government is putting pressure on the bidoon to apply for Comoros Island passport so that they will have documentation and can stay in the UAE legally. Some even claim that the government is footing the bill on behalf of the bidoon by paying Comoros, a poor country in the Arab League, million so that they can deport anyone they choose from the country (The Economist 2012). The problem, however, is that this may simply be a pretext for the government so that it will be easier to deport bidoon individuals to other countries. The Financial Times interviewed a bidoon who recently acquired a Comoros passport after he was denied citizenship by the UAE authorities. Although he was born and bred in UAE, he was forced to obtain a Comoros passport – a country he has never seen and has no knowledge of. It is estimated that about a thousand bidoon have taken to obtaining a Comoros passport as a final bid for survival. In the UAE, passports are necessary to secure some type of documents, such as vehicle renewals, as well as eventually, UAE passports. Interestingly, some of those who were able to secure Comoros passports pointed to the government as the party paying for them. The case of Abd al-Khaleq, a bidoon born in the UAE who was arrested and jailed in 2011 for protesting against the government and advocating for the rights of the bidoon, is another example. After being pardoned and released from jail he was forced to take a Comoros passport and now fears that he will be deported (The Emirates Economist 2012). Recent events in the UAE illustrated the tendency of the government to use citizenship as a weapon not only against the bidoon, but against anyone who dares to displease it. There are several cases that illustrated this point. A portion of the bidoon population is called ‘liminal population’ and this is because they are being managed politically by the government. At one time or another, the government grants them citizenship, but it can also capriciously reclaim the grant as if it were a toy temporarily lent to them. Likewise, in 2010, a former bidoon who was granted citizenship in 2001 was stripped of that citizenship and returned to bidoon status after he criticised the government. The ground cited was that the citizenship was not obtained lawfully (Davidson 132). The miserly manner with the UAE have adopted in granting citizenship and only on the strict condition that tribal affiliation is proven seems to indicate an intent to equate citizenship with tribal identity to the exclusion of all outsiders. This mindset is also reflected in the policies adopted by the state towards marriage. For example, in Abu Dhabi, a Marriage Fund was created as a department under the federal Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs. The Fund makes available to Emirati men the amount of $13,000 to help cover marriage costs, but only if they marry Emirati women. Mass weddings involving couples that are both Emirati nationals are also being sponsored by the government. In 2008, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi shelled out $1 million for the wedding of 175 couples, all of whom were Emiratis (Kadhim 278). Structure of the Thesis The following is the proposed structure of the paper: Introduction Chapter 1 Background: The Bidoon of the UAE 1.1 The Origins of the Bidoon 1.2 Profile of the UAE Bidoon 1.3 The Discrepancy in Treatment between Citizens and the Bidoon Chapter 2 The Dichotomy in Perspectives of the UAE Government and the Bidoon 2.1 The UAE Government 2.2 The Bidoon Perspective Chapter 3 The UAE Approach to the Bidoon Problem 3.1 Law Reforms 3.2 Registration Campaign 3.3 Other Strategies Chapter 4 Conclusion and Recommendation Works Cited Blitz, B. and Lynch, M. Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011. Davidson, Christopher. After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies. Oxford University Press, 2013. Emirates Centre. The Bidoun of the United Arab Emirates. ECHR. 2012. Web. Accessed 28 September 2013. Etefa, Abeer and Stort, Astrid van Genderen The Bidoon. Rupert Colville (ed.), Refugees 2007, 147(3): 15. UNCHR and the United Nations Refugee Agency. Ferris-Lay, Claire. Born identity? Arabian Business.com. 4 July 2009. Web. Accessed 21 September 2013. Ghalib, Essam. Registration plan for stateless. The National. 2 September 2008. Web. Accessed 25 September 2013. Ghazal, Rym. The frustration of being a 'bidoon..The National, 6 November 2008. Web. Accessed 23 September 2013. Hall, Camilla and Peel, Michael. UAE’s stateless acquire foreign passports. Financial Times, 4 June 2012. Web. Accessed 20 September 2013. Hanieh Adam. Temporary Migrant Labour and the Spatial Structuring of Class in the Gulf Cooperation Council. 3rd International Initiative Promotion and Political Economy (IIPPE) Workshop, Ankara, Turkey 14–15 September 2009. Kadhim, Abbas. Governance in the Middle East and North Africa: A Handbook. Routledge, 2013. Print. Russell, Cambria Dodd and Kleyn, Tatyana. ‘Impenetrable Citizenship: teachers’ perception of non-citizen students in the United Arab Emirates’, in Lesley Bartlett and Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher (eds.), Refugees, Immigrants, and Education in the Global South: Lives in Motion. Routledge, 2011. Paddington, Arch, Piano, Ailli and Neubauer, Katrina. Freedom in the World 2009: The Annual Survey of Political Rights & Civil Liberties. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. The Economist. The United Arab Emirates: Send Him Away. 21 July 2012. Web. Accessed 28 September 2013. The Emirates Economist. Stateless in the UAE; Bidoun. 4 June 2012. Web. Accessed 23 September 2013. Toth, Anthony B. Tribes and Tribulations: Bedouin Losses in the Saudi and Iraqi Struggles over Kuwait‟s Frontiers, 1921-1943” in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 2005, 32( 2). Read More