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17 October, 2005
Naturalization :: Emirates Memoirs
Emirates Memoirs (AKA, An Emirati's Thoughts) has a post proposing a system for granting naturalized citizenship in the UAE. Take a look. It's generated many comments.
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25 comments:
well gee, if this is actually taken seriously. germany might today have a race of blonde haired blue eyed women and men free of jews, ruled by a frail old man with a toothbrush moustache.
its a
cyborg
if i talk about exterminating or taking away something from someone, then you can call me a nazi, otherwise keep it to yourself.
i don't see the word "nazi" in the above statement; it is simply an indication of the bias shown in this country to religion XYZ or country ZXY
Implication sam, Implication...
I think Emirati has not fully understood the situation facing the UAE. The criteria he/she has laid out ensures that only those who are want UAE citizenship for purely non-economic reasons will be successful in their application. These will number in the low thousands at most.
Hardly anybody wants UAE citizenship for cultural or other reasons, the demand is almost all economic - yet Emirati's criteria will ensure that those wanting UAE citizenship for economic reasons will not get it. Yet it is for economic reasons that the UAE desperately needs to alter its demographic, and this is only going to be achieved by implementing a policy of naturalisation.
Emirati also operates under the understandable but mistaken assumption that the UAE is still a single-culture country. It's an illusion that's been cultivated among Emiratis and promoted by the government of the UAE that every non-Emirati will, on finishing their work for the country, will just go away and leave the place to Emiratis. Clearly, that's not happened, nor will it happen.
The fact is that the UAE has, for better or worse (and I'm wacked-out enough to belive it's for the better), created one of the few truly milticultural countries in the Arab world. Emiratis should be proud of that, recognize it, and go further to create a truly equal society. The UAE would then be even more a model for the entire world.
Its better to have a selective system than a universal one which can always be decieved. The needs of the country are different to that of europe, 75% of it is composed of foreigners. This is why extreme caution in the issuance of passports is nessecary.
You're quite right: citizenship shouldn't be handed out carelessly or overmuch. However, your criteria are based more on the notion that some sort of religious coherence could be maintained. But that coherence does not exist and probably has not existed for more than a decade. This is one of the true crossroads of the world, and that's particularly true as regards religion. Look around you: Hindu, Christian, Muslims everywhere. Even a few athiests and Jews. So why make religion the criteria? Why not inherent value to the society: education? Skills? Persistence? Acculturation? There are many different ways to discern those who deserve citizenship from those who are just taking advantage.
Despite studying and working abroad, and offers for 'sponsorship' ,'green card' and fat paychecks, I returned 'home' to Dubai.
I have heard tales like this from people in various "no visa on arrival" countries, and they always regret it later on. Regardless of how disloyal you may feel to your ancestral country, getting a "first world" passport is really, really worth it. For your children as much as yourself.
I never had a clue how lucky I was to have a UK/EU passport until I came to this region and saw the hell that Indian/Asian/Arab friends and colleagues go through if they want to travel anywhere.
well disillusioned, what I stated in my post was that anyone, regardless of race nationality, age or whatever, over 30 should be given lifetime residency here, same going for their kids.
The least the government can do is given you lifetime residency I believe.
Even before the bombings tim, even in parts of europe where bombings never happened the power of right wing movements is growing. Mulitculturalism is an experiment, not a proven thing. We all know the fate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Europes most multicultural empire at the beginning of the 20th century.
recent court ruling and a statement from the Zabeel Palace have reinforced Dubai's commitment to a stronger media, now seen as vital to getting the struggling sector developing faster.
On October 8, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid, Crown Prince of Dubai, met with 500 media representatives and assured them that the UAE would uphold freedom and respect the press.
However, The media is a doubled-edge knife, Sheikh Mohammed added, according to the Emirates News Agency WAM, and media personnel should work on showing their civilised, cultural, human face to the public.
The statement was made all the more pertinent the following day by a court ruling which announced that a long standing case brought against two reporters had been overturned.
On trial were two journalists accused of libel for tarnishing the reputation of Sharjah Municipality after publishing an article in 1999 in a local Arabic daily, al-Ittihad. This had alleged that chickens transported in a cargo plane bound for Sharjah had died onboard because of poor ventilation.
The so-called chicken politics case then began when Sharjah Municipality claimed that the article had unjustly and inaccurately reported that the chickens' deaths were caused by the municipality.
After six years of legal wrangling, the verdict by the Sharjah Court of Appeals was hailed by Salim Sha'ali, the attorney for the two defendants, as a big victory for freedom of expression, which the constitution guarantees to all.
The chicken case has not been the only press rights issue in the courts recently. In June 2005, another reporter was arrested, this time at Dubai airport, over an article she had written about a murder case in Sharjah, which officials claimed may have alerted the target of their investigation and allowed him to escape.
She was later released on the orders of Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Minister of the Interior, who then urged that the rights of the press should be reserved and protected.
Yet despite these recent moves towards openness, media development in the UAE continues to under-perform. Particularly in Dubai, which has carved out a niche for itself on the basis of its liberal economic and social policies, the slowness of the media's evolution is striking.
Journalists report that they are still being intimidated when they try to tackle controversial subjects, or more importantly, target powerful people. Direct criticism of the government remains taboo - particularly if centred on its foreign and fiscal policies. Missing from the press is any discussion of the pending Free Trade Agreement, as well as most stories that have to do with the US, Israel or even intra-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) relations - unless the copy is generated by wire services. But most occurrences of media interference come from medium to high-ranking nationals who do not like the content of a story and have enough influence to spike it.
Reporters Sans Frontières this year ranked the UAE 137th out of 162 countries for press freedom, putting the Emirates below Algeria, Afghanistan and Yemen, while also putting it below Qatar and Kuwait in the GCC.
This poor showing is underlined by insufficient access to information in the UAE; reliable statistics, usually vital to an important emerging economy like Dubai, are virtually non-existent, and authorities will often restrict access to scenes of local potential news scenes, like accidents or unrest. Ministers and high officials will rarely go on record saying anything that is not a press release; even financial analysts are hard to pin down.
Nobody here wants to talk on the record, said one local journalist, who would not be named, expressing frustration with the process. There aren't even brokers who will respond to phone calls.
However, many insist that there have been gains in the sector, even if they are not at the same pace as the rest of the economy. Such previously avoided topics as human rights violations, underage camel jockeys, workers' rights and terrorism would never have been breached only five years ago.
Explaining much of what is left out, as in many Middle Eastern markets, critics point to self-censorship too.
Self censorship is the biggest problem, says Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Editor in Chief of Gulf News. We do it to ourselves.
After years of control, many journalists have become accustomed to avoiding controversial subjects and are unwilling to push the limits, even if some of these areas are not be off limits these days.
Complicating matters is the fact that most of the UAE's media personnel are non-local (perhaps over 90%), and depend on the government to issue their visas, fearing they are always a few controversial words away from finding themselves on the next plane home.
Yet despite the self-censorship problem, a few new media operations have been opened with the aim of pushing at previously untouched boundaries. In Dubai, the recently launched Emirates Today hired top media people from the region and promised to deliver cutting edge coverage, while being freer that any other current paper. But after a few weeks their initial euphoria was tempered after a barrage of pressure from the powers-that-be forced them to back off on some of their coverage.
So if the UAE languishes at the back of the pack for media freedom, why are media people still coming to the emirate? For many, it is the salaries, which can be up to five times higher than what any other paper in the region would pay. Other benefits too are generous, like paid trips home and decent living conditions, showing that Dubai companies are at least are willing to shell out top dirham for the best talent.
The challenge now of course, is loosening regulations so these people can actually use the talent these companies are paying for. In order for this to happen, there must be changes in legislation - namely changing the aging Printing Law of 1980 that bans news that could harm the national currency or economy, which many journalists feel is a law that can be used against them at any time.
Now though, government officials at the highest levels are making the right noises when it comes to liberalising the press, and will make moves to ensure that more chicken politics cases do not surface.
But there must be more concrete action taken to squeeze out the long tradition of media manipulation, such as when influential members of society crush coverage they do not find favourable, or the media runs the risk of becoming a strangely anachronistic animal in one of the most exciting new economies of the Middle East.
Tim: proud to be a mongrel, you bet!
Emarati: I think the point that Tim was making was that over thousands of years the British Isles have been invaded many times and the invaders have bred with the 'invadees'. In recent centuries, immigrants have been made welcome, regardless of race or religion, and in time they not only integrate with society, they benefit it (it can take a generation or so for this to happen). Of course this can mean that the original society may change a bit, and I personally don't have a problem with this because it creates a richer and more vibrant culture.
And no, it's not 'an experiment', it is how we do it. UK immigration policy is not likely to change in the foreseeable future, just because a few misguided individuals bombed the London Underground.
But no immigrant to the UK has to wait 30 years before they know whether or not they qualify as 'chosen ones'.
The USA is likewise a country of mongrels, and the amazing thing is that both the UK and the US have invented an astonishing range of things that today most of the world would prefer not to live without.
As for immigrants 'causing problems', remember that what one person sees as a problem, another sees as an opportunity.
More on the question of "causing problems," Emirati ... Now, it's true that the majority of crimes in the UAE are caused by non-Emiratis, but ... um... 80% of the population's not Emirati!!! What I see in a lot of places are statements by Emiratis implying that, say, bad driving is caused SOLELY by non-Emiratis (when we all know that's completely untrue), or that ALL crime comes from non-Emiratis. Please be aware that non-Emiratis contribute far more than the "problems" we cause, and and solve a vast number more problems than we're accused of.
But back to the question of citizenship: what I want to say to you, Emirati, is that I admire your willingness to address this issue. While most of us, clearly, disagree with how you're proposing it be done, I suspect that none of us object to the fact that you're raising it at all. Thank you; I think you're doing an admirable and difficult thing.
keefieboy,
Britans immigration policy has by no means been international for the past centuries, it was all internal amongst the European-White-Christian group of peoples until recently.
Correct me if im wrong, I presume that true immgration in Britan of international immigrants really kicked off in the 60s or so. In this case, since it hasnt really had the time to be tested out, im rather the critic regarding it.
No ones telling the British to change their policies, I really couldnt care less. Their descisions are thiers.
But before you judge me,
What Im saying is that its perhaps time for your countrys sake to question: has immigration of people who are culturally and religiously distant
from us, really gotten us where we want to be , or where we expect to be?
My personal answer would be to look at bradford, Tottenham (London) and the many ghettos which the immigrants have sort of holed themselves up in. Then one must ask himself why the British government has shown such bias in assisting the immigration in housing estate, why crime is absurdly high among the immigrant population and what exactly the two communities think of each other.
Multiculturalism has certainly gotten the best of your country, with things as extreme as people not allowing the english flag to be hung in some places because it is presumable offensive, or the ridiculous anecdotes read everyday in the paper about immigrant legal arm twisting on your traditions.
While the UK may not care about who it hands its passport to, be it suicide bombers, extremist preachers (such as hamza), or kurds that cant speak english (only to suckle on the taxpayers pounds while sitting at home) the goverment of the UAE certainly does.
Please have a read...
"Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, has already caused controversy by suggesting that multiculturalism may now be outdated."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4295318.stm
it seems we will never agree on this, so have a read here as well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/talking_point/4741753.stm
In *my* understanding of emirati's brave new world, we all really should have stayed back in our home countries. Except those who look nice in the travel brochures, or those who live under the stairs and do all that piffling manual labour.
Imagine if you got your way, Emirati. There'd be no one to pay rent. Now there's a thought.
No country is an island.
yes marwan, they are all willing to tell us to get out until they realise what the UAE was like 60 years ago.
no flashy mobiles, no internet, no telephones, no audi's, no mercedes, no nissan batrol, no western movies with spacious cleavage.
The majority of people in the UAE are here to make a quick buck, and experience another country for a few years. if we leave, you get stuck with oil money for the next 30 years, and then the countries economy dries up.
There is no magical solution. Few locals are willing to do any labourers jobs.
You're like kids in my class at school.
"BUT WE DONT NEED THE WHITE PEOPLE, THE LOCALS MADE ETISALAT, WE FOUND THE OIL, BLA BLA BLA"
no you didnt, you relied on foreign assistance for almost everything the UAE is made of.
If the UAE didn't stumble upon large reserves of oil 40 years ago, it would be a fishing village still, perhaps a moderate city with the help of tourism etc.
It is very very very possible that in the near future as the UAE is a rather large tourist destination that a terrorist attack could chuck a spanner in the works of the country; this would certainly have an effect on tourism.
I can't be bothered to extend on this because i've said it a thousand times before.
I am not against the foreigners in my country, the problem is when passports begin to get handed out without being checked.
Multicultrualism doesnt really exist in the UAE, in the British definition, however it is all about seperate cultures doing their own thing seperately, the good thing here is that everyone knows who is in control of the country, everyone knows what is going to happen to them if they start preaching extremism, or starts to get together gangs or tries to change things with overly pc beliefs. everything works out pretty well as a result.
Both of you assume prematurely that Im all for kicking people out, I am not insane, I face facts, of course you came and built up the country, but what country is not built upon others? Is there anything wrong with it? not at all. America was built on the slave trade, Britan was built on the takeover of other countries, etc.
Do I welcome an attempt to integrate all peoples into the country and give everyone passports ? to form a system which can be abused such as the dubai suggested 20 year system? absolutely not, this is my country, and this is too high a risk to be taken.
I dont know whats with the UAE blogging community and assumptions.
A pathetic terrorist attack or two is not going to stop the UAE, and the perpetrators will be brutally exterminated, down to the last man, like cockoroaches. Afterwhich a recovery is going to begin.
it doesn't matter if they catch terrorists, it's stupid, even if they catch them, the damage has been done, and if they're suicide bombers you can't really do much.
"starts to get together gangs"
that is a very very very very wrong statement.
for instance
even though you may not see the mafia and gangs around the uae they certainly do exist.
There are more price fixing cartels in dubai than there are products, thing of all the prostitutes around dubai, then all their pimps, all the money laundering that goes on, the dodgy italian leather jacket salesmen, etc etc etc etc etc.
Have a look at some famous politicians that reside in Dubai that have been accused of stealing money etc. quite a lot of dodgy stuff goes on behind all the fancy towers.
Why even bring up this naturalization debate, Emirati, if you are unwilling to give passports to the faceless nameless who BUILT your country? Just who do you intend to give passports? Italians and Englishmen, like Local Hero proposes?
I don't think your proposal leaves any room for a common labourer to ever receive citizenship. Unfortunately, it seems to also exclude the reality of the UAE and its currently existing demographic.
What is this 'nameless' risk you speak of? Is it your oft-quoted example of Indians in the 70s? People are free to follow their own destinies. If they want to emigrate to other countries afterward, they should have the liberty to do so. Some will stay, some will go. Do you really believe the UAE will become some version of Frogger where the brown hordes leap from lilypad to US citizenship?
samuraisam, you are not in the position to even begin to lecture me on internal security and COIN counter insurgency warfare. Im sorry but its absolutely silly for you to think that the perpetrators or their supporters wont be caught and there will be no repeat. If the dubai police wanted to turn up someone, they could have done it in 6 hours like theyve done before. Furthermore if a national effort is tapped into, then the negative reprucussions for the cockoroaches could be enormous. Those dubai dons only survive because dubai doesnt want to mess up the internal situation in dubai by going in after them. If they wanted to, they could. Do you think a few gangster 'Dubai Don' punks with pistols can intimidate a 40 ton tank ? Me Neither.
For a terrorist operation to go ahead, you need a base of support, you need financing, funding organization, this is not a one man operation, how do you get explosives in here ? How do you get primers and charge fuses in here ? Hell even Al-Qaeda had to rely on ETA for the March 2003 bombings. How do you get together a group ? How do you do that when the mosques, phone lines, and net connections are monitored? What is the remainder of your organization going to do ? Arab countries have always concentrated on Internal security to protect the regime from coups and assasination, in this case this strength is utilizable. Arab armies have had more success in fighting insurgencies than the Americans with all their fancy equipment and gadgets have had, thats because a counterinsurgency is about fighting people with people, not equipment.
Give me examples of countries brought down completely by terrorism ? You have none because terrorism is political in nature, poeple still flock to beirut despite the car bombs, bali despite the nail bombs and london despite the bus bombs.
In a world where terrorism is internationalising itself, the world has kind of built up an immunity to it.
Ask any COIN expert, hell tell you that the most important thing is to éradicate an insurgency or any trace of it. Damage control. Thats how the Saudis have pretty much eradicated Elements of the Insurgency against them.
Politically, things will not change as a result. Economically however things might change, but even then the change will be negligible because the government will take care of this problem with speed and it will no longer be a problem. Many of the investments in Dubai in the form of real estate wont get sold off, the stock market will not crash like its 1920s america either. There will be a decline for a period, but no one is going to let dubai crash, especially abu dhabi which would channel massive support to it
Personally Im all for going after and punishing the families of suicide bombers, Israeli style.
any training people recieve re counter terrorism is always silly, there is nothing you can do again terrorists.
How do the masses of illegal fireworks get into dubai?
i could think of a dozen and a half ways to import semtex or any other explosive.
even if its difficult to import, which it isnt, i could go down to eppco, fill a jerry can with a gallon of diesel, buy some fertilizer and bob is your uncle.
if they are suicide bombers how does it matter whether they are identified or not?
In real life there is no way to identify a terrorist, unless you plan on stopping every single tourist in dubai and searching their every body cavity their isnt much to do about it.
Just because the current generation of terrorists seem unable to plan a flawless attack, it does not mean that in 5 years there won't be terrorists who can execute an attack properly and anonymously.
anyone with an iq above room temperature can setup secure encrypted communicaitons.
also i must remind you that London has a complex CCTV network while dubai has almost none. While recently an effort has been made to install CCTV in every single intersection, when i was there 3 months ago it was not complete.
Unfortunately for security agencies, it is impossible to monitor peoples thoughts, as soon as they can, then i will agree that they actually have a chance of stopping terrorist attacks.
What I would like to happen, is to give passports to people who would benefit the UAE. Trained and competent personell, people who will help in the preservation instead of the mutation of the emarati culture.
This whole naturalisation issue, is simply to benefit the UAE first and foremost. No welfare should be given out to anyone, we shouldnt have to waste resources educating people when we could get those who have been already educated.
To Sum the whole Idea up:
Technically qualified, or militarily qualified, those who are married to a UAE National, those who have an Emarati parent, and those whose naturalization does not endanger the position of the UAE or any of its allies.
When you are treated as good as you are by the UAE government, when resources are invested in to you, enormous resources, per capita greater than whatever resources other developed countreis invest in their manpower, it become ingratitude and treason not to return the favour. Free ? When the government has invested enormous resources in them, they simply switch sides and poof, all your effort is gone to waste.
Israel managed to build up its infrastructure not by handing out large amounts of money to poor jews, but by actually taking manpower resources from other ocuntries, scientists, engineers doctors. This is of paramount importance, more than any humanitarian reason. If you find that mean in some way, or unfair, life is unfair, cry me a river.
This is really nice blogging,
thanks for sharing.
I apologise to divert from the topic and I hope my comment does not offend anyone.
I lived in UAE (Dubai) for 5 years. I am an Indian (Hindu).
The local UAE women are really very very pretty and beautiful.
And I am mentioning from a respectable angle.
When I lived there, I always wished that their cultural norms would permit them to interact freely with non-Arabs.
I am an Indian male, very handsome and very well groomed, so I remember, when I used to visit the shopping malls in Dubai , on Fridays, there would always be Emirati girls and women looking at me (in an appriciative way), some of them had the looks on their face, indicating as if they want to communicate with me, but unable to (due to their cultural norms).
I dare NEVER spoke to any Emirati woman (decently , ofcourse), for the fear of going to jail & being deported.
However, I did speak with Lebanese women and also developed very nice friendship with them : decent and pure friendship.
Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian women would never hesitate to speak and be friends with a non-Arab male.
I think it is not only about cultural norms : it also has to do with :-
Your view of the world & their people mainly depends on your view about yourself.
If you think that people who are different from your culture, are all inferior, then I guess you are even more inferior than them.
It is my opinion : I may be right, I may be wrong, but it is my opinion. If I am wrong then please forgive me.
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