Negative PR: Kuwait's Recent Proposals - FAIL

This guy is my favorite person today!

I can't believe puppeteer, MP Nabeel Al-Fadhl, had the audacity to even get the Bedoon proposal out of his mouth...  My blood boiled...

Two Racist Proposals

By Dr Hassan Abbas — Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Rai

Kuwait Times, 23 April 2014

No one can blame lawmakers for acting towards the benefit of citizens and the nation. But at the same time, that does not give them the right to practice discrimination against others. Last week saw two projects proposed by MPs that can be classified as discriminatory. The first proposes that the government set up camps on the borders where bedoons who create chaos through demonstrations can be banished to, and the second calls for removing subsidies from energy consumed by expatriates.

MP Nabeel Al-Fadhl’s proposal to banish bedoon ‘troublemakers’ to border camps reminds me of the Nazi concentration camps when it comes to the racist sentiment behind it. What else is left for bedoons other than protests? If they remain silent, their decades-old miserable situation will continue for years to come. And when they call for help, they are threatened with banishment to Kuwait’s version of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp! The bedoons’ dilemma is divided into two parts: One part includes those who are either Kuwaitis but are still waiting to be recognized as such, or those who have no hope of being naturalized.

My question is this: How does Fadhl plan to deal with bedoons who are soon to become Kuwaitis? How is he going to justify banishing them from their own country? And with regards to the second part, does nationality justify humiliating people? Protesters can either be peaceful demonstrators, in which case they should be left alone, or lawbreakers in which case they are put on trial and jailed by court orders if found guilty.

Now we move to the proposal of lifting subsidies, or as I call it, a group of laws meant to create restrictions on foreigners. I do not understand the meaning of this suggestion. I was confused by MPs’ statements who sometimes say that removing subsidies on fuel helps reduce traffic, and other times they say that this decision would save Kuwait almost KD 1.5 billion annually.

Which is the right justification? Regardless of the answer to that question, I do not understand why we expect that foreigners are always the problem.

I know that Kuwait has a large expatriate population, but who said that they are reason behind traffic jams and money wastage? Waste of public funds is a result of greedy companies and visa traffickers who brought poor people from the ends of the world, which adds pressure on public services and damages Kuwait’s international image in the process.

Let us put traffic jams aside and focus on the economy and waste. When Kuwaitis put their houses for rent, isn’t that a cause of waste? When Kuwaitis sell their subsidized food, isn’t that a cause of waste? When Kuwaitis are paid handsomely to stay at home while leaving work for foreigners to do, isn’t that a cause of waste? Isn’t weak management a cause of waste? When senior posts are monopolized, when administrative development is frozen because of outdated mindsets, isn’t that a cause of waste? Isn’t treatment abroad a cause of waste? Aren’t the failed multibillion deals a cause of waste? If all those are reasons for wastage of public funds, then why are MPs encouraged to take action only against expatriates?!

- - - End

In my personal experience, usually when BS proposals like this are spun, it is usually to hide something larger that is really taking place in the country.  Hmmmm.... what could THAT be?  2 newspapers were recently suspended for talking about it....