Bedoun Articles Birth Certificates and Terminology

Bedouns apply for ‘birth certificates’

Arab Times

KUWAIT CITY, March 21:

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has started receiving birth certificate applications from Bedouns, reports Al-Seyassah daily quoting Assistant Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Abdulkareem Ja’afar.

Affirming the ministry intends to issue 40 birth certificates a day, Ja’afar said the submission of application forms will end after two weeks.  He explained the officials register applications alphabetically to ensure smooth processing. He also advised the applicants to submit copies of birth notification, security card and marriage contract. 

Ja’afar disclosed the procedure went well on the first day, except a few people who did not follow the alphabetical system.

He said the ministry will later collate the documents and send them to the central authority, which will issue birth certificates to qualified applicants.

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Okay, how jacked up is this “issue birth certificates to qualified applicants”.  Qualified for what?  To be born??   WTF.  Yet another example of why the Bedoun issue needs to be resolved.  They can’t even get birth certificates and need to be QUALIFIED to get one.  You can’t get a piece of paper saying where and when you were BORN?  PA-phuckin-THETIC.

And what if someone doesn’t follow the alphabetical system?  Are they disqualified?

And Arab Times - WTF is up with the apostrophes????

Kuwait Times

Under Article Titled:  Al-Salem denies rumors of tensions in ruling family

…  Sheikh Ahmed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah….

Commenting on the bedoon issue, Al-Salem refused the name (what name?  Bedoun? Kuwait Times....) and insisted on calling them non-Kuwaitis. "We all came to Kuwait and were not Kuwaiti in the first place," he said. "We later on became Kuwaitis after we showed our devotion and dedication to this land. Those people will have to prove their dedication and devotion as well." He concluded by saying that true bedoons did not participate in recent demonstrations.

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 I prefer the name "Non-Kuwaiti" to "Illegal Resident" on documentation (although I still don't like "Non-Kuwaiti"  Perhaps just "non-documented resident" would be more politically correct for now).   How can  you issue official, governmental documents to people and then put a phrase on there that states, "Illegal"? Nonsensical conflict of terminology.

Sheikh Ahmed is correct:  No one in Kuwait came from Kuwait. Everyone in Kuwait is from somewhere else.  Most people in Kuwait have origins from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Iran. There is evidence that humans existed in Kuwait tens of thousands of years ago, but that was before there were names for land.  Greeks were here too on Failaka - 325 to 150 BC I believe.  Are their descendants qualified to get nationality?  I think that the nomads that settled in Kuwait during those times probably didn't show a dedication to the Kuwait, but were more likely here out of a necessity for survival and food.