Every one agrees that naturalization, where a country grants its citizenship to people, is a matter of sovereignty. Each state has its own laws and justifications under which they act to grant citizenship to whomever the state considers eligible for such a privilege.
Every year, since its establishment, Saudi Arabia has granted citizenship to a large number of people living and working in the Kingdom hailing from different Arab and Muslim countries. A look at the official gazette, Umm Al-Qura, published for more than five decades, will show names of people hailing from different backgrounds who have been granted Saudi citizenship.
People leave their countries and travel to other places for different reasons, with economic considerations being the main motive.
The Kingdom has recently introduced a new law governing the granting of the Saudi citizenship to foreigners, opening the way for expatriates who have been working and living in the country for at least ten years to apply.
The question that has to be asked here is this: Does the Kingdom really need to add new numbers to a population that keeps rising?
All indications are that Saudi Arabia does not need additional numbers. According to recent statistics, the country has one of the highest rates of population growth. Adding more people would influence the population balance and have long-term negative effects on young Saudis who make up 60 percent of the Kingdom’s population.
Almost all the expatriates and others who could meet the conditions required for granting the Saudi citizenship originally came here for work. Some have been driven by the desire to be close to the Islamic holy sites while others have remained illegally for long periods of time and entered into marriage. By the time they are granted citizenship they would become unproductive since, spending most of their time trying to earn more, they had no time to further develop and improve their performance.
The prevailing Saudi environment is to blame for this with the Kingdom being attractive only to those looking for work to improve their economic conditions. This is the reason why the Kingdom is flooded with foreign workers who now account for half the total population. For these and other considerations, I don’t think the Kingdom would benefit from adding more numbers to its population.
This is not to belittle the contribution of these people but the fact remains that the Kingdom continues to attract only those coming for economic considerations. Ours is not the kind of environment that satisfies the ambitions and wishes of new Arab and Islamic generations.
I thus do not see any reason why the Kingdom should grant its citizenship except in extremely limited cases. This is being done by many nations, including Canada, bigger and richer than our country.
