“I just can’t believe that they would do that to me,” lamented a friend of mine who was leaving for another Gulf country permanently. “Do you think that they can?”
“Can what?” I asked half-heartedly secure in the knowledge that in the Kingdom most impossible things are suddenly and dramatically made possible and most possible everyday mundane things become startlingly impossible.
“Well you know that I have been working with the company for so many years,” he began.
“Over ten, right?” I interjected.
He nodded and continued. “Now they are threatening to withhold my money because I am leaving.”
“Why?” I inquired further. “Did you break your contract? Or not give them enough notice?”
“No. I gave adequate notice, but when my boss found out that I wanted to leave, he turned around and told me he wanted me to go sooner. He was furious that I had applied for another job and subsequently made my life miserable at work.”
“So then what’s the problem? If he terminated your contract then surely such a thing doesn’t apply?” I questioned.
“The problem was that I had to join the other company at a certain point and when I tried to negotiate my end-of-service benefits and various bonuses, the accountant kept fobbing me off with a variety of excuses of forms not being signed, signatories being away. You know. The usual evasiveness when someone’s not prepared to do something.”
“I just don’t understand how people can be so vindictive,” I concluded. “It’s really disgusting that they behave like that based on the sole premise that they can get away with it. I don’t suppose you can lodge a formal complaint with the labor court or threaten them with legal action?” I volunteered idealistically. Even before he had said it I knew what the answer to that rhetorical question was. “You know who I work for.”
That statement had sealed his fate much before our conversation and I realized that no matter how unjust and inherently despicable such an attitude was my friend would be left with no viable recourse.
“And to think,” I waxed lyrical, “of all those years that you brought up the company to where it is. I just cannot, for the life of me, comprehend why it is that you have to beg and plead for your entitlement. It is just so pathetic and degrading.”
I am narrating this incident because I have heard it recounted innumerable times as a sort of variation on a theme. Over the years I have encountered many expatriates who have had similar problems. A month ago another of my acquaintances left after having endured a comparable embittering experience with the firm that he had worked for and single-handedly built up. What was ironic about this particular scenario was the nature of his work and how it relied on delineating particular Islamic principles.
“Whatever happened to the saying of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) that a man should be paid his due before the sweat of his labor has dried?” he asked exasperated when, (surprise, surprise!), his employers had altogether forgotten about this religious standard when its application didn’t suit their convenience.
I guess what really bothered me about this was the fact that if people holding such high managerial and important positions were being cheated out of their dues, then what must it be like for the ordinary workers and laborers who constitute the bulk of our imported manpower?
If the educated and elite cannot secure their very basic and fundamental rights then what chance do the poor and the oppressed have? It makes me sick to the depth of my soul to envisage the level of injustice that they must have to absorb on a daily basis. What must it be like to be deprived of not just your dignity and self-respect, as many of these “masakeen” are on a regular basis, but then, to add insult to injury, be robbed of the remuneration that you have used as justification to allow yourself to be humiliated in the first place? How would an ordinary illiterate worker articulate his grievances in Arabic when those who are far more educated and resourceful have no means to do so? Where would he go? What would he do?
It really is a cause for national shame that we have allowed such a system to preponderate that undermines the very tenets of our religion. Instead of treating our expatriate workers with the reverence and gratitude that they deserve we once again take the untenable line that they are here due to their own volition. Even though that might well be the case, it certainly does not provide the license for us to treat them in a manner that is so singularly abhorrent. Islam is one of the most essentially egalitarian religions underpinned by compassion and respect. There are frequent reminders in the Qur’an as to the importance of recognizing the rights of others, most especially those of the defenseless amongst us.
It seems that with all the focus on the more dogmatic aspects that we are so big on here like whether or not a woman covers her face or how many inches a man’s beard should be, we have obfuscated these very important truths.
There really has to be a lot more done to protect the rights of the people whom we rely so heavily upon. We have to recognize that so much of our infrastructure would not exist without their contribution. We all love to talk about how badly people are treated and how something should be done, but in reality very little is. What we need to do now is guarantee every expatriate his or her rights in a fair and equitable manner. There has to be a well-defined set of laws that is made available upon entry to the Kingdom that individuals are made aware of in their own language and a judiciary that impartially supports their implementation. And for the most part employers here should be given a training course en masse in Management 101, starting with that all-important theory that a happy worker is a productive worker.
