Citizenship rules victimize Saudi mothers and non-Saudi children

IN 2008 I wrote about the restrictive citizenship laws that left many expatriates born and bred in Saudi Arabia on the margins of society.
Fast-forward to today and absolutely nothing has changed.
In 2004, the Saudi government made it more difficult for expats to become citizens.
The government increased the requirement of continuously living in the Kingdom from five years to 10. The government also demanded that applicants have professional skills, such as being a physician, scientist, IT tech and skills in other highly specialized fields. The demand for people in skilled professions is a must and not out of line with other countries that offer citizenship to highly educated foreigners.
So it puzzles me that the men and women of Saudi mothers striving for university degrees with an eye toward employment in scientific fields are denied the basic right of citizenship.
There is an estimated 2 million expatriates who were born in Saudi Arabia and who have roots here dating back at least three generations. I understand the tight restrictions on expats who are children of foreign parents, but I can’t figure out why children of Saudi mothers deserve the same treatment.
It’s also a double standard that children of Saudi fathers and foreign mothers receive instant citizenship, but children of Saudi mothers and foreign fathers are denied the right. We are victimizing both the mother and child.
An acquaintance of mine is a Saudi woman married to a non-Saudi from an African nation. She was one of the first female Saudi nurses to serve her country. She has made many personal sacrifices in her life by remaining faithful to nursing because she sees nursing and serving her country in the medical field as a calling and not just a job.
Her children were born and educated in Saudi Arabia. They know of no other home. They’ve rarely been to their father’s country. They know neither the customs of the land of their father’s birth nor its laws. They only know what it is to be Saudi.
But they are not Saudi.
As children, the impact of being denied Saudi citizenship was non-existent. As young adults, my Saudi friend’s children are slowly realizing that they have no future in the country where they were born and remain loyal to this day.
The son applied for citizenship at the age of 18. He’s 24 now and still waiting. He’s a law-abiding person like his parents, but he is now at a crossroads in his life in which he must choose a path for his future. He is pursing his bachelor’s of science degree in medicine, but is not eligible for a scholarship to pursue a master’s, Ph.D in medicine or any further medical degree.
His goal is to be a medical doctor in Saudi Arabia, but he faces discrimination. “I can’t imagine working in a place with my classmates knowing they make more money than I do because of this piece of (citizenship) paper,” he complained to his mother.
The young man is devastated. An alternative path for him is to emigrate to Canada or another Western nation, obtain his postgraduate degrees, and work to become a citizen in that country. After obtaining the citizenship, he could return to Saudi Arabia and earn a salary that is equal or more to his Saudi classmates.
The irony of leaving the country of your birth to obtain citizenship elsewhere in order to earn a living wage in the Kingdom is not lost on the young man or his Saudi mother. My bet is he will remain in the Western country that will embrace him as a new citizen and remember the rejection of his true kinsmen.
Saudi Arabia is desperate for doctors and must rely on importing physicians from foreign countries to fill the gap. This young man, this young Saudi man, whose mother tongue is Saudi Arabic and whose Saudi mother instilled Saudi values in him, has no place here. Not only are we losing a loyal young man, but we are also losing a professional because he has no paper saying he is “Saudi.”
The government may have strict rules about how it awards citizenship to expats, but it is a relatively straight forward process. Yet it remains a process beset with delays and evasiveness. Few individuals can get a straight answer about the status of their citizenship applications.
I asked a friend of mine working with the Shoura Council why the council doesn’t consider easing the process for non-Saudi children of Saudi mothers to earn citizenship. She told me the issue is often raised by the appointed female advisers of the council, but is rejected for discussion.
Much of the problem, however, is steeped in some Saudis’ unfriendly attitudes toward non-citizens in general.
There was a boy who was born to a Saudi mother, but his father was from Mali. He was Saudi but without the Saudi citizenship. One day he and his Saudi friends went to the mall, got into a little mix-up with the Haia following accusations that the boys were eve-teasing some girls. The boys got arrested and hauled off to jail.
The fathers of the Saudi boys came down and signed an agreement that their sons will not engage in such behavior again. They got to go home. The one boy without the Saudi citizenship spent two months in jail. He was then deported to Mali, a country that he had never seen, with customs he never knew, and a language he never spoke.
Now how is that for nurturing Saudi Arabia’s future?

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