BORN AND BRED, BUT NOT SAUDI

By Sabri S. Jawhar
The Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH

Fardous Omar is the daughter of Malian immigrants but knows nothing of her homeland except its name. She is 27-years-old and was born and raised in Saudi Arabia.
I never felt any loyalty to any country except Saudi Arabia, she says, It is the only country I know because I have never been abroad, even to Mali.
Even though Fardous parents lived in Saudi Arabia for 45 years, and she has spent her entire life here, she and her 22 brothers and sisters are not Saudi citizens. Neither are more than a quarter of the 23.4 million people living in Saudi Arabia.
Without citizenship, immigrants to Saudi Arabia face a number of hurdles: they lack access to higher education, government funded health care and their career movement is restricted among other concerns.
Until 1984, explains a Civil Status official who asked not to be named, it was much easier for a foreigner to get Saudi citizenship. At that time, being born in Saudi Arabia was enough to get Saudi citizenship whether the mother was Saudi or not. The same thing applied to those who were born to Saudi mothers outside of Saudi Arabia.
And getting Saudi citizenship is difficult. With its exploding population, the government is reluctant to grant new citizenship, sources say, and provide the social benefits such as free schooling and health care that come with it. Between 1996 and 2000, the last period official statistics were available, less than 23,000 became naturalized Saudis.
Since the Saudi population has dramatically increased, says the Civil Status official, only those whose mothers are Saudis and were born in Saudi Arabia are given the citizenship.
However, this does not always guarantee citizenship. he continued, because if the applicant is not integrated with Saudi society, or is still limiting his network to his own people and wearing his own traditional clothes, his application might get a denied.
Being a psychiatric specialist was While growing up, Fardous biggest dream in life was to study at King Abdul Aziz University become a psychiatric specialist. But even though she finished high school with high grades, her dream was destroyed to end up as a divorced mother.
She rapidly took her transcript file to KAAU admissions office in Jeddah and was hit with an obstacle she had never thought about at the office of admission and registration. According to Fardous, the employee there smiled at her and said: You re not Saudi. Don t you know that non-Saudis are not accepted. Don t you know that? Fardous said

At that time, Fardous recounts, I heard the sound of my dreams colliding with
the rock of reality.

I looked at the faces around me in a failed trial to find a confirmation that I was dreaming.
Because private universities here can cost upwards of SR40,000, and Fardous grew up in a 22-member, low-income family, there was no opportunity to continue her studies.
However, she did not easily give up. She married a young Saudi who promised to help her with her citizenship. With that in hand she would be able to resume her studies at a public university. Unfortunately, a week into her marriage, Fardous found out that the man she thought was religious and kind was someone she now accuses of being a liar and a drug addict. After a few years, they divorced.
He offered me nothing but a child and an uncertain, dark future as a divorced, non-Saudi mother, she says.
With no one to take care of her or her child, Fardous left Jeddah and returned home to Madina. Her father had died, her family had few resources and there was no place to turn to for help.
Saudi Arabia doesn t offer any sort of welfare to immigrants, explains Zuhair Jawii, a Civil Status official in Jeddah. If a mother is Saudi and they are in a bad need, they can write about their situation. Then a committee is assigned to study the social and economic facts. If it is proved that they are needy, welfare is given.
While new modifications regarding Saudi citizenship have been adopted, they do not deal with second generation immigrants such as Fardous.
Now I lost any hope of a better life, all that I am concerned about is my younger sisters and brothers
Talking about her only child, Fardous said, Unlike his aunts and uncles, Yazun, my son, has a better opportunity of good education since his father is Saudi, she added.
And in a country where immigrants struggle for educational access primary and secondary schools only allot 15 percent of their seats in each grade to them and have no place in government universities or training institutes, many are totally lost and uncertain about their futures and careers in Saudi Arabia.
Discussing the recently presented Saudi citizenship regulations, an official in Alsh Shura Council said, The government is aware of such a spectrum of [people in] the society and we are sympathetic with their situation. But there are no new regulations related to their cases, an official with the Shoura Council said before adding that a committee has been formed to submit recommendations about the problem to the government.
Some argue that immigrants represent an important economic valve in the Kingdom and that harnessing their potential would reap benefits.
They constitute a representative spectrum of the composing of the Saudi society, says Asaad Jawhar, Professor of Petroleum Economics at KAAU.
Ignoring 25% percent of the society will leave a big gap in any considered plan unless they are carefully dealt with. With their loyalty to the society where they were born and raised, they represent an important economic valve. .
For Fardous, she appears to have let go of her dreams but still looks to the future.
I lost any hope of a better life, she says. Now, all that I am concerned about is my younger sisters and brothers. And unlike his aunts and uncles, my son Yazun has a better opportunity for a good education since his father was Saudi.