Kakande is a Muslim journalist from
Uganda, who combines his personal and journalistic experience in the Gulf to
paint a dire portrait of the situation for migrant (ostensibly ‘temporary’)
workers in the theocratic Gulf states. He approaches the situation as a liberal moral
Muslim, not as an anti-capitalist. His
many stories resonate with anyone who is aware of the situation of migrants in
the U.S.,
who suffer some of the same fates, but not all.
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| And It Is 2019... |
Indeed, the ‘Kafala’ system is more
brutal. It is the legal name (ridiculously
based on the Arabic word for ‘guest’!) for the immigration labor system of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Oman, United Arab Emirates (which includes 3 emirates),
Qatar and Bahrain. These countries are all in the Gulf
Cooperation Council – GCC. The sponsors
of Kafala workers, be they individuals or companies, have all power over those
they ‘sponsor.’ Money, passports, healthcare,
communications, movement, etc.
Kakande himself worked in Dubai and Sharjah,
UAE, and in Doha, Qatar
as a low-paid, Kafala journalist for years.
This gave him a wide view into the lives of migrant construction
workers, taxi drivers, domestic servants, security guards and airport workers imported
into the GCC states to do their hard work.
These wealthy oil emirates are seen by the poor living near them as
money magnets, much as the U.S.
is seen in the Americas.
Yemen, the Red Sea and the deserts of
Saudi Arabia have become deadly transition zones for illegal migrants from
Africa, especially Ethiopia, where many die of drowning, thirst or hunger.
In practice wealthy citizens and
their monarchical governments in the GCC view the Kafala system as virtual
slavery.
The UAE and other Gulf states abolished chattel slavery in the
1960s, not so long ago. The Islamic Republic of Mauritania was the last country in the
world to outlaw chattel slavery in 1981, but it continues with an estimated
10-20% of darker Moors enslaved. Only one
slaver in Mauritania
has been convicted. While Kakande
asserts that Islam is against slavery, he never explains why Islamic
theocracies continue/d the practice – not ‘de jure’ but certainly ‘de facto.’ Salafist, Wahhabist and certain Shia religious
thinkers continue to support slavery to this day. Certain ‘habits’ of some rich Arab men, such as
forcing themselves on maids, come from the days of the Arab slave trade, which
brought Africans to the middle east.
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| The Shangri-La of the Middle East |
Kakande hits on many topics,
including the censorship, self-censorship and deportations that face
journalists in the GCC. He cites cases
of the legal inviolability of royal families and the sham nature of both
‘secular’ and Sharia legal systems related to Kafala. These same families and their corporations
buy off Muslim inmans and muftis, who then bless their activities with Islamic fatwas. Each country filters the profits of government
projects into private pockets. Even "Islamic" banking is a fraud that merely changes the name of interest to 'profit.' Kakande
details the widespread penchant for not paying workers at all by sponsoring
companies, governments and rich Emirati citizens, or nicking them with constant fees
and fines. Kakande also describes the
overwhelming racism in the Gulf
states based on skin tone and national origins.
The situation of immigrant women is
the most grim. Rape, injuries and murder
of non-Arab maids occur on a regular basis, sometimes without punishment or
light ones. Conditions are similar to
those for female house slaves in the U.S. South during slavery
days. A child born out of wedlock can
lose an immigrant woman her job and also get her a jail term, so babies are killed or
abandoned. Qatari women who work
for Qatar
Air are forbidden from getting married or being pregnant. Street harassment of women, including cameras
in toilets and hotel bathrooms, are huge problems. Prostitutes are imported into the brothels of the GCC, many unable to leave.
Kakande reports on the terrible
conditions and quandaries faced by Kafala proletarians from Pakistan, India,
Ethiopia, Uganda, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and the
like. Many fall out of the system and
continue illegally within the GCC as ‘runaways’ or escapees. Mass deportations occur. Strikes break out which do not last or
succeed. The immigrants are the great majority in these countries, which have never
had a local proletariat. As such, Kafala
is the local capitalists’ way of controlling or crushing that proletariat. Kakande gives you an inside, personal look
into how these glitzy profiteering economies work that no GCC government or
corporation wants known.
Other reviews related to this topic,
use blog search box, upper left: “Modern De Facto Slavery,” “The Death of the Nation,” “Lipstick Jihad,”
Libertarian Atheism versus Liberal Religionism,” “Female Genital Mutilation,” “The Left and Islamic Literalism,”
“Islamophbia and the Politics of Empire,” “The Implosion of Contemporary
Capitalism,” “Armed Madhouse,” “The Party’s Over,” “The Race For What’s Left,”
And I bought it at May Day Books!
Red Frog
April 29, 2019
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