Bahraini Gov’t Honors Foreigners and Marginalizes its Outstanding Youths

2019-12-02 - 9:31 am

Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The country is experiencing a difficult period which kicked off in 2011. Loyalists who opposed the pro-democracy popular movement thought that the failure of the movement would revive their long-term life opportunities, but the period of rapid recovery has rapidly passed, and has been replaced by another policy that favors foreigners after the regime naturalized as many people as it could.

Bahrain now has more than 500 unemployed Bahraini nurses, more than 450 unemployed Bahraini engineers, more than 310 unemployed Bahraini doctors, more than 600 unemployed Bahraini lawyers, and thousands of graduates in other fields.

Bahrainis study the most important majors to look for better opportunities in life. However, they are working hard at a time they are no longer desirable to both public and private sectors, where foreigners take most of the opportunities.

Neither the government nor the merchants accept to hire a Bahraini until they have ensured that the largest percentage of his/her salary will be paid by the Tamkeen Labor Fund within two years, and after two years the Bahraini citizen finds himself unemployed again. This is what they did with the 1912 unemployed women list. They kicked most of them to the streets after their salaries were stopped by Tamkeen.

This is the unfortunate situation of the youth sector, i.e. young people who do not remember anything from 2011 because most of them were too young back then. The regime has decided to cut the country's belly and fill it with strangers from all over the world.

Foreigners are offered multiple facilitations to enter the country, either in the name of investment or in the name of tourism. For the first time in decades, Bahrainis have become a minority in their homeland, accounting for only 45% of the total population.

It is not a secret what people say these days about the facilitations the Bahraini government grants to Thai, Ukrainian, Serbian and soon Russians to enter the island kingdom. Bahrainis know that Al Khalifa have decided to restore the country's financial balance from notorious hotel rooms.

Recently, the majority of the Shura Council (25 members) rejected a proposal to require the submission of a certificate of good conduct by the foreign worker, provided that it is issued by the competent authorities in his country, and certified by the Embassy of Bahrain, in a blatant bias for foreigners, since a Bahraini would not be accepted in the state university or employed unless he/she obtains a certificate from the Ministry of Interior that proves one's good conduct.

The question remains, what can Bahrainis do, especially those who do not have the means to make use of the available opportunities, and those who are not from families close to the regime? The case is even worse if they are from groups that the regime is fighting.

It is undoubtedly a difficult and terrible period for the people of Bahrain, let alone the marginalization and underestimation citizens are witnessing from MPs, Shura members and foreign officials at companies and state bodies. However, history has proven that matters don't remain as they are forever.

Arabic Version