because of the abusive behavior and statements that were previously issued by parliamentary figures, or others looking for fame, offensive to expatriates, some people became sensitive to the word expatriate, preferring the word resident because they are residents and not expatriates in the state and this talk lacks accuracy.
in order for a person to become a resident of an area, he must first come to it, and there is no time period in which the expatriate becomes a resident or vice versa. the distinguished eye doctor ghassan zain said: “as far as the respect and humane treatment that the expatriate or the resident receives from the people and authorities of the state to which he has come, work and reside, description will not change the reality.”
when we travel to the united states, for example, we find that in the entry documents they call us alien, which means a foreigner, an intruder, or a stranger from another world.
of course, we do not care about the name, given our full knowledge that we will be in a state of law, and of course, we will not be happy if they call us “honorable people of makkah” and treat us as bandits.
the expatriate who knows himself well and knows his abilities, and what he adds to the country in which he works and feels safe, will not, in most cases, care about the names.
what many do not know, and i am speaking here from experience and expertise, is that in the years before the invasion and the despicable saddamist invasion and occupation, nearly a million palestinians, yemenis, algerians, sudanese, mauritanians, and libyans lived in kuwait.
many of them had prestigious jobs and large stakes in contracting and other companies. because of the positions of these personalities and the positions of their countries and peoples on the issue of the despicable invasion, not all of them were allowed to return to kuwait, either as residents or as expatriates.
but i testify that all of them obtained their entire savings, which were in the banks, and at the end of their services they were transferred to them in full.
also, the partners in the various companies obtained the value of their shares, often in full, except for rare cases where i witnessed some of them due to the disagreement between the two parties on the evaluation.
some of them, ironically, also benefited from the compensation committee from iraq and received large sums from the side they stood with. kuwait did not deprive them of the right to compensation and provided them with the certificates they requested.
if these people were in other countries, they would not have obtained any of their rights. we do not forget to mention in this hurry that the law of canceling more than 50% of bank debts that were owed to companies, which was issued after the liberation of the homeland, included everyone without exception between kuwaitis, palestinians, and yemenis, and this would not have happened if we were not in the rule of law, and in this case, who would care about the name expatriate or resident as long they were treated fairly.
we must also not forget that all kuwaitis, except for a very small number of them, came to kuwait from neighboring countries, so they were immigrants before they became citizens.
note: a friend said that despite the efforts made by men, such as the late khaled abdul latif al-hamad” and his companions in the renaissance of kuwait, financially, commercially and urbanly, and raising its name in its surroundings, no one in the government thought of naming facility, institution, or even street after the late al-hamad, and perhaps others from his comrades, who contributed with him in establishing the largest financial and industrial institutions at a time when there are streets with names that have no credit for their owners except that they died here.