"This is not the first time, and certainly not the last time I and several other Arabs here would be attacked and apparently “boycotted” because we chose to do what very few other Arabs in this region usually do, and that is tackle an injustice other than Palestine - a “sin” in the world of activism......"
".........There are other issues plaguing our region. Deadly issues, some of which rightly qualify as genocide, and some as critical as modern day slavery. And if you are sitting in the comfort of another country (in Europe/USA) claiming that we are “diverting attention” away from the “REAL crime” (Palestine), then you have no idea what we go through in our own countries, no clue whatsoever. In fact, if you feel this way, chances are you have no idea that Baha’is or Kurds are even being historically oppressed, or aware of the fact that 2/3 of all labor workers in the Middle East are migrants being enslaved, and 500,000+ return home each year either without pay, completely handicapped, or in body bags."
Esra'a (Bahrein)
(Mideast Youth..Thinking ahead)
But no one questions my patriotism without being challenged. I am an Arab, I am a Muslim, I don’t want Baha’is to be abused in the name of Islam, I don’t want Kurds to be abused in the name of Arabs, I don’t want migrant workers to be enslaved in my neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteBravo! The few, the brave, and the persistent speak up for the Hindus and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Copts in Egypt. The Assyrians, Bahai, and Zoroastrians in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.....and YES the Palestinian Christians! Arab voices, Pakistani voices, Iranian voices.... Muslim voices. Not afraid to stand up and say what must be said.
"2/3 of all labor workers in the Middle East are migrants"
ReplyDeleteThere shouldn't even be any foreign migrant workers here in the first place. The Arabs have poor non-oil producing states with millions of unemployed people and rich oil producing ones that lack a local work force. It is clear what needs to be done to benefit the entire region. However, the oil producing stooges of imperialism stand in the way of our untiy and progress. These artificial fiefdoms created by the west prefer to import millions of non-Arab workers on temporary contracts without any rights so they can preserve a feudal stracture enabling royal famlies to amass obsene wealth through there personal control of oil while throughout the region millions of Arabs live in utter poverty.
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Iraq was the only Arab oil producing state on the correct path regarding this issue
ReplyDelete<span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style=" "><span style="font-family: Verdana;">"</span>Iraqi legislation grants non-Iraqi Arabs the same labor, residence, investment, and ultimately naturalization rights as those enjoyed by nationals, but severely restricts access to employment and other rights of non-Arab foreigners. Denunciation of the dangers posed by the presence of large numbers of foreign workers not only to the countries employing them but to the Arab nation as a whole allows Iraq to criticize the migration policies of the Gulf oil exporters, which are increasingly favoring more productive labor from Asian countries"</span></span>
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<span style=""><span style="color: #800080;">http://www.popline.org/docs/0723/033041.html</span></span>