“Two people were killed and 68 others injured in clashes between police and foreign workers following a visa crackdown in Saudi Arabia, the official news agency reported. Police arrested 561 people Saturday in the capital of Riyadh, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The arrests came after “unidentified” people barricaded themselves in narrow streets, where they threw stones at residents and vandalized shops and cars, according to a police statement posted on the news agency’s website. In the aftermath of Saturday’s clashes, a police spokesman urged workers without proper documents to surrender at a shelter in the capital until they could be deported…………..”
“Nearly 17,000 illegal foreigners, including women and children, have surrendered to Riyadh police until Monday evening………” Arab News
“Thousands of undocumented expatriates are desperately seeking to get arrested and deported, as a last resort to end their plight……….” Arab News
This can be a sign of more ominous events. All the Gulf GCC countries have huge foreign populations of laborers, housemaids, and others. The percentages of foreigners to the population range from about one third in Saudi Arabia to about 85% for the UAE and Qatar. Is this Saudi unrest a prelude to more unrest along the Gulf? It can be. When there is a majority of temporary foreigners leading a precarious life, their livelihood and stay in the country tied to often unstable employers, unrest is quite possible. Many are laid off or quit and are forced into becoming “illegal” and fending for themselves. There are tens of thousands of unemployed (also meaning illegal) expatriate laborers in the Persian Gulf states who earn a living in black markets and legally gray areas of the economy, including illegal activities like petty crimes, prostitution, smuggling, and drugs. What is even more ominous is that much of the domestic GCC economies are tied to temporary expatriate labor. The whole infrastructure and available housing and trade and supply network of the GCC states have been built based on larger populations than the native citizens can ever attain. If ‘enough’ of these expats depart, much of the domestic non-oil economies would collapse. Both the supply and demand for goods and services would implode.
I have suggested in the past, almost seriously, that the name of the Gulf be changed from the Persian-American Gulf to the Gulf of South Asia. Now I amend that to the more appropriate name of “Gulf of Expatriates”. Of course the scowling mullahs across the Gulf might object………..
Cheers
mhg