By Ahmad alsarraf
Kuwait since its existence has been a well-known entity, and consequently as an independent country, a refuge of those who have no-refuge.
Over the period of time many people arrived from nearby cities and countries in their Arab caravans and Arabized inhabitants reached them, and for their sake the people crossed the seas and rivers, and they crossed the mountains and crossed the rivers to live in and for them.
At the beginning of the 1960s of the last century, identity cards, or nationalities, were issued, and everyone who was in Kuwait in the 1920s and earlier was considered Kuwaiti by naturalization, regardless of their religion, sect or color. Therefore, Kuwait, and many great countries, can be considered a homeland of immigrants.
The expatriates lived in Kuwait peacefully for decades, and many of them achieved great success. Some of them returned to their countries after earning billions while others continued to live in the country with their children and still continue to live in this good land, which guarantees everyone their rights.
Throughout their stay in Kuwait, over the past fifty or sixty years, no one asked the expatriates to pay a penny more than a Kuwaiti pays as a result of his work in trade or contracting . They were also completely tax exempt.
In 1990, Kuwait faced the ordeal of the Iraqi invasion and occupation, and the State lost billions of dinars. After liberation, the wealthy residents returned to their businesses, engaged in trade, companies, real estate, and residences. They received remunerative compensation as well as citizens, and they did not bear a penny of the liberation costs.
Today the situation is completely different, as the state suffers from material and psychological pressures, with more than a million expatriates who are rendered jobless, and a percentage of them go without food, while
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a third percentage does not want neither this nor that, but only to return to their homelands.
I address here the wealthy senior Arabs and foreigners where individuals did not fail to lend a helping hand to their citizens, but these attempts remain very modest, despite their importance, compared to the scale of the tragedy.
Therefore, we make this appeal to all the wealthy large communities, including the Indians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians and others, to initiate and donate ‘voluntarily’ not only to the fund to support the government’s efforts in tackling the corona epidemic, but also to form relief teams for their citizens, feed them, harbor them, and spend on their travel and deportation programs.
It is never good to stand alone, as we in the Kuwaiti Humanitarian Society feed and give relief to a Lebanese, an Egyptian or an Indian, a majority of them who have millions or billions do little for these communities.
It is not permissible to donate with other citizens, and some residents of the funds, and to stay up to one in the morning every day, to receive, sort and respond to thousands of calls and WhatsApp messages (without exaggeration), and the volunteers of the association to confront the dangers of the epidemic, to meet the urgent need, and the wealthy communities in their sleep blessed.
We call on those who are rich and belong to various communities, for whom we have every love and respect, and some of them are known to have taken generous initiatives, we call on them to bear part of the responsibility, before the government imposes the matter on them.
It is time to return part to the homeland of what was earned by them as long as the nation was nice and generous to them.
Today they are, as they have always been, under their auspices, and they provide them and their families today with full health, security, and financial protection, not their homelands, and this should be in their mind. We are all in one boat.
The embassies, which are more concerned than others, should take the initiative and move with the community’s wealthy quickly to reduce the suffering of their citizens.
e-mail:a.alsarraf@alqabas.com.kw