After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies (12 page)

National elites

Given that most aspects of the welfare state and the various wealth distribution mechanisms in the Gulf monarchies are geared primarily towards citizens, it has become increasingly important for these states to develop carefully a sense of national identity. On a basic level, governments need to control exactly which of their residents are entitled to the many privileges and benefits of the rentier state and, especially in the more resource-scarce monarchies, there is a need to make sure that the national wealth never has to be too thinly spread. More subtly, the building of a clear social divide between citizens and expatriates, especially in those Gulf monarchies such as Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait—where the majority of residents are now expatriates—has also created a readily identifiable elite status for nationals. Put simply, in these monarchies almost any citizen, regardless of background or education, can automatically assume a relatively high social standing, courtesy of their passport or identity papers.
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For many years—and this is often still the case—this meant in practice that citizens could queue-jump expatriates, win arguments with the police (especially if the police were expatriates), and in general enjoy preferential treatment in public. While this obvious social stratification is now becoming a little blurred—notably in those monarchies such as Bahrain and Oman that have sought foreign direct investment or have established tourism industries—there nevertheless lingers an atmosphere of favouritism and state-sponsored social inequity. Either way, from a ruling family’s perspective any awkwardness or resentfulness from expatriates is massively outweighed by the political benefits of having a national population that not only enjoys distributed wealth but also de facto elite status.

Although not an example of wealth distribution as such, the aforementioned sponsorship or
kafala
system is also heavily dependent on this
elite status and the distinction between citizens and expatriates. While some of the more resource-scarce Gulf monarchies, notably Bahrain and Dubai, have gone to great lengths to liberalise their economies and create a more equitable competitive environment for foreign entrepreneurs and investors—either by removing the
kafala
requirement in the free zones or by allowing ministries rather than individuals to serve as sponsors—most Gulf states have shied away from abolishing the system, given the significant economic benefits it brings to many citizens. In the most straightforward examples, well placed nationals can essentially sell their status as a citizen to foreign partners who need to conform to existing legislation (such as having a sponsor control at least 51 per cent of the company’s stock)
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and seek a local partner. In these situations it is not uncommon to find that the local partner is effectively a ‘sleeping partner’, with the foreigner doing most of the work. As mentioned, this allows citizens to enjoy another stream of rent often above and beyond any land or property they may have acquired with the help of the state.

One important mechanism for guarding and preserving the narrow and distinct social base entitled to these privileges has been the control over citizens’ marriages by using a mixture of formal and informal methods. Although there are many exceptions, and some significant variances between the different Gulf monarchies, it is generally the case that national women must marry national men. The usual explanation for this social requirement is that women marrying foreign men will erode cultural values, religious values, and the use of Arabic by their children. However, for an increasingly vocal younger generation of Gulf national women, this is becoming harder to make sense of, as their male counterparts have always been able to marry whomsoever they wish, regardless of nationality, race, or even religion. Moreover, earlier generations of Gulf women, especially in the pre-oil era, were much freer, with many marrying Muslim Arabs from neighbouring sheikhdoms or even further afield. After all, there is no Koranic requirement for a woman to marry a man from her own country.

At the family level, a system of stigmatisation remains in place for women who marry foreigners, and many such women are effectively ostracised from their families if they press ahead with these unions. While no laws exist in the Gulf monarchies to prevent such occurrences, there is little doubt that pressure continues to be exerted from the top—with rumours and discussion of ‘unpublished decrees’ still frequently circulating
that are rarely scotched by officials. What policies are in place are highly discriminatory, with Gulf national women generally being unable to pass on their passport to any offspring from such unions or—most crucially—both their husbands and offspring being ineligible to receive any of the rentier state benefits. A recent exception to this is the UAE, which in late 2011 announced that such children could apply for passports at the age of eighteen.
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But it remained unclear exactly what benefits they would be entitled to before that age. Moreover, there is still no doubt that the offspring of UAE national men and foreign mothers—even those born and brought up in different countries, or out of wedlock—enjoy much better rights. In 2009, a UAE committee even visited Egypt and Syria to identify such children who might be eligible for UAE citizenship. A six-month Ministry for Interior programme was announced for these ‘would-be UAE citizens to go under a series of educational, social and health orientation programmes to learn UAE customs, traditions, heritage and values that will smooth their integration into UAE society’.
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Also at the policy level, for those Gulf monarchies that provide ‘marriage funds’ to young male citizens—another wealth distribution mechanism, ostensibly to defray the rising cost of wedding ceremonies—payments will only usually be made to men who are betrothed to fellow nationals. In other words, there now exists a significant financial incentive for many men to marry compatriots rather than foreigners. An oft-cited example is the Sheikh Zayed Marriage Fund which began in Abu Dhabi in 1990, before later being made accessible across the entire UAE. In its first decade over 60,000 youths benefited from the scheme, which dispensed more than $630 million in grants.
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Today, on average, it offers grants of $19,000 to each eligible applicant.
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Similarly narrow incentives exist in Qatar, where the housing allowances are doubled for Qatari men if their wives are also Qatari.
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And across the region ruling family-sponsored mass weddings for such marriages remain highly popular, often costing millions of dollars and involving giant feasts for hundreds or thousands of guests.
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Another prominent mechanism for guarding and preserving the social base of national elites in the Gulf monarchies has been the adoption of a ‘national dress’ code. There are significant variations across the region, with men and women in Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait wearing several different styles of garments, and with the younger generations in all
six Gulf monarchies increasingly wearing western clothes during their leisure time. For the most part the older generations in all these countries, and most citizens—young and old—in the wealthiest of the Gulf monarchies tend to wear a fairly strict uniform of white
thobes
or
dishdashas
(men) or black
abayas
(women). Such quotidian sartorial choices allow the observer to differentiate instantly between a citizen and an expatriate, which helps the former to access the aforementioned privileges associated with citizenship and the concomitant elevated social status they bring. In those monarchies such as Qatar or the UAE where the material rewards of citizenship are the greatest and where the expatriate component of the total resident population is the highest, adherence to the dress code is most prevalent. As one recent study put it, ‘it is no mere fashion that leads all Qatar national men to wear their traditional
thob
at all times… the emir and his government have perpetuated these neotraditional myths of authenticity, allowing the creation of a citizen autocracy’.
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Certainly, it is very important to note that this dress code is primarily a product of the oil era and the rentier state: although sometimes referred to as ‘traditional dress’ or even ‘Islamic dress’ by foreigners, the current national dress code in these Gulf monarchies has few roots in tradition or religion, with early pre-oil photographs from the region demonstrating that the indigenous populations once wore a variety of colours and styles.

Further connected to the dress code, it is also notable how in recent years some male ruling family members have increasingly adopted different colours for their
dishdashas
, especially when making public appearances. This often results in formal events or occasions where the most senior sheikh present is dressed in black, brown, or blue, while other nationals wear white. In this manner the patron distinguishes himself from the regular citizenry by being visibly superior. Also of interest, and reinforcing the argument that dress code marks elite status and those benefiting from distributed wealth, is the reaction to expatriates who adopt national dress. While little attention is paid to tourists buying and trying on such clothes, to Caucasian-origin western expatriates, or to prostitutes (who regularly wear national dress in order to move discreetly between locations), there is generally a negative reaction to Arab, South Asian, or African expatriates (or any person who could be confused with a citizen) who may try to wear such dress. These attempts are usually viewed as an encroachment on the entitlement of nationals, and on some
occasions even lead to police intervention. From another angle, it is also interesting that some of the indigenous Gulf communities who seemingly have the least to gain from the survival of the current regimes choose not to adopt national dress. Notably, the Shia population of Bahrain (and increasingly the Shia population of Saudi Arabia’s restive Eastern Province) now infrequently wear national dress. And since the onset of the Bahrain revolution in February 2011 it has become commonplace for protestors to burn effigies of white
dishdasha
s—representing the Al-Khalifa ruling family and their supporters—from washing lines in their back yards.

Co-opting expatriates

For decades the Gulf monarchies have relied on substantial expatriate workforces, not only because of the small size of their indigenous populations relative to the enormous development opportunities that have arisen since the first oil booms, but also because of the benefits and privileges enjoyed by citizens and their subsequent preference for public sector employment. Today, there are now several million foreigners employed in these states, working across all sectors, and from all parts of the world. While accurate figures are difficult to come by, given the obvious sensitivities of governments admitting to such demographic breakdowns, it is still possible to make useful generalisations. Most of the region’s unskilled labour force (usually housed in worker camps outside the main cities) is made up of South or East Asians, while most of the retail and service sectors are made up of South Asians, or non-Gulf Arabs. Westerners, Australians, and South Africans, along with educated non-Gulf Arabs make up a significant proportion of the region’s professional class and white collar private sector workforce.

In Saudi Arabia there are now nearly eight million expatriates—nearly a quarter of the total population.
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In the more resource-scarce Oman, where there are fewer economic opportunities, there are unsurprisingly fewer expatriates. Nevertheless, as of 2011 there were still more than 600,000 foreigners living there, accounting for 17 per cent of the total population.
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Meanwhile in Bahrain about 550,000 or nearly half of the island’s population were thought to be expatriates—at least before the 2011 uprisings began.
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The most dramatic examples are, however, in the more resource-rich small monarchies. In Kuwait, over 1.1 million expatriates
account for nearly 70 per cent of the total population,
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while in the UAE expatriates now seem to make up 90 per cent of population.
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The latter figure is based on official UAE government data claiming that the total population has risen to 9 million
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—this has been widely disputed and can be put down to the UAE’s historic rivalry with the much larger Saudi Arabia. Qatar, now the fastest growing Gulf economy with the smallest number of citizens—only 290,000—will soon catch up with the UAE. Already the population comprises 80 per cent expatriates, and with a staggering annual population growth rate of nearly 60 per cent their proportion will increase dramatically.
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The presence of substantial expatriate populations has profound socioeconomic consequences but in terms of political stability they may have greatly contributed to the survival of the Gulf monarchies. Most expatriates in the region are there to make money and eventually return to their home countries relatively better off. Indeed, most only stay in these states for two to five years, with very few regarding their host country as a real home or a retirement destination. In this regard they differ greatly from immigrants who arrive in ‘melting pot’ countries such as the US, Canada, and Australia—many of whom intend to spend their whole lives there and help shape their adopted nations. Gulf expatriates are thus better viewed as strictly temporary economic migrants. Although not entitled to the full benefits of the rentier state, they nevertheless enjoy a tax free salary which is usually better than that they could expect in their country of origin. Often they have no real interest in the politics of their host country, and certainly never revolutionary politics. In many ways they become a loyal, silent support base for the ruling families, as the latter usually portray themselves as the guardians of stable, fairly apolitical states where money can be made safely and smoothly. The Al-Maktoum ruling family of Dubai perhaps provide the best example of this. Styling his makeshift government as ‘Dubai Inc’., the ruler’s aim has been to portray himself as the chief executive officer of a corporation, rather than as an autocrat presiding over an unelected government. As the emirate’s indigenous population has continued to shrink, relative to the influx of hundreds of thousands of expatriates each year, the government has regularly announced new initiatives to hold the situation in check. But in many ways it has suited the ruler’s interests well—even if it has alarmed the citizenry—to govern over a city made up of temporary migrants.