4 ms·

Can somebody help me understand why the countries where Bidoon reside are so hesitant to give them some form of documentation? State actors shopping around for

Can somebody help me understand why the countries where Bidoon reside are so hesitant to give them some form of documentation? State actors shopping around for citizenship for their residents just sounds so fishy. Do they not want the Bidoon in their countries? If so, can't they simply be deported?

lnanek2 11y ago
It's exactly the same here in the US. Only a small minority of the states (10) allow illegals to get driver's licenses, for example.
- mc32 11y ago
  It's hardly exactly the same. Bidoons are natives of those countries yet are still denied documents. (Illegal/undocumented) immigrants tend to have documentation from their home countries and have citizenship from those countries. They are not lacking in citizenship. And it's not as if Mexico grants 'documents' to illegal immigrants to their country, nor does South Africa, nor does China, nor does... As to the OP's Q: I think it's because conferring citizenship entitles them to benefits the government is reluctant to extend to clans/ethnicities they feel are not loyal to the ruling party.
  - akiselev 11y ago
    I don't think that the Bidoon are confirmed natives of Kuwait, because if they were the designation probably wouldn't exist. The problem is that the state can't confirm, for whatever reason, that they are or are not natives, so they're not willing to take on the liability of granting them a nationality (not just citizenship) due to internal and international politics. Im not sure it's a question of loyalty, but of old world beliefs about original nationality. When someone lacks basic documentation like papers from their country of origin, the immediate assumption is of wrongdoing even when the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the 4,000 affected families.
  - jldugger 11y ago
    I doubt you can trust Wikipedia on a contentious issue like this, but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedoon_%28ethnicity%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedoon_%28ethnicity%29, Kuwait appears to treat them as illegal immigrants, and that they're hiding their true nationality.
meric 11y ago
I think some of them have lived there for decades and did not know about procedures for registering their citizenships when the country was formed. I am not sure even the Arab authorities have the political power to deport hundreds of thousands of people who were originally from their country, who have no other place to call home. And if they were going to try do it anyway, to where, Syria? I guess the foreign citizenship plan was to give these people a citizenship in the Comoros, and in exchange give the people temporary visas to stay in those Arab countries, and slowly phase them out because they don't want to share the country's bounties with these people.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  According to the article the second phase of the plan was mass deportations under a pretty transparent guise. That never happened though, fortunately. I wonder if any of the Bidoon ended up in the Comoros.
jacquesm 11y ago
Because giving them documentation would also give them rights and turn them from 'nobodies' into 'somebodies' whose numbers are sufficient to then create a political bloc with some power. Hence the attempt to make them go away.

lnanek2 11y ago

It's exactly the same here in the US. Only a small minority of the states (10) allow illegals to get driver's licenses, for example.

mc32 11y ago
It's hardly exactly the same. Bidoons are natives of those countries yet are still denied documents. (Illegal/undocumented) immigrants tend to have documentation from their home countries and have citizenship from those countries. They are not lacking in citizenship. And it's not as if Mexico grants 'documents' to illegal immigrants to their country, nor does South Africa, nor does China, nor does... As to the OP's Q: I think it's because conferring citizenship entitles them to benefits the government is reluctant to extend to clans/ethnicities they feel are not loyal to the ruling party.
- akiselev 11y ago
  I don't think that the Bidoon are confirmed natives of Kuwait, because if they were the designation probably wouldn't exist. The problem is that the state can't confirm, for whatever reason, that they are or are not natives, so they're not willing to take on the liability of granting them a nationality (not just citizenship) due to internal and international politics. Im not sure it's a question of loyalty, but of old world beliefs about original nationality. When someone lacks basic documentation like papers from their country of origin, the immediate assumption is of wrongdoing even when the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the 4,000 affected families.
- jldugger 11y ago
  I doubt you can trust Wikipedia on a contentious issue like this, but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedoon_%28ethnicity%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedoon_%28ethnicity%29, Kuwait appears to treat them as illegal immigrants, and that they're hiding their true nationality.

meric 11y ago

I think some of them have lived there for decades and did not know about procedures for registering their citizenships when the country was formed. I am not sure even the Arab authorities have the political power to deport hundreds of thousands of people who were originally from their country, who have no other place to call home. And if they were going to try do it anyway, to where, Syria? I guess the foreign citizenship plan was to give these people a citizenship in the Comoros, and in exchange give the people temporary visas to stay in those Arab countries, and slowly phase them out because they don't want to share the country's bounties with these people.

jacquesm 11y ago
According to the article the second phase of the plan was mass deportations under a pretty transparent guise. That never happened though, fortunately. I wonder if any of the Bidoon ended up in the Comoros.

jacquesm 11y ago

Because giving them documentation would also give them rights and turn them from 'nobodies' into 'somebodies' whose numbers are sufficient to then create a political bloc with some power. Hence the attempt to make them go away.