Europe has used ethical and human rights arguments to admit refugees fleeing war-hit Syria. The Gulf countries have taken recourse to the same line to dole out millions in aid. But they have also used practical and political arguments to justify non-admission of refugees.
The blame game intensified following the heart-wrenching death of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi a few weeks ago. Since 2011, about 3,000 Syrians have died attempting to illegally cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. All of them fell prey to human traffickers and smugglers exploiting war and people’s miseries for profit. As Europe and the Gulf countries justify their stance, the story is not as black and white as it seems. The ‘grey’ lies in the details.
About nine million Syrians have fled their homes since 2011. The European Union attempted to jointly address the plight of refugees from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan who have poured in since early 2015. Just days ago, however, Germany reimposed controls at the Austrian border – contrary to the Schengen area agreement – after admitting problems coping with the massive inflow of asylum seekers. About 4,50,000 refugees have arrived in Germany this year. Only weeks earlier, Chancellor Angela Merkel had become the poster woman of human rights organisations and refugee sympathisers by suggesting that Germany would accept up to 8,50,000 refugees and urging the rest of the 28-nation European bloc to do the same.
Hungaryjoined Germany’s retreat, calling in the army to deal with the crisis. Croatia and Slovenia quickly followed suit. How or why then did Europe initially jump the gun, playing its cards the way it did, especially amid an economic slowdown that offers little scope for largesse even to its own citizens, let alone refugees? So, after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait – faced flak for not accepting refugees, their rationale has gained currency.
The GCC perspective is rooted in their delicate demographic (im)balance. With foreign workers and their families already forming a significant part of their population, they are disinclined to accept refugees like Europe. Instead, they have done the next best thing – offer financial aid. The UAE, for example, has provided about $1.1 billion in aid to Syrians since the crisis began, half of it for humanitarian relief. Saudi Arabia too has provided at
least $700 million to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.
The Gulf countries, unlike Europe, are not signatories to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, which defines a refugee and governs their rights and responsibilities towards them. Notwithstandingthis argument, the GCC countries have accepted refugees in the past. Many Palestinians, Yemenis and Lebanese – who fled turmoil in their countries – took refuge here decades ago and have been naturalised as citizens. The real issue is that expatriates in some of the GCC countries are referred to as ‘temporary contractual workers’.
This means that a foreigner stays only till he or she or the spouse is employed. This serves as a safety mechanism for the GCC governments against providing certain rights to guest workers that immigrants normally are entitled to in the West.
If refugees were accepted, the terms of their stay would have to be redrawn, which opens untested and unwarranted frontiers. Again, notwithstanding this, Kuwait has granted its 1,20,000 Syrian residents long-term permits, which means that they would not be asked to leave even if their legal status expires (due to passport expiry, for example). The UAE has also issued work and residence permits to more than 1,01,000 Syrian nationals from “all segments of Syrian society” since 2011, taking their total to over 2,42,000.
Polarised West Asia
‘All segments’ assumes importance because West Asia has been polarised along the lines of Arab and non-Arab, Muslim and Christian, rich and poor, Arab and Persian, and crucially, Sunni and Shiite. The GCC countries are Arab, Muslim, predominantly Sunni, and relatively rich. Most Iraqis and a good part of Syrians are Shiite and even Christian, apart from being relatively poor.
A few Gulf intellectuals have advised a more proactive refugee policy. They feel that as the GCC countries have become powerful countries in their own right, they must also become more responsible. Accepting refugees is a “moral, ethical and
responsible step to take”. Some have also argued that “geography” has a role in the crisis. Europe is more accessible to Syrians via the Mediterranean than the Gulf countries, which makes Damascus closer to Greece than to any Gulf capital. The debate is not just about who is doing or not doing enough. It is also about who is primarily responsible for the mess in Syria in the first place. It is argued that the West – the United States and Europe – precipitated this crisis by not taking decisive political and military action. Hence, they should bear the consequences as well or work harder towards breaking the political and military deadlock in Syria.
Israel is also part of the debate because of the plight of the Palestinians who have been under occupation for decades. The Western failure in resolving the crisis has left millions of refugees in its wake, apart from thousands of Aylan Kurdis whose lives have been nipped in the bud due to indiscriminate use of force. In all this, the tragedy is that Syria – which was once a refugee-receiving country (Palestinians after the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars, Lebanese after the 1975 civil war and Iraqis after Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003) – has degenerated into a refugee-sending country and there are very few tending to its and its people’s needs.
(The writer is a Dubai-based political analyst, author and Honorary Fellow of the University of Exeter, UK)