Why is there is no coming slave revolt in the Khaleej, and what could come instead?
I. Introduction
Migrant labourers, who come to the Arabian Peninsula through the Kafala (‘sponsorship’) system, are the most highly exploited subsection of the proletarian class in the entire Arabian Peninsula.
They are brought over by their Kafeels (‘sponsors’), or employers, who then take away their passports and practically force them to work for years for little to no pay, without the ability to go home, living in slums, have barely enough to eat and drink, are sleep deprived, face abuse of all kind, etc. and leaving their employer is a crime.
However, the Kafala Labourers are not just passive victims. They fight back, they rebel against the forces that oppress them, and there are regularly protests, struggle, etc., fighting for their liberation and right to go home. This happened in 2013, 2018, 2020, and various other points, and in fact is still continuing.
From this knowledge, the idea that the Kafala labourers, as the most exploited section of the proletariat in “Saudi” Arabia and the rest of the Khaleej, would be the primary revolutionary group in a revolution in the Khaleej, and thereby the primary form of revolutionary action in the Khaleej would be a slave revolt, sounds obvious. This is, however, not true.
The Kafala Labourers will not be the primary revolutionary section, as the Kafalas do not have long term interests in the future of the Arabian Peninsula. A ‘slave revolt’ in the Haitian style, which is how these people imagine such a slave revolt, would imply the primary interest of the Kafala labourers would be the establishment of a life in the Khaleej where they are in control.
This is not so. The primary interest of the Kafala Labourers is return to their home countries where there families and actual connections are, and then secondary interests are improvements to their working conditions, recover their wages and other such demands. They only came to make some money to make the lives of them and their families back home better, and do not feel any form of connection to the Arabian Peninsula.
II. WHY WON’T MIGRANT LABOURERS BE THE PRINCIPAL REVOLUTIONARIES IN AN ARABIAN REVOLUTION?
Kafala labourers are cycled in and out about every twenty years. What does this mean for revolution principally through Kafala labourers? They have no permanent interests in the Khaleej except perhaps some immediate benefit and the reducing of exploitation.
But why can they not develop permanent interests in the Khaleej, it’s interests and affairs?
They do not feel connected to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. They do not feel like a ‘Diaspora’, they are not Indian-Arabians, Gambian-Arabians, or Filipino-Arabians or etc. (there is an actual ‘Diaspora’ of Indians, the mostly petty-bourgeoise Gulf Malayalis), they are simply Indians, or Gambians, or Filipinos in the Arabian Peninsula for a temporary amount of time attempting to get some money before going home.
They do eventually go home. Kafala labourers are cycled in and out of the Arabian Peninsula about every twenty years, being sent home eventually to their friends and family home. This both maximizes productive labour for the Kafeels, as most Kafala labourers are recruited when they are 20, and are worked throughout their 20s and 30s, and so, even though they are mistreated and lack what they came for, do not develop any permanent attachment to the Arabian Peninsula.
Unlike in Haiti, where there was no hope of going home, and agricultural labour as the principal form of slave labour which was used, which led to a slave population that both wanted to establish a black state and do land reform and such, there is a hope of going home, and so the primary demands of the Khaleej Kafala labour movement are being to go home, the improvement of working conditions and return of wages kept from them, though they could also be united with the struggles of the rest of the workers in the Arabian Peninsula and throughout the world to struggle for more.
The ability to be sent home also opens another problem. Mass deportations. The Khaleeji states have the ability to deport basically the entire Kafala labourer population, and the Khaleeji states will not resist from using this weapon. While, as state power weakens, either through protest and mass political campaigns, or through complete destruction through a People’s War, this power can be weakened or even eventually be taken away, the fact that the “base” that Communists in the Peninsula are supposed to build on can easily be knocked down by the state is definitely a weakness.
We Maoists believe that we should unite with all those who can be united with. While almost all of the proletariat in Qatar, the UAE and the majority of them (though with Arab (from Iraqi tribes) and Ajami large minorities, mostly Bidoon) in Kuwait are Kafala labourers, the majority of proletarians in “Saudi” Arabia and Bahrain are Arabs, and in Bahrain are as maltreated as the Kafalas. According to Maoism, these two populations should unite together as proletarians.
This is not to say say Kafala labourers are uninterested in revolution (a revolution would allow for them to achieve there goals of going home and being able to receive stolen wages, and Kafala labourers can be mobilized in order to push for revolutionary change and struggle in the Arabian Peninsula), or that they cannot engage in revolutionary action. They can and do engage in rebellious and revolutionary actions, such as the 2018 Migrant Labourer protests, and can and should be contacted with and engaged with by “Saudi” Communists.
While Kafala labourers, as the most exploited proletarians in the Khaleej do obviously engage in class struggle, to claim that they will be principal and driving force of the revolution is absurd, as their primary interest is their return home, the return of their wages and bettering of working conditions, which, while all are positions we should support, is not conducive to revolution.
Kafala labourers principal desire is to return home.
III. What instead?
The revolutionary subjects of a Khaleeji revolution will be in majority Arabs in “Saudi”, the Shi’ite Arab workers of Bahrain and Kuwait’s Bidoons.
Why?
Well, for “Saudi” Arabia, the part that is most neccessary to explain, while the Saudi state has done a good job of hiding this to both foreigners and it’s citizens, the poverty rate in “Saudi” Arabia among “Saudi” citizens is actually quite high with estimates ranging 13.6% to even 25% (I have even seen an estimate that states it is as high as 40%, though I can no longer find that source). Youth unemployment in the growing population of Saudi Arabia is even higher, almost 60%, extremely high.
This may seem odd and implausible but that’s because most of these people are people who are voiceless and in places like ‘Asir, Najran, al Bahah, Qatif, among the youth, among the Shias of Qatif and Najran (there are Ismaili and Zaydi Shias there).
Now with the inevitable decline of capitalism, things will get worse for these groups, especially when Shias of Qatif and Najran, (there are Ismailli and Zaydi Shias in Najran) who are already highly persecuted, If a militarised Communist vanguard Party is formed in the Arabian Peninsula, these people be the most ready to rebel.
There have been revolutionary organizations previously in the Arabian Peninsula, such as the Arabian Peninsula Peoples’ Union (a national bourgeoise national democratic organization), Popular Democratic Party of the Arabian Peninsula (under Mao Zedong Thought) and Arabian Socialist Action Party — Arabian Peninsula (Arab Nationalist, Arab Socialist, Marxist-Leninist Mao-inspired group in the vein of the PFLP/DFLP), which focused on the Arab workers. While these were almost all (except for the ASAP-AP) are from the 50s-80s, there revolutionary legacies should be respected and studied by Peninsular Communists.
For Kuwait, the Bidoons are very much oppressed, as much as, or even more than the Kafala labourers. Bidoons are stateless people, who make up large populations in Kuwait. While it is theoretically easy for Bidoons to gain citizenship, in practice while it easy for Bidoons with roots in Saudi or among Sunni Ajamis (Khaleej Persians) to get citizenship, it is almost impossible for Iraqi-origin Bidoons to get that citizenship. The Kuwaiti government has refused to grant any form of documentation to Bidoons, and they face many restrictions in employment, travel and education. They are not permitted to educate their children in state schools.
Kuwait is committing genocide against the Bidoon. In 1995, they deported 150,000 stateless Bidoon to refugee camps in the Kuwaiti desert near the Iraqi border without food, water or shelter, and were threatened with death if they returned to their homes in Kuwait. They have faced forced disappearance and have been found in mass graves. They even drive the Bidoons to suicide.
This section of the population in Kuwait are the primary revolutionary section, and amongst these, through an alliance with the Kafala labourers of Kuwait and the Arab and Ajami workers, will be how revolution comes to Kuwait.
For Bahrain, the majority of the population is oppressed. The Shi’ite Arabs in Bahrain are the working class in Bahrain, and make up 70% of their population. They are politically oppressed, economically oppressed and are potentially revolutionary. Revolutionary organizations have existed in Bahrain and have fought for liberation such as the National Liberation Front of Bahrain and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, both Communist groups, which were based amongst the Shi’ite Arab workers, and should be studied and respected by the Peninsular Communists.
However, excluding the three already mentioned and Oman, revolution could only occur in the rest of the Khaleej (the Southern Khaleej, the UAE and Qatar) either through a revolutionary invasion or through a collapse so catastrophic that it proletarianizes the Arabs of Qatar and the UAE, a collapse so catastrophic that making plans for it would be fortune telling, and Marxist-Leninist-Maoists should not be fortune tellers, as Mao said, as those countries just don’t have a proletariat that aren’t Kafala labourers and I’ve already explained the problems with the Kafala slave revolt theory. These revolutionary invasions would be supported by revolutionary mass organizations rooted amongst the Kafala migrant labourers, but revolution would be principally exported, from a liberated (and no longer Saudi, nor Khalifa, nor Sabah) Arabia.
Therefore, revolution in the “Saudi” Arabia and the Khaleej will come from “Saudi” Arab and Bahraini working class and the Bedoons of Kuwait principally, with Kafala labourers playing an important but secondary role.
