Bidoon have protested against government policies. The response of the Kuwaiti authorities is to crush any public protests. The situation ignited following the September 2017 attempted suicide of a Bidoon man who’d had it with the persecution he and his people had to endure; he set himself on fire.
“In 2012, new protests were organized, notably in Jahra and Sulaibiya, where most of Kuwait’s Bidoon today live. The government persists with new warning statements and more excessive use of force, promising punishments and jail sentences to all protesters.” (By Maya Savic, October 4, 2012; unitedexplanations.org: KUWAIT’S STATELESS AND REPRESSED: THE STORY OF THE BIDOON).
In 1972, Federal Law Number 17 of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) specified that citizenship would be accorded to individuals who had resided in the UAE since 1925. Individuals who resided in the UAE since 1940 could not apply for 20 years. Individuals from Bahrain, Oman, or Qatar were permitted to apply after 3 years. Individuals from other Arab countries had to wait 10 years. Moreover, citizenship could be awarded under special circumstances.
In the 1990s, the Ministry of Interior was granted responsibility for the kafala sponsorship system. It had previously been the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour. This meant that residency had earlier been a demographic issue, but was now a security issue. In 2008, the UAE, Kuwait, and Comoros Islands governments agreed to grant Comoros citizenship to nearly 4,000 Bedoun. The island nation is very poor. It was basically a bribe in the form of investments; the 2 Gulf nations were trying to get rid of Bidoon.
Badr Al-Shammary’s situation is like that of many other Bidoon. He is born in a particular country, considers it his, and has allegiance to no other country. Yet still, he has to endure being treated as an inferior, unwanted, outsider-trespasser. His being a Muslim and Arab, and birthplace mean little to nothing in the eyes of the authorities. In 2014, it had been 25 years since he applied for citizenship in Saudi Arabia.
“I am from this country! I was born here and here I will be buried ... Our salaries are very low. My salary, for example, does not exceed {Saudi Riyal} 2,000 a month in a private company. We even struggle with health insurance and being admitted to a hospital. Our problem prevents us from moving away from Hafr Al-Batin to other cities in the Kingdom or even performing Haj and Umrah ... My own marriage was not recognized from a legal standpoint and was done communally.” (Saudi Gazette, Last Updated May 20, 2020; englishalarabiya.net: The ‘Bidoon’ of Saudi Arabia: Generations of discrimination
The Cahuila are Native American Indians. They are Takic peoples who arrived in southern California between 2,000 2,500 years ago. They speak an Uto-Aztecan language which is dying out. A 1990 census indicated that there are about 3 dozen native speakers within a population of 800 tribes-people.
Traditionally, the Cahuila were peaceful hunter gatherers living in mountains and deserts. They lived and travelled over a vast area including all of the San Bernardino basin, the San Jacinto Mountains, the Coachella Valley, and in area of the Mohave Desert. They lived in tight-knit clans (wildcat or Coyote) numbering up to 800 persons, each group controlled its own territory. Cahuila lived off the land, especially the native plants. They used large baskets to store acorns, a variety of beans, seeds, dried fruits, and other foods.
The Cahuila believed in 2 creator that gods were twin brothers, Mukat and Temayawet, they fought over who was older. Cahuila believed that each person has a tewlavelem (soul spirit) that is present even after death, in the land of the dead. This place contains many soul spirits, it is located somewhere in the east.
The first contact with Europeans occurred in 1774; Juan Batista de Anza (July 1736 December 19, 1788; of Basque descent, an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician) was searching for a trade route between Sonora and Monterey in Alta California (Upper California, New California; it was a province of New Spain established in 1804). For the time being, the Cahuila were lucky, they lived deep inland and had minimal contact with Spanish soldiers, priests, or missionaries.
Initial contact with Anglo Americans occurred in the 1840s. Serious problems began the following decade when hoards of European Americans rushed to the area as a result of the California Gold Rush. The period just before, during, and after the gold rush was a catastrophe for California’s Indians. It include countless massacres, introduced diseases, physical brutality, rape, humiliation, destruction of culture, racism and prejudice, discrimination, land and property thefts, expulsions, reservations, unwarranted arrests and incarcerations, kidnapping and kidnapping raids, child separations, indentured servitude (hiring out) and slavery. The California Government needed a Final Solution to the ‘Indian Problem’. There was no room for peace or equality until Manifest Destiny was completed. Peter Hardenman Burnett, California’s first governor, had a typical widespread attitude towards California’s Indians; they were lazy, savage, and dangerous.
Governor Burnett said, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected ... While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.” (By Erin Blakemore, Updated July 1, 2019; history.com: California’s Little-Known Genocide).
“Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labour much longer in the mines with security,” wrote the Daily Alta California in 1849. (ibid).
The Cahuilla Band of Indians (CBI) uses its authority as a sovereign nation to improve the welfare of its community members and subsequent generations. The Tribal Government is made up of General Council and an elected 5 Member Tribal Council who represents Tribal affairs. The CBI has been a federally recognized Indian Tribe since 1875 by executive order of the United States Government. The CBI exercises its inherent right to self-government.
The Crimean Tatars (Tartar; the ‘r’ before the second ‘t’ indicates the western form of spelling) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group and nation, mainly located in west-central Russia, Kazakhstan, western Siberia, and former Soviet Republics. Initially, the designation ‘Tartars’ referred to people who traced their origins to the huge Central and Northern Asian region then referred to as Tartary. The term metamorphosed, today it refers to one of the groups of speakers of the Turkic language.
The word Tatars was first used among nomadic tribes in Northeastern Mongolia and near Lake Baikal from the 5th century CE. Unlike the Mongols these people spoke a Turkic language. Some of these groups were incorporated into the armies of Genghis Khan (1162 1227) in the early 13th century.
The Volga Tatars number about 1.5 million, comprising over 50 percent of the population of the Republic of Tatarstan. There are an estimated 7 million Tatars worldwide, 5 million of which live in Russia. Volga Tatars are the most industrially talented and wealthiest Tatar group. Their language contains several dialects; many also speak Russian.
There are more than 650,000 Crimean Tatars. They became a nation during the period of the Crimean Khanate, a Turkic-speaking Islamic State. Islam made its way into the region in the 14th century. Crimea became a hub of Islamic civilization.
Modern Tatars are Sunni Muslims, many follow the Hanafi tradition. At the time of the Russian conquest there were many Mosques, over 2 dozen Madrassas (theological schools), around 3 dozen Madrassa Ibtida’iyahs (primary schools), strewn across the region.
On May 18, 2020, Crimean Tatars and the nation of Ukraine marked the 76th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s horrific deportation of over 200,000 Crimean Tatars from their homeland; the area was ethnically cleansed. Officially, May 18 is the Day of Remembrance of Exile and Deportation of the Crimean People. Many thousands of Crimean Tatars died in exile in Central Asia, only a small number returned when the Soviet Union collapsed. A severe inadequacy of housing, shelter and food, severe climatic conditions, and the rapid spread of diseases wreaked havoc on them during their first years in exile.
Based on surveys conducted by Crimean Tatar activis