Many had travelled for hours for the chance to become Emirati citizens, leaving their homes before dawn to make the journey they had waited decades for. Others arrived five hours before registration was to begin at midday. For the stateless people known as bidoon, the opportunity to finally gain recognition from the country they had called home for so long was not to be missed. Some made trips from other emirates because only four had their own registration centres.
By 9am yesterday, around 500 bidoon had arrived at Al Raha Mall in Abu Dhabi, clamouring to get behind the glass doors at the entrance to the registration centre. They waited patiently, taking seats in a coffee shop closed for Ramadan, or standing where they could find space. It was a long wait, and for some a fruitless one. The two police officers standing guard at the door allowed only one person through at a time. And by the time some people had reached the front of the queue, the application forms had run out and they were asked to return the following day.
They did not seem frustrated at getting turned away, however. They seemed simply elated and hopeful that they would be seriously considered for Emirati citizenship. Rida Mohammed, 38, arrived in a dishdasha, and he and his brother Rashid, 37, greeted by touching noses. Both men spoke with an Emirati dialect and looked Emirati. They didn't, in fact, look any different from the Emirati citizens behind the counter who were taking their applications.
"Our father had arrived here from Pakistan back in the 1950s, before there was a United Arab Emirates, as a trader," Rida said. "He embraced the culture here and was enamoured by the bedouin way and made this country his home." "At the time, there were no embassies or consulates or even ministries here for him to register or to apply for citizenship," Rashid said. "When we were born here in the early 1970s, we were issued birth certificates but never given citizenship as our father himself was never given citizenship."
Neither brother has ever left the country. "This is our home and this is our country," Rida said. Um Amar, 70, arrived with her husband from Iran in the 1960s. "There were no borders back then and we crossed the Gulf in a boat," she said. "We built our lives here, had children here and our children had children." For bidoons, she said, "everything is difficult - we cannot get proper medical care, we cannot buy property, we cannot get jobs, or even put our children in college".
Now she was one of the 7,873 hopefuls who filled out applications yesterday, all with different stories but all with the same dream. In Sharjah, hundreds of people began queuing at 7am, the line snaking from the registration stalls back to the lifts on the first floor of Al Taawun Mall. Among the applicants was Mohammed Ullah, who has also never been outside the UAE. "Many of us have very good skills that the country needs for its development but we have never had a chance to show our potential," he said. "This registration would give us a chance to be incorporated in the country's legal workforce."
Sulaiman Abu Mohammed said one of his sons scored more than 80 per cent in the secondary exams but could not attend university because of his stateless status. "I always shudder in tears when I see him wandering on streets for jobs," he said. "I think this step would help and open so many doors and opportunities for him and this country." Darwish al Beloshi, 26, hopes to register for college. His grandfather was an Iranian sea trader who sailed the Gulf region before settling in Ras Al Khaimah in the 1960s. His father was born here and married an Emirati woman, but because his father is a bidoon, he is too.
"I finished high school but could not register in any university. If I become an Emirati citizen, I will enter university and study to become a doctor," Mr Beloshi said. He has never been able to travel outside the Emirates, but, he said: "Who wants to travel? the Emirates is the place I want to be." ealghalib@thenational.ae ykakande@thenational.ae
