Awwad Dhayfallah Al-Malahmah
I greatly care for Jordanian expatriates and follow their public and private news with some of them. How not, when they are my kin, children of beloved Jordan, who shared with me the exile from home and loved ones. .
Exile is a slow death, exile is banishment from homelands, whether it is (compulsory):—for those ousted by their countries— whose embrace and chest are not wide enough for them and their ideas and respecting their convictions— or (voluntary):— but it is not absolutely voluntary if the reason is to seek a better financial situation and attempt to build a future that fits .
How can I not follow the news of Jordanian expatriates who shared with me the harshness of exile from home? Especially me, whose exile lasted (34) years: (4) years studying at Baghdad University, (20) consecutive years in beloved Abu Dhabi— which honored me, dignified me, and compensated me— , and (10) years in business visits for consulting purposes .
And because in my expatriation I was not reclusive, since I was like most of the Jordanian community men in Abu Dhabi at that beautiful time, though I contributed the least to the community, presence, and distinction, most of them outperformed and excelled me in presence and interaction in the community. This enabled me to understand the subtleties and secrets of expatriation and to probe its contents and absorb its positives to maximize them and its negatives to mitigate their effects .
Now, I see it necessary to define who the expatriate is, what their interests are, their priorities, and what mechanisms should be followed to attract and convince them to invest in their home country to which they will return one day, and they will need to have already established a financial pillar to rely on there. Especially since I am fully confident that the efforts of the Social Security institution to convince them to voluntarily subscribe to social security have not yet reached them to the desired extent .
The definition of an expatriate is: a person who holds the nationality of a country, and stays, and works temporarily or permanently in another country. Exile means leaving home, and expatriation is death before death, because you live your life with a constant longing for your home, family, friends, and the environment you were born, raised, and grew in, and became accustomed to, becoming part of your being. Exile forces you to distance yourself from all of that, forcing you to seek new people, and coexist with a new strange environment to compensate, albeit slightly .
The most concerning thing on the expatriate's mind is securing a monthly income to ensure a dignified life for themselves and their family after their final return to settle in the homeland. And this is not achieved for the vast majority of expatriates. Their lives shift from ease and prosperity, to need, hardship, and tight circumstances .
And I will tell you a story I lived with my fellow Jordanian expatriates from the Jordanian Association in Abu Dhabi, in the early eighties. A group of Jordanian expatriates who were residing in Abu Dhabi specifically, and the UAE in general, sought to subscribe to social security .
Starting from the notion that the income of the expatriate is sufficient to live a dignified life and perhaps save some of it. But they wished to seek a steady income to ensure a dignified life in their old age .
We communicated with the Social Security administration at the time to amend the law and allow those interested from the expatriates to subscribe. We invited the general manager and his assistants more than once, bore all the travel and accommodation costs for the purpose of meeting the expatriates, but we failed. With direct intervention from His Majesty King Hussein, may God have mercy on him, the law was amended, and expatriates were permitted to subscribe to social security voluntarily. Given my keenness to participate in social security, my arrangement was second among the expatriate subscribers .
Expatriates represent the country well, as they are (ambassadors of the homeland), as the late Hussein called them. They also play a distinguished national role with their remittances, which supply the Central Bank with no less than (4) billion dollars annually of hard currency .
But it is important to distinguish between the remittances of expatriates, and their savings. Their savings reach huge amounts that may reach billions of dollars. And such large amounts, I believe, are worth the effort, follow-up, and work to attract them to invest in their home country .
It is wrong to confuse the remittances of expatriates with their savings. Because their remittances are not left over at all, as they generally go to two destinations : —
1 )):— Helping parents, family, and some relatives .
2 )) : To cover some personal commitments such as: transferring installments for apartments or homes or family expenses for those whose families do not accompany them in the countries of expatriation or to cover some miscellaneous expenses such as: sustaining services for their homes or farms or the like .
The remittances of expatriates are nothing compared with what they save
and invest by expatriates outside the homeland. If trust is enhanced between the Jordanian expatriate citizen and the Jordanian entities related to investment, I am confident that the Jordanian expatriates are capable of establishing and financing projects with billions .
In the eighties, an annual conference for Jordanian expatriates was held. Where we enjoyed sponsorship and care from the Jordanian state, especially from the late King Hussein. Suggesting the reconvening of an annual conference for Jordanian expatriates each summer. And to attract their investments, creating trust between them and the official Jordanian institutions, offering large national projects where the lion's share goes to the Jordanian expatriates to finance them, like financing (the national carrier). And I am sure that they will fund the majority of the project costs if this bold national step is well managed .
To conclude, I hope for interest in Jordanian expatriates to achieve two great goals for them and for the homeland, which are:— 1 )) Expand the base of subscribers to voluntarily join social security. and 2 )) To attract their savings to invest in their homeland .
