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Each morning, we encounter “posts” that feature images of deputies’ faces, often defying description and frequently accompanied by unkempt, lengthy beards. These posts carry suggestions and opinions aimed at steering the country toward a path reminiscent of Taliban-era Afghanistan. It’s as if the entire world, with its population of eight billion people, including numerous Islamic nations, has veered off course, and only this small group of fewer than thirty deputies possesses the correct perspective. They seem to believe that they alone possess exclusive insights, and they are determined to compel us, even forcibly, into alignment with their faith-based beliefs and visions.
All of this unfolds as the government members seem to stand with wide open mouths, either unable or unwilling to counteract this wave of religious fervor, extremism, and an alarming shift towards overindulging citizens with promises of benefits, grants, raises, and wealth. Their narrative implies that all citizens must merely wait for the religious state to materialize, led by these deputies. Such developments are spurred on by the approaching time for these deputies’ votes on critical decisions, and they are fully aware of this.
Consequently, they are intent on imposing their bleak visions upon us, even if it pushes the state into financial ruin. Five deputies have proposed a reversion of fuel prices to pre-2016 levels. Representatives Al-Azmi, Nayef, Al- Obeid, and Al-Tamar have put forth a proposal to prohibit mixing in both universities and applied institutions, including private schools. Al-Nayef, Al-Mutair, Shuaib, and others have submitted a proposal for a law that stipulates a 400-dinar increase in the salary of every employee, soldier, firefighter, retiree, and even recipients of employment support. This translates to an annual expenditure of three billion dinars for raises?!
In another proposal of similarly audacious nature, representatives have advocated for the establishment of an organization to manage the financial assets of state leaders — an idea unprecedented in the history of parliamentary systems worldwide. Nearly all deputies seem to be in a race, suggesting a draft law that allows 20% of the Future Generations Reserve’s returns to be distributed to the 800,000 citizens who have reached the age of majority. This would equate to spending over two billion dinars on rather imprudent contributions! And they’ve gone further by proposing a monthly allowance of 600 dinars for each married housewife.
Others have urged for loans to be provided to “widows and divorced women,” subsidized building materials, an increase in rent allowances, doubling the student stipend, setting the children’s allowance at 100 dinars without any limit on the number of children, enhancing the social allowance for housewives to 800 dinars, raising the minimum retirement pension to 1500 dinars, abolishing insurance-based salary replacements, and compensating those affected by real estate fraud to the tune of no less than 20 billion dinars. Representatives Al-Tasha, Al-Matar, Fahad, Al-Damkhi, and Al-Otaibi have additionally called for the eradication of interest on citizens’ loans, along with the state foregoing interest on its deposits in local banks.
However, what about its interest in foreign banks? The last proposition reminded me of an incident from the past, when shortly after the founding of the National Bank in 1952, a fatwa was issued by religious authorities in either Iraq or Iran, prohibiting individuals from earning interest on their deposits from national banks but permitting it from foreign banks (such as the British Bank at the time). This distinction was made due to the perceived harm caused to the non- Muslim entity. Is the deputies’ silence about the government’s ongoing receipt of interest on its deposits in foreign banks, amounting to billions, attributed to a desire to “harm the infidel banks”? With deputies of this nature, it seems we require no enemies, either from within or outside our borders.
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By Ahmad alsarraf
