Apart from the
social and financial difference between Abu Qais and his friend Saad, the
latter seems to be a privileged character in that he ‘emigrated’ to Kuwait, a
process that seems orderly and respectable. He must have had to bear expenses
for it but that narrative is never presented to us; Saad emerges as the respectable
migrant who enjoys a job as a driver and comes back with “sacks of money”. Abu
Qais on the other hand has to be “smuggled” into Kuwait, a term that
immediately derives negative connotations such as secrecy and illegality. He
has to suffer humiliation while negotiating a fair with the fat man and is
unsure about his safe arrival in the country. The term “emigrate” also has no hints
of dependency on the other and therefore, Saad in his easy transition to Kuwait
is enjoying a stable life there. Abu Qais on the other hand has to depend on
other people to be “smuggled” out of Basra. For one, it is his friend who
presents him with the idea, reminding him of his prevalent pathetic condition
in “Ten years have passed and you live like a beggar”. Secondly and more
importantly, Abu Qais also has to suffer humiliation at the hands of the fat
man while negotiating a fare for the smuggling process. He is also unsure about
whether or not he will safely arrive in Kuwait after a tedious journey,
something that Saad again does not have to worry about as he is well-settled in
the new country.
Apart from this,
Saad also has the privilege of knowing what Kuwait looks like and through this
knowledge he bereaves Abu Qais of romanticizing Kuwait as the land of
opportunity that he imagines it to be. While he pictures “men and women, and
children running between the trees” there Saad shuns the imaginative faculty saying
that such things “exist in your head”. Trees are important for him as he yearns
for olive shoots and can only make a living out of them. But through Saad’s
announcements of there being no trees in Kuwait, Abu Qais is deprived of even
the opportunity or hope to see him and his family happily living in the new
country. His imagination of a better future is put to a stop.
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